Hi Chair,
Originally posted by Chairboy
Perhaps this dangerous creature "man" you speak of should not be trusted to lead the congregation, then, either. In fact, the elders, all men, should step down (they are in positions of great influence, if they cannot be trusted with children, then how can they be trusted with souls?) so that responsible women can take their places.
I don't sense this conversation is going to go anywhere, especially because for whatever reason you are having a highly emotive reaction to the whole subject. I also really don't see much point in making this a major topic of discussion on the board. So unless you have specific questions you want answers to, I'm going to make this my final post on the topic.
We obviously have very different worldviews that are coloring our discussion, I do not view people as basically good and inherently trustworthy. I view people as naturally fallen and inclined towards sin from birth. The Savior I serve came into a world he described as "lost", "dark", "sinful" and he did so to free men from bondage to sin and spiritual death. During his ministry on earth he met a lot of people who assumed that they were "well" and had no problems with sin. He attempted, sometimes in vain to show them that this was not the case, and that the only people He could save were those who, unlike the Pharisees, knew that they were sinners:
Jesus answered and said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. "I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance."I too really can't do much to help someone until, like me, their eyes are opened to the true condition of their hearts and like the Publican in Christ's parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector they are enabled to say "'God, be merciful to me a sinner!'" (Luke 18:13)
Anyway, let me close with a few personal notes. Although I've never actually cheated on my wife, I don't inherently assume that I am so strong and good that the possibility of falling prey to temptation doesn't exist. Therefore I build as many safeguards into my ministry as possible. I have an absolute policy never to meet alone with women for counseling or pastoral visitation for instance. This is in keeping with the counsel of the Bible which reminds us that while God raises up men and equips them for the ministry he counsels us to watch and pray lest we fall into temptation and reminds us that
"Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall." Personally it has been my experience that the vast majority of "falls" in the ministry came from simply believing "that can't happen to me."
I have seen the long term spiritual impact caused by molestation, including the awful sorrow caused in the family of a friend who is an elder in another church whose daughter was molested in the church nursery last year. He confided that he even initially struggled with a desire to simply kill the man responsible, and it was only through a lot of prayer and crying out to the Lord that he was delivered from being consumed by hate towards that fellow. That is something that I never want to see happen in my own church.
I have also counseled plenty of women who were molested as well as men, and in most cases there are lingering problems to this day. There were almost inevitably cases of molestation in the background of people struggling with sexual sins of their own. I should also note that being a congregation made up of saved sinners, we have convicted felons in the congregation, and the catalog of felonies has included child molestation. Despite that in 4 years of running a very busy nursery, we have by God's grace had no reported or suspected incidents of negligence or abuse.
So in any event, you may see our policies as an overreaction, I on the other hand have been taught by experience that even one incident is too many.
- SEAGOON
