ministry leadership
Is Your Children’s Ministry at Risk? By: Michael Jordan
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afety. This is one word that is paramount to everyone. Safety at home, safety at school, safety on the road. However, how often do you think about safety while at church? If you don’t, you should. Today, we hear news reports of missing children, public shootings, fires claiming the lives of families or severe weather damaging an entire town. We make the necessary preparation to protect our homes, we go to meetings to ensure our schools have safety programs in place, but do we invest the time to make sure our churches are safe and secure, especially when it comes to our children? Churches are subject to these occurrences just like any other place. Church leaders and members should ask this question: Is our church at risk and do we have the procedures in place to handle an incident if it occurs? According to the authors of the ministry guide “Is Your Children’s Ministry at Risk?,” the church is meant to be a place of love and security - a place of safety in the time of need. Many of unfortunate incidents could have been prevented. Christian Computing® Magazine
“We can say that we’re adults and we can handle a situation when it presents itself, but what about the children who we care for? With a few precautions, changes in operations and training of staff and volunteers, most incidents can be averted. It’s time for the church to perform a risk assessment and put in place policies that will create a safe haven for worship and ministry,” said the authors of “Is Your Children’s Ministry at Risk?”. A recent Barna Group study1 of pastors highlighted some areas of concern, outlined in this excerpt of its report: “The study shows that many churches struggle with screening children and youth workers, partly because they do not have the appropriate practices January 2015
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