How to Help Prevent Pastoral Abuse

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Irwyn Ince
The issue and topic of abuse has been one that has been pretty raging in our culture in the church from me to, to now. And it’s had a significant impact on how the church is engaged this topic. So what do you think are some helpful prudent measures that the pastors church leaders should take and help them to actually prevent abuse? happening in in the church?

Mark Vroegop
Yeah. So in specifically, you’re talking about church abuse, pastoral abuse, things of that? Yeah. Okay. So because that, as we know, that term is widely applied to all kinds of really broken situations, and I think the church abuse the authority abuse is a real thing that we need to reckon with. And so I think the first thing is just having an understanding of what exactly are we talking about? Because I think most pastors like myself, had no training or background in terms of what what is the abuse of power? And how do we reckon with that, or for that matter? What is the power that actually have? And how can I steward that? Well, that wasn’t a question that was being asked when I was in seminary, the question was, how can we help grow the church, we can reach the nation’s we can go Go, go, go go. And sometimes in that haste, and that desire for movement, we can take shortcuts, and one of the big shortcuts is using power in a way that doesn’t allow people to flourish. So I think, understanding what that is, and in our, our church, in particular, like we spent our whole last elder retreat, just learning about spiritual abuse, what does it look like? What isn’t it because it also can be used in ways that aren’t helpful in terms of the category? And then reckoning with so what, what does that look like? And so I think a number of things practically could be in place. And some things that we’ve implemented, have been implementing, and we continue to implement them in in new ways. One is we just instituted a policy that every one of our directional team members, so people who oversee teams are going to receive a 360 degree evaluation every year, so that at least once a year, we have a way for staff members to voice concerns, if they have them. So there’s a mechanism for us to say, Hey, this is going on, because sometimes spiritual abuse is happening. And the person who’s in positions of power has no idea how they’re being received or felt. And if they knew it, they would have opportunity to maybe adjust and change. And in other cases, the person who’s feeling oppressed, if you will, doesn’t know where’s the venue, where’s the safe place for me to go, Hey, this, this is a bit much, or this is really affecting me. So that’s one thing. Another is I think, for senior leaders know what the accountability structures are. So in my case, for instance, we have 40 Elders. And among those elders, I have three elders that we call our lead pastor accountability team. And so those are guys that I meet with on a monthly basis speaking into my life, they’re also the ones who do my annual evaluation and have a good pulse with our staff as to what’s going well, or what isn’t. And then I think finally, is having just an understood pathway, that if there’s a concern that somebody has, that they can be able to voice those concerns, so that issues can be raised when they need to when they when they need to be raised. And then I’ll add one more, I think it’s also just recognizing as a senior leader, that sometimes our voice in a meeting, or in a board room, or in whatever meeting we are carries more weight than maybe what we even realize. And so it’s a learning. And this is hard. I’ve tried to learn this, I’m still working on this to be more quiet, to not speak first to let things play out. And that’s, I think, helpful practice, but one, I think that we need to continue to be leaning into. Because again, how do you use power is a bit of a relative question based upon the person’s gifting the situation that they’re in, in those, those sorts of things. So that’s how I’m thinking about it. And I’m curious, what you know, from your decades of ministry experience, how is this conversation changed? And what adjustments are you making?

Irwyn Ince
I make key points, I’m affirming everything that she said, starting with, we actually are not trained for this from seminary. But now maybe things are changing now, because the landscape is changing. But you know, 23, four years ago in seminary, this was not a topic of conversation or instruction. So a few things that you said that I think are key, one accountability, knowing as leaders and as the church knowing well, what is the accountability structure Here, right that you mentioned 360 review process for all of your, for all of your leaders having process in place, so congregates know, right? Who’s accountable? To whom when there is an issue, who do I, who do I, who do I go to, and having clarity there? The only thing I would add, and maybe this is included in what you said, but he didn’t say explicitly, being able to get outside help. Because there’s also a trust factor that is involved when you’re dealing with an abuse of power situation that we have got. We’ve got training from organizations that help churches and other types of organizations know, to how to identify where abuse is happening, how to prevent it, so that so that you, as a leadership are constantly engaging, not as kind of one time okay, we did the training. You know, a year ago, we’ve got everybody trained know that we’ve got a way of continually engaging these things well for for our church in our congregation. Last thing I will say, and this is this is hard, there isn’t going to be a way to do it perfectly. That as much as as grievous as it is. There will still be cases of abuse spiritually, and otherwise, in Christ’s church until he turns this does not in any way to diminish or to or to say we don’t deal with it forthrightly, but that’s why we have to also have the kinds of accountability processes in place so we can see it and react to it when it happens. Even though we’ve tried to do preventative things. Those things should make us more equipped to be able to see and deal with it when it does happen, and come alongside those who have been victimized by by that abuse.