Abuse Prevention Policy Summary

Renaissance Church believes that God calls our community to be a community of safety and respect for all, especially for children and others who are vulnerable. As a community we know God stands against abuses of power and always stands with survivors of abuse. Abuse is a particularly grievous sin (and often a crime), when someone in a position of power and trust violates or exploits someone who is often powerless to stop it. Abuse is a common reality in this world. By its very nature, our community includes interaction with vulnerable children and adults. Sadly, many within the church have acted in predatory ways toward vulnerable people and bad actors will often seek environments with vulnerable people. All must become educated about abuse and take responsibility to uphold our policy.

Every person in our community is expected to treat each person with respect. This means respect in physical touch, words, and other ways. The most important boundaries for everyone in our community to respect are:

1. All touch should be welcomed by the other person.
2. Touch with children and vulnerable adults should be observable to others.
3. No one should be alone with a child or vulnerable adult when they are not the parent or guardian.
4. Outside of the kid’s ministry procedure, only a parent or guardian should assist a child or vulnerable adult in the restroom.
5. Use words that show respect, never words that threaten, belittle, shame, or sexualize (including sharing sexual stories, jokes, or sexual content).

Our policy outlines more specific expectations in these and other areas. All of us are responsible to promote healthy and safe interactions. Unfortunately, bad actors often seek to test boundaries and push past acceptable behavior. The clear boundaries of our policy will help us deter unhealthy behavior and interrupt this type of tactic that seeks to test boundaries.

When there is a concern about a person, interaction, or situation, please reach out to a member of the staff or pastoral team. The simple goal is to help us live out our policy and be the community that God calls us to be, where we love our neighbors as ourselves. In addition to responding to any policy violations or concerns, our safety team will promote training and clarity regarding our policy.

Our policy is that all adults report any disclosure or reasonable suspicion of child abuse/neglect and vulnerable adult abuse/neglect to both appropriate Child/Adult Protective Services and local law enforcement. We are not trained to investigate. Our role is to report. Our staff can support you if a report needs to be made and training will also equip you in this area. After a report, any person should then reach out to our staff (excluding any person or family member involved in the allegation). Our staff will work with the elders to address any critical response areas including safety, accountability/boundaries, care, and coordination with other resources and organizations.

Abuse often impacts survivors in significant and ongoing ways. Jesus calls our community to do all we can to prevent abuse and care well for those impacted by it. By establishing clear expectations, our goal as a community is that we have freedom to care for each other well within healthy and safe boundaries. This takes all of us working together and being conscientious about how we treat one another as Jesus commanded. Please reach out if you have any questions or concerns.