Author: Jimmy Hinton

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Can churches recover after abuse?

a woman in black long sleeve shirt sitting alone on wooden pew

Can churches recover after abuse? A better question is how do churches recover after abuse? It’s no secret that, under my leadership, our church experienced abuse of the worst kind at the hands of my own father. In 2011 I reported my own father after a disclosure of abuse. Our worst nightmare came true. We quickly found out that there were at least dozens of victims, all of them very young children at the time of their abuse.

Our small rural church was completely devastated. My family was devastated. Our entire community was instantly wrecked. I am living proof that churches can recover after abuse. But the church will never be the same. How can it? Abuse changes everything. It steals innocence, takes away the feeling of being safe, and destroys trust. Churches absolutely can recover after abuse but it takes hard work and dedication to do the right thing. Here are five things churches can do to recover after abuse:

  1. Report abuse – I’m always astounded at the resistance churches give to report abuse of children. It shouldn’t surprise me because currently 33 states exempt clergy from reporting abuse of minors if the information is considered privileged. When laws are not in favor of protecting children decent people should be. Sadly most are not. Isn’t it strange that churches will always report vandalism to authorities? Yet they rarely report abuse of children. When we treat material possessions better than our children it says something of the moral compass. There is a trove of evidence that shows churches are among the most dangerous places for children to be abused. I’ve consulted with dozens of churches and for the few that had a handful of leaders willing to do the right thing, they were almost always threatened by other leaders who worked triple time to cover up abuse. It should be a given that we church leaders report allegations of abuse, no questions asked. Finding loopholes to evade reporting requirements is both unethical and dangerous to our children. Always report allegations of child abuse.
  2. Keep abusers away from the church – When I reported my dad he said he’d see me at church the next Sunday. I informed him that he would not. And if he tried we would physically remove him for trespassing. Churches can and should do this. The majority of churches I worked with over the years argue with me that churches, by law, cannot ban anyone from going to church. This is not only untrue, but it flies in the face of common sense. The Bible is full of commands to protect sheep from unwanted wolves. It’s literally as simple as telling them they are not welcome to come. Churches dramatically increase their liability by welcoming known child predators into the fold. Not to mention that real children are likely to be severely harmed. Banning abusers sends a clear message to survivors that their protection is in our best interest and we won’t welcome people who intentionally harm innocent people.
  3. Provide support for victims – One of the first things we did as a church was to provide funding for any of my father’s victims to receive counseling. Victims should not have to worry about how they will pay for counseling. Too many churches provide support for abusers instead of victims. We reversed that. My dad’s victims received support. He received a prison sentence. Victims did not ask to be abused. It was forced upon them when they were very young. The least we can do is to offer support, to the best of our ability, to victims of these senseless crimes.
  4. Communicate – Leaders and church members alike should talk very openly about what happened. The elephant is already in the room, so pretending that it isn’t does not help the cause of Christ in any imaginable way. Preachers should preach against abuse and about nurturing those who were oppressed. In our case, I named my dad by name. He was the one who viciously abused children and everyone knew it. Victims’ names, however, should not be named. Again, they did not ask to be abused and naming their names without consent revictimizes them all over again. Come up with a plan for how to protect those who’ve been abused and for keeping everyone else safe. There will be resistance. Even in our church were abuse did take place, I was criticized by some for talking about it. A few left the church because I talked openly about it. I’d rather see them go than be silent and pretend that nothing happened.
  5. Make a written protection policy – This should not be optional. Unfortunately we, like so many other churches, did not have a written policy. Abuse was not on our radar and we didn’t know the importance of having one. Sadly, that did not work out well for us. After reporting the abuse we immediately drafted a policy. Each year we renew it. Verbal agreements do not work. Policies must be spelled out and rules must apply to everyone equally. There are good resources for crafting a policy. It is a must for churches to be safe.

This year marks thirteen years since I reported my dad. Churches can recover after abuse but I’m still not sure what “recovering” fully means. The cloud of sadness will always be there. There are still days where I’d rather stay in bed than do ministry. The losses that we’ve endured seem to outweigh the gains. But doing the right thing is always the best choice. The alternative is literally shattering countless lives.

It takes a village to keep every child safe. Feel free to check out the videos tab to see some of the free videos. If you want to support this blog, you can offer tips via the coffee logo. Or if you want to delve even deeper, check out the trainings tab. Let’s work together to keep our children safe!

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Abusers do their homework and so should you

unrecognizable black man in mask of anonymous in city

Abusers do their homework and so should you. I have yet to meet a “dumb” abuser. Abusers rarely get caught and, even if they are suspected of abuse, they become emboldened to abuse more. As Peter describes them, they are “like irrational animals, creatures of instinct” and “they count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, while they feast with you” (2 Peter 2:12, 13 ESV).

I have neither met or heard of a child abuser who does the one thing that an abuser should do after getting caught–actually stay away from children. In fact, I receive requests for consultations from people whose churches welcome abusers with open arms. It’s no surprise that churches have an overpopulation of abusers in the church. Baptist Accountability lists hundreds of child offenders, most of whom are either still preaching or are active members of a church.

They always magically wind up at church

It’s no accident that abusers wind up at churches, even especially after they are caught. My dad’s own description of church volunteers who visit his prison is telling: “They’re so stupid and gullible.” Abusers know how to fool people. They’ve done it their entire lives. Child predators are both intuitive and knowledgeable. Abusers do their homework and so should you. They know who the gullible people are, who to target, and they will strike again. This interview with Dr. Michael Bourke is very good. Dr. Bourke talks about why recidivism is so low for child sexual abusers and how common it is for them to actually reoffend.

Trust your gut

Just this week I was contacted by someone I know but haven’t spoken to in years. The request was simple enough but it didn’t sit right with me. My gut told me to ignore the message. I’m glad I did. A few days later I got an anonymous call about this person. He was jailed two days after contacting me. When I did a quick online search I found a long history of felony charges of abuse of minors.

When I made a couple of phone calls it appeared he attempted to use me to flee the country. I had no idea there was a history of abuse, let alone any arrests. But my intuition told me to hesitate. When something doesn’t look or sound right we need to do our homework.

Don’t be lazy

Too many churches take the lazy route. They implement an open door policy and never look into people. Even when they know someone is a convicted sexual abuser they go out of their way to not research the person’s history. It’s not that difficult to look someone up. As part of a course, I teach people how to search for offenders for free. Believe me when I say abusers know everything there is to know about the people at their church. They chose your church for a reason.

Do your homework. Know who you are talking to and who interacts with your kids. Abusers do their homework and so should you.

It takes a village to keep every child safe. Feel free to check out the videos tab to see some of the free videos. If you want to support this blog, you can offer tips via the coffee logo. Or if you want to delve even deeper, check out the trainings tab. Let’s work together to keep our children safe!

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Do abusers feel remorse when confronted?

close up of a man crying

Do abusers really feel remorse when confronted? A few years ago I listened as a group of church leaders described what one of their church members did to multiple young children. It was graphic. Really graphic. They were rightfully angry and reported the abuse immediately to the police. The abuser was aware that his crimes were reported. The leaders were adamant that they meet with him to tell him he was no longer welcome at the church.

They asked what they should expect when they met with him. By now I can write the script for how abusers respond in my sleep. “It was a long time ago. The child wanted it and I tried to resist. That’s not at all what happened; this is all a big misunderstanding.” I’ve heard every excuse in the book and pretty much know how an abusers respond. And it’s not with remorse.

I prepped the leaders and warned them again that abusers are extremely charismatic. Abusers talk a good talk and are great with words. They have to be. That’s why they rarely get caught. I met again with the leaders to follow up. It was astounding how quickly their anger from a few days ago had now turned to compassion–for the abuser.

They fell into every trap that I warned them was coming. The problem is that they gave the abuser a chance to defend himself. Abusers expect to be confronted. Believe it or not, they welcome it. They rehearse their responses and think of every angle. My dad once told me, “If you think you’ll be able to tell when we are lying you’re only fooling yourself. We can look you in the eye and tell you anything and get you to believe it. Lying is what we do.”

I don’t know what ever happened at that particular church. I do know that the leaders were considering letting the abuser continue to worship at the same church he produced victims at, against my recommendation. They were sympathetic and did not consider the victims. It’s a story that I could tell 1,000 times. I can’t understand why leaders constantly buckle and cater to abusers. Even when there are undeniable facts, abusers are still treated well in most churches.

Conculsion

In my 13 years of working with dozens of churches and hundreds of survivors, I have yet to see or hear of an abuser who is remorseful. I’m not saying that it doesn’t happen, but it is exceptionally rare. This alone ought to give churches reservations in being so quick to embrace abusers.

It takes a village to keep every child safe. Feel free to check out the videos tab to see some of the free videos. If you want to delve even deeper, check out the trainings tab. Let’s work together to keep our children safe!

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Can we support both victims and abusers?

key with trinket in shabby door

Can we in the church support both victims and abusers? A more appropriate question is, should we support both victims and abusers? The vast majority of churches I worked with over the years supported abusers at the expense of victims. The most asked question I received was, “How do we minister to our brother (the abuser)?” It always irritated me that the abuser was the primary concern and not the victims. Abusers are often assigned accountability partners, prayer partners, support teams, etc. Victims almost never are assigned much beyond blame and shame. But should the abuser even receive support?

Description of abusers

Before we talk about whether to support abusers, we need to define what an abuser is. An abuser, regardless of their position in the church or elsewhere, is someone who is intentional about seeking victims out. Peter calls them bold and willful (2 Peter 2:10). They “count it pleasure to revel in the daytime” and are “reveling in their deceptions, while they feast with you” (vs. 13). They “loved gain from wrongdoing” (vs. 15), “indulge in the lust of passion and despise authority” (vs. 10). Peter describes them this way: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire” (vs. 22).

Paul (a reformed persecutor of Christians and witness to murders), has similar descriptions of abusers. They “creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions” (3 Timothy 3:5), and are “always learning but never able to arrive at knowledge of the truth” (vs. 7). They are “lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,” (vs. 2-4) and so on. Abusers in the church, according to Paul, get worse and not better: “while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived” (vs. 13).

By the way, both Peter and Paul specifically talk about impostors within the church. Both describe people who masquerade as good, godly people. But secretly they mistreat people. They are arrogant. Abusers lie, cheat, and mislead. And they love it. That is why they don’t stop. Their intention to deceive and inflict harm sets an abuser apart from someone who makes bad decisions or from someone who struggles with addiction. It sets them apart from people who make insanely stupid decisions but then can later learn from them. Abusers don’t care. They don’t stop. They revel in their deceptions.

What to do with abusers

I think the Bible is clear. If someone is preying on innocent victims they will do it again. If they are manipulating, lying, and pretending but secretly are cruel, twisted, and defiant, they won’t stop. Paul says of these “Christians,” Avoid such people” (2 Tim 3:5). Peter implies that they should be avoided. He’s more clear on their destruction: “And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep” (2 Peter 2:3). They are “irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed” (vs. 12).

Paul tells the Corinthian church to handle an abuser like this: “cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump” (1 Cor. 5:7). He continues: “I am writing you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler (verbal abuser), drunkard, or swindler (rapacious or ravenous)–not even to eat with such a one” (vs. 11). His conclusion for the Corinthian church is to “purge the evil person from among you” (vs. 13). Again, these are abusers, not merely people who mess up. We know this because Paul addresses drunk Christians at the Lord’s supper in chapter 11 and never suggests kicking them out. He clearly is speaking about removing abusive people in chapter 5.

Reasons to avoid abusers

Many Christians are shamed for avoiding people or kicking them out. They believe that doing so is contrary to what Christ commands. But Jesus himself often warned his people about wolves in sheep’s clothing. The entire chapter 10 of John is Jesus condemning leaders for allowing ravenous wolves into the flock of sheep. He said that a good shepherd will lay down his life to protect the sheep but the hired hand cares nothing for the sheep and will leave when the wolf arrives.

We avoid abusive people for a few reasons. First and most important, we are protecting innocent people from known abusers–people who have a known history of manipulating innocent people for the purpose of abusing them. Second, it is an act of grace for everyone, including an abuser, to keep them away from people who they intend to harm. It’s quite the opposite when we treat them with kid gloves and pretend like serial abusers are Jesus’ closest bro. I wrote a post before about why it is dishonest for churches to hide abusers within the church. For a host of reasons, it’s just wrong. Don’t do it.

Third, we avoid abusers in hopes of repentance. Paul urged the Corinthians to “deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord” (1 Cor. 5:5). In other words, this jerk wants to produce victims? Let Satan have his way with him and see how he likes it! Maybe it will wake him up and in the end he might be saved. This is a far cry from how churches routinely handle allegations of abuse today.

Finally, we avoid confusion for victims of abuse and send a clear message to abusers that abusing innocent people won’t ever result in rewards. There are a couple instances where I unapologetically asked people to leave our church. Both were visitors. One had just gotten out of prison and was chasing kids around attempting to tickle them. The other was a man who I could tell was manipulating me. A church member disclosed later that this man had verbally assaulted her months before at her apartment complex. She thanked me for removing him.

Conclusion

I personally don’t think it’s possible, wise, or biblical to support abusers and victims together. In fact, I think it’s appropriate and necessary to remove abusers who fit the descriptions above. I know there are complexities to this, and these will be addressed in later posts. I will also write several posts for how we actually care for survivors of abuse in the church because right now the church is failing. For now, stay safe. Keep known predators at bay. Protect the innocent.

If you’d like to support the work I do, check out the online training course. You can also offer support by going to the coffee icon on the bottom of any page on this site. Thank you to all who help me continue this work!

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Child Protection Strategies Course

prevention course

I have great news if you’re looking for stronger child protection strategies! Mom and I have worked tirelessly over the years, shedding many tears and brainstorming the best ways to keep our children safe. We recorded eight one hour videos that are extremely practical for understanding abusers’ specific techniques. This gives you an understanding for how abusers select, get access to, and abuse their victims.

Human nature is to get hung up on why abusers abuse victims. But this does nothing to prevent abuse. Whether we like it or not, preventing abuse effectively means that we have to learn the mechanics of how abusers think about their victims and us. WAY too many churches are assuming. Even when they know abusers are guilty they still roll the welcome mat out and invite predators right back into the very place they produced victims in the first place. We have courses that specifically address this kind of reckless policy and we teach churches how to be proactive in protecting children. Here are a few reasons why this course might be right for you:

  • AFFORDABILITY–Most online courses are, on average, thousands of dollars. Once you click a link you are committed to a course that is extremely expensive and often you don’t have access to the content until the full course is purchased. We decided that getting this into the hands of as many people as possible wouldn’t happen if the course wasn’t affordable for the average person. I’ve personally bought courses as expensive as $5,000. This works for certain niches but not for abuse prevention.
  • INDIVIDUALIZED VIDEOS–Each video is only $20. Some people may not need all of the content. That’s OK! You can purchase one, some, or all. It’s totally up to you!
  • GREAT FOR ORGANIZATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS–These videos were specifically designed to be used individually OR for organizations. Organizations can purchase videos and project them in a group setting. There is no extra fee no matter the size of the organization. Again, we want as many people to get access as possible.
  • PERMANENT ACCESS–Once you purchase a video, it is yours forever! Some people do a rental service, meaning you only get access for a designated period of time. We want people to be able to view the videos forever. Once you get the videos, they are yours forever!
  • PRACTICAL–We teach tools that will equip you to protect kids immediately. Most trainings are heavy on the side of reporting and lean on the side of prevention. If you are making a report most likely abuse already occurred. None of us should be OK with that. Training should be simple, to the point, and practical.

It takes a village to keep every child safe. Feel free to check out the videos tab to see some of the free videos. If you want to delve even deeper, check out the trainings tab. Let’s work together to keep our children safe!

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The Beauty of Helping Others

It’s been a long time since I’ve written. Too long, really. To be honest, last year was one of the most difficult that our family has ever faced and writing took a major back seat. My oldest sister Michelle was admitted to the hospital in February just over a year ago. Within 24 hours she was on a ventilator fighting for her life with severe pancreatitis. She would spend seven months in the hospital with half of that spent in the ICU. At one point all the family flew in to say our final goodbyes. But a miracle happened and she began fighting like she’s never fought before. She’s now home and is improving a lot!

We made countless trips to the hospital throughout last year and pretty much everything was put on hold. I say pretty much because in the midst of our suffering, life still went on. Things happened. Things still broke. People still died. Others still got married. And the world still continues to spin. This is also the reality for a good friend of mine named Julien who preaches in a small town in Haiti. Last year, while attending his brother’s funeral, his only car was set on fire by protesters and was destroyed. The well at Julien’s church that serves hundreds of people each day broke. I received a desperate message that they had no water and needed the well fixed. Within 24 hours people from all over helped and we were able to send enough money for repairs to be made.

Then the well broke again. We were able to help fix it a second time last year and it is working great to this day! In the middle of all the chaos, Julien was left without transportation. Here in the US that’s not a huge problem because we can always hitch a ride, ride a bike, grab an Uber, or take public transportation. But in Haiti it’s different. Money is scarce. Preachers there have high expectations to deliver food and medicine to starving and sick people. This is a daily reality. I know because I’ve spent days with Julien as we took care of dying people. That’s the norm there. And Julien does it without complaining. Ever. In fact, he considers it an honor to be able to help people who are worse off than he and his family.

Recently he told me he is completely without transportation. Because of the gas shortage and instability in Haiti, cars are not a good mode of transportation. Motorcycles are more common and practical. My mom and I have a deeply personal connection to Julien and the town where he lives. I urge you to listen to the story below:

We’ve already raised 12% of our goal through the generosity of our listeners! We would be honored if you joined us in helping our good friend Julien get a motorcycle so he can deliver life saving medicine and food. He always sends updates and photos when we help, so I will be writing a follow up story. Let’s help this selfless man be able to take care of his community again! THANK YOU!!

I’m raising $3,000 until 4/12/23 for Help Buy a Haitian Friend a Motorcycle. Can you help? https://www.paypal.com/pools/c/8Sn4Wq7sx6