Since the shooting at New Life Church on Sunday, founder Ted Haggard's name has resurfaced. Multiple news commentators have reminded us of his fall and of the mistakes he made that cost him his position and good name.

My heart still hurts for my brother, and I often wonder how he's doing now. My husband and I drove past the church a couple of days ago, and we talked about what could have possibly happened to him and others to make them risk it all for nothing.

But Ted's mistakes remind me of the propensity in each of us to mess up when we try to go it alone. It happens when we fail to be accountable to other godly people who take constant looks at what we're doing, saying, and thinking and help us line our responses up to Scripture.

Aloneness also happens when we try to work in isolation. We forget that our part is but a piece of the big puzzle--God's puzzle. Everyone's contribution is just as important as everyone else's. And when we withhold our piece or mess up the one that is ours, the total picture is incomplete.

It's called the body ministry in the New Testament. Writers compare all the separate, important parts that make God's kingdom work well to the different parts of the body (e.g. Romans 12). Scripture reminds us that the arm is no more or less important than the leg or the ear. They all serve their individual roles, and the body is incomplete without the use of any one of them.

When we keep that in mind while doing what we've been called to do, we'll do it better for the sake of the body as a whole. Mashing the finger hurts far more than just that finger, so we make it a point to take care of the whole body and keep it healthy. I'm sure that's a lesson Ted and others have learned the hard way. When he and others went down, all of us in God's family went down some, too.

With that, I will say no more. Twenty years ago, it was a different Christian leader in a different time and a different fall from grace. I was working on my doctorate at the time. Standing in my office one day, the whole debaucle became the topic of conversation. I didn't start the discussion nor did I add to it. But I did comment that I'd seen the man as a guest on a talk show.

That night I had a dream that someone said something about a wrong decision one of my sisters had made. I asked, "How did you know that? No one but the family knew?"

"I knew," they said in my dream, "because you told me!"

I felt God was speaking to me that night, reprimanding me, reminding me that this fallen man was my brother, and I was to keep my mouth shut. A mistake made by my sister hurt the whole Hunter family. A mistake made by my spiritual brother hurts the whole family of Christ. What right do I have to talk about it?

We must stay accountable and remember our part is only part of God's work, not the whole. The end result goes only to God, not to any one contributor. If we do that, then together we'll take better care of our body. And when we do that, we will be able to accomplish so much more.

God has no Lone Rangers. We need each other, they need us, and we all need God. I take care of and put to work what God has given me, and you do the same with what's He's given you. That's the body ministry. That's the way God gets His work done.