Q&A: An Interview with a Mennonite Pastor 

In the spring, Daniel*, who was a new attendee to the church, had an interaction with a couple of our elementary school-age girls that raised yellow flags. He approached them and asked to shake hands. One of the girls refused, saying that he was a stranger. He replied that he wasn’t a stranger, but a member of their church. Then he reached out and tickled her. The girls immediately left the area ...

Trust but Verify

“We’re family here.”

While we may not say that aloud, it is often what we think when we’re presented with the notion of screening church volunteers. Or perhaps we don’t think about screening at all—we just have spots to fill in our church, and we do everything we can to find volunteers to fill them ...

South Dakota Churches Host Workshop

A workshop, Keeping Children Safe in Faith Communities, was held at Salem Mennonite Church, Freeman, South Dakota, on September 12, 2015, with Dr. Jeanette Harder from Dove’s Nest of Omaha, Nebraska, as facilitator ...

Honoring the Power of Worship

For the last several years, I have been talking with adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse about how the worship and teachings of their faith communities impacted their experiences of abuse, its traumatic consequences, and their ability to eventually seek recovery ...