ministry leaders
INFORMATION FOR LEADING OTHERS
ministry leaders
INFORMATION FOR LEADING OTHERS
As a leader in your church, please use the resources on this website to create a safe environment that protects children, prevents abuse, and provides spiritual support for survivors. Take the Standing Up for Children: A Christian Response to Child Abuse and Neglect training to recognize abuse and keep children safe.
We are willing to assist you in finding resources to help you develop policies and a ministry to survivors of abuse. If you have any questions, please contact us.
Although every state requires certain professionals and institutions to report suspected child abuse, the legal requirements vary, especially for pastors. Christian leaders should be aware of what the law requires of them. Since states also change their requirements, information regarding the law in their state needs to be up-to-date.
Pastors, teachers, and congregational leaders should check with district or national leaders to learn about their legal and moral requirements. Even aside from the legal requirement, Christians should consider the need to protect a child who is being abused. For more on that subject, see the article on this page, Pastoral Theology Brief: Matthew 18.
Find a state by state description of laws regarding mandatory reporting.
I am providing pastoral counseling to someone who has significant trauma from childhood sexual abuse. Where should I turn for help?
Counseling survivors of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is challenging. You will need to refer to a professional counselor who specializes in this type of therapy. This is long term counseling that takes years of treatment.
However, there is much you can do as a pastor. You can recommend some books to the survivor: “On the Threshold of Hope” by Diane Langberg and “Healing the Wounded Heart” by Dan D. Allender. If you have the time to meet with this person once or twice a month as her pastor, that would be helpful as CSA has the potential to confuse a person spiritually.
In many ways you are the student, and the survivor is the teacher. It is helpful to listen a lot and not do a lot of talking. Find out where she is at spiritually and how the abuse has affected her relationship with God. Find out which passages of Scripture she finds comforting and which she does not. That will reveal how you might help her spiritually.
Though you are not an expert in CSA trauma therapy, you have a role in the healing process: your expertise is spiritual care. The best approach is the team approach. Your counselee may be willing to sign a consent form that allows the therapist to share significant information that will help you provide spiritual support and encouragement.
Check the book reviews on this website.
See the Bible verses on this website.
While abuse by a juvenile can impact a child emotionally, physically and spiritually, the process of dealing with a juvenile abuser and the outcome of that different process can be quite different. Ministry leaders and the families they serve should familiarize themselves with the issues and access quality resources and expertise to determine what kind of intervention is required. We recommend reading “Recognizing and Responding to Developmentally Appropriate and Inappropriate Sexual Behaviors of Children,” by Victor I. Vieth. Currents in Theology and Mission 45:3, pages 50-55 (July 2018)