The Assassin of Character Creep

By Jud Wilhite

Jud Wilhite is senior pastor of Central Christian Church, a pioneering community of faith in the Las Vegas area. More than 12,000 attend Central”s campuses each weekend. Jud is the author of several books including Stripped: Uncensored Grace on the Streets of Vegas, That Crazy Little Thing Called Love, and Deadly Viper Character Assassins.

Under Jud”s leadership, Central is dedicated to helping people find their way to God. He is known for his authentic and relevant approach to teaching the Bible, and his passion is to equip people to know God and love him more.

Jud and his wife, Lori, reside in the Las Vegas area with their two children, Emma and Ethan.

 

 

I recently had the opportunity to travel to Ecuador with Wess Stafford, president of Compassion International. He shared with our group some thoughts on leadership and talked by way of illustration about what really sank the Titanic on April 15, 1912.

Most people think an iceberg sank the ship, but that is only half the story. Many ocean liners had collided with icebergs over the years and remained afloat. And it would have been virtually impossible for an iceberg to penetrate the double-thick steel hull of the Titanic.

No, the Titanic sank because of 3 million faulty rivets that held the steel to the ship”s hull.

During the manufacturing of these rivets, the plant had apparently cut corners and used substandard iron to save a few bucks. The force of the collision with the iceberg created immense pressure on the rivets, which caused them to fail catastrophically. Thus the steel plating of the hull was pulled apart from the frame, allowing the freezing waters of the Atlantic to rush inside the doomed ship.

What struck me as Wess talked is that we need to realize life is about the rivets””the little details. How we manage the routine aspects of our life and leadership has everything to do with whether or not our hull will be compromised.

Over the years I”ve had so many friends whose lives have been shattered by moral failure or emotional and physical burnout. In one week within the past year I heard of eight people who blew apart their ministry because of moral failure””eight in one week!

In one way or another they were seriously injured by what I call the Assassin of Character Creep. And we are all susceptible. Any one of us could mess up the wonderful things God wants to do through us so easily. It was Gordon MacDonald who once said, in effect, that our most unguarded strengths can become our greatest weaknesses.

Creep

Nobody wakes up and decides to tank his or her ministry, life, and career because of an integrity issue. We don”t make an entry one day saying, “Dear Diary, today I plan to commit fraud that will eventually lead to the demise of my career, a nervous breakdown, and ultimately jail.”

Character creep happens subtly. It”s a methodical process where small compromises and rationalizations lead to areas we never thought we would go. We draw lines in the sand and then erase them.

Jim Collins writes of the leaders whose careers went down with the fiascos at Enron, WorldCom, and others.

These were people who, in the presence of an opportunity to behave differently, got drawn into it, one step after another. If you told them 10 years ahead of time, “Hey, let”s cook the books and all get rich,” they would never go along with it. But that”s rarely how most people get drawn into activities that they later regret.

Character creep slowly steals integrity. One expense account gets falsely padded, but it”s not really a big deal. We “borrow” a little here and a little there. Maybe we even tell ourselves we plan to pay it back. We keep rationalizing and justifying, and pretty soon we find ourselves in a tangled web of financial impropriety.

Moment by moment we are building a life, a reputation. Too often we don”t realize the compounding effect of those moments. A Tennessee Titans football star got his wake-up call when the NFL commissioner suspended him for the entire 2007 season. Adam “Pacman” Jones had been interviewed by police on 10 different occasions. Then came the final straw when he was implicated in a shooting at a strip club in Las Vegas.

Pacman”s choices hurt his future, his family, his team, and his wallet. He”ll lose $1,292,500 in base pay. In response to the suspension, Pacman offered an apology in a full-page ad in USA Today. It began: “At age 23, I never thought my life would come to a crossroads . . . “

We never think it will happen to us””until it does.

I”ve known too many people who are brighter, more talented, and more grounded than I who succumbed to “character creep” and didn”t even realize how stealthily their lives were being changed. Eventually the Chinese proverb became true of them: “He has too many lice to feel an itch.”

What”s at Stake?

Why should we care? Because there is too much at stake to play games.

“¢Â Our families are at stake.

“¢Â Our careers are at stake.

“¢ Our impact in the world is at stake.

“¢ The reputation of Christ is at stake.

Everything we have worked so hard to build can be destroyed in a matter of moments. And yes, in fact, I am trying to freak you out. How many political and religious leaders, and culturally influential artists, entertainers, and athletes must fall before we start to take this stuff seriously?

And those are just the ones we hear about. Countless individuals lose their jobs, families, even their freedom because of the handiwork of the silent assassin that is character creep.

When a leader fails morally, everybody loses. He or she loses, the family loses, and the church loses. But when that leader maintains integrity over the long haul, everybody wins.

Be Ready for the Creep

Here”s what I know. You don”t have to be the most talented leader, the most gifted speaker, or the most together Christian. Just faithfully manage the details of your life and maintain your integrity over the long haul, and you”ll be successful. I call it “success by default.” You”ll simply be the last person standing.

So how can you prepare for the Assassin of Character Creep?

First, plan for the Assassin of Character Creep.

Realize that he is coming and wants to destroy you. In my life I”ve taken concrete steps to remove opportunities where I could fail. I talk weekly to a friend about the deeper issues going on in my life, and he presses me about important areas. Oscar Wilde said, “True friends stab you in the front.” They tell you the truth even when you don”t want to hear it. I”ve come to realize this kind of support and feedback is actually a gift.

I also have my Internet activity monitored by accountability software. I haven”t been alone with a woman other than my wife in years. I do not travel alone and I attempt to monitor the small details, the rivets, of my life. This doesn”t mean I”m perfect. Far from it. I”m realistic about how easily I could make a fatal mistake. I don”t trust myself enough to operate without those fences.

Another way we can defend against this assassin is to live by a basic mode of operation: refrain from doing anything today we”d be uncomfortable reading about in the newspaper tomorrow, watching on the 11 o”clock news, or being broadcast to thousands of people.

How would your life change if you knew you”d see it all played out on television tomorrow? I”ll often place this question over a decision I”m about to make””would I be OK with this slapped across the front page of the newspaper? Living this way provides a fatal blow to this assassin.

Recognize this: the Assassin of Character Creep is out there waiting for you to bend the truth, mismanage small decisions, and take a haphazard approach to the details. Maybe it”s time to find some sand and draw a line. It could be the most important decision for your future success.