It is a deep pain to me that for the rest of my life, any time I cross paths with anyone who knew me, the first thing that will come to their mind is Ashley Madison or DUI. They may say, “Love your podcast” or more likely, “Love your dad” but my scandals, I know, come immediately to mind. It doesn’t make me angry. I get it. I’m sure if I ran across James MacDonald or Mark Driscoll my own mind wouldn’t immediately turn to ways they have been used in the kingdom. My hope, however, is that if such a meeting should ever take place, following hot on the trail of their public failures would be this thought- “Jesus saves sinners like us.”
In the three and a half years since my arrest I have sought to live in light of that promise. I have been blessed to have some work in line with some of my skills. I have been blessed to be involved as a congregant of a local church body, Pine Hills Church, where Jesus is faithfully preached. I have written a few books, published a daily blog piece and this week marks the one year anniversary of the reboot of the Jesus Changes Everything podcast. I’ve taught home Bible studies, recorded a series for some friends in India and spoken a time or two.
There are those who take the position that my scandals disqualify me from ministry. I get that. There are others who leave that door open as long as the return is not rushed. Among that group some may believe that three and half years is long enough, and others who believe it is not. I get that. I don’t pretend to know the math to figure that out. Those who are in authority over me are given that task. The same is true, of course, with respect to the whole of my spiritual walk. Having been in the public eye, albeit in a rather small pond, it has been difficult to read my critics’ declaration that I am unrepentant, and worse, seeing others believe it. Many seem to take the view that unless I can walk through those first days again, right in front of them, that my repentance can’t be real.
The truth is that my heavenly Father has removed from me all my sins, as far as the east is from the west. I walk in the joy of my salvation. And, not because I’ve been recently rescued by it, but because it has always been my heart, I want to be about the business of telling people the glorious truth that Jesus changes everything.
One thing He has changed, working through my own sins, is my reach and my support. Trying to birth and grow Dunamis Fellowship on the heels of scandal, in the midst of a pandemic is not easy. Many of you are feeling the economic impact. As are we. How can you help? Here are five ways.
1. Prayer. Would you commit to pray that God would use us in the service of His saints? That He would direct, protect and provide for us?
2. A word of encouragement. Knowing that our work is making a difference puts wind in our sails. Even feedback with criticism at least lets us know we’re reaching an audience, and may help us to improve.
3. Spreading the word. Audience grows by audience. If Dunamis has been a help to you, chances are good it could be a help to your friends. Would you let them know all that we are doing? Would you let them know how we’ve helped you?
4. Financial gifts. If you’ve meant to support our work, now would be a great time. We have, apart from putting food on our table, ongoing expenses. Nothing, however, helps us carry on and plan for the future like ongoing, monthly support. Giving is simple. Just click on the donate button and follow the directions.
5. Last but not least, recognizing the reality of my own sins and my need for grace, let me ask this of you- never judge a man until you’ve walked a mile in his scandals.
I didn’t know you well in college, but we ran in some of the same circles. (We might have been in an Econ Class together, but I’m not sure.) I remember you as a fun loving sweet guy. Everyone has a past – recent or distant. I have found that those who squawk the loudest about “transgressions” are usually the ones with the most skeletons to hide. Don’t pay them any mind. They don’t deserve the headspace, as my mother used to say.
My husband and I love your podcast! ( I do wish that when Lisa is on, that she was a little louder… I want to hear everything she has to say!) Your message is great and you always give me something to contemplate.
Keep up the good work! God knows your heart – if the masses want to focus on the negative, it’s their loss!
Melissa,
Were you friends with/dated Paul, my freshman suite mate? (I think his name was Paul. Beard, glasses, took a lot of pics for the yearbook, and was active in Circle K). Thank you for the feedback. We keep working on getting Lisa’s volume up. Hopefully you’ll find it improving. I too want everyone to hear everything she has to say.
Yes, Paul was a good friend. Lord knows that freshman year was very very long ago. ☺️
Honestly, I didn’t know anything about your sins until recently. I’m kind of new to social media. I can’t judge you because I have lived a life of substance abuse and still struggle with lustful thoughts from time to time. I was 35 years old when God called me out of that lifestyle and your father’s radio program had a lot to do with my understanding of who God is and how He relates to me personally. I will always be grateful for that. I remember listening to you and your father on the radio while I was making my deliveries. You have a great earthly father and the saying goes, “apples don’t fall too far from the tree. I support you and will pray for you. God bless you brother 🙏
Just a note of encouragement to you for the podcast and your blog. I personally like the way you structure your podcast into the three segments. I find your podcast and blog to always be interesting.
RC – your closing statement of “never judge a man until you walk a mile in his scandals” is true! For years now I have experienced the battles of the venue in which your article hits right to my heart!
I support you my brother with the loving forgiveness of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. As you continue on and press to the call of HIM who has forgiven you and has called you , stay encouraged as we pray and support you, in love, hope and encouragement.
Ones may write us off, ones may critics and even defame us! But know this, they are not GOD and our Lord is our peace!
John 16:33
Love in Christ alone!
Bro. Walter Wally
“never judge a man until you’ve walked a mile in his scandals” sounds nice, but is it biblical? Jesus said to “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.” The outward appearance of your sins are shocking, even scandalous, and are the very things that disqualified you from ministry. If you’ve truly repented you’re forgiven by the Lord. Only he knows your heart though. Even you don’t truly know your own heart (Jer 17:9), and we certainly don’t know either. So how is anyone to know if you can ever be trusted in ministry again? What you write here doesn’t help your case. Any minister with a platform runs the risk of discrediting the gospel message of being “saved from sin” if he repeatedly falls prey to scandalous sins himself. Getting a ministry platform in the first place shouldn’t come easily, although for the sons of ministry celebrities it often has, and often with disastrous consequences. Just speculating here but maybe your greatest sin, and therefore the cause of your downfall, is pride? Maybe you’ve been delivered of that pride? Maybe it took multiple scandals to bring that about? If so you wouldn’t be unique. If so then embrace and rejoice in your humbling! Unfortunately that’s not what’s being evidenced here. It sounds a lot more like playing the victim. It doesn’t help your case for being restored to ministry. Go back to the basics. What does the bible say about the qualifications for ministry? Surely you know. There are objective standards, all specified in 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9. Everyone who’s professed faith in Christ is forgiven of their sins, no matter how bad. But not every forgiven person meets the biblical criteria for being a minister, let alone being restored to ministry after having lost it. Rather than making a case for your forgiveness make the case for how you’re biblically qualified for ministry again. As a scholarly theologian surely you can to do that. If you can successfully argue that case then I’m sure I’m not the only one who’ll be eager to aid in your cause of being restored to ministry. No doubt you have many valuable things to yet offer the body of Christ. But you have to go about it his way, not your own.
Rob—
“The outward appearance of your sins are shocking, even scandalous, and are the very things that disqualified you from ministry. “
I have good news and bad news for you. The bad news is you may have been following a moral dictum that is not supported by either its own biblical context or broader biblical ethics. The good news is that you are now freer than you realized to minister to the hurting people of planet earth.
The grace of God and how it works in our lives, is arguably the most important concept for you to understand and live by in the battle to be godly. The classic definition is the best: God’s grace is His unmerited favor. Grace means that God showered favor and blessing on those who did not in any way deserve or earn it. They deserved His judgment and wrath. But He showed them favor.
You are still breathing— by His grace. And still sinning, so give God praise! And with those same lips— give God praise for those He abundantly is using despite your disdain. Put the stones down.
Remember: “ And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” Philipians 1:6
Thank you for this article. Your appeal is a great one. Biblical qualifications—all character qualifications except one, the skill of teaching. When we hear of a pastor or man of God known among few or many we either grieve in utter disappointment or can’t wait to cast the first stone. “A pastor must be respectable (1 Tim 3:7). That does not mean that everyone must like him or even appreciate him. It means that there is no credible witness to an ongoing sinful behavior.” Though you weren’t a pastor when you got the DUI, you were when the AM scandal broke out. I wasn’t your wife then, but remember feeling shocked, then realized this kind of thing is epidemic among pastors/leaders/teachers. For whatever your reasons were—IT’S OVER! And THANK GOD!
The true image bearer of Christ shows his scars, remembers his battles, overcomes his fear by proclaiming truth, stops pretending and speaks from a seat of authority when overcoming battles the enemy wanted to take him out with. That is you, that is me, that is ALL the members in the Body of Christ.
Liars, hypocrites, gossipers, slanders— they get no inheritance in God’s kingdom unless they stop. All those on that bandwagon speaking out of both sides of their mouths will be judged—just as you were. Some repent. Some refuse continue in sin.
I am sorry for the life of image you lived along with all those inclusive to your past. Fame is one thing, pretending is another. Pretending is a lonely gig and eventually it spills out of the broken container we tried carefully confining it to. But time tells all things. God loves us enough to not leave us they way we are, the way we were, and the way we think we are going to be. You’re right, no one knows our scandals until they walk in our sandals— and very few want to.
Honesty is where true redemption is birthed. Honesty isn’t “let me keep repenting so my critics think I’m sincere.” Honesty opens the valve releasing freedom from the pressure of pretense, gives beauty of truth instead of a mask of lies. The testimony is it saves a wretch like us all.
I love you fiercely RCJR! God has more for you than skeletons in your closet— those bones are buried. I prayed you out of that grave—Speak truth boldly. Demons hate you— If God be for you who can be against you? (Rom. 8:31)
I am thankful to battle alongside you and help hold you up.
Thank you my love. Gospel insights that light my path. I have much to learn, and much to learn from you.
RC, you’re blessed to have such a fiercely loyal wife, a true champion to your cause. Your dependence on her to fight for you however is anything but manly, let alone pastoral. It’s entirely your prerogative to hide behind your wife’s skirts and not respond to comments directed to you about an article purportedly authored by you. Doing so doesn’t help your case though.
As for, “I don’t pretend to know the math to figure that out,” thankfully that hasn’t been left to us or the church to have to guess about. There are objective standards. The mathematical equation is all laid out in 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9. Passing that test isn’t an easy one, and it was never meant to be. Passing that test also has absolutely nothing at all to do with grace. Every true believer has God’s grace and mercy resting on them, but not every believer is qualified for ministry. The bar is set quite high, higher than most of us can attain. Do you reach the bar? It seems many if not most believe you don’t. Maybe you’re right and they’re wrong. If so it’s entirely on you to prove it. This article is evidence that you haven’t yet successfully made your case. If you feel genuinely called of the Lord Himself to be in ministry (the call to ministry comes from God, not our wives), you’ll need to set aside your ministry ambitions for whatever time is needed to focus instead on doing whatever is necessary to make yourself qualified for ministry.
RC, one final comment here. You claimed to welcome this very feedback with, “Even feedback with criticism at least lets us know we’re reaching an audience, and may help us to improve.” Please know that my input isn’t just “criticism,” but constructive criticism intended to “help us to improve.” A response here from you to at least acknowledge you’ve read and will seriously consider my thoughts, would be appropriate. I believe what I’ve stated here are the thoughts of the majority of biblically-minded brethren, not only of you but of James MacDonald, Mark Driscoll, CJ Mahaney, Tullian Tchividjian, and a host of others who’ve found themselves in similar positions as yourself. A lack of response will serve to send a strong message of its own.
Ron,
I was considering your thoughts in your original post. I stopped when you publicly challenged my masculinity and questioned my own authorship. My response to you is some constructive criticism- if your goal is to help those you are correcting, it’s best to not do so from a combative posture. Challenging a man’s masculinity will always be perceived as a combative posture. You are welcome to continue to comment here brother, but you do not get to lob verbal missiles at someone and then complain that they are not interested in pursuing a conversation. If you’re interested in how a person can challenge the thinking of another while maintaining a posture of peace and gentleness, I’d encourage you to study my precious wife’s response to you. You could learn a lot from her, as I do. Pax