Safe

I have been to the Middle East (and Israel specifically) five times. Honestly, I can't wait for my sixth trip though I don't have another trip planned yet. I love going there, and when I share my passion for Holy Land travel, the most often asked question I get is this: "Is it safe there?" I always respond by saying, "I wouldn't take my children there—and they have both been there with me—if it wasn't safe."

We think of safety when making travel plans, so why does it surprise us that guests in our churches would also be thinking about safety? We live in a hyper-vigilant world, one where dangers (real and imagined) lurk around every corner. For many people, church is an unknown, a big building with secrets hiding around every corner (especially if there is poor signage). Is it a place I would take my children? Is it a place we would feel safe?

I remember the first time our Conference (our denomination's regional governing body) asked us (just short of requiring us, at that time) to put in place a "Child Protection Policy" that included, among other requirements, background checks for anyone working with children. We were discussing the proposal at a Board meeting when one of the members of the church stood up and said, "We don't need this. We know everyone here." In a rare moment of courage for me (I was fairly new as a pastor and certainly new as the pastor at that church), I looked back at him and said, "No, I'm sorry, you don't. You might think you do, but you don't." As I recall, there was a moment of silence after this, the gentleman sat back down, and we passed the policy. Everyone around that table may, indeed, have known everyone else, but guests don't know everyone. And guests don't trust that you know everyone, either.

In another appointment, we had a young man who showed up to worship and by his second week, he showed an eagerness to work with children. He began to follow the children out for children's church and sit in the room for that lesson rather than stay in the main worship service. That raised some serious red flags for myself and my senior pastor. When we asked him not to do that, to go through proper channels if he wanted to work with the children, he never attended the church again. Was he a predator? I don't know. But our job was to protect the children.

Never did I think church councils would need to discuss "active shooter" policies or have a terrorism rider in their insurance policy—and yet, that is the world we live in. What we, as churches, need to be able to say and show to our guests is that this place where you have come to worship the God of the universe is, indeed, safe. It is not enough for guests if we say we "trust God." That is insider language, and while true, guests are not there spiritually yet. They need to know that there are policies and precautions and practices in place to protect them and, especially, their children. Is the church safe? Would you take your children there? (Don't answer that questions for YOU, but for someone who is currently outside the church.)

This is the world we live and do ministry in. In some ways, for a lot of people, it's more frightening than a trip to the Middle East, because it's right here, in our neighborhoods, in our communities. It's close. It must be safe.