Pastorpk,
If you would be willing to tell us more, I would greatly appreciate it. Part of it, of course, is that I am trying to work through this on a personal level. It's been a number of years since my family knew him and his family, so the question for me has been - What changed? The Richard we knew would not have done such a thing. The question is heightened by the reaction of the interim pastor at FBC after Richard's arrest. He knew Richard years ago, and worked with him a number of months at FBC. Surely he would have seen some change? I will add I would not expect the changes to be in his public ministry - but they should have been evident to someone, somewhere, in his more private interactions.
Having close family in the ministry, I am somewhat familiar with patterns of behavior seen in pastors who burn out or fail due to their own behavior. I'm also familiar with the most common things pastors choose to do to help prevent these things.
I was hesitant to bring this up, but finally did because there have been several things that don't fit this pattern seen in most pastors who engage in serious wrongdoing. There's not been a lot reported, so of course the pattern may be there...or maybe it's not. At any rate, I think character issues may end up being pretty important.
Here are the 3 things I thought did not fit the pattern.
1) The fact that he is close to you. Pastors who burn out or engage in wrongdoing often don't have any close friends. Pastors who wish to prevent problems make sure to cultivate and nourish a few close friendships.
2) The fact that he regularly took off time after VBS each year. Building downtime into a schedule is important to prevent burn-out. I think actions taken to help prevent burnout are pertinent, because there is a correlation between pastoral burn-out and wrong behavior.
3) The MSM article in which Karen's friend was interviewed.
http://www.myfoxal.com/story/243518...-pastors-wife-speaks-out-after-pastors-arrest
"She adored Richard, she loved him very much," Nix said of Karen Shahan.
"She spoke highly of him, she spoke often of him. She spoke about his missions. They were very much in church, she loved to talk about Jesus and what He did and what He does and how great it is to work with children. That was her life," explained Nix.
The typical thing which happens when a pastor's marriage is under stress is that both of them stop talking to others about their spouse and marriage.
I just keep thinking - with something as heinous as murder, whether it happened in a fit of anger or was premeditated, there must have been an indication somewhere in his life that something was going wrong. That much anger, resentment, bitterness, hatred, etc. can't possibly stay completely hidden, then the first visible action be murder.
So, here are my questions?
1) What character qualities did you see in Richard's life?
a Godly man Did you see anything that made you think he was letting some of the negative character qualities take hold in his life?
No
2) Do you know if he had a consistent quiet time and prayer life outside of sermon preparation?
yes
3) Besides the time off after VBS, did he build any other margin into his life?
yes Can you tell us what those habits were?
4) Did he place priority on his marriage
always (such as scheduling regular get-aways or dates)? Did you see any change in this area? Did he talk about her with you;
yes if so, what was his attitude towards her?
love
5) When we knew him, Richard was very aware of the importance of boundaries - both to protect from temptation and wrongdoing, and to protect from false accusations. He lived by them at that time. Do you know if he currently had a set of personal boundaries?
of course Can you tell us what they were or if he was starting to have trouble maintaining them?
no
6) Besides yourself, did he have any other close friendships?
yes Were you (or any of the others) able to ask him the "tough" questions of whether he was being consistent with his quiet time, and if he was maintaining margin and boundaries in his life?
yes If you did ask a "tough" question, what was his attitude? (
humility? anger? gratitude? arrogance? other?)
If you choose to answer this, thank you.