Ethics in Ministry: Guide for the Professional

An ethical guide for clergy and laypersons who deal with "the vexing questions that arise in the daily life of a minister at work." The authors discuss salaries.
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Description An ethical guide for clergy and laypersons who deal with "the vexing questions that arise in the daily life of a minister at work. With real cases, solid theological-ethical reflection, and wise moral counsel, they illuminate an impressive array of issues. They resist easy moralisms and lofty generalities as they examine truth-telling in recommendation letters, boundaries in counseling relationships, fund-raising ethics, public invocations, and much, much more. This is an impressively useful book.

Nelson, United Theological Seminary "With wisdom borne from years of their own ministries in seminary and parish, Wiest and Smith have given us not only solid insight into issues of integrity in ministry, but into the complex and theological nature of the profession of ministry itself.

No individual can evade responsibility for ethical decisions. The person and words of Christ To live confidently and faithfully with incompleteness, risk, and ambiguity in the name of one's Lord is to become the kind of person demanded by the religious professions.

Weist and Elwyn A.


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Preface Introduction Part One: The privatization of religion has made ethical behavior fragile. There is a need for renewed truthfulness in Christian conviction. Abstract ethics is impossible. At stake in the ethical crisis is the theological base of Christian behavior. Some maintain that our world needs to redefine ethics lest morality and virtue disappear. We must identify a normative ethic of doing and an ethic of being. True Christian ethics is founded in solid theology — the sovereignty of God, the lordship of Christ, the new righteousness possible in the new kingdom.

Unlike philosophic ethics, Christian character can never be considered apart from its religious nature — connected with God, personal, internal, future-oriented, and universally applicable. Much is at stake for those who preach and minister. Understanding how and why ministers act is not easy because humans are prone to rationalization, personalities enter power struggles, and honest self-evaluation is difficult. We must admit that hard questions exist, identify them, and encourage personal reflection. Ministry is not limited to full-time ministers or church workers. Interest in ministerial ethics expands to many professionals and volunteers who serve the church in a ministerial capacity: While ethics and etiquette are connected, 7 ethics in ministry is ultimately about integrity.

What is at stake is the integrity of ministry. How can those who are not whole help others toward wholeness? Effective ministry does not demand perfection; it demands integrity. No subject is more relevant for ministry than exploring how truth, beliefs, and values integrate in Christian living. No ministry can be faithful if it does not help people toward righteous living through the ethical challenges of our time. Ministers must do more than guide others toward ethical behaviors; they must be examples. Ethical standards apply to all Christians, but spiritual leaders have a higher degree of ethical accountability.

Churches seldom rise above the moral standards and teachings of the person who regularly provides spiritual nourishment. If the modern church faces a spiritual bottleneck that prohibits the church from pouring itself out into the lives of a needy world, the bottleneck is at the top. The church needs spiritual leadership that incarnates the life of Jesus before it can understand the challenge of living out the life of Jesus in our world.

Virtue influences our choices, goals, roles, and behaviors. Genuine virtue connects faith and behavior.

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Virtue is a lifetime endeavor. Christian morality is not built solely on keeping rules. Christians shaped by the church community should have a moral shape. What is at stake for the church may be summarized in three questions: Will we be spiritual or secular? Will we be light and salt? One need only observe the catastrophe of ministers gone astray to recognize how closely the world is watching those who claim to follow Jesus, especially those who serve in ministry.

Ethics in Ministry: A Guide for the Professional

For the world, salvation, eternity, the gospel, public morality, and ultimately society itself is at stake. Societies function and are safe because a level of morality prevails. Generally my neighbors do not seek to rob me, kill me, or take advantage of me. I am safe in society because of a prevailing moral standard.

However, increased random violence marks the decay of generally accepted moral standards. The dignity of human life is diminished in a variety of ways. The ethical crisis is not limited to ministry. Our nation is in a moral crisis.

The crisis in ministerial ethics is part of a larger moral crisis in our nation. The crisis in ministry is evident in three main areas — false spirituality, false evaluation of ministry, and false expectations on the part of ministers, churches, and the world. Spiritual ministry is easy to counterfeit.

Preachers preach and teach with little or no study.


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Ministers spend too little time in prayer, in speaking to God, in listening to God, all in the name of speaking for God. Some involved in ministry covertly pursue unethical, immoral lifestyles. Compounding the crisis, our contemporary society does not appreciate that genuine ministry is not dependent on outward appearances nor external circumstances.

The rapid transitions of contemporary society have blurred definitions of ministry. This encourages hypocrisy and the lack of ministerial integrity. Ministry is in ethical crisis. Heightening the dilemma is the fact the crisis is generally unseen, even by many church leaders and ministers. Ministry interviews seldom ask about personal spiritual health and growth. Few ministerial training programs require a spiritual-formation component. The significant requirement of spiritual reflection and formation in ministerial training is the exception not the rule.

Have we forgotten that spiritual leaders must be spiritual? Without spiritual focus, spiritual famine will come. Genuine ministry is fraught with frailty, frustration, and even failure.

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The greatest failure, however, may be seeking power for ministry in the physical rather than the spiritual realm. How should ministry be measured? There are two opposite extremes. On one hand, worldly standards of success often replace spiritual evaluation.

Some churches fail to appreciate effective ministry in their demand for numerical results. On the other hand, some churches and ministers fail to understand the power and potential of effective ministry and suffer because of their low expectations. The ultimate measurement of ministry is faithfulness to God. Ministry that is faithful to God never fails. His Word never returns empty. Our society and churches often buy into the worldly mindset more than we like to admit. We frequently have expectations that do not appreciate the elastic, flexible nature of ministry.

We do not know with certainty whether ministers work for God or for churches. We affirm the former, but often practice the latter. How did we get here? The ethical crisis is also a truth crisis. Significant shifts in the behaviors, beliefs, and values of Western culture have contributed to this crisis, including privatization, humanism, relativism, secularization, and pluralism.

The result is the moral crisis in our nation. Leaders in government, business, and sports are charged with various illegal and immoral acts.

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Church leaders are caught in unethical behaviors and activities. Our nation has lost its moral footing. Clearly, the crisis in ministerial ethics is part of a larger crisis. An examination of the effects of privatization, humanism, relativism, secularization, and pluralism will explain how this moral crisis occurred. Privatization in our Western world moved religion and ministry from the public to the private arena which resulted in a loss of responsibility. Our teaching of ethics has not kept up with the rapid advances in our world.

Our world and our churches have experienced a loss of values through humanism.

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In the past, the church generally taught ethics by focusing on behaviors more than values or beliefs. For example, when my children were young, I taught them not to play between the sidewalk and the street behavior. Later, I taught them how to distinguish safe and unsafe places and activities values.

If I know what is wrong but not why it is wrong, I cannot make valid decisions when new options are presented. The value shift in our society must be addressed. Formerly, exposure in the public arena was a deterrent to pornography and other unethical or illicit activities. In the private arena, such checks are removed.

Restoring Christian ethics will demand that we clearly connect behaviors ethics , values, and truth beliefs. Our world and our churches have experienced a loss of truth, an erosion of the principle base through relativism. If truth is relative, there is no objective truth. If there is no objective truth, no one can say with certainty that any behavior is right or wrong. Despite the discomfort of making truth claims that prove other religions, or even other Christian religious groups, false, the church cannot afford to deny the truth.

David Wells has outlined the impact on a society and its future when truth claims are lacking. We have experienced a loss of mystery in the continuing secularization of religion. A poor spiritual focus results from a lack of spiritual training. The ultimate result is a totally secular version of Christianity, a result I fear may not be far away for some groups. Our churches have lost some of their identity through pluralism.

In a world of relative truth, secularized religion, lack of mystery, and loss of values, we hardly know who we are or why we exist. Finding a solution to the crisis in ministerial ethics will not be easy. Encouraging ethical ministry requires focus in two areas — ministers and ministry. How can we develop ethical ministers and ministries? To begin, we must recognize that ethics is not only a minister issue, but also is a church issue.

Churches build ministers as much as ministers build churches. Churches shape ministers and ministry by their expectations and demands. Churches must believe in powerful ministry. Ministers must develop purposeful ministries. We will not restore ethics in ministry until we understand the reasons for its loss. Ethics sits at the top of the principles-values-ethics pyramid. Our worldview principle base informs and supports our values that in turn determine our behaviors. Changes in worldview occur slowly in cultures or societies through a complicated process. It is unlikely that we will redefine the worldview of our society quickly or reverse the slide into relativity.

Thus the question is asked how ministers and ministry must change and how the required change can be accomplished. Restoring ethics in ministry demands clear belief systems for ministers and churches, and the identification and reaffirmation of Christian values. We must learn to think like Christ to develop Christian values and behaviors.