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Pastors are people too: Clergy use their frailties
to reach their flocks

February By Diane Reynolds, Times Staff Writer

For years, Don Holman, a marketing director for Singer Corporation, belonged to a
subculture that used drugs and alcohol freely. "Marijuana was just like having a drink,"
he said. It was the 1970s, he said, and even married people like him with children and
good jobs took drugs. It never occurred to him that he might have a problem because he
wasn't, as he put it, sticking a needle into his arm. So freely did Holman, now 63, abuse
substances that he put his wife through torment, he said. His eyes didn't fully open until
he was saved at Reisterstown Baptist Church in 1976. Since that time, he's sworn off
drugs and alcohol - and become a pastor in the neighborhood where he once whooped it
up. While he doesn't dwell on his past, he said, his story does encourage parishioners and
others who struggle with their own addictions. His history may not fit the biblical
requirement that a pastor be above reproach, but Holman is hardly alone.
Many pastors have confronted issues that might in previous times have disqualified
them from a position of authority in the church. That can be a good thing, said Sally
Morgenthaler, a church consultant and writer from Littleton, Colo. "When we do really
admit our broken places, I think we have more to offer," Morgenthaler said.
Grace abounding: The Rev. Jen Walters, pastor of Benjamin's Kriders United
Church of Christ in Westminster, partied hard in college and divorced twice before
becoming ordained. “It really is a blessing to have experienced some things," she said.
"It's humbling." Her experiences have made her less judgmental and more able to create a
safe place for people to be heard and feel loved, she said. She knows life can be hard -
and appreciates the role of God's grace and forgiveness in her own healing. "For
everybody, if we're honest with ourselves, there are things in the past that can haunt us
and hamper our self-esteem," Walters said.
The Rev. Ellin Dize of Stone Chapel United Methodist Church in New Windsor
also went through a divorce prior to becoming ordained and said her ministry has
benefited from her ordeal. "I feel that the pain I went through helps me now to have
a lot of patience and see the other side of a situation," she said. She's learned that
people are not all the same and that God values each person for who they are, even
if the person is not perfect in the world's eyes. "We have to ... affirm one another so
each of us can use the gifts we have to benefit the world," she said.
Both women expressed gratitude to their congregations for embracing them.
Dize said her congregation realized that a divorce didn't mean she was tainted. "I
love my congregation," she said. "They're very accepting."
Paradox of perfection: Yet for people who long to look up to clergy as moral
exemplars and trusted authorities, clergy with a less- than-sterling past can present a
problem. The Christian church paradoxically defines itself as both a haven of grace for
the fallen and as an institution with a holiness standard higher than that of the secular
world. Ideally, the Christian faith promises an individual a transformation in which God,
through the Holy Spirit, enables the believer to overcome problems.