Church Executive SEPT / OCT 2019 DIGITAL ISSUE | Page 28

SEXUAL ABUSE
CHILD SEXUAL
ABUSE
IN MINISTRY CONTEXTS
Understanding the risk
By Gregory Love & Kimberlee Norris
Child sexual abuse risk in ministry contexts cannot be
ignored. This statement implies child protection has been
ignored by some ministries in the past.
For most ministries, however, the challenge is ignorance of
the problem. Most ministries are doing something, but not
doing the right thing.
Church Executive and MinistrySafe have teamed up to provide ministry
leaders with analysis and guidance such that they can understand
the risk, properly prepare to meet the risk, and effectively address
the risk with preventive protocols. As sexual abuse attorneys, and
the founders and directors of MinistrySafe, we have more than 50
years combined legal experience addressing child sexual abuse issues
impacting ministries and secular organizations across North America.
Prevention starts with understanding: how does child sexual abuse
risk unfold in ministry contexts?
We cannot reduce a risk we do not understand
Prevention starts with understanding.
What does your church do to protect children from sexual abuse?
This question jump-starts any discussion about child sexual abuse
risk and preparation.
The majority of ministry leaders typically reference these practices
or efforts:
• Criminal background checks
• Child check-in system
• Policies
• Two adult rule
• Six-month member rule
• Video cameras
• Police officer on site (uniformed or plain clothes)
This list, however, is minimally helpful in protecting children from
the dozens of abusers featured in media reports across the nation within
the past five years. Yet the Church continues to double down on the ‘list’
as if it were the solution to the problem. Doing so will result in negative
headlines for the next 25 years. As civil trial attorneys who deal with
standards of care, we stand over scores of ‘train wrecks’ in Christ-based
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environments. In nearly all cases, the ministry in the media cross-hairs
employed a variation of the practices listed previously; the problem is
that these do not address the real risk.
Building the right fence
In any discussion related to child sexual abuse prevention, the
concept of a fence is a good starting point.
The type of fence built is driven by what it is meant to be kept out. To
protect a garden from your neighbor’s livestock, for example, the fence
might involve metal stakes and barbed wire.
While a barbed wire fence effectively addresses one risk (livestock),
it’s absolutely worthless related to another (rabbits).
In general, churches are building the wrong fence. Ministries are building
perfectly functional barbed wire fences, and the rabbits are destroying
our gardens. Compounding the problem, churches construct the wrong
fence and believe the problem is solved.
To effectively address the risk of child sexual abuse, church leaders
must understand offender behavior, then build the right fence.
Understanding the risk
A church’s efforts must correspond to actual risk. To properly protect
children in ministry programs, church leaders must understand how
the risk unfolds.
Livestock vs. rabbits
To better understand this risk, ministry leaders must be aware of two
types of sexual abusers, the abduction offender (livestock) and preferential
offender (rabbit).
Abduction offender
The abduction offender often has little or no relationship to the child
or the child’s family; this person simply sees an opportunity to snatch a
child and does so. The public sees the story on the news, and the outcome
is generally awful. Considering the broad waterfront of child sexual
abuse risk, the abduction offender only represents 4-5% of the problem.