Tough ministry choices about the right thing to do. Winter 2003 Discipleship Community Life Administration The Pastor Pastor's Role The Pastor Personal Life The Pastor

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Ethical issues can be complicated. They involve competing interests: privacy versus disclosure, redemption versus justice, rights of the individual versus the good of the community.

As the three case studies in this issue illustrate (see pages 35, 41, 51) pastors sometimes need the wisdom of Solomon. But it's amid such ethical knots that a leader's integrity is tested and proven.

Leadership editors Marshall Shelley and Eric Reed gathered four men who understand the complex relationship of ethics and integrity. Here they discuss ethical principles; in the case studies, you'll see them applied.

Mark Beeson is founding pastor of Granger Community Church (UMC) in South Bend, Indiana. He took his first pastorate when he was 18.

David Handley has for 21 years pastored First Presbyterian Church of Evanston, Illinois.

Stan Grenz is distinguished professor of theology at Baylor University and Truett Seminary in Waco, Texas. Previously he taught theology and ethics at Carey Theological College and Regent College in Vancouver, B.C.

Erwin Lutzer has for 23 years been pastor of historic Moody Memorial Church in Chicago.

How important are ethics? Are ethics like etiquette (nice for those who want to be proper), or more like a code of honor (the higher standard we're committed to), or the essential rules of conduct (the definition of acceptable behavior)?

Erwin Lutzer: Ethics are absolutely the bedrock of ministry, and always have been. The need for ethics and integrity is magnified against the background of the present culture, in which we have had so much moral failure and distrust of politicians and ministers and where respect for the pastor is constantly being eroded.

Trust is really the foundation of everything we do. If you have lost the ...

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