Greats story, but it does little to help the youth (?) perpetrators. Reluctantly, I'll share a story with your readers. My wife and I were fostering children many years ago. One of our wards came to us at the age of two with an apparent issue of having been sexually abused or traumatized by a boyfriend to his mom. This boy would throw mega tantrums in awkward places, and at one time succeeded in pulling out a clump of hair out of my wife's head. As the boy grew older, 5 or 6, he began to display deviant sexual behaviour. I have to add, that I had given a piece of property to my daughter and her husband and they bore our first grandchild and lived next door. Justin (that was the boy's name, and he has since passed away because of an inherent heart disease at the age of 22) started to expose his genitals to our grand daughter, and, understandably my daughter was upset, and threatened to move away if we did not give up fostering Justin. We were forced into a very difficult decision. My wife and I reasoned that my granddaughter had every thing going for her, and Justin would have nothing. We decided we would continue fostering Justin, and my daughter moved away.
( I should pause here to explain that Justin had been placed in a adoptive home between the ages of 4 - 5, which broke down because of sexual misconduct at that very tender age and had been assessed by two different psychiatrists to be confined to an institution, and we were asked to take him back before the granddaughter incident, which we did)
Justin had incidents with church kids too, and the church folks were aware of Justin's bent. As Justin grew older, we took him many time to a psychiatric doctor and implored the psychiatrist to "fix" him ... to no avail. He began to break into our neighbors places and removed girls underwear etc. So, when he was 15, we, with of course Family and Children Services decided he needed to attend a sexual abuser remedial home, from which he was released at age 16, or 17. His time there was also useless in changing his behaviour. Sporadically we would be in touch with him, and learned he got in touch with his birth father and half sister in the U S where he was asked to babysit his young niece and nephew. Again that was the wrong thing for him to be doing, but, how could they know what he was like? Sadly, the last time I talked with him, he was crying, (he must have been 20, or 21. He said he didn't know where he belonged (he was born to a white woman by a First Nations father) I said to him to get involved with a church, and develop a relationship with a support group. So, what's the point of this story? Well, some children are born with a certain desire for what we call devious behaviour, and there's not much anyone can do about it. The same type of issues present in pedophilia and homosexuality in my humble opinion. What can be done? These kids/adults are stuck with their behaviour, and if they are church members, great, but their behaviour is not confined to churches, they will act the same outside the church.
so, your article presents a problem, but no answer, because there isn't a good answer.
Good article .......I guess. When I was in my twenties, I was motivated to donate 10% of my income to the church and other charities. I will tell you that I have never looked back on that choice, in fact I have been blessed beyond my expectations. I am now in my seventies, and am still doing the same. The problem I'm seeing though, is when you are a member of the CRC, you are also expected to send your children it a Christian school which breaks into the 10%, especially by young start up families. This places a heavy burden on your families and throw giving to church out of whack, plus, in the earlier days, the mothers needed to go to work to help pay for the financial burden placed upon them, thus in essence, handing over the burden of raising children to someone else, which in my view is totally counter productive in terms of raising your children. When the church starts asking donation of more than 10%, I think they are out of line. Find ways to cut costs instead of hounding young families to pay up.
Great commentary by the synodical delegates. I still have a problem with failure to recognize the issue of the shift workers. Why do we tenaciously decide we must address handicapped people, yet ignore the shift workers? What about inclusiveness? I make two observations when I attend the second service (which I admit I don’t always do). 1) attendees are fewer, but they are there because they want to be there. 2) nearly without fail, I and my wife feel really blessed having attended the second service and an opportunity to worship our God a second time.
So, if 10 out of 100 attend the second service, we cancel it? When we initiate a church plant, would the church planter not rejoice when 10 people attend? Please help me understand the reasoning. What was gained by cancelling the second service?
Thanks to all who responded with their insightful comments. They did not however address those who cannot attend a morning service. To push the issue a little further, just think of how we are conditioned by our church to be inclusive, you know, accommodation of handicapped people, scent free areas etc., (all good stuff) yet the shift workers are ignored, they’re on their own. How does that make any sense to those responsible for the administration of our church?
Hey, lots of response to a benign subject such as changing a name.
Here is my thought. I have had the privilege of attending a few Classis meetings. What strikes me is that in every one, mission reps, youth ministry reps, safe church reps , chaplains etc. all report on how it is going,or what they have done, or the status of their area of expertise. To me that means accountability. Why not use a name such as “Regional Accountability Sessions”, or “Regional Accounting Meeting” (RAS, or RAM). Wouldn’t it help to explain what we do, and why we meet? Not only that, but it also shows that we as churches do hold each other accountable, we do not operate totally autonomous.
As I read the article, I get the sense that the author may be suggesting something like “there are many roads that lead to God”. I really think the author needs to clarify that Bible based ethnic practices are acceptable in our narrow view. If we abandon that “yardstick “, the Bible ,we’re going off course.
Posted in: Why Accountability Is So Important in Our Churches
Greats story, but it does little to help the youth (?) perpetrators. Reluctantly, I'll share a story with your readers. My wife and I were fostering children many years ago. One of our wards came to us at the age of two with an apparent issue of having been sexually abused or traumatized by a boyfriend to his mom. This boy would throw mega tantrums in awkward places, and at one time succeeded in pulling out a clump of hair out of my wife's head. As the boy grew older, 5 or 6, he began to display deviant sexual behaviour. I have to add, that I had given a piece of property to my daughter and her husband and they bore our first grandchild and lived next door. Justin (that was the boy's name, and he has since passed away because of an inherent heart disease at the age of 22) started to expose his genitals to our grand daughter, and, understandably my daughter was upset, and threatened to move away if we did not give up fostering Justin. We were forced into a very difficult decision. My wife and I reasoned that my granddaughter had every thing going for her, and Justin would have nothing. We decided we would continue fostering Justin, and my daughter moved away.
( I should pause here to explain that Justin had been placed in a adoptive home between the ages of 4 - 5, which broke down because of sexual misconduct at that very tender age and had been assessed by two different psychiatrists to be confined to an institution, and we were asked to take him back before the granddaughter incident, which we did)
Justin had incidents with church kids too, and the church folks were aware of Justin's bent. As Justin grew older, we took him many time to a psychiatric doctor and implored the psychiatrist to "fix" him ... to no avail. He began to break into our neighbors places and removed girls underwear etc. So, when he was 15, we, with of course Family and Children Services decided he needed to attend a sexual abuser remedial home, from which he was released at age 16, or 17. His time there was also useless in changing his behaviour. Sporadically we would be in touch with him, and learned he got in touch with his birth father and half sister in the U S where he was asked to babysit his young niece and nephew. Again that was the wrong thing for him to be doing, but, how could they know what he was like? Sadly, the last time I talked with him, he was crying, (he must have been 20, or 21. He said he didn't know where he belonged (he was born to a white woman by a First Nations father) I said to him to get involved with a church, and develop a relationship with a support group.
So, what's the point of this story? Well, some children are born with a certain desire for what we call devious behaviour, and there's not much anyone can do about it. The same type of issues present in pedophilia and homosexuality in my humble opinion. What can be done? These kids/adults are stuck with their behaviour, and if they are church members, great, but their behaviour is not confined to churches, they will act the same outside the church.
so, your article presents a problem, but no answer, because there isn't a good answer.
Posted in: Before You Say Anything Else About Giving, Say This
Good article .......I guess. When I was in my twenties, I was motivated to donate 10% of my income to the church and other charities. I will tell you that I have never looked back on that choice, in fact I have been blessed beyond my expectations. I am now in my seventies, and am still doing the same. The problem I'm seeing though, is when you are a member of the CRC, you are also expected to send your children it a Christian school which breaks into the 10%, especially by young start up families. This places a heavy burden on your families and throw giving to church out of whack, plus, in the earlier days, the mothers needed to go to work to help pay for the financial burden placed upon them, thus in essence, handing over the burden of raising children to someone else, which in my view is totally counter productive in terms of raising your children.
When the church starts asking donation of more than 10%, I think they are out of line. Find ways to cut costs instead of hounding young families to pay up.
Posted in: Way More Than Twice
Great commentary by the synodical delegates. I still have a problem with failure to recognize the issue of the shift workers. Why do we tenaciously decide we must address handicapped people, yet ignore the shift workers? What about inclusiveness? I make two observations when I attend the second service (which I admit I don’t always do). 1) attendees are fewer, but they are there because they want to be there. 2) nearly without fail, I and my wife feel really blessed having attended the second service and an opportunity to worship our God a second time.
Too late to make changes?, I think not.
Posted in: Way More Than Twice
So, if 10 out of 100 attend the second service, we cancel it? When we initiate a church plant, would the church planter not rejoice when 10 people attend? Please help me understand the reasoning. What was gained by cancelling the second service?
Posted in: CRCNA Decision to De-emphasize Second Sunday Worship Service
Thanks to all who responded with their insightful comments. They did not however address those who cannot attend a morning service. To push the issue a little further, just think of how we are conditioned by our church to be inclusive, you know, accommodation of handicapped people, scent free areas etc., (all good stuff) yet the shift workers are ignored, they’re on their own. How does that make any sense to those responsible for the administration of our church?
Posted in: Time to Rename Classis?
Hey, lots of response to a benign subject such as changing a name.
Here is my thought. I have had the privilege of attending a few Classis meetings. What strikes me is that in every one, mission reps, youth ministry reps, safe church reps , chaplains etc. all report on how it is going,or what they have done, or the status of their area of expertise. To me that means accountability. Why not use a name such as “Regional Accountability Sessions”, or “Regional Accounting Meeting” (RAS, or RAM). Wouldn’t it help to explain what we do, and why we meet? Not only that, but it also shows that we as churches do hold each other accountable, we do not operate totally autonomous.
Posted in: Honor, Glory, Ethnicity, and the Church
As I read the article, I get the sense that the author may be suggesting something like “there are many roads that lead to God”. I really think the author needs to clarify that Bible based ethnic practices are acceptable in our narrow view. If we abandon that “yardstick “, the Bible ,we’re going off course.
”
Posted in: Should My Church Sing Hillsong?
Let him or her who has never abused anyone intentionally or by unbridled emotions cast the first stone.