October Safe Church Webinar: Faith Leaders and a Coordinated Community Response to Domestic Violence

This webinar features a conversation with Rev. Michael Ten Haken (Pease CRC), Judy Pearson (Director of the Pearl Crisis Center), and Glenda Rittenour, (Court Advocate), to discuss how they function as a Coordinated Community Response Team in Pease, Minnesota, in response to domestic violence.

View the recording here!

The slide presentation from the webinar is also attached here.

Read highlights of our webinar from an article titled Addressing the Pain from Domestic Abuse in the CRC News and Views by Chris Meehan.

This was the 5th webinar of the 2021 Series: On Being a Safe Church! In these webinars, we have been hearing from a variety of people that have been inspiring us to wonder together at how best we can create healthy and safe cultures in our congregations and communities.

Webinar Details:

• Who: Guest speakers include Rev. Michael Ten Haken, as well as Judy Pearson and Glenda Rittenour of the Pearl Crisis Center

Rev. Michael Ten Haken has been the Pastor of the Pease Christian Reformed Church, Pease, MN, since 2013. In 2015, he was asked to be a part of a Community Response Team (CCR). In 2020, he wrote the article, The Role of Faith Leaders in Community-Coordinated Response Teams for the Resource Center for Domestic Violence.

Rev. Ten Haken notes, “Through my CCR involvement, I’ve been able to remove some of the anger and cynicism that might exist about the church and faith as a result of its misuse and abuse by others.  I’m working hard to get those I come in contact with through my work on the CCR to once again (or maybe for the first time) view a local faith community as a place to find healing and restoration and renewed hope.”

Rev. Ten Haken also notes a few things he has learned since becoming a part of the CCR: “I’ve learned just how powerful a weapon spiritual abuse can be and (to my horror and dismay) just how often abusers use religion as a tool to control, manipulate, and confine their victims. This makes everyone involved, regardless of how they feel or what they believe about religion, skeptical or even hostile toward faith and faith communities in general.”

We also have the honor to be in conversation with Judy Pearson who leads the CCR Team and is currently the Director of the Pearl Crisis Center since 2000. She provides day-to-day management, planning, and leadership at the center and also establishes and oversees policies and new programming, along with administering standards and procedures related to human resources. 

Also, Glenda Rittenour will be joining us. Glenda has been the Domestic Violence Court Advocate at the Pearl Crisis Center since 2013. Glenda works with survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, and assists in filing Orders For Protection, personal advocacy, criminal justice support and advocacy in court proceedings and makes referrals to other agencies when needed.

Rev. Michael Ten Haken

Judy Pearson

Glenda Rittenour