Comments on: Falling Off the Pedestal

By: Randy

Randy — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 15:50:16 +0000

Robert,

thanks for writing and sharing some of your story. I want to understand your question better. Is it this part?

how people view moving past the fall and moving on being restored?

Or this part?

how to carry out DE after such a fall???

Or both? Maybe I could help frame the question for you, but I’d need to hear a bit more about your story (write me at randy@doableevangelism dot com). DE is a spiritual practice that anyone can do, regardless of their current or past spiritual circumstances. For example, Ted Haggard would be wise to continue to pray and read his Bible and meditate. Nobody thinks these spiritual practices are reserved for those who have never fallen (and of course everyone has fallen…some more publicly than others). DE (or “Ordinary Attempts” are simply a spiritual practice that we submit should become a very natural part of our relationship with Jesus, as normal as reading our Bible or praying.

By: Robert

Robert — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 07:01:53 +0000

I really liked this post. I had a ted haggard-like experience. I was a youth minister newly hired at a little church and had a sin issue involving sexual conduct which caused me to have to resign. I found a wide mixture of responses I encountered from friends and other believers, a lot of pain inside over my own failure and fall. i am curious of adding to a discussion of how to carry out DE after such a fall??? This happened back in 1987 and i am again actively involved in serving, but wonder how people view moving past the fall and moving on being restored?

By: April

April — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 02:42:02 +0000

Geesh, you bring up some good issues, Randy…I have always felt that there was a certain amount of isolation for those who are pastors. You are expected to live by a higher standard or face the consequences of those who yell “hypocrit!” However, I have always said that there are plenty of hypocrits outside the church as well. We just don’t watch them.

It’s doubtful that you are the first person to make his dysfunctional family uncomfortable for being the white sheep. Joseph was and got sold into slavery by his own siblings. Sometimes, families are hard to ignore, but you have probably done something right over the years. If that weren’t true, Facebook would have had no impact at all….

By: Randy Siever

Randy Siever — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 19:40:24 +0000

I find that when I think of everyone as being born into the same family, it is easier for me to release them from a set of expectations that I might want to apply to them.

I haven’t been able to release my family from a set of expectations (without just ingoring them) until recent years. I probably had more expectations (unfulfilled) for them than anyone else. Of course, my family is highly dysfunctional and pock-marked by a wide array of addictions over the decades, so there was probably less grace left for them than most as I was growing up (from me, anyway).

Interestingly enough, we have begun to reconnect this year in some really gracious ways…through facebook. Say what you want about social networking sites, but this one may have brought about some real healing in our broken family. And grace…my God, the grace.

What if YOU are the one on the pedestal, and you didn’t put yourself there (you know…you’re the ‘white sheep’ of the family, or you’re a pastor, or both)?

And not to beat a proverbial dead horse, but I think your suggestions might be helpful when those we put on a pedestal, like Ted Haggard, fall. How are we who follow Christ doing with that one?