Trained to ensure churches are safe

Tag: canada

By SHERRI BORDEN COLLEY

Baptist clergy given benefit of risk-management course

Thirty-five years ago when Rev. Harry Gardner first started in the pastoral ministry he could load a group of children into his car and take them on a day trip without parents having concerns about their safety.

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Those were the days when just about anyone could volunteer to be a Sunday school teacher or youth leader without first going through a police check and child abuse registry.

But times are changing for pastors and congregations. And that means it is no longer taboo to discuss potential abuse that can happen within the church.

"You limit your risk by the use of some of these safety measures and we just would not have thought about some of these things in the past," Gardner, president of Acadia Divinity College in Wolfville, said in a recent interview.

"So I think there’s just a higher expectation and we want to be . . . not just keeping up, but we want to lead."

Gardner, also dean of theology and a professor of church leadership, recently helped organize a three-part workshop for 24 pastors to discuss managing risks to protect their congregations and themselves. The workshop, which took place between April 27 and June 8 at New Minas Baptist Church, focused on key issues facing pastors: lawsuits, harassment and abuse prevention, confidentiality, consent and legal and human rights in church-related matters.

"I think over the last few years, at least, these kinds of workshops have given permission to talk more openly about the whole area of sexuality," Gardner said. "I think the whole pornography piece is a big issue in terms of we know that this is a problem, so how do we help people."

"In a sense, it’s accessibility, but it’s also if an individual knows that that’s a problem for him or her, then how do they limit their risk in that area."

For pastors, even ministering the homes of parishioners alone can present risks.

"Some people will say it’s my personality to be a hugger," Gardner said. "Well, what’s appropriate touch and what’s inappropriate touch and how do you respect the space of other people? It’s not about you. It’s about the people you’re serving."

Lorraine Street, a risk management consultant, led the workshop. Street, who already has a law degree, is completing her master of arts in theology at the Acadia Divinity College. She describes risk management as the deliberate organized effort to make things safer.

"And the ‘r’ at the end of that word is really important because you can never make things absolutely safe," Street said in an interview. "Risk management is often cast in very negative terms . . . but this is as much about trying to enhance the likelihood that things will go well as it is about trying to reduce the likelihood that things will go badly."

Besides screening and having safeguards built into a job description, supervision is key, said Rev. Ron Baxter, regional minister for the Eastern Valley United Baptist Association.

"One of the things we too often neglect is evaluating how this person is performing in relation to what the expectations were, and ultimately, we do need some feedback. . . . And if there need to be changes — let’s make the changes and make it a safer place," he said.

Several years ago the Convention of Atlantic Baptist Churches adopted a professional standards document for its clergy that outlined what it expects in terms of professional conduct. The whole area of sexuality is in there among other categories.

Catholic parishes in Nova Scotia have been hit by a number of sexual abuse allegations involving priests. Many of those accusations have led to lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Halifax and dioceses of Yarmouth and Antigonish.

( sborden@herald.ca)

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Religion/1188006.html