A Word on Bo (sp)... and the basic things...

I have a bit of free time at work and this is burning me up, so I am going to talk about this for a moment.

I need to borrow your ear. A couple of friends of mine asked me a question about how I would handle a situation. The situation is as follows:

• someone made a bad decision
• this decision has been made more than once
• this person is a youth minister (no, not a pedo, so stop being dumb)
• they have recently made an active effort to make amends for these actions
• the people where they are are polarized -- some forgive, some don't.
• no one has talked to Bo about this one way or another really

Now, my friends are loving, but wise. They went to Bo and explained, "Hey dude, we love you and stuff. Seriously. At the same time, the things you are doing aren't cool. It looks like you're [...] and you shouldn't be doing anything even close to that. At the same time, we see you are making an effort to work on that right now, and we're behind that."

He replied, "Glad you are. I mean, I can't make these people happy one way or another."

They replied, "You kinda have to not care and stuff..."

Mind you, that's all a paraphrase.

Look: there are no superheroes in church.

Yes, there is a "responsibility to the spotlight" and the whole spiel about wielding influence, but pastors and other prominent clergy members are not:

• aliens
• from another planet
• able to pass through walls
• able to transform into free energy
• people with adamantium bones
• perfect

...and neither are we. Yes, they need to be held accountable. Yes, they need to be kicked in the pants when they're acting a fool, but at the same time if your brother sins, rebuke him and if he repents forgive him. What is so freaking unclear about that? Are we not all reading the same effing Bible? Isn't there a template for how to deal with things like this?

Things like this make me ill. All I can say for Bo is to be at peace inasmuch as it depends on you, bud. You can't control who forgives you and who doesn't. You can only do your part to make things right. If you do that, your job is done. Do the utmost you can, but no more than that.

To everyone else, I'm not saying to allow people in places of responsibility to be irresponsible, but if you have a problem with someone, don't snub them. Talk it out, pray it out, and then move on for the love of God.... literally.