Safe Church

As we celebrate and care for our wonderfully created bodies, we must acknowledge a tendency to place evil there, in our flesh, in our bodies. 

As many people who experience suffering from mental illnesses know, this affliction often causes extreme psychological and emotional anguish. I’ve personally found my most meaningful Scripture text in Lamentations. 

In a powerful blog, Hilary Jerome Scarsella reflects on what she has experienced and witnessed in the years following her sexual assault on the campus of her seminary.

April is designated Sexual Assault Awareness Month in the U.S. and in many Canadian provinces. In addition, April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month in the U.S. What can we learn and do in April to end sexual abuse in our churches and communities?

Prevent Connect is a national online project dedicated to the primary prevention of sexual assault and domestic violence by using various forms of online media to connect people and ideas.

The play, #ChurchToo, effectively and artfully touched on themes such as power imbalances, denial, silence, grooming, guilt on the part of the victim, and male heroes in the Bible who used their power and position to victimize women. 

Across the Body of Christ, fellow sisters and brothers are speaking up against abuse, sharing stories, and seeking to follow Jesus' way in creating and sustaining safe places for all!

Classis Chatham used Safe Church Mini-Grant Funds to help create a video to promote a counseling fund for those who would like to receive counseling after an experience of abuse. Several other classes have a similar fund. What could your classis do with a Safe Church Mini-Grant?

As the #MeToo movement hits the church, many churches are requesting information about how to respond. We hope this toolkit will help people, especially church councils, understand what their options are.

Safe Church Ministry offers Responding to Abuse: A Toolkit for Churches as we recognize the great need to respond well to sexual abuse. Understanding how abuse happens, often through a process of grooming, is a part of this toolkit.

Safe Church Ministry began as the Office of Abuse Prevention; prevention must be a primary focus of our work. Therefore, we have step one — be prepared. Our response efforts will always be weak and lacking without this foundation.