If the person who fell morally in a way that disqualifies them from ministry submits him or herself to the care of the church leadership, then restoration is typically the next focus.

This process of counseling, caring for the affected families, keeping the involved parties accountable, and continuously speaking into their lives could take years.

Any time a moral failure, such as serixual impropriety, occurs among church staff, the congregation should be told immediately. Otherwise, rumors will inevitably spread, say pastors who have gone through the experience.

“Trying to keep the failure quiet for a while is really difficult to do; rumors always start,” said Pastor Craig Groeschel of LifeChurch.tv on Thursday during “The Nines” webcast.

Trying to hide a moral failure or failing to disclose the entire truth sometimes leads to rumors that are far more damaging than the truth, he warned.

That sentiment was echoed by other pastors who spoke on the issue of moral failure during the webcast, which was organized by Leadership Network.

Pastors have to communicate to the congregation, said Matt Williams, founding pastor of Grace Church in Greenville, S.C. “They don’t need to hear that in the form of rumor. They need to hear it from us first.”

Brad Powell, senior pastor at Northridge Church in Plymouth, Mich., also emphasized the need for transparency.

“You can’t sweep it under the rug,” he stressed. “A lot of pastors think they’re protecting the congregation by hiding the truth but in so doing they’re actually denying what Jesus said. It’s the truth that’ll set people free.

“If it’s really as Jesus said – by our love that people are going to know we are his followers – how are they ever going to see the expression of Jesus king of love if we always sweep the difficult and the hard under the rug.”

So how specific does a pastor need to get when revealing a moral failure to the congregation?

At Northridge, Powell discovered that the wife of the chairman of their elder board was having a sexual affair with a pastoral staff member who had been in a position of influence for 15 years.

After confronting the two, Powell disclosed the information to the congregation.

“We didn’t hold anything back. We brought the entire truth out,” he said. “The goal wasn’t to tear them down, the goal wasn’t to protect my image or the image of the church; the goal was to tell the truth.”

While he himself felt hurt over the situation, Powell reminded viewers of the webcast that the involved parties are also hurt and that something drove them to that place of impropriety.

“We can never diminish the value of these people as we do lead them through the process of discipline and with the principles of restoration,” he said.

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