The Rev. Glenn McDonald went to members of Zionsville Presbyterian Church at this weekend’s services with a surprising message: He was resigning from the church he founded 26 years ago because of sins in his life. But his failures, he explained, weren’t the things that typically trip up pastors and lead to emotional public confessions. He said he hadn’t cheated on his wife, stolen money from the church, done drugs or broken any laws.

McDonald said he had committed the sin of idolatry by allowing the business of running a big church and the desire to please his congregation — rather than God — to become the focus of his work. The result, he said, was the mind-set of a workaholic who neglected his wife and his family and his own personal spiritual connection to God for the sake of the day-to-day machinery of the ministry.

From talking to his pastor friends, McDonald — pastor of one of the largest Presbyterian churches in Central Indiana — said he knows he’s not alone in dealing with the problem. And that it afflicts pastors and people in a number of churches. McDonald said he felt his church and his ministry were used by God, but he worried that he had not surrendered fully to God and was too self-reliant.

“You can make a church grow. It can meet its budget,” he said. “People can be happy and full of ministries, and you can do it all without prayer, without ever checking in with God.”