What Would You Do? (Sensitive/Not family-friendly)

Sorry, I didn't see your most recent post - will have a look at that. Good luck. Still personally think it was a mistake to tell the entire deacon body.

 

Still a lot of puzzling aspects of what you presented - you say that prior to the church's knowledge of all this (which came from you through his daughter) that he had given a lot of testimony there at the Church about being in prison. So I don't understand how the whole church could know that he was in prison for 14 years, but never had a clue what he was in for until his daughter called you. So, one wonders, what was the rationale for not asking him previously why he was in prison - was it that possibly he had served his time and that was no longer anyone's business. Even so, it astounds me that no one ever even asked him. But also, knowing he had been in prison for that long you would all know it was for something major - grand theft, possibly murder, rape - it could have been anything. So, apparently all those weren't a potential threat to the congregation, but pedophilia is - because why - its in its own special little category that's noncurable or something? Says who - conventional wisdom?

But anyway good luck - I imagine you yourself know you've already made some mistakes in your handling of this. We should all pray that you miraculously obtain divine wisdom to know how to proceed. Ok, that's all from me.

 

I think first of all you as pastor should encourage this guy to go seek his daughter's forgiveness by admitting to her in person how wrong it was what he did. Either she accepts it or not, but after that, there's nothing more that he can do.

As far as the deacons wanting him to quietly leave, that shows what a mistake it was to tell them about it to begin with. What is the next church he goes to supposed to do? The same thing as your church? So the right thing is for him to remain at the church.

Maybe as the guy previously was talking so publicly about being in prison it was inevitable that what he did to get there would come out. So maybe that was his mistake - he didn't have to give his testimony about being in prison. But at some point you can tell the congregation if necessary, "He has sought his daughter's forgiveness, and that's all he can do."

You or the deacons or the congregation should not be yielding to conventional wisdom regarding pedophiles never changing or whatever. That didn't come from God.

Of course, all this may be out of your hands now as the deacons are evidently wanting to through their weight around. Maybe you were implicitly relinquishing control to them by telling them about it Maybe if possible you could start exerting your authority again, making it clear you are committed to what God tells you to do, not to the deacons. And you also convey to them, "I can see it was a mistake to confide in you guys, but I'm following God in this matter from here on out."

Just trying to help.

 

Grace is the keyword.

It is to be used for all sides involved.

At the church where I serve we have (that we know about) six people with sex offenses on their records. It is likely we have double or triple that in reality but they haven't either made themselves known or have been noted through a background check. We love all people who come through our doors including those who were damaged by the offense, the offenders, and those dealing with the impact of the sin.

We also believe that not all sins are equal in the sight of God or man.

This kind of sin is particularly heinous. But we act sensibly and with grace. It is our obligation to be graceful. The latest episode is similar to what we have in the OP. A person, who had been a member of our church for about two years, finally came to a pastor on staff and talked with them about a failure in their life. The pastor received them and immediately (rightly) told them they loved them and wanted to support them. This person had served 5 years in prison and had been out for about 15 years now.

We believe their debt to society is paid. The next question is has their debt to the offendee been reonciled? The person has gone out of their way to attempt to reconcile within appropriate means with no response. So what should we do?

Do you really think its going to be healthy to "confront" or "share" this offense with the entire church population? Of course not. That helps neither the victim nor the offender. It surely doesn't help the church body, and especially not people dealing with a present issue.

We have a rigorous child care policy and screen ALL volunteers seeking to work with children using the highest levels of background checks. We are fanatical about running background checks and providing a safe environment. We have rules about the nature of child care and how many people are required to be in a room with children.

As for the offendee in this kind of situation. If they have paid their debt to society, if they have not had a relapse, if they have sought reconciliation, if they have given over their sin to God for forgiveness...who are we to continue to prosecute their sin?

Now don't get me wrong, they won't be (at least in our church) allowed to interact with children at any level. They will be given parameters for how they are involved in any environment where children might be. But we don't go telling other people about it. We have no business making their forgiven sin public. We seek to love on them and show them how to love. We seek to bring them closer to God and allow them to enjoy His forgiveness.

At some point if we don't practice forgiveness, how can any of us truly be forgiven?

I say this in a voice of compassion and hoping to communicate with reasonability and honesty. I like the OP, pray for the OP, and think this is a worthy conversation.

 

We certainly DO have a responsibility to "tell others" of this sin, especially when the children of the church could be put in danger without their parents knowledge. Keep the sin "quiet" and your church will be held liable when the sin is repeated! Besides, the offender should already be on a public registry. At the very least, ALL the men in the church should be told so they can keep watch over their families AND keep the offender accountable. This can be done in love, but it would be done better in a larger church where the offender knows he can't stray without getting caught. There is too much opportunity in a smaller, less protected church.

PJ, you're confusing forgiveness with justice. Sin may be forgiven, yes, but that doesn't release the offender of the consequences of that sin. Forgiveness is divine. Trusting the offender again is just plain stupid.

 

You continually say that smaller churches are less "protected". Maybe that is the case for your church and you need to institute some better safeguards. There's no need to generalize all smaller churches based upon your churches lack of safeguards though.

 

Care must be taken so that we are not ruled by emotion but informed and instructed by the Word of God.

 

Are you a pastor or pastor's wife, Matt? Is that why you're posting in the pastor's area of the board? I just wondered.

Smaller churches typically ARE less protected. There are fewer people, so there are fewer men and fewer people to work. It's harder to find enough adults to staff 2 for each Sunday School room, men to watch the parking lot and foyer during services, etc. Many times smaller churches struggle financially, so there's little money for the pastor/lay leaders to get specialized training to counsel addicts. There's little money to install windowed doors on all the classrooms, or cameras in the hallways. There's also the chance in a smaller church, that the pastor is so overwhelmed with other duties, he has little time to make security a priority.

 

Thanks for the reply and I can understand your perspective...I just completely disagree with it.

First of all it isn't feasible for us to tell every man at our church. That would be about 3,000 people. But even in smaller churches this isn't wise. How in the world are we going to reach people for Christ if they think they have to confess all their ugliness before complete strangers before becoming part of a community?

Second, at what point do we move into legalism and uncaring dogmatism about revealing all sins that we've struggled with. As public the sin so public the confession is a good rule of thumb. The guy in the OP served 20 years in prison (I believe)...at what point is his debt to society paid? Death?

Third, I respectfully disagree that this can be done, consistently, in love. As a staff we can handle this respectfully and with love, but our people don't (often) understand this.

Finally, your response is based in, imho, fear and not reality.

I don't believe I'm confusing the two. Rather I'm suggesting the middle ground between them is grace. You see I don't see where Jesus says we treat every sinner with suspicion that they'll immediately sin again. Granted, as I've mentioned, we place respectful boundaries to prohibit as best as possible this kind of depravity. Yet we still need to seek grace and reconciliation. To what extent should we make these people, all hurting sinners (but aren't we all?), confess and take ownership of their failure? Should we require them to wear a shirt with a red letter on it to identify them? Should we require them to wear an ankle monitor so they can be tracked?

I fear your desire for justice is outweighing our Christian calling to grace.

 

Not a pastor, only his secretary, so I’ll keep the angry parent response out of this.
When I was the director of the nursery wing it took our insurance company threatening to drop us to get any safety changes made. These safety requirements protect both the children and the adults. And they involve the whole church. This may be an issue with this church. What does your insurance company require in this situation? Does keeping quiet invalidate any part of your policy? Our local convention was really helpful with helping us understand and implement the needed changes.
Who would have thought this position would put me in such constant contact with police? Most recently we had the police check out our nursery and church policies to see if it was safe for a child in an abusive situation. Nope. Even with all of our changes it wasn’t. Shouldn’t we care for our children more than those outside the church do?
Just because we pay the world’s price for our crime, doesn’t mean that’s the end of it. There will always be ramifications. For any crime.

 

Nope...I'm not. Of course the rules of this forum don't exclude non-pastors from posting here, so what's the problem?

Again, you describe that YOUR church is unprepared. If you church isn't safeguarding children and people in your church maybe you and your husband should make it a priority?

Your making excuses because a church is small, and the excuses don't hold water. I've been in plenty of small churches and things were handled properly and in order. It's not hard to do.

 

Not to be snarky here (because I enjoy our interactions) but should we (the church) treat broken people the way the world does?

If so, why not just require them to wear a shirt with a red letter A (for abuser) on it whenever at church?

 

I never said this was about MY church, Matt, and I'm not making excuses for anyone at all. I'm making an observation. The OP already admitted that his church has not yet implemented all the necessary safety precautions. This does not surprise me at all. Many small churches I know of are still working on these kinds of policies.

The convict in the OP had a background as a LEO, so he knows the system. He knows what kind of protections should be there, yet he deliberately chose a church that did not have all those in place.

A drunk cannot "dry out" while at the local bar. Neither will a convicted child molester change his ways in an environment that does not offer complete protection to his potential victims. If he truly wanted to change, he would have sought out a place with more accountability.

 

You might have missed the part where his conviction and sentencing was 20 years ago. He spent 14 years in prison and has been out for 6 years. How much longer does he need to "dry out"?

 

I understand the replies and am sympathetic...so the next question for me is: exactly how do you inform everyone about this person's sin?

Stand up on Sunday and say: We're excited Paul and Mary have come to join our church. We are welcoming them, but just so you know Paul is a sex offender and you need to watch your kids around him?

How would you go about this discussion in your church?

 

Just to refine previous comments of mine (upon further reflection), apparently the guy in question was vocal there at the church long before the pastor was contacted by his daughter, giving his "testimony" about being in prison for 14 years, but never once indicating what he was in for (and incredibly no one asked either). So, it was inevitable I think that what he did to get there would come out. So its possible I think now, that the deacons have it right, he should quietly move on, and at the next church he goes to, he should just keep his mouth shut - he doesn't have to tell everyone he was in prison.