Predators
Predators come from all walks of life and want to prey on your church …
Utilize the Experience of Your Insurance Agent
Charlie Cutler is the Managing Partner of ChurchWest Insurance Services and works with over 3,000 churches. He offers these thoughts from the perspective of an insurance agent. As ChurchWest says, “A good agent will [...]
US Screening Trends 2019
Not all background checks are created equal, while Protect My Ministry educates and emphasizes proper ordering, 40% or 4 out of every 10 churches are knowingly ordering a lesser search than they should. This [...]
Background Check Blueprint
When making personnel decisions including hiring, retention, promotion, and reassignment, employers and organizations sometimes want to consider the backgrounds of volunteers and employees. For example, some organizations might try to find out about the person’s [...]
An Insurance Company on Child Protection
Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Company has a free, 60-page ebook, Child Protection in a Ministry Environment: Guidelines for Ministry Workers. With sample policies and forms, the major areas of the book are: Identifying Abuse: Disrupting [...]
An HR Professional’s Perspective on Reference Checks
Tiffany Henning is an expert in human resource issues. Henning earned certifications of Professional Human Resource (PHR) and Chartered Retirement Professional Counselor (CRPC). She created a non-profit human resource network called HR Ministry Solutions [...]
WheatFields’ Report Card on Church Safety
In Fletch’s book, Predators—The Case of the Church Embezzler, uses a fictional case study of WheatFields Good News Church. Executive Pastor Dan Black created a report card to evaluate how the church is doing [...]
From Pastors in Sutherland Springs, Texas
On May 19, 2019, David and Tami Fletcher met for over three hours with Frank Pomeroy, Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Paul Buford, Senior Pastor of River Oaks Church of [...]
Developing a Church Safety Team
Insurance agents and companies often have a trove of helpful information for churches. The insurance company desires to avert tragedy from your people, prevent incidents at your church and keep all parties out of [...]
Communicating a Crisis
Depending on the nature of the crisis, there are various levels of communication necessary. Determine the facts of the precipitating event. Be accurate and report just the facts. Note if someone has been arrested [...]
A Federal Agent on Safety & Concealed Weapons
Often a Risk Management Team will begin as WheatFields’ did—see The Case of the Church Embezzler.” The church knows something must be done, but does not know the needed scope. Experts help teams learn [...]
Tools for Averting Predators—Preventing and Discovering Fraud
Preventing FraudWhile this short summary is not meant to be all-inclusive, it will help you assess your current situation and determine if additional precautions or considerations may be necessary to protect your church.Basic Fraud Prevention [...]
Reflections from an Attorney on Sexual Offenders
Eventually most churches encounter a known registered sex offender who is either already in the congregation or desires to attend. Trying to determine whether or how to live with a wolf is dangerous and fraught [...]
Report Card for Active Shooter Readiness
Use this Report Card to help you evaluate your readiness for an event at your church. Score 0 for not prepared to a 10 for fully prepared. 1. Is there a standardized campus-wide warning [...]
Email Scams Targeting Churches
There are two email scams occurring with increasing frequency. These scams hurt churches in two ways, by stealing finances and by breaking congregational trust. What are these scams? What can or should you do about [...]
An Executive Minister on Church Event Safety
Our youth and children’s ministers recently said, “This is one of the most spiritually transformational events that we do.” We were discussing a camp for elementary age kids where our youth serve as counselors. [...]
Reflections From a Chief of Police
1. Make It Easy for the Cops Today’s public safety personnel are busy. Given the workload placed on public safety, anything you can do to make their job easier is greatly appreciated. Collect the 5 [...]
The Complexity of Today’s Church—New Risks We Face
Learn from a Compiled Case Study Dan Black, Executive Pastor of WheatFields Good News Church, thought on what had been said at the Risk Management Team meeting. “Maybe I need a better handle on [...]
How Your Ministry Can Help Prevent Child Abuse Through a Safety System
In past months, scores of allegations of child sexual abuse have come to light, many for the first time. On the heels of these revelations, churches and ministries have begun to better understand that [...]
Sexual Abuse Risk and Record Retention
Every child-serving organization is responsible for the protection of children in its care. To discharge that responsibility, the organization should take reasonable steps to create an effective safety system that prevents child sexual abuse. [...]
Simple Steps to Online Safety
Malware. Ransomware. Identity and data theft. Phishing. Corporate account takeovers. Denial of service attacks. As recent headlines illustrate, cyber attacks are a real and growing risk for all organizations. It’s no longer a question of [...]
Concealed Weapons in Church
As the need for a more formalized approach to security becomes the norm for many churches, some congregations are developing plans and policies to better protect their congregants and staff from active shooters. A [...]
MinistrySafe Institute Teaches about Sexual Abuse
Receive training to help your church avoid sexual abuse. In 1997, a watershed lawsuit—the Rudy Kos Case—resulted in a $119 million verdict against the Catholic church for child sexual abuse. Twenty years later, much of [...]
Survival Skills for Managing Moral Failures Among Your Leaders
Ministry is more than numbers. Yet church leaders are, by nature, scorekeepers. We use dashboards to evaluate how well we’re doing at church. We use numbers to get to know one another at conferences. What [...]
Expanding Abuse Reporting Requirements
Am I a mandatory reporter? If an adult describes having been abused as a child, am I required to report? When? How do reporting requirements impact individuals providing spiritual guidance? Around the country, state legislatures [...]