It is important to be a welcoming church, and it’s important because we don’t want to be those who have faith and scare people, send people away from where they’ll hear the gospel.
Child abuse destroys families and it destroys churches and we’re not welcoming churches if we’re not thinking rightly about how to handle this, and how to make sure it doesn’t come to our church, or if it does come, how we can handle this in a godly way.
This is not an easy topic to discuss. But for a little while is we’re gonna stare at the face of evil.
That’s a hard thing to do, but it’s a necessary thing to do, because we live in a fallen world. It’s important for us to take the time.
This is a part of understanding our gospel stewardship, to understand how to handle evil when it comes across our door and what it means as Christians to wisely respond to it.
Our problem that we want to focus on is child abuse. Why talk about it? Well, bad information often results in bad decisions, which is why good information is necessary. It helps us to make wise decisions, especially when something goes wrong.
One of the first things we must do is define what child abuse is. We have to work with the definition of what we’re talking about.
Child abuse is any act or failure to act resulting in imminent risk, serious injury, death, physical or emotional or sexual harm, or exploitation of a child.
There’s six ways I want to address this issue.
First, consider the sad reality that we live in a fallen world, with sexual predators.
The Bible tells us, through Adam and Eve’s disobedience, sin entered into the world, and therefore, we’re all corrupt, we’re all sinners, we understand this affects everyone.
No one escapes evil’s grasp, and it’s no surprise, then, in a fallen world, that we see evil. We’re surrounded by it, and it even comes within our doors.
It’s sad to say that there are people who prey on children, that commit atrocious acts against children. I’ll use a variety of terms. Child abusers, sexual offender, perpetrator, but I’m even gonna call them sexual predators, because that’s what they are. They deliberately prey on children in order to do evil acts like abuse.
Second, the statistics show the extent of the problem that there are a lot of children who have been abused. Just consider these numbers.
- There are approximately 747,000 registered sexual offenders in the U.S. alone.
- There are as many as 100,000 sexual offenders who fail to report every year.
- As many as one in three girls or one in four boys will be sexually abused at some point in their childhood.
- Approximately 13% of all cases are reported to authorities, meaning 70% never get proper attention or prosecution.
- Almost half, 47% of offenders who sexually assaulted victims under the age of six were family members.
- Compared to 42% who assaulted youth, ages six through 11, and 24%, who assaulted juveniles, ages 12 through 17.
Numerous experts have made it clear that sexual predators often have, not just one or two but dozens of victims.
The Abel and Harlow Child Molestation Prevention Study found that every child molester averages 12 child victims and 71 acts of molestation. An earlier study by Dr. Gene Abel found that out 561 sexual offenders that they interviewed, there were more 291 incidents, involving 195,000 victims. Shocking, terrifying.
The study conducted by Gene Abel and Nora Harlow found that 93 percent of sex offenders identify themselves as “religious.”
You look at those numbers, and you begin to stare at what evil looks like in this fallen world. You see the cold, hard facts, and you come to realize how Satan has got a grip on so many people, by allowing abuse to occur, even within the homes of families within your church.
Third, churches have often been irresponsible in their prevention or response to abuse.
Now, this is a hard question to answer, why? Why does that occur?
You’ve seen the stories, you’ve heard the stories about this. A couple of things to consider.
Churches often do a poor job in handling abuse.
First, Christians are naive. Some sexual offenders state outright that they go to churches because they know Christians are naive.
One of the nation’s experts on sexual offenders is Dr. Anna Salter, and she comments, “If children can be silenced, and the average person is easy to fool, many offenders report that religious people are even easier to fool than most.”
Now we think about it. Christians, generally, are trusting folks. Child abusers recognize that fact, and they want to take full advantage of it.
If I said the best disposition for children’s ministry staff or volunteers in a position over children’s ministry was healthy skepticism towards other folks, many folks would call me a pessimist.
And if I took one step further, in asking a church to hold anyone who worked with children or youth, any of the leaders, to be screened or actually to abide by child safety policies, there’d be a lot of people in the church who would say, this is getting a little out of hand.
It’s hard enough to convince churches to actually go through background checks, let alone establish clear policies. And you see that Christians are ignorant of the problem.
Too many Christians are ignorant of the problem of abuse, especially when it happens in churches, because they don’t know the extent of the problem, and if you don’t know the extent, you don’t guard against it.
This is the kind of ignorance that leads to a naivete that can make children vulnerable. Many Christians don’t know how to distinguish between likability and trustworthiness. You know, they can confuse these two categories.
They assume that just because someone’s courteous and nice, they must be trustworthy, and that is just not always the case. Some Christians behave as though the problem doesn’t exist, and so they look on suspicion with cases of abuse, or they believe children are lying, and the adults must be correct.
One of the biggest hot beds of sexual predators and abuse of children was First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana under the leadership of Jack Hyles.
Hyles even put convicted child molester, A.V. Ballenger, that was awaiting sentencing for his crime in charge of a bus picking up children for church. Hyles told his members this man was innocent and his huge congregation believed him.
Under Hyles and his successor, Jack Schaap, sexual abuse of women and children flourished in the church and even spread to other congregations influenced by Hyles.
The Chicago Magazine even did a huge write-up on the wickedness that had infiltrated this church.
Like First Baptist in Hammond, many churches ignore or cover-up abuse in their churches. Too often, the congregation is left unaware or misinformed when abuse happens.
Sexual predators know this, and they wanna take full advantage of this fact.
And then there is abuse of authority. From an early age, children are taught, rightfully, to obey authority, and especially their parents and other adults.
Authority in the hands of a truly godly person is a good thing, it’s meant to reflect the character of God Himself, but authority in the hands of an evil person does atrocious harm to a child.
Now, if you watch the news, you know the sad reality that there are lots of religious leaders who’ve abused children. You know, we’re not just talking priests, but pastors, youth leaders, Sunday School teachers, deacons, and the list goes on and on and on.
In one of the most highly publicized cases of abuse among Catholics, Father Lawrence Murphy abused more than 200 boys in the renowned deaf school in Wisconsin. Despite the boys’ repeated pleas to priests, to nuns, to police and prosecutors for help, from 1950 to 1974, Murphy worked at the school and sexually molested students, at times, even in view of other boys.
Three successive archbishops were told about this, and none of them reported it. 1974, Murphy was quietly moved to northern Wisconsin to live with his mother and continued to work as a priest, and for the remaining 24 years of his life, he worked freely amongst children, and in the parishes in the Catholic schools.
In 1993, after repeated complaints about Murphy, Archbishop Rembert Weakland of Wisconsin hired a social worker who specialized in the treatment of sexual offenders, who then interviewed Murphy about the supposed allegations.
Here’s the most shocking thing about that story. He freely admitted to molesting boys. Didn’t deny it all, he freely admitted to what he did, but for the remaining years of his life, he was never prosecuted, either by the church’s own court or by public officials.
In 1996, Weakland attempted to have Murphy defrocked for his admission, but the Vatican declined to give a canonical trial. Two years later, Murphy died, and was buried in full priestly vestments. So not only did Murphy die, not facing any Earthly consequences, but he died being treated just like any other Catholic priest.
In addition to the ignorance of church members and their trusting nature, molestors also like churches because of the accessibility of children.
Churches are always looking for help in children’s ministry. You know this reality. You’re often short of help, and those who do help show up late, people get sick, call at the last minute, churches are often looking for help in children’s ministry.
Children’s ministers are often frail and worn out because they’re trying to keep children’s ministry together, and you know what? Sexual offenders know this reality. They know that you’re desperate for help.
Others don’t even bother showing up at their service, so if a courteous, kind, reliable person walks in, who’s attending regularly, and has earned the trust of others in the community and offers help, you know, what’s your children’s minister going to do?
No other organization provides such quick and easy access to children, and sexual offenders realize that.
They realize the plight that churches often are in, in taking care of their children, and recognize the help that they need. And then, reluctance to report abuse or mishandling of internal investigations.
Churches are often reluctant to report. If an adult with a supposed reputable character is accused, often, the child is second guessed, rather than the adult.
Leaders fear legal repercussion, so they don’t say anything, and out of pride, church members and leaders think they can handle the problem on their own, so they keep matters internal, and don’t ever call CPS.
There can be a concern for harming someone’s reputation. You know, even if the charges are false, if you say that someone has done something, and the allegations go public, that harms them, and labels them, in terms of their reputation for a long time.
Looking at all these things, some begin to evaluate and consider, actually, it seems like the repercussions are not worth it, so they self-justify that reporting is only gonna make it worse. Experts comment on how churches often botch up investigations or actually make the work of secular authorities harder, because they’re not competent to actually handle those investigations on their own.
Churches don’t usually have people who can handle abuse, like forensic interviewers who know how to handle children, and not retraumatize them after the experience they’ve been through, or police officers who have extensive experience in examining abusers. Or mental health professionals, who know how to document the signs and symptoms of child abuse.
Any delay in reporting actually can result in damage of evidence, important evidence that can help lead to the confrontation and prosecution of someone who’s abusing children.
Fourth, we need to come to grips who sexual predators are, and how they accomplish their evil deeds.
Two types of sexual predators, the power predator and the persuasion predator. Both wreak great havoc in the lives of victims, and both are problematic, but they accomplish their deeds in very different ways.
The power predator chooses to get a child by force. He overtakes a vulnerable child, forcing them into captivity. You can think in terms of a child who’s grabbed off a playground, in a school, or grabbed out of a backyard or is dragged into a car, or just anything like that.
You know, in the news, it was a couple of years ago, there was a clip that was frightening. They had caught on a street camera a man in his pickup truck who pulled up next to a girl who was around seven or eight, and her brother, who was around five, walking down the street, and he literally jumped out of his pickup truck, grabbed the girl, and tried to pull her into her pickup truck, and you, it was all caught on tape, you could see her wrestling, and her little brother, standing there watching and screaming, and she broke away, and they ran down the street, and the worst part about the video is he jumped into that pickup truck and followed them down the street.
Bestselling author and risk assessment expert, Gavin de Becker, describes it this way. “The power predator charges like a bear, unmistakably committing to his attack. Because of this, he cannot easily retreat or say there was merely a misunderstanding. Accordingly, he strikes only when he feels certain he’ll prevail.”
Almost 20 years ago, Jaycee Dugard was a young girl on her way to a school bus, when Phillip Craig and his wife, Nancy Garrido, abducted her. Nancy had scouted out Jaycee’s path to school, and then, one morning, just as Jaycee started walking to school, they pulled up on the road right next to her, and Phillip pulled out a stun gun, shocked her, and Nancy pulled her into the back of the car.
Phillip would later say to his wife, “I can’t believe we got away with this.”
For many years after abduction, Jaycee was a sex slave, who lived in the shed in their backyard. In just one fleeting moment, her entire childhood was robbed and it was taken away from her, her innocence of childhood was taken completely away.
She endured several years of rape in a nightmare scenario, but she stayed alive, and as you may know, as an adult, she was found, and then rescued, but unlike many other victims.
Jaycee survived. Many others don’t.
Persuasion predators use their personality, charm and influence to convince the gatekeepers.
You know what that is, those who are responsible for the children, that they are trustworthy and then, at the right time, strike to abuse children.
You might think about the illustration of a wolf in sheep’s clothing. You know, the wolf intends to harm others, but he doesn’t wanna be discovered by his plan, so he puts on the appearance of an innocent sheep.
In church settings, we’re focused on the persuasion predator, not the power predator.
You know, if your setup is such that you’ve set up a central desk or you’ve got doors, or you’ve got two adults in every classroom, then you’re well prepared, actually, for the power predator, but it’s the persuasion predator, the one who lives the double life, acts charming and nice and tries to persuade you that he’s trustworthy or she’s trustworthy, that’s the one that we most have to look after.
The myth of the stranger danger.
One of the most common myths about sexual offenders is that they will be strangers who take away your child. Power predators do exist, they scope out playgrounds, and places where kids are in order to abduct those children. Jaycee Dugard knows that quite well, but in church and family settings, the problem is much less with the stranger who’s after our children, but actually, those who we intersect with every day.
Church attenders, childcare workers, nursery workers, family members, neighbors, it’s the people we know, not the people we don’t know, so there is this myth of a stranger danger, that the worst people are actually the people who don’t know our kids.
One expert comments, “It is common knowledge that most children are not sexually victimized by strangers. In fact, one study found that only 10% of child molesters molest children that they don’t know.”
Consider that more than 80% of the time, victims of child abuse know their abusers. Most children know how to respond to an unwelcome stranger, but they’re uncertain what to do when a safe adult, a safe adult makes them feel uncomfortable.
What’s the typical profile of a sexual offender, a sexual predator? Well, single males are the most likely, but we can’t assume that there’s only one type of predator. There are some instances where women actually get trapped in this perverse sin.
You hear this in news accounts. Probably the most common situation is when a teacher abuses a child in her classroom. You think of schoolteachers leading teenage boys astray in inappropriate sexual encounters, but what you come to realize, when you look at actually, all the studies, you read all the literature, predators come in all types. Single and married, and blue and white collar, educated and uneducated, rich, middle class and poor.
In examining case after case after case, what do you find? There are examples from every category of work. College professor, athletic director of a private school, Catholic priest, a doctor, a lawyer, a pastor, and many, many, many, many other professionals.
So you can’t limit sexual offenders to just one generic profile.
The question we have to ask then, is “how do they get away with it?”
What do they do? How do they employ their means to actually carry this out? Well, the keyword is grooming. Grooming is a process of working over adults, and then the children, in order to gain trust and then to be able to abuse.
The most common technique for sexual offenders is to gain access to children by cultivating what they call a double life. Sexual offenders work very hard to be trustworthy, likable and respectable members of the community.
If they’re trusted, if they’re liked, if they’re respected, they earn the trust of the church community, and then, they win over the gatekeepers, those who are in charge of the children, and if they win over the gatekeepers, then, they get access to the kids.
Offenders don’t usually rush in grooming. Instead, they take their time to develop their relationships with church members. Then, in order to win over adults and become accepted part of the community, they put on this persona of being useful, kind, helpful, polite, caring adults and children alike.
Author and expert, Anna Salter, comments, “The double life is a powerful tactic. There is this pattern of socially responsible behavior in public that causes parents and others to drop their guard and to allow access to children, and to turn a deaf ear to disclosures, but a surly and obnoxious person would have little access, no matter how proper or appropriate his public behavior was.”
Salter continues, “The second tactic is the ability to charm, to be likable, to radiate sincerity and truthfulness, is crucial to gaining access to children.”
Now the most violent offenders know enough to keep their behavior in check publicly, or else, their plans would be ruined. The fact that sexual offenders are not off putting, but actually might be people with good qualities, is provides them with the necessary cover.
Most people will think of a sexual offender as a monster, someone who’s all bad, someone who is clearly evil. We wouldn’t think of them as the nice person, the trustworthy person, who’s actually residing in our children’s ministry.
Then what happens? Once a sexual predator’s gained trust of a significant number of people in a church, suspicions become harder. Conformity studies often tell us that if the majority of the folks actually believe in something, that this person is respectable, kind and trustworthy, then it’s actually really hard to go against the majority.
In reality, what’s happening is that the sexual offender is regularly manipulating and pretending to be someone he or she is not. Offenders are professional liars. That’s what they are. They self-worship and they lie.
They do this evil out of a deceitful, wicked heart. They’ve lied to everyone in their lives, church members, friends, victims, and even to themselves, in order to justify their selfish, sinful desires, and to continue the destructive habits of harming children.
According to most experts who deal with sexual offenders, not only is lying hard to detect, but because they’re professionals at this, it’s often hard for us to figure out who is lying, who is not. They actually come off as quite convincing.
So if a predator’s roaming around your church, he’s probably not a stranger to you. He’s actually probably someone you know. And if he’s someone you already know, and you don’t see as a threat, then you’re in a dangerous position.
Then we have the grooming of the child.
Once a predator has earned the trust of the community, and perhaps, particularly, a family, gaining access to children in the process, then he’ll start grooming the child.
What happens then? Gifts, words of affirmation and praise, extraordinary amount of attention, lots of affection, for the unsuspecting child.
One sexual offender described it, his strategy this way, “When a person like myself wants to obtain a child, you don’t just go up and get the child, and sexually molest the child. There’s a process of obtaining the child’s friendship, and in my case, also obtaining the family’s friendship and their trust. When you get their trust, that’s when the child “become vulnerable, and you can begin to molest the child.”
Now in regards to physical contact, grooming of a child occurs across a continuum. They start with more innocent behaviors, like touching the arm, or tickling games, or other things like that, but what they do is they gradually move into more and more risky behavior.
They want to test and see how far they can go, because if they can get further and further, they can continue to pursue their selfish desires. It moves to more risky behavior like kissing on the lips instead of a cheek, or telling sexual jokes, or extended touch.
The sexual predator’s goal is to blur the lines between what’s appropriate and what’s inappropriate, and that opens the doorway to actually taking greater risks. Things progress with the child becoming more and more comfortable with each step, and that’s the goal, not to radically introduce it right away, but to slowly take steps, increasing the level of sexuality that’s introduced into the relationship.
Many sexual offenders are very deliberate, and very careful about their planning. They’re not dumb. They’re strategic in what they’re planning and what they’re thinking.
According to prosecutor and expert, Victor Vieth, “Sexual offenders are often looking for an easy target.”
You know, what’s a prime example of this? A sexual predator purposely pursues vulnerable children. You know who fits in those categories? Children of, single parents, or parents who are divorced.
Think about what happens in a family situation like that. The mom, on her own, is struggling to make ends’ meet. She’s struggling to do work and parent her children. She’s tired and she’s exhausted, and a kind, trustworthy man steps into the picture, as a father figure to the child.
She’s overjoyed to have someone pay attention to her child, she’s overjoyed to have someone who’s actually gonna invest in her child, and so she’s more than happy to hand over the child to that adult, to give more and more time to that adult so she can finally get a break.
Don’t you know that the sexual offender realizes this?
And he’s deliberately plotting to take advantage of those who are more vulnerable in your congregation. What other types of vulnerable children are there that they’re targeting?
Offenders prey on children who are experiencing family problems. They prey on children who are in trouble, who break the rules. They prey on children who are eager to please, or kids who are disabled in some way, that make it less believable, if they spoke out, or kids who are just too young to articulate the experience of abuse.
One sexual offender, John Henry, said in his testimony before the U.S. Senate, “I showed them affection and the attention that they thought they were not getting anywhere else. Almost without exception, every child I’ve molested was lonely and longing for attention. Their desire to be loved, their trust of adults, their normal sexual playfulness, and their inquisitive minds made them perfect victims.”
What’s the lesson for us, when you hear that quote? Go love your kids. Hold them, hug them, get down on the ground with those young ones and play with them. You know, show them that affection and love that they deserve.
Predators are also counting on no disclosure. Children who are molested and disclose this to an adult are rarely taken seriously, because perpetrators seem unlikely to be sexual offenders.
If your child said a schoolteacher or a doctor or a respected coach in the community had molested them, would you believe him? Would you believe her?
I hope I would, I hope you would, I hope I’d take it seriously right away, but you know that you’re gonna have that moment of doubt, because that person who’s so well respected in your community being charged like this with an accusation of molesting, it’s hard to figure that out sometimes, and discern it.
Because you know that folly’s wrapped up in the heart of a child, Proverbs 22:15. And to discern between the folly of my child and the reputation of a highly-respected, well known figure in my community, it’s not always easy to discern.
Attorney General Linda Kelly, who prosecuted Jerry Sandusky, said, “One of the recurring themes of witnesses’ testimonies, which came from the voices of the victims themselves, in this case was, ‘Who would believe a kid?’”
Sadly, too often, children are ignored, which, in turn, increases the confidence of sexual offenders.
You know why they get more bold and more risky? Because they get away with it, and every time they get away with it, they seek more risk, they go even more boldly, into things that they didn’t think they could even do.
They take more risks, they’re more willing to do things, and that’s dreadful for children. A dreadful consequence of children keeping secrets or not being believed by adults is that offenders will have dozens upon dozens of victims.
Fifth, what can we do to prevent abuse?
Well, this is the million dollar question, isn’t it? You know, this is what we want to know. How do we stop this? How to be wise as Christians, so that this doesn’t have to happen within our churches.
I’m gonna lay out a few things for you to help you think about how do we deal with this, as Christians, but I just want you to recognize, like everything I list, if you did every single thing, it would be fully weaponizing your children’s ministry, and yet, not every church is ready to do every single thing.
There’s a huge difference between a church plant with 20 people, and a church with 150 people in the suburbs, or a rural church with 100 people, or a church in the suburbs with 1,000 people, or a megachurch with 2,000 people.
They all have to consider these things differently, and so, as you think about your own congregation, you wanna think about, okay, what are we ready for? What can our leadership handle? What is our congregation ready for? What can we do right now?
The most fundamental thing, the thing that everybody often talks about is a child protection policy.
What’s a policy? It’s basically a self-imposed set of guidelines in which you operate to create a safe environment for your children. It’s not rules from the government.
It’s basically your own staff, your elders, your leaders, your deacons, your parents saying, this is what we wanna do to keep the kids safe, and this is the most important part about it.
You actually decide what that is, and then you gotta actually live according to what you set. Because you get in greater trouble if you set guidelines, and you don’t abide by it, because what will a judge do?
A judge will look you in the face, and say, “you had all these things in your policy, but you didn’t do any of it.”
And thus, with that, you’ve taken on greater liability than if you had done nothing to begin with. So, have a policy, work through that with your staff, have one that fits your church, and then, as you do that, the general rule of thumb is you wanna increase accountability with adults, and decrease isolation with children.
That’s the basic principle of any policy. I don’t really care all of the specifics of it, that’s what you’re working towards.
You want clear check in and check out procedures. If you are bringing in children without their parents or guardian, you need to know when they come and go and where they are and who they are with.
Many churches have haphazard ways of receiving and returning children., You just want a system that distinguishes between when a child is now under the responsibility of the church, and when the child is under the responsibility of parents.
A clear line so that your church has clear responsibility when it should have responsibility and there’s no confusion amongst parents and yourself.
Why do you want do that?One church told of an example of a parent who had lost full rights to her children. She actually went to the church during the church service when she knew that the foster parents were in the service, to check out her children.
Fortunately, that church knew and was able to say no. But not every church has the clear enough guidelines and procedures to actually be able to do that.
Screening and verification.
Most people, if you ask them what they do to prevent abuse, they’re going to say something like this, “Well, we have two adults in every room, we have check in and check out, and we do background checks.”
Background checks are important. That’s the standard, not just for churches who try and do these kinds of things but most secular organizations dealing with children do background checks.
The tragedy is when churches say this is too much. But why would the church do anything less to protect their own children, than what the world is actually doing?
Here’s the tricky thing, because most churches get into a false sense of security and thinking, if we do a background check, we’re good. Most sexual offenders actually are not caught until much later, so they offend dozens and dozens of kids.
Background checks only catch a small percentage of offenders. So don’t get deluded into the fact that if we just do background checks, our kids are perfectly fine. You should do them, they’re the standard for actually screening for workers with children, but don’t be deluded in the fact in thinking you’re foolproof, just simply because you’ve done it.
Train your staff.
Awareness training of your staff, your leadership team, and your children’s ministry volunteers. Do the key leaders in your church understand your p[olicy? Do they even know? Because we can’t lead out of ignorance.
Part of having good information is if we know, then we can actually do something about the problem. We can actually help protect our children, and even more so, good information helps us make wise decisions if something goes wrong.
As dreadful of a topic as this is, we want to be wise in how we understand and how we handle abuse and evil in this fallen world.
If you haven’t ever thought about this idea of training your church, training volunteers, or at least training the leadership of your church, then do that. There’s a lot more I could get into about reporting, church membership, training parents and teens, getting to know resources in your community, but for the sake of time, let me say one last thing.
Number six, as Christians, we live with hope, and we’re not ruled by anger, bitterness, fear or despair.
We don’t ignore victims, but we patiently love them over months and sometimes, years, to help them understand God’s love for them. We listen and hear their stories. It’s the most basic thing we could ever do for a victim.
And we call out evil for what it is. We never minimize it, and we never explain away abuse. One of the most important things when speaking with a victim is when you hear their story, to tell them that that was evil and wrong, and that God hates that kind of abuse.
I ministered for three years in a local juvenile detention center and I heard countless heart-tearing stories of abuse suffered by these young people.
I wanted them to know that that abuse is not at all acceptable. We know that God can heal and redeem even the worst of situations, even the worst of tragedies.
God can redeem anything. There’s not a single situation that’s beyond His grasp. There’s not a single case of abuse that God can’t lift from the ashes, and point those children to the glories of heaven. Nothing is impossible with God.
So my goal, when I talk about this, is not to be a fearmonger. We don’t live by fear, but I want to be honest about child abuse and the evil that occurs within this world.
I don’t want to leave this conversation without remembering the sovereignty of God, and that we live by faith, not fear. And we live by love, not anger. And we live by hope, not despair.
Jesus changes this whole conversation. Because Christ died for us, and He was raised again on the third day, we don’t have to live in despair.
So if you ever have the privilege of sitting down with a victim, remind them that God is there, and remind them that Jesus died for them, and remind them that we have hope.
For more info – Preventing Child Sexual Abuse: Screening for Hidden Child Molesters Seeking Jobs in Organizations That Care for Children.
