Pastoral Confessions: The Healing Path to Faithful Ministry

by Jamin Goggin

In an age of pastoral abuse, scandal, and failure, many pastors feel pressured to appear sinless. They are tempted to conceal their sin rather than risk vulnerability or disqualification from ministry. But concealing sin is spiritually dangerous, for both the pastor and the church. Unconfessed sin leads to guilt, shame, exhaustion, and loneliness. Instead, God invites pastors to confess, repent, and be healed, just like every other Christian.

Using the seven deadly sins as a framework, Pastoral Confessions offers burdened and burned-out pastors a healthy way forward out of the quagmire of hidden sins. With great vulnerability and refreshing honesty, pastor Jamin Goggin writes of his own temptations and sins, especially those that uniquely appeal to the pastor's heart and plague the pastoral profession. He shows pastors how to integrate regular confession to God and others, leading to a more hopeful, fruitful, and virtuous life and ministry.

208 pages, Hardcover

Published October 21, 2025

About the author

Jamin Goggin serves as Pastor of Spiritual Formation and Retreats at Saddleback Church. He holds an MA in Spiritual Formation and an MA in New Testament and is currently earning a PhD in Theology. He is the co-author of "Beloved Dust" and co-editor of "Reading the Christian Spiritual Classics". Jamin speaks and writes from the depths of his own journey, seeking to invite others into the beauty and goodness of life with God.

For more information on Jamin's ministry and writing visit www.metamorpha.com.

Reviews

[Noah Senthil · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an important and necessary book, although it’s not a fun one. Pastors are sinful, and they need to confess their sins to God and trustworthy brothers and sisters. It’s non-negotiable. That’s the basic argument. Shepherds should lead the way in bringing their failures into the light, so that the rest of us may follow. The author structures his argument around an exposition of the seven deadly sins, applying them specifically to the temptations of a pastor.

We cannot completely avoid pastors disappointing us and disqualifying themselves, but I think it’s true that many of the public moral failures we’ve witnessed in recent years could have been avoided if they were regularly practicing this kind of confession. As an aspiring pastor, I needed this book. As someone who has started several “confessions groups” in my adult life, I found this greatly encouraging and experientially true. Confession is where healing begins. Confess your sins to one another, that you may be healed! I’d highly recommend this to any pastor or ministry leader.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Goggin does a masterful job of inviting pastors, and all of us, into the grace of God through confession. Vital for the health of the church. Vulnerable and important work.

[Jon Nitta · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very hard book to read. No, not because it's written at an academic level that escapes most people. Instead, it functions like a mirror to reveal the soul for what is is - the contributions of a heart that is a swirl of chaos and a mind that has not meditated on how deep inside sin truly goes. Many books I can do a quick read. This one though should be read slowly, prayerfully, thoughtfully. As the author states clearly read the book slowly with a heart that is open relationally to the Spirit of God who searches, reveals, and convicts of hurtful ways (Ps. 139:23-24).

For many of us confession is practiced but it seems superficial as if "being authentic" is to let people know you are struggling, just not that bad or making sin sound respectable. As a pastor I understand this tension of how much do I share? How much can I share? While Jamin advocates for wisdom, he does seem to blow the doors off this safe confessing with each other. I've seen our small group practice confession that goes beyond skimming the surface but sharing at a deeper level. It's changed the dynamic of our group.

Masterfully, Jamin takes readers through a journey into the vices of the heart as if you're not just sitting in a cohort group with him leading. He provides necessary background information but also then directs the spiritual conversation to peel back the layers of the "inner person". What he offers after the diagnosis is a prayer that is a closer reflection of an honest confession that goes beyond our polished attempts where nothing gets revealed.

My only question, and this is not an issue with the author or what he's written, but I do wonder how many young pastors will be able to hear what's being said. As a new pastor over twenty years ago, I think what drove me was a sense of youthful fortitude and God's calling to do something important "for the Kingdom" (I'm an old parachurch staff member). It's not that those things were wrong and are bad but I do think there's a greater awareness now the blind spot of was of the dislocation in my own soul, how far sin's reach actually went. Why else would the Apostle Paul, toward the end of his ministry, write that he was the chief of all sinners and not, "I'm getting better and better every day")? Maybe it takes some maturity and time on the job as a pastor to realize how applicable what Jamin wrote is true of them.

I do think this book could be read (or should be read) by lay people with someone else to direct them through it. As with pastors, people should read the book with intention and not just to gain more knowledge. Pastoral vices have their lay equivalents. A must read mostly for every pastor but it will take a courageous honesty on the part of readers.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book considers what has been called "the seven deadly sins" both in terms of how the are an issue for pastors and the necessary confession. There is a lot to reflect on in this book both for pastors and for Christians in general. It can be read with profit. Perhpas the author should have provided more guidance in his encouragment to confess to others. While this exhortation is well taken, there is a necessary wisdom involved that might have been explored in more detail.

[Ashley Haupert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every pastor could benefit from reading this book. I have defined this book to many as a “swift kick in the pants” 😅. It’s not an easy read, and should be taken a chapter or even less at a time. Each chapter requires honesty and a deep look into our own hearts to admit the ways in which we have fallen prey to each sin mentioned. I will be rereading this again and passing it on to other pastors I know as well.

[Max · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was indicting like a diagnosis of cancer, warning like a prognosis of what happens if it's not dealt with, remediating like a surgery to remove it, and convalescing like the medicine that follows all in one book.

[Ivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A scalpel to the pastoral soul.