2nd Colo. pastor quits over ‘sexual misconduct’
SuzannePjam
Posts: 411
Wow! Teaching leadership skills for young adults at New Life Church includes "training exercises led in a church parking lot involving fake assault rifles".
2nd Colo. pastor quits over ‘sexual misconduct’
Minister at New Life Church resigns weeks after church leader steps down
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - A pastor who worked with young adults at New Life Church has admitted sexual misconduct and resigned just weeks after former church leader Ted Haggard stepped down over sexual immorality.
Christopher Beard, who headed the “twentyfourseven” ministry that taught leadership skills to young adults, resigned Friday, said Rob Brendle, an associate pastor at the 14,000-member church.
Brendle said Beard told church officials about “a series of decisions displaying poor judgment, including one incident of sexual misconduct several years ago.”
The church said in a statement that the misconduct was with another unmarried adult several years ago. Beard, who worked at the church for nine years, has since married.
Brendle would not elaborate about the nature of the misconduct but said it did not involve Haggard, who acknowledged he paid a man for a massage and for methamphetamine but said he did not have sex with the man and did not use the drug.
'Spiritual character'
Beard’s resignation was first reported Monday by The Denver Post and The Gazette in Colorado Springs. The church said it wouldn’t comment further. A residential phone number listed in Beard’s name was disconnected.
The church’s outside Board of Overseers was asked to examine the “spiritual character” of its 200 staff members after Haggard resigned last month from the church and as president of the National Association of Evangelicals.
“We recognize there will be increased scrutiny of our church in the wake of the scandal,” Brendle said.
He said Beard discussed his “misconduct” during a meeting with the Board of Overseers, made up of four pastors from other congregations.
Beard was reprimanded by the church in 2002, when police broke up a twentyfourseven training exercise he led in a church parking lot involving fake assault rifles.
Haggard and his wife, Gayle Haggard, are undergoing three weeks of counseling at an undisclosed center in Arizona.
2nd Colo. pastor quits over ‘sexual misconduct’
Minister at New Life Church resigns weeks after church leader steps down
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - A pastor who worked with young adults at New Life Church has admitted sexual misconduct and resigned just weeks after former church leader Ted Haggard stepped down over sexual immorality.
Christopher Beard, who headed the “twentyfourseven” ministry that taught leadership skills to young adults, resigned Friday, said Rob Brendle, an associate pastor at the 14,000-member church.
Brendle said Beard told church officials about “a series of decisions displaying poor judgment, including one incident of sexual misconduct several years ago.”
The church said in a statement that the misconduct was with another unmarried adult several years ago. Beard, who worked at the church for nine years, has since married.
Brendle would not elaborate about the nature of the misconduct but said it did not involve Haggard, who acknowledged he paid a man for a massage and for methamphetamine but said he did not have sex with the man and did not use the drug.
'Spiritual character'
Beard’s resignation was first reported Monday by The Denver Post and The Gazette in Colorado Springs. The church said it wouldn’t comment further. A residential phone number listed in Beard’s name was disconnected.
The church’s outside Board of Overseers was asked to examine the “spiritual character” of its 200 staff members after Haggard resigned last month from the church and as president of the National Association of Evangelicals.
“We recognize there will be increased scrutiny of our church in the wake of the scandal,” Brendle said.
He said Beard discussed his “misconduct” during a meeting with the Board of Overseers, made up of four pastors from other congregations.
Beard was reprimanded by the church in 2002, when police broke up a twentyfourseven training exercise he led in a church parking lot involving fake assault rifles.
Haggard and his wife, Gayle Haggard, are undergoing three weeks of counseling at an undisclosed center in Arizona.
"Where there is sacrifice there is someone collecting the sacrificial offerings."-- Ayn Rand
"Some of my friends sit around every evening and they worry about the times ahead,
But everybody else is overwhelmed by indifference and the promise of an early bed..."-- Elvis Costello
"Some of my friends sit around every evening and they worry about the times ahead,
But everybody else is overwhelmed by indifference and the promise of an early bed..."-- Elvis Costello
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
Think of it as cutting out the middle man and going straight to the source. I don't trust the church because the church is run by Man.
Hail, Hail!!!
What I mean is, they chose to belong to a very conservative school of thought, were homosexuality is evil. They should accept who they are and realize that your sexuality has nothing to do with either God or the scriptures. Then, join or become pastors in a church that accepts that.
A lot of Christian leaders are shooting themselves in the foot.
Christian society as a whole is setting up a whole lot of people for failure and disappointment in the way we (believers and the community of faith) elevate leaders to these pedestals where we expect them to be completely infallible. The fact is that they are broken people in some shape or form, just like every single one of us--it could be sex, it could be drugs, it could be financial corruption, it could be abuse of power, it could be mental instability, it could be all of the above.
Not that I'm excusing any inappropriate/criminal behavior by any church leader, but I'd like to see how many would like to claim they're above reproach and "better" than these leaders.
It's all very saddening.
As for the "training exercise" broken up years ago.....who knows what the actual program involved. Strange.
Eh.
You are run by man as well. Although, it's just you running the show.
-Enoch Powell
I own up to my own faults... And i'm not telling you what you should and shouldn't be doing, while I do the opposite.
Hail, Hail!!!
Well, I'm a Catholic. I look at it this way: the church has been corrupt for centuries and it's a bit fucked up right now, but the fact remains, I view Jesus as a perfect individual that I should be modelling my life after. The church offers a perspective on Jesus and his surrounding divinity that I agree with. If I didn't agree with it, I wouldn't believe in it. If I didn't agree that I *should* not perform certain acts, then I wouldn't follow the Catholic model.
I presume that my actions and beliefs are discerned by me first.
But, I don't have to agree with the actions of its leaders. They are human beings. I can agree with just the creed and I feel this is similar to what you believe. The only difference being, I worship with others using accepted guidelines for a God that I "know" certain things about.
-Enoch Powell
How is what I'm doing, different from what you are doing?
I try to follow the teachings of Jesus and respect God and His creation... except, I forsake the bullshit that the church and its leaders pour down on me. You say you are doing the same thing... except you remain in the shelter of te structure of the church.
Are you following the Church's doctrine... or God's?
Hail, Hail!!!