Tuesday Apr 16, 2024
Church Safety in the Spotlight After High-Profile Misconduct: S6E2
I’m so glad you’ve joined me at the intersection of faith and true crime here at The Unlovely Truth. Security issues are hiding in every church - do you know where to look for them? I’m your host, church safety advocate Lori Morrison. Our churches need to be the safest places in our communities, so our mission here is to find actionable steps that will make our churches sanctuaries of physical, emotional, and spiritual safety. To give you tools to help make that happen in your church, we’re going to investigate real crime stories from real churches. I’ve got three cases for us to investigate today, so let’s dive right in.
Highlights from this episode include:
- A church treasurer and a pastor managed to embezzle tens of thousands of dollars from their respective churches due to lack of proper checks and balances in financial management. Learn how your church can avoid a similar tragedy.
- You’ll discover a little thought about cyber-security threat and how you can protect your church from more than the loss of sensitive data. Hint: it’s your public Wifi.
- Are controvertial comments from the pulpit a risk to half of your congregation’s emotional safety - and could they even border on spiritual abuse?
James 3:9-12 speak directly to this type of communicating. I’m going to read from the International Children’s Bible to make it as simple as possible so you can share it with anyone who thinks this behavior is ok.
We use our tongues to praise our Lord and Father, but then we curse people. And God made them like himself. Praises and curses come from the same mouth! My brothers, this should not happen. Do good and bad water flow from the same spring? My brothers, can a fig tree make olives? Can a grapevine make figs? No! And a well full of salty water cannot give good water.
Just a few verses prior to this, in James 3:1, James says “Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.”
I’d say that we can extend that logic to pastors as well. Any pastor that would say such degrading things about half of the world’s population has no place in leadership. Do you think that’s too harsh? Would you think that if rather than being of a sermon, these words had been spoken directly to your daughter or some other woman you care deeply about? If that would be seen as abusive, then saying it from the stage should be looked at as being much, much worse
Visit my website to access more episodes. If you would like to contact me about booking me as a speaker, or ask about my consulting services, please email me at lori@theunlovelytruth.com.
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Read about the pastor who embezzled from his church
Article about church treasurer turned embezzler
This is why you need to be careful with your church Wifi