Good Defense is a Good Offense:  To prevent an affair from taking place, the Youngs encouraged church leaders to be proactive in keeping their relationships sexually pure.  The first realization for church leaders is that sexual sin is a reality. Citing 1 Corinthians 10:13, which states “when you are tempted, ” Pastor Ed said leaders should know “it can happen to me.”

Ed and Lisa Young, authors of the New York Times bestseller Sexperiment, have seen many churches and marriages devastated by church leaders who think that sexual sin and infidelity can’t happen to them. As a wake-up call to church leaders, the couple recently gave a lecture warning leaders of pitfalls leading up to an affair and how to overcome those temptations.

Warning Signs

According to the Youngs, there are four steps that occur before an affair takes place. The first is denial.

“Here’s how you mess up as a Christian leader…I think we have to convince ourselves–we have to lie to ourselves that it cannot happen to me,” said Ed during a webinar on sexual purity earlier this week. The talk was part of a series of webinars by C3 Global, a relational network for pastors spearheaded by Ed.

Ed and Lisa, who have been married for 30 years and have four kids together, first pointed out that one’s personal history can make them susceptible to infidelity. For example, the person may have a family with a history of infidelity, may have come from a single or blended family, or may have been sexually abused.

There are also certain phases in life when a married person can become more susceptible to seeking a relationship outside of marriage, according to Ed.

“During a time of transition, after pregnancy for example, during a time of loss, maybe you just moved somewhere, we are susceptible. Marital drift can happen, apathy, laziness,” he said.

“The proverbial thing where you have duel resignation. You get married, crank out a couple of kids, the wife chases the kids and the career and the husband chases the career. Then all of a sudden, you revolve your life around the kids and you put romance on the back burner and then you throw in an attractive person and there you have it.”

Secondly, affairs happen because church leaders cultivate a relationship with someone other than their spouse, sharing common interests, time and emotions with another person.

Lisa observed that extramarital relationships among ministry leaders are often based on “mutual passions.”

Ed acknowledged that two people who share common interests in ministry may experience attraction but compared that kind of attraction to homosexual attraction. Even though they may struggle with it, they should not act upon it, he said.

“So you have that common bond. You’re going to be attracted to members of the opposite sex. You’re going to be attracted,” said Ed. “Some people who might have some sort of predisposition toward homosexuality–it doesn’t mean you have to act on it–but you might be attracted to a member of the same sex. But we know what the Bible says about that, one man, one woman.”

Another sign that the relationship is headed in the wrong direction is when a church leader begins spending too much time alone with a member of the opposite sex, like always dropping by their office, according to the Youngs.

Lisa heartedly agreed with Ed that leaders should also avoid sharing emotions recklessly. Ed noted how easily an emotional situation like a church leader expressing anger over a member leaving church can lead to two church leaders sharing emotions with each other.

“What does it mean to share an emotion? Ministry is emotional–we all know that. Like, ‘Man, that person is an idiot. They left our church! They were this and that. We spent so much time with them,'” explained Ed. “Then you have someone who says, ‘Oh, it’s okay.”

Ed asked Lisa what should someone do in that situation. “That’s where you watch your close personal relationships that you share anything with,” answered Lisa. “For you, it’s me, number one. No one else comes before him sharing with me. And number two for you would be a close personal friend who is a guy.”

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