Non-denominational seminaries and church groups

[Ken]

Lots of professional counsellors work solo.

Having two people working isn’t much of a guarantee. It’s simply too risky to work with juveniles who realize they can make false accusations on today’s environment. It is not worth the immense cost to one’s self and one’s family to defend against a false accusation.

Or you know…

You can just film or record all your sessions. And have documentation of every moment.

Which won’t do anything about an accusation something happened when you weren’t making a recording.

If you are going to go that far, you can be accused by someone you’ve never even met or been in the same room with.

At some point this sort of thing just comes with the job. Like the risk of highway accidents if you are a truck driver, or your vessel going down if you are a fisherman. When you choose to work with kids or people with mental issues these issues come with the job.

I work with hundreds of kids. You just learn to follow certain rules. Like never being in a room alone with a student of the opposite sex. For example, if I ever need to tutor or work with a girl and there is no one else there I just walk next door to a female teacher’s classroom and we sit down in the back of her classroom to do our thing while she works at her desk. Or vice versa, I call her in to work in my room while we do tutoring.

You also get liability insurance to cover this sort of thing. One of the best reasons to join a union because they have gold-plated liability insurance for teachers to deal with this sort of thing.

[JohnH]

Or you know…

You can just film or record all your sessions. And have documentation of every moment.

Which won’t do anything about an accusation something happened when you weren’t making a recording.

If you are going to go that far, you can be accused by someone you’ve never even met or been in the same room with.

At some point this sort of thing just comes with the job. Like the risk of highway accidents if you are a truck driver, or your vessel going down if you are a fisherman. When you choose to work with kids or people with mental issues these issues come with the job.

I work with hundreds of kids. You just learn to follow certain rules. Like never being in a room alone with a student of the opposite sex. For example, if I ever need to tutor or work with a girl and there is no one else there I just walk next door to a female teacher’s classroom and we sit down in the back of her classroom to do our thing while she works at her desk. Or vice versa, I call her in to work in my room while we do tutoring.

The accusation came from a boy, not a girl.

You also get liability insurance to cover this sort of thing. One of the best reasons to join a union because they have gold-plated liability insurance for teachers to deal with this sort of thing.

Are there unions for pastors to join that cover them doing volunteer work with troubled juveniles?

[Ken]

Which won’t do anything about an accusation something happened when you weren’t making a recording.

If you are going to go that far, you can be accused by someone you’ve never even met or been in the same room with.

At some point this sort of thing just comes with the job. Like the risk of highway accidents if you are a truck driver, or your vessel going down if you are a fisherman. When you choose to work with kids or people with mental issues these issues come with the job.

I work with hundreds of kids. You just learn to follow certain rules. Like never being in a room alone with a student of the opposite sex. For example, if I ever need to tutor or work with a girl and there is no one else there I just walk next door to a female teacher’s classroom and we sit down in the back of her classroom to do our thing while she works at her desk. Or vice versa, I call her in to work in my room while we do tutoring.

The accusation came from a boy, not a girl.

You also get liability insurance to cover this sort of thing. One of the best reasons to join a union because they have gold-plated liability insurance for teachers to deal with this sort of thing.

Are there unions for pastors to join that cover them doing volunteer work with troubled juveniles?

They can certainly get liability insurance, or expect that they organization they work for provide it: https://www.irmi.com/term/insurance-def ... -insurance

From the story provided by Neto it is unclear what happened. “He attempted to provide correction” to a teen boy who retaliated.

What does this mean? “Correction”. Did he step outside the bounds and try to punish some kid he was counseling?

[JohnH]

If you are going to go that far, you can be accused by someone you’ve never even met or been in the same room with.

At some point this sort of thing just comes with the job. Like the risk of highway accidents if you are a truck driver, or your vessel going down if you are a fisherman. When you choose to work with kids or people with mental issues these issues come with the job.

I work with hundreds of kids. You just learn to follow certain rules. Like never being in a room alone with a student of the opposite sex. For example, if I ever need to tutor or work with a girl and there is no one else there I just walk next door to a female teacher’s classroom and we sit down in the back of her classroom to do our thing while she works at her desk. Or vice versa, I call her in to work in my room while we do tutoring.

The accusation came from a boy, not a girl.

You also get liability insurance to cover this sort of thing. One of the best reasons to join a union because they have gold-plated liability insurance for teachers to deal with this sort of thing.

Are there unions for pastors to join that cover them doing volunteer work with troubled juveniles?

They can certainly get liability insurance, or expect that they organization they work for provide it: https://www.irmi.com/term/insurance-def ... -insurance

From the story provided by Neto it is unclear what happened. “He attempted to provide correction” to a teen boy who retaliated.

What does this mean? “Correction”. Did he step outside the bounds and try to punish some kid he was counseling?

I’m going to assume good faith from Neto that the pastor involved did nothing wrong.

Liability insurance doesn’t help you at all with a false accusation, particularly if you have to mount a criminal defense. Doesn’t help loss of reputation either (regardless of being eventually exonerated).

As I said, the best course of action is to avoid people who can get away with making false accusations with no consequences.

[Ken]

The accusation came from a boy, not a girl.



Are there unions for pastors to join that cover them doing volunteer work with troubled juveniles?

They can certainly get liability insurance, or expect that they organization they work for provide it: https://www.irmi.com/term/insurance-def ... -insurance

From the story provided by Neto it is unclear what happened. “He attempted to provide correction” to a teen boy who retaliated.

What does this mean? “Correction”. Did he step outside the bounds and try to punish some kid he was counseling?

I’m going to assume good faith from Neto that the pastor involved did nothing wrong.

Liability insurance doesn’t help you at all with a false accusation, particularly if you have to mount a criminal defense. Doesn’t help loss of reputation either (regardless of being eventually exonerated).

As I said, the best course of action is to avoid people who can get away with making false accusations with no consequences.

Liability insurance helps you mount a very rigorous defense by skilled litigators who specialize in such cases. Which is really all you can do.

But like I said, working with people (of any age) subjects one to the risk of being falsely accused of anything. If you are an employer you can be falsely accused of sexual harassment by an employee of any age. I don’t know that the risk of false accusations is greater when one works with you youth. In almost 20 years of teaching I have never seen a case of what I would consider to be false accusations. I have seen a handful of examples of true accusations. But none that proved false. I think you highly underestimate how difficult it would be for some youth to make up an accusation against an adult counselor or teacher or pastor and then be able to stick with a consistent and believable story across hours upon hours of interrogation by police and investigators and district attorneys. Good investigators are trained to ferret out lies. And most kids aren’t skilled liars.

In any event, that just goes with the profession. If it isn’t for you that’s fine. There are no professions without risk of some kind. You just learn to minimize it and live your life.

Spinning back to Neto’s story. I think it is very unusual for a mainstream denominational church to collapse simply because a leader got ousted in some scandal. That happened to the MCUSA church my parents attend. They let the guy go, he left town, and with barely missing a beat they moved on with appointing an interim pastor and conducting a search for a new one. I don’t think it affected much at all except that I think the woman involved also left. I think it is far more common to see a church completely collapse when it is some independent nondenominational church centered on some charismatic pastor who implodes in scandal.

[Neto]

If you are going to go that far, you can be accused by someone you’ve never even met or been in the same room with.

At some point this sort of thing just comes with the job. Like the risk of highway accidents if you are a truck driver, or your vessel going down if you are a fisherman. When you choose to work with kids or people with mental issues these issues come with the job.

I work with hundreds of kids. You just learn to follow certain rules. Like never being in a room alone with a student of the opposite sex. For example, if I ever need to tutor or work with a girl and there is no one else there I just walk next door to a female teacher’s classroom and we sit down in the back of her classroom to do our thing while she works at her desk. Or vice versa, I call her in to work in my room while we do tutoring.

The accusation came from a boy, not a girl.

You also get liability insurance to cover this sort of thing. One of the best reasons to join a union because they have gold-plated liability insurance for teachers to deal with this sort of thing.

Are there unions for pastors to join that cover them doing volunteer work with troubled juveniles?

They can certainly get liability insurance, or expect that they organization they work for provide it: https://www.irmi.com/term/insurance-def ... -insurance

From the story provided by Neto it is unclear what happened. “He attempted to provide correction” to a teen boy who retaliated.

What does this mean? “Correction”. Did he step outside the bounds and try to punish some kid he was counseling?

I know that this is all way off of the topic for this thread. I only mentioned this case as the circumstances under which the congregation where my pastor friend was serving at the time was discredited in the newspaper through this episode, and how it brought about the closure of that MB church. The point is that the law determined that the accusation was false, but the damage had been done to the man's reputation "in the public eye", and, by extension, to that of the small church as well.

I don't know how the law read in Nebraska in the mid 70's, so I don't know what was allowed for a juvenile center worker to do where a detained teenager was not complying with the rules. I also do not recall for sure what the teen boy did - but my vague recollection is that it was something to do with bringing drugs into the facility. (I was also no longer living there in that city.) I do not know whether he used some type of physical punishment, but the accusation was not about physical abuse, but about sexual abuse - essentially, rape. (Maybe I didn't make that clear in my first comment.) Look, I didn't want to bring ethnicity or social class elements into this, but OK - all participants in this case, the congregation, the pastor, and the teenage delinquent were 'African-American', and the delinquent center was in the "inner city". I don't think any of these things should change a person's response or thoughts on this, but there it is.

[JimFoxvog]

As I said, the best course of action is to avoid people who can get away with making false accusations with no consequences.

Don't these people need Jesus, too?

Is it not worth taking a risk to potentially lead someone to eternal life?

[JohnH]

As I said, the best course of action is to avoid people who can get away with making false accusations with no consequences.

Don't these people need Jesus, too?

Is it not worth taking a risk to potentially lead someone to eternal life?

Someone who is willing to make a false homosexual rape charge in order to escape consequences for sneaking illegal drugs into a juvenile facility isn’t someone who is interested in eternal life.

So no, I wouldn’t try to work or participate in such a broken system. A false sexual assault charge like that ruins not just one’s own life but one’s family and in this case the entire church as well.

There is probably another way to minister / reach for such people - one obvious thing to do is wait until after they’re 18.

[JayP]

So, I am fascinated by the concept of a non denominational seminary. As a Catholic, obviously we have seminaries and they are quite denominational! LOL

What is the point of a non denominational seminary? I do not need instruction or education in believing whatever I want.
I mean this respectfully, but I do laugh when some of you like to play the “faithful to the scripture” card, when what you mean is YOUR pov is scriptural as opposed to the other pov (but two of you with opposite positions each claim yours is the scriptural one).

I am not asking to debate any particular point. Just pointing out many of you feel like you have a trump card only the rest of us are not playing the same game.

I guess maybe nondenominational seminary means you can generally study the Bible and religious history without forceful commitment to specific passages which if firmly held lead toward particular denominations?

[Ken]

So, I am fascinated by the concept of a non denominational seminary. As a Catholic, obviously we have seminaries and they are quite denominational! LOL

What is the point of a non denominational seminary? I do not need instruction or education in believing whatever I want.
I mean this respectfully, but I do laugh when some of you like to play the “faithful to the scripture” card, when what you mean is YOUR pov is scriptural as opposed to the other pov (but two of you with opposite positions each claim yours is the scriptural one).

I am not asking to debate any particular point. Just pointing out many of you feel like you have a trump card only the rest of us are not playing the same game.

I guess maybe nondenominational seminary means you can generally study the Bible and religious history without forceful commitment to specific passages which if firmly held lead toward particular denominations?

I'm not sure why it is that puzzling.

I would suggest that the bulk of Biblical studies is not particularly denominational. For example, if you are going to do a deep-dive seminary course on the Book of Joshua, or the Book of Psalms, is there going to be any particular distinction between an Anabaptist, Lutheran, or Catholic viewpoint?

And if there does happen to be some doctrinal difference between say Anabaptist and Catholic interpretations of Psalms, would it not be interesting and useful to explore and understand those differences within a seminary setting? I mean, where else?