“High visibility can also set pastors on a correction-course with humility that evangelical Christians call getting right with Jesus. The Rev. Darrin Patrick, 45, of Webster Groves, is one of the latest on such a path. Elders at The Journey, a popular megachurch he founded with his wife in 2002, fired him a few weeks ago for what they viewed as pastoral misconduct.”

Shepherding a megachurch is tied in many ways to America’s celebrity culture. There’s a push for big-stage events and around-the-clock access through social media to a pastor’s life and thoughts.

It’s a formula that amplifies the message and multiplies the flock, in congregants who show up on Sunday for worship and in tens of thousands more followers online.

High visibility can also set pastors on a correction-course with humility that evangelical Christians call getting right with Jesus.

The Rev. Darrin Patrick, 45, of Webster Groves, is one of the latest on such a path. Elders at The Journey, a popular megachurch he founded with his wife in 2002, fired him a few weeks ago for what they viewed as pastoral misconduct.

Among the allegations:

• Lack of self-control.

• Manipulation.

• Misuse of power.

• History of building an identity through ministry and media platforms.

• Not adultery, but “inappropriate meetings, conversations and phone calls with two women.”

Reached by telephone, Patrick said he didn’t have more to say other than what The Journey outlined in a three-page letter to members, heavily footnoted in Scripture.

“I have four kids, little kids,” Patrick said, voice cracking. “I am trying to protect my family and figure this out.”

Patrick had to give up all ministry affiliated with The Journey, including being chaplain for the St. Louis Cardinals and vice president at a high-profile church planting group called the Acts 29 Network.

Now Patrick and his family are being counseled and ministered to by friends, elders and PastorServe, a national organization that sweeps in to work with fallen church leaders and those still on the precipice.

“We live in the day and age of the superstar pastor,” said Jimmy Dodd, of Kansas City, founder of the organization. “We like pastors to have a big front stage. The more the front stage grows, the more pastors fear allowing their church or their friends to know the back stage of their life.”

Dodd, a former preacher, said a pastor might share 95 percent of his flaws and protect the rest.

“A lot of pastors have really learned to play that role well,” Dodd said. “I talk to multiple guys every day. They long to be real and open. There is just that fear — ‘If I do it, I might lose my job.’ It’s heartbreaking to hear these guys.”

‘Respecting their journey’

Patrick founded The Journey with 30 people and led it through year after year of wild growth. Today, it has an $8 million budget and 100 employees spread across six campuses in the St. Louis region.

About 4,000 people recently attended weekend services at the interdenominational church that’s affiliated with the Missouri Baptist Convention. Much of the growth was fueled by Patrick’s gift for reaching a young generation less prone to weave their parents’ religion into their own lives.

Patrick did it by meeting people where they were, sharing some of his own hardships while putting the message in a Biblical context.

Contemporary live music and video are parts of The Journey’s DNA. The church blasted the wall that tends to exist between Protestants and booze. Its “Theology at the Bottleworks,” is a beer ministry that meets once a month at Schlafly Bottleworks in Maplewood.

“We want to go where people are,” Patrick, who has a doctorate degree in ministry from Covenant Theological Seminary, once told the Post-Dispatch. “We don’t expect them to come to us.”

It worked well. In addition to bread-and-butter ministries, 48,000 people follow him on Twitter. He’s written several books, including “The Dude’s Guide to Marriage: Ten Skills Every Husband Must Develop to Love His Wife Well,” which is co-authored with his wife.

On center stage March 13 wearing jeans and a red flannel shirt, Patrick preached a sermon titled, “Loving God in a Hostile Work Environment,” according to an online video post.

“Our jobs, friends, are like this constant reminder that there is more to life … that we need to repent of our own sins,” he said. “Our jobs are this constant exposure to our own rebellion and if we are always blaming, if we are always talking smack … that’s just not going to honor God.”

Elders must have been reeling hearing his words, particularly with respect to workplace behavior. They’d been confronting Patrick for what they would soon describe as “deep historical patterns of sin.”

Read More