When the church allows the wolves to live in the flock.

Somewhere in 2010 it came to my attention that we had a regular attendee, John, who had been arrested for sexually assaulting a minor. We as Christians are supposed to be forgiving and the Bible gives us plenty of verses about the joy of a repentance sinner. Luke 15:7 is a great example, “I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance.” But Christ said in Matthew 10:16 “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” God had a plan for John and my paths to cross so I could teach you about this issue.

The first thing John did when came to us was groom the church. He made his presence known with most the staff and leaders. John charmed the lead pastor by relaying he was an upstanding citizen, had just moved into town and was looking for a Spirit lead church. He told the pastor after listening to the music and his powerful sermons he was so moved and decided this was going to be his new home church. John had also found a single mother, Betty* who had an eleven-year-old daughter, Lisa*, and he turned his charm toward Betty after winning over the church. It wasn’t even a month later that John had Betty fooled that he had changed his ways and she had nothing to worry about. He had fooled the gatekeeper and the church, so he turned his attention to Lisa.

Lisa was one of Jessica, my oldest daughters, best friends. Lisa had stayed over at our house on so many occasions that we started calling her our third daughter. On Wednesday night Jessica and Lisa would go to Youth Church together. Wendy and I would drop them off and Betty would pick them up. One night Jessica told me that Betty had brought her new boyfriend, John, to pick the girls up and something about John made her feel uneasy. She couldn’t quite explain it but there was something in the way he treated Lisa that just didn’t seem right. Then we started hearing stories of how John was acting around Lisa, and alarm bells started going off. Lisa told Jessica the reason she liked John so much was he paid so much attention to her that he helped her with her homework. Sounds innocent, but Lisa liked to lay on the floor while doing her homework and John would lay next to her, tickling and roughhousing with her. Another thing, he was always buying her popsicles and loved to watch her eat them. If you have never taken a class on sexual predators, these are classic signs of grooming. Then another parent of one of Jessica’s friends pulled me aside and told me that John was a registered sex offender.

Several members of the church became concerned over John’s past and behavior. It was brought to the attention of the church’s leadership, so the church requested a copy of John’s arrest report. When we reviewed the report we realized this was worse than we had thought. The report said John’s ex-wife found out that he had been molesting her daughters and later during the investigation found out John had also molested her sons. For some reason unknown to us, because of the seriousness of the crime, the court only listed John as an offender and not a predator. During this time we also found out that John had remarried, and his now wife had him removed from their home because she was afraid that John had been grooming her children.

Because of what we were seeing, we felt Lisa was going to be his next victim. I told the leadership of the church that they should talk to him about his past and question his intentions with Betty and Lisa. If the church did not feel comfortable with the conversation, we would discuss our next step. Yet when we sat down with the lead pastor, he felt it was a bad idea to confront John with his past. Maybe we were the ones that could turn John around, and maybe we
should get him into a men’s group and the brothers could gather around him and help him see the error of his ways. The pastor went down a whole list of concessions we were going to do to keep John in our church so “we” could change him and bring him back into the flock. I could see the pastor getting really excited about the opportunity to bring someone like John around. I told the pastor that I would do what he wanted me to do, but in my experience in law enforcement, most men like John do not change. Besides standing on the outside and looking at what was going on, I could see that John had already won the pastor over and had picked his next victim. 

The pastor told me to keep an eye on John and if I saw anything else, bring it to his attention and he would decide what to do next. Reminding him of an old Star Trek saying, “logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.” The pastor agreed with my logic and decided to give John a call and talk to him about his past and his relationship with Betty and Lisa. When the pastor called John and explained to him that his past had been brought to the pastors attention by other members of the church, John showed his true colors. He cursed out the pastor and told him he would never come back to our church again. Apparently this was not the church of redemption he thought it was. John never came back to the church, but
I found out later he went to another church and started grooming another little girl before being run off from that church. John is now serving life in the penitentiary because he couldn’t change his ways.

Every church I have attended in these past nine years has stories like this. Pastors just do not want to give up on anyone and that someone becomes a cancer that hurts the church. Pastors need to understand that we lean on them to lead the church and teach us about the Gospel. Yet sometimes we have to remind them that no matter how hard they try to change a harden heart, it is the Holy Spirit that convicts and transforms the hearts.

Our pastor has pulled me to the side on many occasion to tell me he wants me to work with someone because of my walk with the Lord. I never tell him no. Using the gifts God has given me, it normally takes about two minutes of talking to this person and I can see they will not give up the sin that they love. It is not that we don’t try yet after a period of time most always show their true colors and leave the church. They want to check the box of attending a church because they are afraid God on judgment day might look at them and say, “I knew you not”. 

In our training “Your Safety Has Become Your Responsibility” we dive into Gavin De Becker’s book, “The Gift of Fear.” De Becker breaks it down that during most conversations, when a person is being deceptive there will be red flags you can pick up on. De Becker explains we need to listen to what our intuition says. De Becker says “intuition is always right in at least two important ways:
1. It is always in response to something.
2. It always has your best interest at heart.”
We have something more powerful than our intuition; we have the Holy Spirit so those two things De Becker talks about are supercharged to protect us at all times.

As quoted, all through the Bible there are verses about the joy of a repentance sinner like Luke 15:7. To me, there is no greater joy than seeing someone repent, experience God’s grace and join the flock. We rejoice as they go on to live the life that God has planned for them. Yet we must understand there are times we try and try to help someone understand the error of their ways only to see them become a cancer in the church and do more harm than good. So pastors when your safety team members bring someone to your attention that appears to be a disruption to the church, listen to them. Remember your job is to lead and teach, ours is to protect the flock.

*Betty and Lisa’s names were changed to protect their privacy. You can find John Polgar’s information on FDLE Department of Corrections website.

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