Making our churches safer
Making our Churches Safer – Creating healthy complaint and abuse policies and practices
‘Church’, which we would all like to think of as being a place we could be safe, sadly is not always that place. Christians do sometimes treat each other badly, as we all know. Scriptural wounding, disrespect, verbal and emotional manipulation, control, and sexual abuse, happen all too often. And, it happens through leaders and church members alike.
That’s why churches need to have healthy and impartial avenues and protocols in place for dealing with situations where spirituality is abused, and people are mistreated. And, we need to ensure that those procedures are adhered to; that way complaints are less likely to be swept under the rug, disregarded or mishandled.
The goal in creating a good Practice, Complaints, and Accountability Policy is…
That churches, leaders and congregation members can function in our church communities with a knowledge that they will all be well cared for and kept safe, and that to the best of our ability as a leadership team, we will seek to ensure that that happens.
·To ensure that both congregation members, Church pastors, and staff are held accountable for how they treat those around them in that church community.
To provide a place where wounded people are not further mistreated, but receive adequate and compassionate care and support in their healing process.
So that abusers (whether leader or congregation member) are held properly accountable for their actions, while receiving adequate help and compassionate treatment.
The sad reality is that while many churches have good policies for handling complaints, some still don’t, and unfortunately there are too many who try to handle complaints in-house only, or even sweep abuses under the rug. Usually this is done to save face, to protect either their church’s reputation, or a perpetrator’s reputation. Some churches lack wise judgment, or are too trusting, and don’t see the need for these policies and practices. In fact, that’s the most common reason churches don’t have proper policies and procedures in place – as Christians we tend to be very trusting people, not wanting to believe that another Christian could be an abusive person, unintentionally or intentionally.
Bring it out of the closet
While spiritual abuse is a sad reality in our churches, it doesn’t have to be happening as frequently it is. It can be largely avoided when we encourage and teach people how to be personally and spiritually mature, responsible for their actions, and teachable and accountable in a healthy way. Part of doing that is bringing the abuse issue out of the closet, looking at it openly as churches, and providing an environment for dialogue about the issue, so we can put safe practices in place. Not talking about it creates an environment where offences can more easily happen.
Talk about this as leaders and elders, and also with the church as a whole, so that you can formulate a ‘good practices’ document that covers areas such as hiring, governance, culture, leadership, policies and procedures.
Formulate a policy document and use it
For a church and their leadership team, creating this sort of document or policy can feel awkward, but we must get over our feelings of awkwardness around this so we can provide safe places for people in our communities. Making policies for handling complaints and abuse can also make you feel like you aren’t really trusting people. But we must remember that people are not always trustworthy – even if they are Christians. So we hope for the best from people, but make preparations in case they are needed, and if they’re not, then that’s great!
In a healthy church situation, the role of church Boards, Elders, Trustees and Oversight teams is to help look after the church and its members, and to ensure that it functions according to Biblical guidelines and values, not to simply be ‘yes’ people who jump to do the bidding of the pastor.
Below are some tips that can help those on church Boards, Vestries, Elderships, Trustees, and Oversight teams in forming policy. And at the end of this article you’ll find a list of websites where you can find some great information and resources that will help you in that process.
Here’s a checklist with some things to consider and examine. (1)
What is the purpose of your church Board, and who does the church Board actually represent at present – the church, or the leadership? Who should they represent, and why?
How are the Board selected? Who selects them? Who can fire them? How are they replaced when necessary, and who holds the power to do this?
Do those on the Board actually have the skills to do the job? Are there diverse voices on the team? Do they fairly represent the people they serve?
How are decisions made? Are these made transparently, with best practice, or is the decision making power consolidated in the hands of one or two people?
Who holds the pastor, priest, staff, and ministry team to account? If you can't hold the senior leader accountable, if you can’t step them down from ministry for a period of time, or, if necessary, fire them, then you have a potential problem.
What policies do you have to address allegations lawfully, timely, and expertly? What outside expertise will you use?
What procedures do you have to protect congregation members, interns, staff and volunteers, or to protect children, youth, older persons and the vulnerable?
Are you meeting your legal compliance obligations? (If you don’t know what that term means, or you don’t know what your legal obligations as a church are, I suggest that you find out.)
In regard to finances and the possibility of financial abuses, what financial oversight and power does the Board have? Are the financial records available to the members of the church? Who reviews the finances on a regular basis? What power does the person who handles the finances have, and who are they accountable to?
Once the church creates a policy, then church members need to know what it contains and have easy access to copies of it. They need to know what the procedure for complaints is, how those complaints will be processed, and that they will be handled in a fair and just manner. They also need to know who, outside the members of your church, that church leadership are accountable to, should they need to use that information in the case of senior pastoral abuses of power.
May I suggest that you make that document easily available to everyone, either as a downloadable document on your website, or have copies of it available from your church office, or as a brochure available in your church foyer.
Talk about this document as part of your ‘introduction to our church’ process, and give new attendees copies, or at least let them know where they can get a copy.
Have regular audits
Regular audits, or reviews of church governance, culture, leadership, policies and procedures, are wise and are good practice. If you already have policies in place, now may be a good time to review them to see if any changes need to be made to them.
All church staff, pastors and elders, as well as anyone holding leadership positions within the church, need to undergo regular accountability and performance reviews.
These regular checks or audits of both staff and policies, are best handled by a board of trustworthy and impartial people, who are well informed about laws, safe practices etc. A mix of people from your church and from outside it will ensure better impartiality.
This accountability Board need to be given the power to speak into the church leadership team and report to the congregation their findings where necessary. I know that some pastors may initially balk at the idea, but as pastors and church leaders, we do not have the right to be unaccountable! As leaders, Scripture tells us that we are accountable to God, to Scriptural guidelines, and to those we lead, for our attitudes and behaviour. Acts 20:28; 1 Tim 3:1-7; Tit 1:7; Acts 20:28; Prov 16:12; Rom 14:12; James 3:1; are some of the verses that show us this.
Provide safety for the victim in the process
Providing safety for the victim and treating them with dignity and respect, as well as having proper channels for processing their complaint, is so important. The safety of the victim, and helping them get any help they need, is a top priority. I’ve written about this a little in some of my other articles, so I won’t go into detail here on that.
Our instinctive reaction can be to automatically defend an abuser’s character and reputation, or the church’s reputation, to the victim, but this instinct should be curbed until proper investigation has happened. Why? Because as we all know, an accused person’s public behaviour doesn’t always line up with their private behaviour, and that person may not actually be as great as you think they are.
Provide safety for the accused in the process
Churches not only need to consider policies for helping victims, but also for supporting and helping accused people and perpetrators. By law in our country a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Providing safety for the accused is not about defending their behaviour, it’s about making a safe place for them while the accusations are investigated. The accused person has rights to being treated with dignity and respect as much as the victim does. This website is worth checking out. It has several good links in it with information and resources on how to deal with perpetrators of abuse, and help them work through their issues.
Create safe havens
Church, let’s be people who create safe churches, safe places for individuals and families, and also safe havens for already abused people to be healed, find peace, and walk forward in safety. This is important, not just for those Christians who are currently in our churches, but also for people in the community who need help and support also. Our churches need to be a safe place for people to come and find healing and safe community. At present too many people don’t trust churches because of the abuses they see happening in them. And sadly, that causes them to think that God is untrustworthy, too.
Unless we are willing to look at the abuses that happen within our churches honestly and openly, and to provide good teaching and accountability for our congregations and leaders, we will continue to potentially create an environment where abuse can happen.
As leaders and congregations, we all carry a responsibility to ensure that our churches, and the people in them, are treating people well. Having good policies and procedures in place, and then following through on implementing them in a consistent and Christlike manner, is one way we can work toward creating safe spaces for people to explore faith and grow in trusting God.
Links for further help in forming good policies and practices…
The amount of links and info contained on this page alone, make this website worth the visit.
This PDF published by the Church of England, is full of helpful information.
This PDF published by the Catholic Church here in New Zealand, has some helpful information in it.
This website has some great policy info on creating Safeguards for working with children
A USA website that has some good resources and links.
(1.) Checklist used in article – much of this was sourced from a Facebook post from a ‘Just Leadership’ Facebook post (which was then added to and reformatted). Their website can be found here