I had the tremendous opportunity this month to interview Christian Law Association Attorney Charlotte Cover. I'm sure that any prudent children's ministry worker is aware of the legal risks involved in working your ministry nowadays. Churches are being sued at the drop of a hat; and unfortunately, there is even a bona fide risk to be considered in the enrollment of new volunteers in your work. Attorney Cover has been tremendously accommodating in helping us identify and avoid risks and loopholes in our ministries for the protection of ourselves and the Lord's work.

July 16, 2007

Issue #3

1. Common Dangers in Children's Ministries

2. Screening Volunteers

3. When a Worker Is Accused

4. Accountability In Children's Ministries

5. Discipline in Children's Church

6. Demonstrating Love Appropriately

7. Other Advice for Children's Ministries

Common Dangers in Children's Ministries

Attorney Cover, what are the most common dangers that churches overlook in regards to children's ministry?

Churches care deeply for the children who attend their ministries. The biggest danger churches overlook is that not everyone who volunteers to serve in the children's ministries do so out of a pure motive to serve children and to lead them to Christ. Churches must be careful to screen the background of all those who will be serving in the children's ministries. Churches must also be careful to keep careful attendance records. Children's ministries are busy places, but it is a huge protection to the ministry to keep a careful record of attendance as well as of any unusual incidents involving any child during a service or program.

Screening Volunteers

How should the average church (one with limited resources and workers) screen volunteers for the children's ministries?

CLA strongly recommends that a criminal background check be conducted on all volunteers in the children's ministries. They may use one of several screening companies that may now be easily accessed on the Internet. Church leaders should also follow up on the volunteer's references, calling previous places of service to find out why the person moved from that church.

When a Worker Is Accused

What procedure is necessary when workers are accused or suspected of wrongdoing?

By wrongdoing, I presume you mean worker is accused of abusing a child in the ministry. When that happens, the worker should immediately be removed from his position with children while the investigation into the allegation proceeds. If church leaders reasonably suspect that abuse has occurred, they need to comply with the state's child abuse reporting requirements. The church should contact its insurance carrier as soon as anyone hints that he might be filing suit against the church. If the media gets notice of the claims, the church should appoint one person, generally the pastor, to be the church spokesman for media requests. The church's legal counsel should be contacted for any further necessary advice. Then the church needs to minister to all parties. Allegations of abuse always brings great pain to everyone involved. The church needs to be available to counsel the hurting.

Accountability in Children's Ministries

Would you advise some regular type of accountability and reporting from the children's ministry staff to the pastor or pastoral staff?

Certainly the pastor or someone to whom he delegates the responsibility should be notified of any suspected abuse, whether the abuse occurs in the child's home or at church. Someone on the church staff also needs to be tasked with making sure attendance records and incident reports are maintained. The church staff should become familiar with its state's child abuse reporting requirements and be careful to follow those requirements in reporting suspected child abuse. Mandated child abuse reporters need to remember that they are not required to report proven abuse--they are required to report what they reasonably suspect to be abuse.

Discipline in Children's Church

Please discuss appropriate handling of discipline with children in a children's church setting.

By far the best piece of advice with regard to discipline of children in a children's church setting is that the children's workers should not use corporal discipline on a child unless the child is the worker's. Even if a parent gives his or her permission to spank his child, he is still never precluded from claiming that a spanking was unreasonable. If the parent is in church, ask that the parent come and discipline his child. If a child cannot be controlled in junior church, he should not be allowed to return to the junior church setting. He can be sent to sit with his parent or another adult in the adult church setting until he can be taken home. If he remains uncontrollable, his parents should be asked to pick him up and take him home and to not send him back until he learns to follow church workers' instruction.

Demonstrating Love Appropriately

I understand that most 'touching' of children that was once ordinary is now deemed inappropriate -- sitting on laps, helping in restroom, hugging, etc. Please comment and define the guidelines concerning this.

Tragically, this is a correct statement. It has become dangerous for children's workers to touch children. This is particularly true for men. I am not saying the men are abusing children with their hugs and holding children on their laps. In the current culture, however, they have become targets for false allegations of abuse. It is much safer if children's workers do not touch children below the shoulders. I know of one man who was convicted of abuse for holding a young girl on his lap in full public during junior church. Church workers can show their love of the children in the ministry by other ways than touching. Many of the children who attend our ministries are starved for attention and praise. Neither of those require a person to touch the child.

Other Advice for Children's Ministries

It is vital for churches to keep a copy of their liability insurance policies forever. It is not unusual for lawsuits in which the plaintiffs claim abuse at a ministry to be filed years after the child has become an adult. The church may have coverage for the claims from the insurance policy it held when the child was in the ministry. Since the company is not required to keep old policies, if the church cannot find the policy, it cannot require the insurance company to provide the legal defense or pay any damage award. Keep your old insurance policies on file forever. The same is true for your old attendance records. I know of lawsuits that went away when a church was able to prove that a child was not in attendance on the day he claimed he was abused.

Does C.L.A. have a resource that we can recommend to our readers containing further information, such as forms and documents, for the children's ministry.

Yes. We have a resource entitled Child Abuse: Preventing the New Ministry Epidemic that we prepared to assist churches and ministries in their efforts to protect children from abuse and staff from false allegations of abuse. It contains several forms and some sample child abuse prevention policies that churches may use to assist them in drafting their own policies.

We greatly appreciate Christian Law Association and Attorney Charlotte Cover for this invaluable information.

I hope you gleaned some good ideas from this publication! You can find more helpful FREE info at www.childrens-church-ministry.com , as well as photographs and summaries of the weekly and quarterly activities in our personal ministry.

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