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When pastors need deliverance

11 Jul, 2014 - 00:07 0 Views

The ManicaPost

WHY do some Christian leaders, who appear to be pillars of strength, fall into sin? It seems most pastors nowadays, especially from the mushrooming pentecoastal churches, are getting caught in the ‘‘enemy’s’’ snare and are struggling to get out. Sadly, almost all the time, these types of failures involve sexual sins and they leave trails of destruction behind.

It has become sort of a trend and it is no longer unusual to hear that a pastor is having an affair or has raped a female congregant.
And it seems that all of them think that infidelity and fornication are reasonable sins because some of them are on record saying, kana usati wafacer persecution hausati watanga ministry (if people haven’t read about your affairs in the media, you haven’t started your ministry)
Last week’s edition of The Manica Post carried the story of Apostle Action Komani of Royal Family Life Fellowswhip Church who was facing rape allegations — and he is not the only one.

Sometime last year, Pastor Tinashe Murigo of the House of Power Apostolic Ministries was caught in a sex orgy with a female colleague and of course a few managed to escape The Manica Post’s hawk eye, the list goes on and on.

After such discoveries and revelations, marriage promises are broken. Wives are abandoned and left to fend for themselves. Nuclear families are blown apart, and children are left virtual orphans. The financial security once enjoyed has vanished. Churches are wounded, and the flock is often scattered.

Damage control is often impossible to accomplish. Trust is lost. Things are never the same again, even though in rare happy cases repentance and a measure of restoration can occur. It seems, however, as though the status once enjoyed is never quite the same.
People remember, and they become tentative instead of trusting, despite their efforts to fully restore the person.

The problem seems to attack male leaders more often than female leaders. The question one may then ask is: “When did the problem begin?” These people usually start out as wonderful, consecrated, enthusiastic Christian workers. At one time they had it all together, and they set out to serve the Lord with pure hearts.

Confirming this was one woman from a mushroom church who had left the conventional Reformed Church in Zimbabwe thinking that the pentecoastal way was the way to go.

“Our pastor seemed more than focused when he started his church and his charisma and dedication drove me to follow him, but now he is having affairs with church members and it is painful to watch him go down the wrong path like that. We are just praying that he finds favour with God, zvavari zvavo Mwari vane nyasha (Since he is a God of mercy),” said the visibly troubled congregant.

But their stories have an eerie similarity: busy, overcrowded lives; some neglect on someone’s part; the freshness gone from their devotional lives; perhaps a lack of accountability to close, same-sex friends; and a loss of passion for holiness.

Women we interviewed revealed that most pastors end up touching them in such a way that makes them uncomfortable especially when they visit the church offices for counselling or prayers.

It is imperative that a pastor guards himself by taking appropriate measures to stop potential problems before they can start. If it is not possible to have a third person present in a counselling session, the pastor should meet the counselee only with a door left open and a secretary sitting just outside.

It is also important that pastors send female counsellors to help female congregants to at least avoid the temptation of wanting more than necessary out of a counselling session.

One woman (name withheld), who opened up to The Manica Post, said: “My pastor wreaked my life. It all started with private counselling and prayer sessions at the church office. He slowly made sexual advances at me until he openly told me that he could not resist me and that he wanted to have sex with me. He started lying to me that he was having problems with Mai Mufundisi and that he wanted me to fall pregnant for him.

“I sure did but when I finally told him that I was carrying his child, he started beating about the bush. He later paid a doctor to abort the child for me and now I have to live with the painful reality that I killed a soul in the name of infatuation,” she related.

Everyone is vulnerable. From King David to some of the best leaders stumble. This means that every single pastor is capable of having an affair. An absolute crucial element for avoiding an affair is to admit that it is possible.

Sometimes a leader can be so effective and so fruitful that he begins to believe he is incapable of disastrous sin. But to believe such is to deny one’s sin nature. Admitting vulnerability on the other hand allows room for the amendment of one’s shortcomings.

Women remain the backbone of our society and they should not be abused not even by pastors. They struggle throughout the week running from the men’s abuse at home and the workplace but when they try to seek refuge at the church, it is like jumping from the saucepan into the fire because the pastors are lying in wait like wolves.

A mistake that most women make is depending on their pastors as the answer to all their prayers. Instead of depending on them for answers, women should be objective and open minded enough to consider the possibility that nothing is wrong with them — in fact their pastors are the ones in dire need of deliverance.

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