How the Ravi Scandal May Impact Your Church

Many considered Ravi Zacharias as an intellectual hero, writing over 25 books and articles.  To others, he was a preacher and effective apologist, debating scholars on college campuses around the world.  Everyone loved and respected Ravi! Even if you didn’t agree with his beliefs, his compassionate approach, made him a respected and trustworthy leader. 

But now with the recent news about his secretly sinful lifestyle, the Christian community that he spent his life defending has been deeply damaged.  I trusted Ravi!  He seemed to be so godly!  If I can’t trust Ravi, who can I trust?  Maybe this whole Christian thing is a joke! Whether expressed out loud or not, these are the thoughts of many congregants today (possibly in your church) who followed and were blessed by Ravi’s life and ministry.  In effect, this may have caused a spiritual crisis to take place with congregants who attend your church.  As a pastor, it’s important you understand how people experience a crisis in order to effectively respond if needed.  Here are a couple of tips that will help:

1. Recognize It Will Take Time. 

Anytime someone feels deeply betrayed, a crisis can occur and it will take time for them to process through it.  Why?  Because they were caught off guard and it was unexpected.  In other words, they will be initially in shock and wonder how this could happen. This will cause them to try to figure out the “why” and try to look for clues that may have been missed.  But the bottom line is they won’t be able to figure it out and will have to just sit in it. This means they will need time to process their feelings.  They will need time to work through the hurt and confusion. This is why it’s important for pastors to be patient and allow congregants to share what they are thinking.  Don’t try to fix them or make sense of what is being said.  Don’t be quick to correct or quote a bible verse.  Just be present and let them vent and share their heart.  Patience and compassionate listening will go a long way in helping someone work through a crisis. It will also provide you with better insight for pastoral guidance down the road.

To learn more about the stages of a crisis, refer to my blog “How to Tell if Your Church is In Crisis.”

2. Don’t Take It Personally.

Often when people are trying to work through a crisis, they will inaccurately think they can prevent it from happening again.  Of course, this isn’t true because a crisis by definition is out of their control.  But nevertheless, they naively think they can.  This may result in them questioning your integrity because they don’t want to be caught off guard again. In other words, “If Ravi can hide what he was doing, what does that mean you could be hiding?”  This is a normal reaction when people are working through a crisis. It’s important you see this through a crisis lens and not take it personally.  Otherwise, you can become defensive and think, “Why are you accusing me?” “What have I done to deserve this?”  “This isn’t fair, I’m not Ravi!”

Remember you are dealing with a person who is struggling through a spiritual crisis that was triggered by betrayal.  They think second-guessing you is a good idea, at least for a while.  This may also result in them second-guessing every pastor for a while and wonder about their “secret” lives.  That’s okay and to be expected. Ultimately, this will pass and there will be a time for God’s truth to weigh in on the situation or the need for pastoral guidance.  But for the time being, in the beginning, the key is practicing patience and not taking things personally.

I hope this helps and if there is anything further we can do to assist you in your ministry needs, please don’t hesitate to contact us.