This is the third in a special series on Sexual Health by guest bloggers Dr. Bill Bixler and Greg Hill, LPC (see their bio below the article).  Click to read the first  and second installments.

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In the first post we looked at the importance of sex and sexuality for pastors and the dangers inherent in minimizing that part of their lives.  The second post explained how pastors can become vulnerable to the misuse of their sexuality, acting out via cybersex activities or by having extramarital relationships.

Pornography-viewing and other sexual acting out often serve a dual function of relieving stress and offering escape into a fantasy world. Such sexual acting out indicates a pastor’s life is precariously out of balance. Here are some tips for keeping your life in better balance:

• Boundary-setting: One of the greatest stressors for pastors stems from their inability to set clear boundaries. What are some ways to set clear boundaries? Take time off. Construct a metaphorical fence around your day off. Let it be known that that time is vital for replenishment. Barring a dire church emergency, defer non-essential requests from parishioners. This can be done with grace and humor and will decrease burn-out symptoms.  Delegating responsibilities is another way to set a boundary. Avoid micro-managing and succumbing to the belief that the pastor needs to do it all. Learning to say “no” is an important aspect of boundary setting. For example, set time-limits on phone conversations and meetings.  Pastors often have a need to please everyone, which is impossible.

• Self-care: Engage in self-care, including physical exercise, adequate sleep, proper diet. In addition, self-care includes time for pleasurable activities, time with friends, developing a hobby. Seek out a spiritual mentor with whom you can be transparent. Take time for your prayer and devotional life.

• Nurturing marriage: Healthy marriages require quality time together. Keep a date night sacred. Take a weekend away. Talk to your spouse, especially about your feelings—fears, doubts, frustrations. Your partner is there, not to fix everything for you, but to provide care and support. Mutual emotional vulnerability can significantly enhance sexual intimacy. Talk with each other about your sexual needs and desires. Be playful; don’t get stuck in the same sexual routine.

This is not an exhaustive list of ideas but provides some seed-thoughts on rebalancing one’s life.  However, many pastors reading the above will likely consider the writers to be naïve or even delusional. The objection would be something like, “We don’t have time to engage in these activities. Church work is too demanding.” But this objection takes as a given, what we feel needs to be reexamined. It is incumbent upon the pastor to shape his/her ministry in healthy ways to reduce stress and the potential for sexual acting-out.

To succumb to the thinking that the above is impossible places pastors in untenable positions. To survive and thrive in ministry requires more than dedication to one’s pastoral vocation. It requires attending to the basics, balancing life, and caring for self as one cares for others. In so doing, the risk of needing to escape into sexual acting-out is significantly diminished.

Two final thoughts.

Firstly, for those who find they have been unable to stop pornography-viewing or other acting-out behavior, counseling with a professional trained to deal with these types of issues can be very helpful. These problems are treatable in a therapy context which assures both acceptance and confidentiality.

Secondly, the pastors who come to us for help are usually male, despite the fact that female pastors also struggle with sexual issues. We are aware that these posts may be unintentionally geared more toward male pastors. We would love to hear from female pastors regarding gender-specific differences related to the topics we have discussed.

-Bill Bixler and Greg Hill

Dr. Bill Bixler (above right), a clinical psychologist, and Greg Hill (above left), licensed professional counselor, have both received clinical and theological training and are co-founders of the Center for Emotional and Sexual Health in Cary. They are certified sex addiction therapists and specialize in working with:  couples coping with infidelity; individuals caught in sex and porn addiction; teenagers struggling with porn, sexting, etc.; and spouses and families traumatized by the addict’s behavior. They are also available to speak to church groups on sex and sexuality. They can be contacted via phone: (919) 466-0770  or email:  dr.william.bixler@gmail.com  and  greghlpc@gmail.com.

Image by Pixabay user PublicDomainPictures

This is the second in a special series on Sexual Health by guest bloggers Dr. Bill Bixler and Greg Hill, LPC (see their bio below the article).  Click here to read the first installment.

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Pastor John survived another Sunday, but just barely. Still awake after midnight, he stares at the  bedroom ceiling while a host of stressful thoughts bear down on him—parishioners’ criticism of his sermon, worry about the budget shortfall, power struggles with the assistant pastor. He needs some escape, some respite from the pressure. Almost without thinking John slips out of bed without waking his wife, tiptoes to his study, and proceeds to view pornography on his laptop until 3 a.m.

This scenario is, unfortunately, not rare.  Various surveys place the number of pastors viewing pornography between 30 and 54 percent in a given year.  Also, these surveys do not include additional acting-out behaviors, such as participating in sexual chat rooms, hiring prostitutes and escorts, and affairs with church members or staff.  If we included those statistics the above percentages undoubtedly would be higher.

Cybersex (the term used to describe all sexual activities on the internet) has three components, the three A’s, which make it so compelling. It is:

• Accessible– the click of a mouse or touch on an IPAD
• Affordable– most pornography on the internet is free
• Anonymous– it can be viewed in complete privacy

Many pastors exhaust their physical, spiritual, and emotional resources taking care of their flock. If stress and anxiety are not managed well and healthy relationships are neglected, pornography becomes a source of escape and emotional self-medication. The fantasy world of internet pornography becomes a substitute for real relationships and intimacy.

In addition, pastors who do not take the time to nurture their own marriages and friendships are at risk of cybersex activity. Marriage therapist John Gottman describes two types of couples: those who turn toward each other and those who turn away. Pastors who turn away may turn toward pornography or someone outside the marital relationship. An absence of genuine intimacy can lead to the false intimacy of extra-marital relationships or fantasy relationships via pornography.

As in the case of Pastor John from our introductory paragraph, cybersex can provide instant, but temporary, escape from the stresses of church work. In addition, some pastors seek to numb deeper emotional wounds:  emotional or physical abuse from childhood, memories of a perpetually critical father or mother, constant fears of not being a good enough minister, spouse, or parent.

Various psychological strategies are employed to allow pastors to continue their behavior unimpeded by self-restraint:

• Compartmentalizing occurs when that part of the pastor’s life which is unacceptable to him/her is intentionally split off from the rest of life.
• Minimizing is a type of rationalization, such as, “it’s not that bad because it’s only pictures, not actual sex with someone.”
• Denial does not even recognize that there is a problem—“I don’t do it that often so it’s no big deal.”

But it is a big deal. Pornography-viewing and other cybersex activities generate intense shame and guilt, create emotional and sexual alienation in marriage, open clergy to accusations of hypocrisy, place ministerial vocations at risk, and severely weaken the spiritual vitality of the pastor.

In the next post we will examine how pastors can significantly reduce vulnerability to sexual acting-out, affirm healthy sexuality, and provide guidance to those who have tried many times to stop but have been unable.

-Bill Bixler and Greg Hill

Dr. Bill Bixler (above right), a clinical psychologist, and Greg Hill (above left), licensed professional counselor, have both received clinical and theological training and are co-founders of the Center for Emotional and Sexual Health in Cary. They are certified sex addiction therapists and specialize in working with:  couples coping with infidelity; individuals caught in sex and porn addiction; teenagers struggling with porn, sexting, etc.; and spouses and families traumatized by the addict’s behavior. They are also available to speak to church groups on sex and sexuality. They can be contacted via phone: (919) 466-0770  or email:  dr.william.bixler@gmail.com  and  greghlpc@gmail.com.

Image from wikipedia

This is the first in a special series on Sexual Health by guest bloggers Dr. Bill Bixler and Greg Hill, LPC (see their bio below the article).

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Gnosticism is a theological cat with more than nine lives. Its most recent resuscitators include Elaine Pagels, the brilliant Nag Hammadi scholar, and Dan Brown, author of the best-selling book, The Da Vinci Code.  Gnosticism continues to live in a church context whenever a pastor places spiritual formation on center stage and relegates physical life and health to the homilectical and practical shadows.

One aspect of physical life which many pastors struggle with is sexuality, so they place it in the deepest, darkest part of those shadows.Pastors who ignore their own sexual health are not only flirting with Gnosticism, but are neglecting a vital and God-given part of their identities.  Affirming the goodness of sexuality should include more than an annual sermon on Adam and Eve becoming “one flesh.” Spirited Life encourages pastors to move toward a healthier lifestyle, which includes proper nutrition, exercise, and timely physical and emotional health checkups. In addition, a healthy lifestyle needs to include a healthy sexual life.

In the Scriptures sex is not viewed as peripheral but as an essential part of marital relationship. For example, a battle-ready army was essential to Israel as it was occupying the Promised Land. Despite the necessity of a military fighting force at the ready, certain males were exempt from military service as follows, “If a man and a woman have been married less than one year, he must not be sent off to war . . . He must be allowed to stay home for a year and be happy with his wife.” (Deut. 25:4) Thus, for Israel, even national security did not trump the need to safeguard sexual and relationship nurturing during that vital first year of marriage.

So while the Bible shines a bright light on sex as good and right, it also is unflinching in its narratives of sex gone bad.  There are almost too many examples to illustrate this point, from the tragicomedy of Onan and his spilled seed to the horror of the rape of Tamar.

Whether describing the Song of Solomon’s beauty of sex, or the David and Bathsheba ugliness, the Scriptures address the issue of sex and sexuality head on. Sadly, many pastors do not.  By not doing so they leave themselves and many of their church members adrift in the struggle to live out their sexuality Christianly.

Pastors often focus their entire energies on spiritual concerns and church business to the neglect of their physical and sexual well-being. This unconscious homage to the anti-physical tenets of Gnosticism often carries a terrible price. Sex ignored can become master rather than servant. When that happens, sexual acting-out by the pastor is bound to occur and with it the tragedies all of us are familiar with.

In the next two posts we will be looking at how a pastor becomes vulnerable to sexual acting-out, whether with another person or via pornography. We’ll look at the factors that create that vulnerability and the various functions served by that acting-out. Lastly, we will examine what steps can be taken to develop healthy sexual attitudes and behavior, including making lifestyle changes which will greatly diminish the potential for sexually self-destructive behavior.

-Bill Bixler and Greg Hill

 Dr. Bill Bixler (above right), a clinical psychologist, and Greg Hill (above left), licensed professional counselor, have both received clinical and theological training and are co-founders of the Center for Emotional and Sexual Health in Cary. They are certified sex addiction therapists and specialize in working with:  couples coping with infidelity; individuals caught in sex and porn addiction; teenagers struggling with porn, sexting, etc.; and spouses and families traumatized by the addict’s behavior. They are also available to speak to church groups on sex and sexuality. They can be contacted via phone: (919) 466-0770  or email:  dr.william.bixler@gmail.com  and  greghlpc@gmail.com. 

 Image by Pixabay user steinchen