Trust

I was perusing the Tennessean's website this morning and ran across this article about a former minister from here in Nashville, David Slater, being arrested in Texas on theft charges. He had also been arrested here in Nashville for theft at a YMCA.

A couple of things struck me about the article.

1) Slater apparently had access to the school because he was an associate minister at a church renting the school. I know there are a lot of new churches out there that are using schools as their meeting places; I think an unfortunate by product of this will make schools either more cautious about it or less willing to do it, period.

2) After Slater's first arrest here in Nashville, he came and spoke at Otter Creek. He talked about the renewal and restoration in his life. This is one of those times that you look at someone and wonder if he was just lying about that or if he was being honest at that point in his life and something has happened between then and now to make him resort back to a previous sin. It is one of the deep ironies of the Christian life that at one point you can feel completely freed of a sin and at another one completely trapped by that same one. Is there an easy solution to that? No. What is does take is a group of people that you can be completely honest with and accountable to so that when the problems that might force someone into theft or an affair or greed, there's someone that knows you well enough to call you on it.

What I imagine is that Slater's going to be in jail for a while. My hope is that he would find some way to deal with whatever is pushing him to break people's trust and steal from them. I doubt he'll be trusted in such a position again, but hopefully he'll find a way to put his life back together.