Moral failure among pastors has become tragically familiar. What is perhaps most revealing is not that it continues to happen – Scripture already assumes the ongoing presence of sin – but that we still seem surprised when it does. Each new story is treated as an unthinkable collapse rather than a sober reminder of how fragile our assumptions about spiritual health can be.
We are quick to express shock, sadness, and disappointment. Those responses are understandable. But repeated surprise may reveal less about the severity of the sin and more about the inadequacy of the structures we have put in place to address it.
In recent years, pastoral culture has rightly emphasized encouragement, emotional support and relational care. These are good gifts and necessary aspects of Christian community. Yet support alone is not the same thing as shared repentance. Encouragement can coexist with secrecy. Affirmation can exist alongside hidden sin. A pastor may be surrounded by friends and still remain spiritually unexamined.
Scripture assumes something more precise. The New Testament presents repentance not as an emergency response, but as an ordinary practice of the Christian life – one meant to be shared, visible and communal. When repentance becomes rare rather than regular, integrity is quietly assumed rather than actively practiced.
We often hear the phrase, “We are only one decision away from moral failure.” The statement is true, but it should not become a line to repeat. It should become a practice to begin. Awareness without structure is not wisdom. If we believe the danger is real, then the question is not whether failure is possible, but whether we have put safeguards in place that actually address it.
In every other area of life, we understand the value of preventative care. We do not wait for an engine to seize before performing routine maintenance. Yet spiritually, we often delay examination until the damage is severe enough to demand intervention. Christianity was never meant to function like an emergency room – where sin is ignored until it becomes catastrophic.
James offers a different vision. “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed” (James 5:16). This is not a crisis directive given only after relational offenses. It is a communal command, framed alongside ordinary rhythms of prayer, suffering and joy. Confession is presented as a regular means of grace, tied to healing and restoration, not merely damage control.
Earlier in the letter, James reminds his readers, “We all stumble in many ways” (James 3:2). That assumption undercuts the quiet belief that mature believers – or seasoned pastors – eventually outgrow their need for repentance. If sin remains ordinary, repentance must remain ordinary as well.
This is where much of pastoral culture falters. We have learned to share struggles without naming sins. We are comfortable admitting stress, discouragement and fatigue. We are far more hesitant to confess patterns of disobedience, pride, lust or self-reliance. In doing so, we normalize vulnerability while sidelining repentance.
When moral failure eventually surfaces, we respond with disbelief. But perhaps the surprise itself should give us pause. If repentance has been treated as occasional rather than expected, what else should we anticipate? The ancient image of the emperor with no clothes comes to mind – not as mockery, but as warning. When everyone assumes health without examination, exposure becomes inevitable.
Pastors are not exempt from these realities. Scripture is unambiguous that temptations are common to all. Shepherds remain sheep. Those called to preach repentance must also practice it, just like James says, regularly and to others.
This is not a call for new programs or specialized accountability projects that isolate repentance into side ministries. It is a call to recover what should be normal Christianity: ordinary believers, including pastors, practicing ordinary repentance together. When leaders model confession and humility, they make obedience visible and attainable for the people they serve.
Faithfulness, not shock, is the biblical goal. When repentance is woven into the ordinary fabric of pastoral life, fewer failures reach crisis levels, and fewer churches are left reeling in surprise. The aim is not perfection, but honesty; not spectacle, but healing.
Recovering shared repentance will not eliminate sin. But it may help us stop being surprised by its presence – and start responding in ways Scripture has always prescribed.
Jeremy Plymale is pastor of CrossHaven Church in O’Fallon, Missouri.
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