Wednesday Jan 15, 2025
When Someone You Trust Betrays You: S7E1
Welcome to the Unlovely Truth. I'm your host church safety advocate and coach Lori Morrison. Physical, emotional, and spiritual safety issues exist in every church. I'm here to share real stories from real churches to foster awareness, initiate conversations, and encourage ministry leaders to take action. Our churches need to be the safest places in our communities, so I’m going to give you actionable steps to make your house of worship a true sanctuary in your community. Let’s investigate the unlovely truth about real crime stories happening in real churches. I've got three cases to explore today, so we’re going to dive right in.
Important points from this episode include:
- Background checks are just a first step
- Women can be abusers
- Pastors can respond to abuse in unhelpful ways
Psalm 55:12-14 NLT
It is not an enemy who taunts me—I could bear that. It is not my foes who so arrogantly insult me—I could have hidden from them. Instead, it is you—my equal, my companion and close friend. What good fellowship we once enjoyed as we walked together to the house of God.
If you’ve read the psalms written by David, like this one, you know he had enemies. I can relate. Don’t we all have at least one or two people in our lives who seem to really enjoy it when things don’t go our way - or worse? I can ignore most of that nonsense. But when it comes from someone who should be in my corner, it’s a lot harder to make sense of. We shouldn’t be surprised that it even happens in church.
Whether it’s someone in charge of finances, the well-being of children, or the spiritual growth of the congregation, we can’t afford to let these people get into or stay in these positions. I know that in our first case, the offender tricked the background check process. But I’d like to know if the church also called references or had appropriate policies and procedures around how money was handled. The same can be said for the school in our second case. How well was this teacher vetted before she was hired, and what policies were in place to control her contact with students? As for John Piper, I’m sure I’ve made a lot of people who put too much faith in him upset. That’s never my goal, but if it makes you think more critically about what he or any pastor says, then that’s a good thing. These are all situations we need to talk more about.
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 more about today’s cases:
Did a church financial administrator help herself?
Christian School teacher engages in "inappropriate communications" with student
When a man says God told him to marry you
Article about female sex offenders