Position ≠ Purity

Your role does not make you invincible (Part 1)

Jeremy Zerby
Nov 7 · 5 min read

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a piece about integrity. About how if your integrity is up for grabs, you don’t have any to begin with. Directly tied to that is how we perceive leadership.

These past couple of weeks have been big for the religious tradition that I grew up in, particularly in the exact church and group that I was raised in. Things from the past that some thought had been buried and forgotten have found their way back to the surface.

When I was younger, I was a part of a dynamic and growing church and youth group in Southern Indiana. We had just hired a new youth pastor who was fresh, young, full of energy, and with a proven track record of growth in what he was involved in. I was given the privilege of working directly under his leadership as an intern that year, my senior year of high school.

Over time, things began to change. It is not that he lost his charisma or anything like that. Rather, his relationship with one of the students changed. None of us knew it at the time, but he had used information shared in confidence to begin a secret romantic relationship with her. To the extent that it became sexual. While teaching a Bible study group of guys from the book “I Kissed Dating Goodbye”, a book about courtship (that has since been denounced by its author), he was carrying on the very kind of relationship the book spoke loudly against and was aimed at preventing.

While carrying on this relationship, he struck up a second relationship with another student, using the same tactics. This one did not move into the sexual, but boundaries were pushed against, moved, and crossed. And all of this while also maintaining a public relationship with another girl, one more his age.

It was not long before the whole thing came tumbling down. The nature of his relationships came to light. He lost his position with the church. And, as is all too typical in these situations, it was brushed under the rug, the victims were blamed, and he continued in positions of leadership and became more and more successful while everyone impacted by his indiscretion tried to pick up the pieces left behind.

Now, seventeen years later, this event has come back to haunt him. His past actions could end his career in ministry.

(As an important side note, you can read more details and the full story here.)

Here is where integrity and leadership come into play.

First, a person of integrity will admit that they have done wrong. If you have integrity, you will not place the blame for your failings on the victims. If you have failed, you will admit your role in that failure before anything else.

Second, a person of integrity takes responsibility for their failure.

Third, and this is the key idea that I want you to take away today, leadership is contingent on your integrity.

Leadership is contingent on your integrity.

If you have not gone to the website yet and read further, the minister has not exhibited a single quality of a man with integrity. Rather, he has chosen the low road of intimidation (he has gotten lawyers involved in an attempt to keep the story silent). When originally confronted and asked for an apology, his response was, “for what?” And the others in leadership around the original event told the girls they needed to keep it quiet or else people would see what kind of girls they really were. He has not taken responsibility. He has not genuinely apologized (in fact, he has stated in so many words that he will only apologize if they come to him first, which, if you are truly sorry and believe you have done something wrong, is the opposite of what your actions should be).

His integrity has flown right out the window. And without integrity, you are not a leader.

For those of us in leadership (CEOs, shift managers, ministers, parents), this is a hard pill to swallow. This idea that if we are not actively living lives of integrity, we are unfit to lead. But

this

is

fact.

Our ability to be effective leaders is compromised if we are not ourselves practicing for our followers the way we want them to live. Our children look to us for an example of how to handle hard things. People come to us with questions about how to handle conflict. They come to us wanting to know what steps they should take when they have really fucked up.

And unless we desire to live in a world where everyone just does whatever they want to willy nilly and never have to take responsibility, we have to show them how to not be that way.

Not only that, but if we are not practicing what we preach, every word that comes out of our mouth ceases to have any authority. Our words become meaningless, no matter how loudly and passionately we say them.

Just because you are in charge, that does not mean that you are invincible. It does not mean that you can do whatever you want and no one can question you. It does not mean that you are automatically safe from all repercussions for your indiscretions. It does not mean that your leadership role cannot be taken away.

Let us pause here for a moment. Let all of this sink in. And let us get ready to move forward…

For a more in-depth look at the story referenced here, head over to broughttothelight.org. You can read first-hand accounts of what happened and find resources to help if you believe you have also been a victim of pastoral abuse.

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