And a pleasure to have you here. And for those of you that are meeting me for the first time or heard me yesterday, I'm Attorney David Gibbs with the National Center for Life and Liberty. And we're a legal ministry that partners and represents churches and nonprofit organizations. We go to court, we work on policy, and then we also do seminars like these. This is going to be kind of an We're going to cover some big topics quickly to give you kind of some overview things to think about in terms of keeping your ministries safe. And the goal of today is to help prevent unnecessary legal problems. And I do encourage people to realize a lot of lawyers, risk managers, insurance companies, they can be pretty depressing. everything you want to do. They say, oh no, you don't want to do that. You know, we're going to minister to kids. Why do you want to minister to kids? They don't have any money. They're just trouble. They're risky. You know, they want to shut down the ministry. So we're here not to discourage you, to encourage you. We believe in maximum ministry. How many believe that So that's our heartbeat and what we're all about. And I know, you know, when we come to a seminar like this, you know, sometimes it's kind of hard to get our minds around it. So let me just sort of maybe give you a theme for all the topics. And it's a simple one. Times have changed in America. changed in this country. Now, when you say that, and certainly at a convention like this where we have Bible scholars, theologians, pastors that know what they believe, people get nervous because they say, well, wait a minute, the word of God has not changed. And by the way, how many rejoice the Bible hasn't changed? Okay. So we're not here today to change theology, position, doctrine, but we are here to acknowledge I had a pastor come up to me just to give you sort of an overview thought. He said, David, I just led to Christ this couple in my office. The woman in the relationship, is a surgically altered transgender, now female, was a male. And he said not to be weird about it, but visually you would even say a reasonably attractive female. You would never look at this person and presume that at one point they were a man. He is legally married to a homosexual. They met in the lifestyle, but visually you would look at the two of them and they would look like any other couple in our church. And they prayed, they trusted Christ, they looked up from across the desk and they said to me, Pastor, what do we do now? Now, you say, I got the answer. Well, before you say that, how many understand there's no easy answer? I mean, you say, well, go back and undo the surgery. Well, OK, who's going to pay for that? You're going to take up an offering for it? Well, quit taking the hormones. Well, now you look like a freak. Well, go get divorced. Well, does that feel good? And all of a sudden, how many understand times have changed in America? We're living in a messier, more complicated world. Now, you say, well, David, what did you tell that pastor? I'll tell you what I said. I said, number one, you don't win by telling people what to do. How many understand that? And you teach principles and concepts. And what you might want to say is, you know, what do you feel God is leading you to do? And by the way, how many believe sometimes they'll have ideas you hadn't thought of? situations and things that they were already working through. And then I said, you also then have to decide what you, the church, are willing to do. So sometimes you've got to get in your lane. How they're going to handle their lives, what they're going to do, how they're going to handle their health care, that's on their side. But over on your side, you have to decide a couple of things. Number one, can these people attend your church? And by the way, how many believe sinners ought to be able to attend church? Okay, so that's always a good thing, but then you also have to look at, well, what bathroom does he use or she use? Because it starts to get tricky, and so people say, well, we believe sinners should come to church, but how do we know when they reach that point. And this is kind of a gold standard you can take away from this seminar. You are allowed to remove anybody from your campus if they're deemed disruptive. And how many believe that's a good legal standard? And so that can be a deacon, that can be a transgender, that can be a homosexual, that can be a teenager. If you say we discriminate based on how many understand the news media, But if you say this person became disruptive, how many believe that's always a careful standard? So whenever you look at these types of situations, you want to understand is it legal? Is it going to be effective? But then in today's world, how many understand you have to always watch the optics as well? and the optics end up being how it's going to be perceived or twisted. And it may not be optics in the secular media, they may not care, but how many understand Facebook and other optics, you can end up getting your reputation, your ministry injured with how it's perceived. So if you say, we will always use disruption as our legal standard. So if somebody says, do you discriminate against homosexuals attending your church? Do you discriminate against transgenders attending our church? Nope. We treat them like every other person. But the minute they become disruptive, then we ask them to leave like we would ask anybody else to leave. And I'm going to believe that's a nice, fair, objective stand. And so, you know, a realtor shows up at your church, and he just wants to dole out business cards, and he's treating it like a real estate convention. Would you be allowed to ask him to leave? Absolutely. You'd say, sir, this is not a convention. This is not a business event. You're abusing this, okay? anybody else that comes in, you're being disruptive. Now, if he's just a friendly guy, gives one card to a person, we don't care. But the point is, it's all within your discretion. Can they attend? The legal standards, are they disrupted? Now, let's jump to the next level. Can they join your church? Now, let's do a quick little survey. How many of you here have church members, people that actually do something, which is not uncommon. And by the way, somebody says there's different models. There's more the elder run, the board run, the member run, which model's the right model. Can I just tell you this? All churches can operate wonderfully and all the models can operate disastrously. The model is not a guarantee of any success. It's the execution of the model. But if you're more of a board-run entity or a board-run church, the membership where you're allowing people to join, can I give you just a couple of thoughts, okay? Number one, make it harder, harder to join your church. I didn't say impossible, but I said harder. Now, let me go back to the old legal standard of the 70s. What was the legal standard of the 70s? Warm, breathing, and willing. They came forward, they grunted, they the way we like, they're in. Now, the problem with that is that person's vote now can cancel the vote of the pastor, right? Because you've now put in a voting church member, and you're giving them a lot of authority. So I'm kind of recommending you slow down the process a little bit, okay? Now, it doesn't mean make it impossible, but at a minimum, talk to these people. How many believe there ought to at least be an interview before you hire them? Now, you can do more. I mean, I like classes, and I like training and I like, you know, meet with the board, meet with the staff, you know, you can have a whole little process, a new member. Now, some people start to say to me, yeah, but if we do that, they may not join. Well, how many understand, do you really want them? I mean, if they're not willing to go through that much process, do you want them voting on the future of your church? Do you want them coming in, not really understanding your church? And by the way, how many understand most churches don't split over major doctrines? I understand most churches split over what we might call preferences, and I don't want to get lame, but your church's music is more conservative. This guy likes zippy music. Or your church uses one version, he wants another version. Or your church is full of public school teachers. when they think if you don't homeschool, you're going to hell. And you understand it's those type of issues that you quickly find out are going to be a problem with this guy, okay? Well, how many would like to know that before he's in your church? So making sure, now some people that start this process discover a lot of people want to join your church who aren't even saved. and how many people will think they're saved but they're not really saved. So making sure that the people coming into your church agree with your doctrines, understand you, make it a little harder to get in. But then number two, make it way easier to get out. Now, are you saying, David, are you a fan of church discipline? I'll be quite honest, no. You say, why? And I'm not getting into the theology of it. I'm getting into the litigation of it. It's just always contentious. You know, you got to publicly disseminate. Somebody was naughty. We vote. And, you know, it just, you know, people get their feelings hurt. And back to my times have changed. I'm pulling out of my pocket what we call a phone or a smartphone. And how many understand these phones have gotten smarter than the people? of 50, we have a discipline, now all of a sudden people are recording it, Facebooking, talking about it, and it now becomes a public event. And so, you know, that type of stuff is riskier. I'm a fan of what I call automatic termination. You do something, you're out. So let me give you a couple. They don't show up. How many believe non-attendants, you ought to be able to get rid of them? They join another church. They're gone. They join something else. They don't tithe. By the way, you can make giving a requirement to be a member. Some of you are in organizations, maybe the NRA or those type groups. What happens if you don't send them the money? You're out. You can have the hat, you can have the magazine, but you're gone if you don't give them the cash. So you have the right to put whatever standard you want on membership. Now I know many of you go, oh man, I'm not going to push the giving thing. That's not going to fly. But why do you want the non-givers voting? I'm just giving you options so you understand you can make the bar higher. Here's one that works to a good advantage in a lot of cases. If you sue the church, you lose your membership. If you make comments contrary to the church's statement of faith. So pastor preaches a message on marriage and family. He says, you know, the Bible model and talks about what God laid out. And some young person in the church goes, Oh, our pastor, he's such a dinosaur. I think if any two people love each other, they should be able to get married. And they throw up a little rainbow thing on Facebook. You say, David, that's a pain. Well, let me explain. Free country, they can say what they want to say, but they just resigned membership in the church. They're out. Now, you say, well, they're sorry, they want to come back. Well, let them apply for membership. You can interview them, put them through the process, make a decision whether you want them in. You might want to make a little note. Membership in your church is a privilege, not a right. And I think we have cheapened it kind of dramatically in a lot of churches. And let me get super practical. For some of you, can you even find a membership list? Okay, I mean, if you had to certify, here's the members of our church, would you actually be able to say yes? Now, let me give you, if you're wondering about this, go back to your church and try to find it. Not a mailing list, not an email list, but an actual membership list. And then number two, look at it. As you look at it, maybe strike off all the dead people. We allow dead people to vote in our national elections, but not our church elections. I just want to let you know. We have standards. Dead people are gone. By the way, if you're looking at the list and you go, oh man, these people haven't been here forever, get rid of them too. Clean it up a little bit. Then you may find, oh, here's our core. These people do come. I know these people. you'd be able to then maybe have a little group that you need to figure out where they're at. Are they in or out? But just recognize in today's world, members can sue you, members can be a problem, members can go to the media, members can file government complaints, members have a lot of authority. So keep that list tight. It used to be fun to just add members. guys have come up to me, we have 500 members in our church. And that sounds impressive. Okay. They don't mention only 80 show up on a Sunday. Okay. But it just sounds good to say you have 500 members. Well, the problem as an attorney, when I hear that, what that says is the power of your church doesn't even attend your church or hear you preach. So you're putting yourself at risk. I would much rather hear, you know, we have 60 members, about 80 people show up, and that would mean that you've got some guest visitors and others. So if your membership role and your Sunday morning attendance are way out of sync, And you're not a snowbird type church, which they can have ebbs and flows. But for the most part, your membership should be about what your Sunday morning attendance is or slightly less. So just be watching membership. Make it harder to get in, a lot easier to get out. But then the third thing you can think about with anybody at your church, transgender or otherwise, is can they serve? Okay, what level of leadership can they have? And how many believe you can have higher standards for leadership? But they need to be enforced, they need to be enforced fairly. For example, if you say we're not going to allow this type of lifestyle to be teaching. Suppose you have members in your church and they smoke. We'll just use an example. If you're going to lead in this church, you have to affirm that you're not going to be a smoker or a drinker or any other standard. Again, these are your decisions. You can say you come to church in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, that's all right, but And if they don't agree to it, that's fine. You have the right to make leadership standards higher. You can require morality, discipline, attendance. You say, I'm not going to require all my members to give money, but I would certainly require all my leaders to give money. So for example, if you're going to be a member of the board, how many believe they ought to tithe? Matter of fact, how many believe that would almost disqualify them from service? Okay, but you need to have that policy pretty clearly because a lot of times you'll have people, when they start to go rogue, the first thing they stop is giving. They kind of wind that down so that the money stops coming and then they become a board member who's, they're hoarding their cash and trying to starve the pastor out or manipulate through the funds. Okay, the minute they quit giving, they just lost not just their leadership status, but they could literally lose their membership status. And so, I'm just letting you know you have the ability to manage this. And regardless of the situation, whether it's a transgender, dissident, rogue, troublemaker, you have the right to control it from the church standpoint. Attendance, are they disruptive? Membership, do they meet our standards? Leadership, we can have much higher standards. And so, any questions on anything that I've said so far? Yes, sir, in the back. Those standards have to be ready. Interestingly, no, but it's better if they are. I would recommend certainly that you get your Constitution of Bylaws updated. Matter of fact, we have a sample. Did these get handed out at all? Let me tell you what I'm going to do. Just pass these around one per person. These are information cards for our ministry and if there's anything I mentioned that you want, and I realize that card may have stuff on the back side, but you can write on it, but if you would like to get our sample Constitution and Bylaws language that includes in writing some of these membership things or other things, I would be glad for you to get that. So as I'm talking, just fill out the card. If I say something that interests you right on the back, sample Constitution, they'll send it to your sample document, they'll send it to you. We have those materials and then we'll collect those up at the end and we have some gift resources and pens we'll give you at the very end. But if you would fill those out, we'll collect them up with your information. You get a free subscription to our new anything you want. And again, there may be some printing on the backside. Don't worry about it. Just write over it. We'll just use it as a card. But in that vein, it is good to reduce it to writing. It does minimize unnecessary problems. If you have not updated your bylaws in the last three years, you're probably missing some legal protection. So we would encourage you to look at that. Any other questions on this topic? Because I'm going to cover a couple others. Let me jump into child protection and child safety because I think that's an issue that is popping in our culture and has become a big problem worldwide, but certainly here in the United States. I say Catholic Church. Most people, and we're not Catholic, we're not here to bash any group, but most people don't think of anything good, they think of child abuse cover-up. Why? Because of the scandal, what happened with the shifting around of these priests. They're cleaning it up a little bit, but you say Penn State University, what would you hear? Oh man, the scandal, Sandusky, all that stuff. And even in the evangelical church world, I mean, last year, You know, there was a big scandal. Independent Baptists, lots of cover-up. Now the Southern Baptists having a lot of issues in dealing with it and how the churches have handled it historically. And so it has definitely become a major issue in the news and the minds of a lot of people. And by the way, if you want to grow your church, how many believe you need some younger people? And what are one of the things younger people are looking for? A place that's safe for their children. So this is an area that doesn't only avoid risk, but it also lets you grow and build the church going forward. Now, why should we be concerned about child protection, child safety? Well, obviously we want children safe. And I said this yesterday, but I'll repeat it. I believe if a child is safe anywhere, they ought to be safe at church. How many believe that's important? But then let's talk about a couple other things. How many would like not to get sued? Okay, so there's a risk management side. I mean, the assets of the church, you'd prefer not to squander them. And then the other item is let's protect the workers. I mean, we have volunteers, people. Some of you have your spouses or you're serving in children's ministry. So there's a lot of good reasons. the protection of the children, protection of the church and liability, as well as protection of the workers. Now, let's talk about how these lawsuits operate. If you get sued for child abuse, how does it work? Well, you really get sued for three things. Number one, you get sued for the selection of your workers. There's a liability for who you pick to work with kids. Number two, you get sued for the supervision of your workers. the program. And then number three, you can get sued for the retention of your worker. That means you kept them around when you shouldn't have. Now, that's kind of the Catholic Church issue, right? These priests would abuse a kid and then there would be scandal, question, and instead of calling the authorities or reporting or removing the priest, they would shuffle them, move them around. was able to then abuse again. That's the Joe Paterno Penn State issue. Everybody agrees he's now deceased, but Coach Paterno did not abuse a child. Nobody alleged that. But what was the allegation? Well, he heard. Maybe Sandusky was in some shower with a kid or something, something weird. And he didn't do anything. So Sandusky was retained. He was kept around when maybe he should have gone to jail, as he ultimately did. So the retention liability always kind of deals with you. You heard something and you failed to take appropriate action. Now, let's talk about these three areas quickly. How do we manage the selection liability? Well, you manage it through an effective screening program. is the due diligence by which you make sure that the people who work with children are safe and appropriate to be there. Now, let's talk about, you know, most people say, well, that's background check. So that's interviews. And those are very good things. And, you know, in 1980, the first lawsuit came against the church for child abuse. So back in 1980, when you'd say background check, screening workers, people would be like, why? Why would we do that? We don't need to do that. We're a church. We know everybody, you know, okay, so 1980 it was kind of now about 20 years in year 2000 Most churches are like, ooh, these are big lawsuits. We better start screening. Well now we're another 20 years almost 2019 most churches go Oh, yeah, you got a screen workers and make sure so I'm not telling you something that you probably haven't heard before But here's what I would like to challenge you with Are you actually doing it? People say, I believe in prayer, I just don't have time to pray. I'm going to understand you can believe in screening, but are you actually doing it? Is there actually a process, a system by which you're making sure? Now, if you're in Pennsylvania, you know that you by law have to. You go through the state system. The state actually does the whole process. It's a crime if you don't have the cleared thing from the state of Pennsylvania. to move to more of that, but are you getting the background checks and making sure that the people you let work with children are safe and appropriate to be there? Paid staff or volunteers? Yes, sir. Yes, 17 and under. Yeah, so 18 is adults. So if you're doing college ministry or anybody over 18, and we understand there's 18 year olds going on 12 and there's 12 year olds going on 30. I get that. Okay. But the law does bright line at 18 is a legal adult. So absent, mentally disabled people, then they're not deemed as over the age of protection. But generally, a reasonable person over the age of 18 is then deemed as an adult. So making sure that you are screening the people and exercising judgment. and that you are systematically doing it. What I find churches get started doing it. There's a guy that started it, a secretary that did it. Where are the files? We can't find the files. We thought we did it. We didn't have the money to do it this year. We forgot. There's just a litany of excuses where churches are not institutionally committed to it. I kind of recommend an annual training. Once a year, some people do it August at school year, some people do it January, kind of post-Christmas. But suppose you're all my children's workers, we're all here together. Okay, we've got yours, we've got yours. Oh, we don't have yours. Hey, we haven't updated her. It gives you an opportunity to make sure that you've got everybody covered with the screen. Selection liability, you have the ability to do it through screening. Now, a few good news. You can exercise judgment here. I mean, if you say, you know, this guy 20 years ago was quite a rascal. He was, you know, drugs, alcohol, crime. He's got a rap sheet, but he trusted Jesus. He's been walking straight. He's with the Lord for 20 years. How many believe you might be able to use that person? It may not be a problem. On the other hand, the guy got arrested last week, how many think it's probably good to keep him on sabbatical for a while, alright? So, I mean, there is a judgment factor that you can look at and determine. And you can be discretionary, by the way. If you say, I don't like your spirit, I don't like that you're not coming to services, I don't like your attitude in the services. I mean, remember, serving the children is a privilege. They have no right to it. And you have a duty to protect the children, not just physically and obviously from sex or other abuse. but also spiritually. So you have the right to control and manage that. And by the way, if you have somebody that's not cooperative with the screening, I'm going to understand you either have something they're hiding or you've got an attitude problem. You know, and they just need to understand you can't let them put the ministry at risk. Now, supervision is the second one. This is where you have written rules and policies to guide the children's ministry. Let me give you two rules every church should have, and there's others, and if you would like a list of rules, write that on the back of your card. I'll send you some to look at. But number one, we don't abuse children. How many believe that's a good rule number one? Looks good in front of the jury. Looks good. I like words like zero tolerance. You say, well isn't that kind of a no-duh? Well, not in today's world. How many understand it'll run off bad actors? But if somebody looks at your church and goes, huh, maybe I'll get in here. There's some kids. I could get around these kids. This may work. And all of a sudden, rule number one, man, zero tolerance. We go, oh, man, these people are serious. So it'll scare off people that might have ill intentions towards the children. But how many believe it's an important standard for everybody to understand? Remember, abuse is across the gamut. Obviously, sex abuse captures headlines, but physical abuse, emotional abuse, any mistreatment of children, zero tolerance. We will not allow that. But then number two, the two-worker rule. The two-worker rule. Now, why do I like the two-worker rule? It helps prevent lots of problems and losses. of problems of lawsuits. Now you say, well we can't quite do it David, we've only got this or that. I'm just telling you the two worker rule is a huge help. Now some churches have cameras, they got a guy roaming the hallway, there's ways you can kind of invent a second worker in some scenarios. But I'm just telling you the two workers, it protects the worker from a false accusation, it protects the child from a creditor that wants to do something bad. And let me expand the two worker rule just a little bit for you. I would include electronic communications. How many figured out the grooming, the bad intentions happen on the internet? Okay. And the parents are not policing it that closely. So you as a church, if you were to say, we have a policy that you do not communicate with a child via electronic communications, Facebook, text or otherwise, without any other person. Now, group texts are fine. You know, let me use an example. Meet at the church, pizza night, 7 o'clock, see you all there, love you. Okay? Is that a problem if that goes to 27 kids? Guess what? No. Maybe not your style, maybe not my style, but it's not a problem. If that goes to one kid, how many believe that love you can be distorted? Looks like grooming. Looks like you're wearing them down. You're creating a special relationship. And it also helps you avoid getting into situations you don't want to get into. How many of you believe these kids can text 90 miles to everywhere? Okay, let me just say this. A 28-year-old man texted a 14-year-old girl 400 times last month. Now what do you think when you hear that? Why is he texting her four at a time? Now, they could all be Bible verses. They could all be, I'm praying for you. They could all be, do what your parents say. They could all be very noble texts. I mean, we're not saying at this point he said anything bad, but don't you immediately think, why is a 28 year old man texting this girl? I mean, doesn't, isn't there something here that just doesn't seem right? And so I'm just saying to you, a lot of public schools have adopted this policy. Um, if the guy says, look, I got a text. This is just my style of ministry. Make him copy his wife. Make him copy the senior pastor. Just add a person to it, if that's really their style. But avoid the one-on-one communication. I don't have time because we're kind of speed session here. I could tell you lots of sad stories where youth pastors, youth workers, and others, they're able to groom the kids, get them to do things they wouldn't otherwise do. It was all tied to the electronic communication. So that is an area in the two-worker rule that you want to think about. And then retention, we touched on this already, but let me give it to you again. If you suspect child abuse, I'm going to understand you have a duty to act. Now you say, well what do we do? Report it to the authorities. That will always keep you protected. Now it's reasonable suspicion. Johnny walks in. Johnny's a mouth. Johnny's parents are really good Christian people. Johnny says, hey, my parents spanked me last night. Call the cops and get me new parents. OK. You do not have to be manipulated. You don't suspect abuse. You know the boy. You know the family. And you would be within your right to say, Johnny, if you say that again, I'm going to go get your parents and you may get it again. OK. You'd be OK to say that. All right. All right. Because why? It's the totality of circumstances. OK. You don't have to go in there and let the kids play games with you. You would under oath say, I never suspected he was abused. He's a mouth. I know his family. Now let's reverse it. Little girl. from a single-parent home, you know, it's a little bit of a rough situation, some men have been in and out of the house, she's got some bruises on her neck. Honey, are you okay? Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. What's that on your neck? Oh, nothing, nothing, that's fine. You want me to talk to your mom? No, no, no, don't talk to my mom. One kid was saying, hey, call the cops, I'm getting beat. Okay, well the issue is you know the family, you know the situation. In this situation, reasonable suspicion could occur. And again, you're not saying that girl's being abused. You would call the authorities and say, look. Saw the bruises, asked the girl some questions, asked her if she wanted to see her mom. She seemed nervous. And you will get multiple reactions. Sometimes law enforcement will be all over it. Sometimes it acts like glaciers. Nothing happens and you wonder. But you have fulfilled your duty and avoided all liability. Yes sir? You want to make sure that the law enforcement records your call forward. keeps a record of the fact that you didn't call. Well, that's a great point. I'm going to go, I don't think you want to trust law enforcement to keep a record of the call. They should. They should. But can I put that over onto you? You need to keep the record that you made the call and then some states even have a follow up in writing policy you and we talked about this situation and you send them a letter and then you've got the letter as a backup. Now, there's two ways you can do it. I like the police. Why do I like the police? They tend to be a little more reasonable, a little easier to work with. Actual people answer the phone. Somebody says, well, what about the abuse hotline? Okay. The calls are recorded. Customer service is dead in America. I mean, how many understand when you call your local bank, it's like, Hello, Mr. Gibbs, how are you? I thought that bank was down the road. I feel like I'm taking a mission trip. I'm around the world. What happened? It just feels so impersonal. Do you like America? Yeah, I love it. But have you been here? You know, it's just a, you know, it's a different dynamic. So what I'm saying is, you know, I think law enforcement tends, and a lot of times what happens, you call the hotline, they record it, then you get calls back from law enforcement and other places. Now if you call the hotline, you've fulfilled your duty. I'm just telling you, I like to have a protocol in place. Each church can do it a little differently. You may have, for example, somebody in your church, and you may say, this is a good person. Go talk to them. Who should we call? In big cities, they're going to say, Special Victims Unit, Detective so-and-so, here's their direct line. Okay. Little areas, call me, I'm the sheriff. It varies a little bit. Yes, sir. I understand too that there should be a church policy in place and the fact that you might want to have a filter and the fact that a worker that sees suspected abuse would talk to the authority in the church, rather than immediately go to a public authority. You know, and that's a excellent point, and I want to talk about that. And what you just said is not incorrect, but I want to put a few little factors into it, okay? Because this is getting to be a hot button issue, okay? If you were to call Pennsylvania, They would say that that is inappropriate. And I'm just telling you, Pennsylvania has gone most aggressive. Let me tell you a case I had. told the daycare director, okay, this happened within five minutes, the director said, we need to go get pastor. And so they went and got pastor. So it was pastor, director, and lady. And this all happened within, let's say, 10 minutes. I mean, there's no delay here. This went real quick. And pastor said, we need to call this in. And pastor called it in with the lady sitting in the room. Okay. I was very comfortable with that. My personal opinion, that was not a problem. The state of Pennsylvania charged those two ladies in the daycare with criminal failure to report because they said, you should not have talked to each other until you called us first. And we actually ended up having to litigate and defend those two women. Now, Pennsylvania is aggressive. Okay, I do want to let you know that's not going to happen in most states. And it was a daycare. Okay, it was not just church. It wasn't just Sunday school. It was church-run daycare. But I'm letting you know that the government officials are taking a harsh look at internal communications versus just getting to us more quickly. Now, here's my recommendation. You want to have a policy where there is some internal discussion for this reason, and his point is well taken. The pastor may know some things that people don't know, like the families, the situation. A kid just went through surgery. Okay, well that's not abuse, that's surgery recovery. The bruises now make sense. So you can get some more information to take away. One other factor, what do the people do for a day job? Mandatory reporters never lose their status. Who are mandatory reporters? All teachers, all educators, all childcare, children's home and all health care officials are generally mandatory reporters. Now some states everybody is a mandatory reporter, some states ministers are mandatory reporters, but in all 50 states the education, child care and health care. So if you're a nurse and you see a kid And you go, oh man, I think you still have the mandatory duty to report that, even if pastor does or doesn't report it. So just be careful that you kind of cover everybody. So if the plan is, okay, this person came to me, yes, this is going to get reported. Make sure that everybody's name is on the report, that it's done together, just to protect all the people in the chain. And I'm just telling you, it's an overreaction. I mean, there's been some in the Jewish community, some in the Catholic community, some in the evangelical community, where they feel like there's too much internal discussion. cover-up, there's not enough reporting to the authorities. So just be careful what you don't want to say to your children's workers. Whatever you do, don't call the police, come to me first because now you're going to have some people go off there going, wait a minute, I'm a mandatory reporter, you just asked me to break the law, I'm leaving this church. So I'm just telling you, you've got to be soft in how that's presented to the people so they feel like you're certainly encouraging them to go to the authorities. You want them to obey the law, but in situations where it's occurring within the ministry, we do want notifications to go, you know, up the chain of command or leadership so we can make decisions. Yes, sir. Yes. Well, can I go one step further, and I want to say this to you, and again, I'm not trying to get into the theological, I'm getting into the religious, or excuse me, the legal side. I would encourage any of you that are in counseling to not promise confidentiality. Okay, just up front. Now, you're not going to go discuss people's personal business. You're not going to embarrass them. But like, if somebody walks up to you and says, preacher, I want to tell you something, but you got to promise me you're not going to tell anybody. Now, let me tell you what goes through your mind. It's been a boring week and this is going to be interesting. Always wondered about this guy. All right. Yeah. What's coming out? All right. Could I encourage you to dull that temptation and say, brother, hold on. Before you tell me anything, can I explain a couple of things? Number one, if you've been to a crime, certainly against a child, I'm going to report you to the authorities, but if you're going to go hurt somebody, I'm going to handle this with law enforcement. If you tell me you're cheating on your wife, you know, I may want to tell your wife, I may not. I may want to talk to your girlfriend. I don't know. But the reality is I don't want to be in a situation where you're going to box me into your problem without any ability to work a solution. Now, if you're willing to trust me that I'll use good judgment and do what I think is appropriate, then you're welcome to tell me. But maybe you need a lawyer, maybe you need a doctor, maybe you need a psychologist, maybe you don't need a preacher. But no, I can't promise that blanket-confident challenge you're asking. Now, they'll respond one of two ways. They'll respond with, well, if you're that way, I'm not going to tell you. Fine. Don't. I'll pray for you. Hope everything works out. Okay. Or they'll say, no, it wasn't anything like that. I just didn't want you to preach about it. Well, I don't preach about people's personal affairs in the church. That would be in bad taste. So I will tell you that I don't plan to publicly disseminate it, but I'm not going to give you this blanket confidentiality. So just be careful. I've had situations where people came and said, preacher, I abused a kid, but you promised you wouldn't say anything. And I'm going to go lie to the police. And now the police are coming to see the pastor. And the pastor's like, well, I promised confidentiality, but I know this guy lied, and what do I do? I'm gonna send this to the bad spot for you to be in. So just don't go there. Just stay out of that, okay, where you're not promising that blanket confidentiality. So child protection, child safety. Let me give you one other one on this, and then we'll jump into church safety and security and finish out with a few more questions. Registered sex offenders attending church. Okay, registered sex offenders attending church. Common issue, okay. And the answer is, you obviously can let them come if you so choose, but you obviously want to keep children safe. So what are your options? Well, there's really three. One is what I call the strong law option. Strong law option. We don't allow them to come. Okay, it's just too big a risk. And by the way, on disruption, you know, you got a church of 20 people. You just say, no, okay, you've got that right. Flip to the other side, the big grace model. This is more the mega churches, thousands of people pouring in and out. There's no way for us to even know. They just let them come and go, but they have policies. You can't go in the children's lane. sometimes even lock off their children's wings where there's not access. And churches flip-flop on this. I'll give you an example, not endorsing or criticizing, but Willow Creek used to, years ago, just allow sex offenders to come and go. And they had eight molestations on campus over the years. And they were all by registered offenders. And they said, enough is enough. And they actually now post signs that say, no registered offenders allowed to attend services while children are pregnant. The Heavy Grace model, the Bannum model. Most of you will go with what I call the babysit the molester model, which is the middle. Rules and guidelines. But make sure that if you do have rules and guidelines, they're understood, they're clear, and they're articulated. Some common ones. Arrive late, leave early. Sit in the same spot. Do not use the bathroom ever on campus. So basically, the guy goes, I gotta go to the bathroom. Well, there's a 7-Eleven. Get in your car. So they're not able to move around the campus, never to be talking to children, seen in the children's wing, and any violations immediately reverts to a ban from campus. One other thing to mention on registered sex offenders, a lot of times there are probation, papers, parole, other things. They're not allowed to go to church. And I won't say that, that would sound unconstitutional, but it'll be like they're not allowed on any campuses where there's a school or children or there'll be a list of things. So make sure that they can even come. So just want you to know your options. Yes, sir. Yeah, let me tell you what I like about courses and I'll say a couple of things. I do kind of a little mini child protection DVD. It's like 20 minutes long. You're welcome to show that to people. Insurance companies But what's the benefit of all that? Well, the benefit of all that goes to supervision. If you're able to say we have written policies, well that's good. But then did you train on the policies? So that's kind of did anybody even know what they were? That's why I recommend at least a once a year training. And the idea is it doesn't need to be huge. I mean, it could be, all right, everybody, here's our 20 rules. I want to go over these. I want to ask you, did anybody have any questions last year? What happened with VBS last year? Well, you know, there was that one old guy and he kept putting kids on his lap and everybody thought that was a little creepy. Are you going to let that happen again, Preacher? Well, how many would like to know that before it happened again? Dialogue with your people. Ask them, are you seeing any violations of policy? Encourage disclosure. Make sure that you're doing things on a systematic basis. If you're in leadership or on the board, a little rule I always say, you don't get what you expect, you get what you inspect. This gentleman here, he looks like a really good guy, David. He's in charge of the screening. I go, David, you got it all done? Yeah, I got it done, Preacher, done. Great, okay, good, David. Well, how many are saying there's a high trust right there? But if I were to say, you know, David, I think he's in junior high and I think he's in elementary and I know this lady over in the nursery. Can I just see their screening packets? And all of a sudden David goes, well, you know, Patrick was out of town that weekend. I don't think I got his back yet. And I know we're working through the junior high kids. been that ethereal kind of half-volunteer, half-not-handled realm. So just encouraging you to make sure that it's systematic. And then I also encourage you get your board together once a year and have a meeting where you don't just talk about money. Now, money's important, money's ministry. But here's going to be the notion. They'll have you up on the stand and they'll say, who's a pastor? We have a pastor in the front row here. Pastor, we'll keep using Dave, okay. Like I say, Pastor, you know, does your church board talk about money? Oh yeah, every meeting, missions, outreach, salaries, expenses, budgets, and money important, yeah, it's the Lord's money. And is money more important than children? Well, no, money's not more important than children. Could you show me in your church minutes in the last five years where your board talked about the safety and protection of children? Oh, let me look in the minutes. Start looking through the minutes, slumming through them a little bit. I don't know, I think our board's so old, I don't think they even like children anymore. I mean, I don't know. No, I understand it doesn't look like our priorities are in place, okay? So think about maybe a once a year meeting where you talk about campus. I call it even a first look. Meet in the parking lot. What would you do when you come into our church parking lot? Where would you go? Where would you park? Where would you go in? How would you look at that? Man, that sign looks terrible. Maybe we ought to raise some money to fix that. Think about trying to look at your church differently. Think about the children's ministry and just have one meeting a year where you maybe go through the we actually have an insurance policy, we pay for something, where is it? And start looking through just some of that off of the general routine, where's the money, where's this? A lot of boards get into a rut, and I might just tell you to think about having one oddball meeting that's just different, where you just start looking at it all differently, walking through the building, thinking about some different issues and weighing it out. So those thoughts, again, we're kind of going fast, child protection, child safety, let me jump to church safety and security. Obviously, we live in a world where a shooting can happen any given week. We're in a world where a typical shooter, a mass shooter, will kill five people a minute. Typical response time for law enforcement, about 10 minutes. You do the math, 50 dead people. That's what happened in Texas. Church got shot up and 50 people died. We have roughly 200 church shootings a year. I think that's a hard number to pay. Saturday night, two guys shoot each other in a parking lot at church. Is that really a church shooting or is that just where it happened? Same thing with stores and other places. The numbers can vary a little bit, but we do live in an ever more violent world and thinking about safety and security is important. Can I give you my thoughts? A culture of prevention. is way better than focusing on reaction. Now, I'm for reaction, okay, but typical church safety, security here, we got a gun. We got a guy with a gun. I mean, that one guy, he had a violin case, he hold a, you know, mass weapon in the back, you know, and he goes down to the church, I'm ready, okay. Now, let me just give you a little thought process, okay. You know, obviously response is always a nightmare. Why? Because, you know, shooting an innocent person, church is liable, there's loss of life, you've already got a casualty. So, I'm a big fan of, as a church, focus more on the prevention, the culture of prevention. Now, let's talk about what a culture of prevention looks like. That means everybody in the church, old people, young people, people with guns, be without guns. If you see something, what? Say something. Typical church, you could walk in with an Uzi and people would be like, oh, I wonder what pastor's going to do with that. Interesting. I'm going to go back to Facebook. Oh, no. Making sure that they're all empowered. If you see something, say something. Now, what's tacit in that? Say something to who? Okay, and that needs to be laid out. Now, little churches, that might be you, preacher. You might be sitting on the stage and they need to walk you a note. Or maybe your bigger church, you got safety people, volunteers, education director, I don't care who it is, but you gotta make sure your people know, hey, there needs to be some judgment here. Now, I see where your greeting ministry And your spiritual ministry and your safety ministry can all blend a little bit. Okay, so let me give you an example. I like visitor parking. Why? Because you can see the visitors and where they park and what they're driving. And you can assess them before they get into the building. Okay, guy shows up in a dilapidated old van, he kind of gets out, smells bad, and he asks where the children's wing is and he has no children. I understand risk assessment went high. The government doesn't profile, we can. So make sure that you're assessing what you're dealing with. They show up in a very fancy car, they seem well-dressed, they seem pretty pleasant, risk assessment goes down. Somebody shows up a little angry, he has a gun and he's drunk. That person could be on the verge of coming to know Christ. It might be a crisis moment. or he may be an angry person. You may have a risk to your congregation. Most shooters are not old people, they're young people. Most shooters are not women, they're men. Most shooters are people you know. Angry male with divorce or domestic or lost his job or fighting with his parents, that's your shooter risk. Grandpa and grandma hobble in and act weird, they're okay. I'm just telling you. So profile, you know, look at what you're dealing with. The line between weird and dangerous is a fine one, okay. If we run off all the weird, we will have much smaller churches, okay. So I'm just telling you right now. And we're not trying to be cold-hearted, okay. I mean, the guy's there, he's been drinking all night, he's in crisis, he's not in a good state. I understand that could be the turning point to Jesus. But if we just let him stagger into the auditorium and sit there and he's got a weapon, we've also put ourselves at great risk. So what I'm encouraging you in the culture of prevention, if grandma's 80 and she's handing out bulletins, we don't want her carrying a gun, of course not. And we don't want her frisking people, patting people down. But she's like, man, that kid seems really upset. And I think I smelled alcohol in his brain. OK, she just saw something, right? She needs to say something. That's where safety and security and spiritual discipleship, that culture of prevention is important. Dealing with that person before the service goes in. I'll tell you a sad story. A guy got up one morning, divorce, messy thing, been eight, nine months, he got up. and went over to his ex-wife's house. They don't know whether he broke in or he had a key, but he basically killed her in cold blood, shot her a couple times in the bed, and just left her there. Okay, so Sunday morning, he's now got the gun, he's just killed his ex-wife with, he's been drinking, drug-fueled, you know, these people are kind of out of their right mind, adrenaline, you know, he's now a murderer, and he goes over to the church. Now, what do typical churches do? Well, number one, we're excited he's back! And a few people in the church saw the gun, but hey, Second Amendment. We believe, you know, you got a right to carry it. You know, we know who he is. Nobody thought to ask where the wife was, ex-wife, but maybe they thought, well, she's not here, so maybe he's here. And he sat in the church. Few people noticed alcohol in his breath, but, you know, we're trying to get him into church. And then all of a sudden, invitation starts, just as I am. He gets up and goes walking forward. People are celebrating. This is wonderful. He's going to get right with God. his weapon and he shoots the youth pastor in cold blood in front of the whole church. The pastor was already kneeling and praying with somebody. The pastor's alive today because he turned his head. In hearing the gunshot go off, he moved just enough and the fellow took a shot at the pastor, hoping for point blank range. The pastor will have a bullet in his head the rest of his life, but he survived the shooting. The hero of the story the song leader, the just as I am guy. He picked up the mic stand and the guy's standing right there with a weapon he's just discharged twice. He swings it, hits him in the head, little blood starts to trickle down. He goes out, he drops the gun, sits in the front row of the church and waits for the police to come. Some other men then stood around him. Now, sad story, obviously that youth pastor lost his life, that lady at her home, and that church went through a lot of post-traumatic stress. Why? We saw things, we wondered about things, we didn't talk to them, we didn't do that culture of prevention, and then we had this horrible tragedy in our church. So I encourage you to have your church thinking, how do we prevent? How do we minister? Your regulars are not going to shoot up. Why? They were there last week and they didn't shoot. You can keep that track record and expect that behavior to continue. It's the new people that you want to monitor. I'll take your question, but let me say one more point. Then with a select few, have your response plan in place. Don't scare your whole church. safety team, security team, they should be the ones that should be prepared to handle the different emergencies. Obviously, there's good elements to that. We have books and materials on that, but how you alert law enforcement, how you respond, how you lock down, what you do, and those procedures should be put together into a safety plan, and we can gladly help you with that. I won't go into all that now, but question you had, sir. Yes, sir? That scenario, how would a small church deal with Mr. Garcia coming to church somewhat What would you do? Well, what I would do, hopefully, again, please understand, we're trying to reduce risk. Somebody comes in and somebody says, this guy hasn't been here in a while. Talking to him before service would be ideal. If somebody smells alcohol, you know, say, hey, we might have somebody here who's a little upset or needs some spiritual conversation. I recommend you have a policy, no guns on visitors. So if anybody sees a gun, you would say, sir, we do not allow guests to bring guns. That's a fair point. By the way, you can ban guns. I'm not trying to trample the Second Amendment. You do have the right as a private entity to ban guns, and some churches do in the inner cities and other places, but as a general rule, at least limit the guns to members. So guests are asked not to bring guns. Why? Our people might see you with a gun and mistake you for a risk. We don't want to put you at risk. We don't allow visitors to bring guns. If somebody gets upset, then you just say, serve. I'm sorry to be upsetting, but you're going to have to take that weapon to your car. In today's world, we cannot allow guns to be on campus. In that vein, monitoring him before he gets in, part of my culture of prevention, don't let people hit the auditorium without some evaluation being done. The evaluation is greeting them, friendly to them, spiritual assessment, safety assessment. It's all blended. As long as I walk in, and I'm 50 years old, and I have a middle-aged wife, and I act normal, and I don't appear to be drunk, I don't appear to have a gun, I hope everybody greets me nicely and treats me really well. But I'm 23, I'm a little angry, I smell of alcohol, and somebody notices I have a gun, I should not be in your auditorium without some assessment being done. So that's kind of the concept. And let me give you a big one on church safety and security. After service starts, lock the doors, control ingress and egress, and watch the parking lot. I mean, everybody can do that. Just keep an eye on what's going on out there. Just don't let something come walking in. Because again, the idea is your ability to respond is always tied to knowledge. Can we call law enforcement? Can we lock doors? Can we do things? And again, somebody says, well, we're way more sophisticated than that, Mr. Gibbs. Well, you may have a bigger church and more issues. But even little churches can say, hey, stand in the back, watch. And if you see anything happening, alert. Lock the door and alert us what's going on. So we then can take appropriate action to either lock down or to be safe. Yes, sir? In a large church, we have multiple doors. You want to lock all those doors except for maybe one? Yes. Or lock a wall and have a doorman. That's another option. Now let me say one thing about, you know, typical churches. I taught vacation Bible school 28 years ago and I got a key. And I still have that key and bless God I'm going in that door on this angle. You're going to have to kind of rein your people in a little bit. They're going to have to understand for safety and security. I always want to park at this door and I go through this door and I shimmy up this staircase. The bottom line is the bad guy pushes in or sees the door open or grandpa forgets to close the door and you've created a safety breach. So they need to understand ingress and egress being controlled. Now if you have a school or childcare facility, I mean, you lock everything down, you got one door they come in, and it's either a buzzed door or a monitored door. So, just thinking about limiting ingress and egress, and then noticing who comes in. So, remember the church in Texas. The neighbors saw the guy with the armed weapon, the machine gun that he's shooting up the church. Well, the church didn't see. Why? They weren't looking. Tragic loss. We're not walking on anyone's grave or showing disrespect. But that church in Texas for us all to learn, if there had been one old guy at the back door that said, guy with a gun in a parking lot, okay, then it might have had a shot to lock the door. Somebody could have called 911. the ground and laying under the pews, and at least not been as easy to shoot. Or if there was an exit door out the other side, people could have been escaping and fleeing. I mean, you give people options in response with knowledge and information. But if you're not watching, you don't know. Any other questions? I don't want to keep you long. I know these sessions are fast. Yes, sir? The question comes from the standpoint of organizations, maybe more than churches, but it would be probably appropriate. 15 years ago, we were advised If you cover an issue in your doctoral statement, then probably there's not a, you don't have to fear legally now or being advised any other matter once you have your doctoral statement in. If rules come down, for example, the laws that are going through Congress right now that it won't matter what you believe. They're trying to trample religious liberty. They're trying to trample, what's your response? All right, I think it's important to have what you believe, but let me give you a thought on this, and this is a great one to hit at the end. The beliefs need to be put into a positive, not a negative. By the way, I wrote some negatives. The beliefs need to be framed in a positive, not a negative. I'll explain it. We oppose. Now let's just start down the we oppose. Well, we oppose adultery. Oh, that's bad. And we oppose, you know, homosexuality. Yeah. Lesbianism. Sure. Transgenderism. Yeah. Let's keep, well, let's protect the animals. Bestiality. Let's keep going. Yeah. How many understand? It just gets to be a long, depressing list. Okay. And then, you know, somebody like Miley Cyrus says she's pansexual. What is that? You know, she likes pants. No, it's like pantheism. It's everything. So the world keeps getting more bizarre. And here's the problem. The argument, and I've argued this in court, and it's now becoming an unsuccessful argument. We don't hate the sinner, we hate the sin. Right? You've heard that. You've preached that. We love everybody, but the problem is the people of the world now identify with their sin. They don't say, I'm a man who practices homosexuality. They say, I'm a homosexual. I'm a transgender. They identify with it. So when you say we oppose homosexuality, they say, you oppose me. Okay, and that looks, in today's culture, kind of mean and discriminatory. What I'm recommending is you put a positive. For example, we believe that marriage should be limited between one man, one woman, as their gender was determined at birth, and by the way, one at a time, and that any sexual activity outside of that covenantal union is sin. Okay, regardless of what our courts and culture may say. Now, when you put that in as a positive affirmation of what you believe, how many understand at that point, you're not opposing anybody? And you still have doctrinal ability to hire and fire, operate, membership, other things. But we are watching where the government and others is trying to trounce religious liberty. And so it is going to be the battle. I don't want to press you to end our seminar. And by the way, if you've got your cards filled out, pass them to the aisle. Jonathan will pick them up on the end. We'll collect those up. We have books and things for you as you go. Come up and get those before you go. But let me tell you the two battle fronts, and you can pray about these, okay? Will it be child abuse to tell a gay child not to be gay? Well, the psychologists already say that's wrong, the anti-reparative people, the government saying it's wrong, the teachers are being told not to do it. So you can see the headline now, church charged with sexual child abuse for telling gay kids not to be gay, and that would be an absolute nightmare for any ministry, and you wouldn't have a lot of sympathy in the culture. So what I'm telling you is that's going to be battlefront. Now let me go even a little further. You say, well, we're not going to talk about sexuality. Will it be child abuse to tell a kid there's only one way to heaven? And by the way, how many agree there is only one way? That's the gospel, right? Well, you told this poor kid he was going to die and burn forever unless he became like you people. And how many understand that's where things are going to start to get real? sharing the gospel, now costing your tax exemption, costing you a lawsuit, costing parents custody of their own kids. So we're battling aggressively, and it's important that we keep our spirit right as we go into this. I always tell folks a successful stand has three things. Number one, make sure you're right, and how many believe right will always line up with the word of God. Number two, do it the right way. We're pro-life. Should we go blow up an abortion clinic? Somebody goes, wait a minute, no, that's the wrong way, right? God has that top 10, don't kill, we're standing for life, we're killing people, that's not consistent. So you can have the right stand and do it the wrong way. So the right stand done the right way, but then number three, the challenge for all of us with a right spirit. And by the way, how many believe our spirit is our testimony? And so making sure that when we stand on these issues, we do it in a way to not intentionally antagonize the world. It is changing. The rights in New York, the rights in Pennsylvania, the where it is going to be ever more complicated and challenging. And so we're going to have to work that we don't look like the grumpy, angry people, but we do look like the reasonable people who care and that we want to see our rights protected. How many say, David, I learned at least one thing today? Let me see your hand. How many are glad you learned it here, not at the courthouse? All right. We're not going anywhere. Jonathan and I will be here. Jonathan has the books at the door, the gift book. And Jonathan, what's the title? Is that Carrying a Weapon in Church? So if that's a book you'd like to pick up, please get that. Turn in your card. If you'd like a free pen or business card, these are up here and available to you. And enjoy the rest of the convention. It's been an honor to be here. Thank you.