No, sex offenders should not in my view be able to volunteer or be on staff in any role where they will be in contact with children or other vulnerable groups. This is not discrimination - it’s common sense. It’s not helping anyone, including offenders themselves, to put them in a place where they are exposed to temptation.

Rob

While I mostly agree with the above comments, I think that we need wisdom and discernment as well.  For example, an 18-year old and a 17-year old have (consensual) sexual relations. The 18-year old is arrested for statutory rape.  That label of sex offender is now on that person for life, regardless of what else happens.  Was it wrong to do that? Well, yeah.  Should they be stigmatized for life for it?  In this case I would say no.  I actually know someone for whom this is the case and he’s labeled with that offense now for the rest of his life.  He’s probably got one of the best hearts for Youth and Children as well as just general service that I know. As for healing - we are called to minister to and heal the wounded and sex offenders fit that category.  We need to be wise and discerning in how, where, and with whom they serve.  We also need to realize if this is a sin they are really struggling with or if it was something similar to the above scenario where it’s not really a matter of them being a sex offender, but a young person giving in to temptation.I’d probably use discernment and be really up-front about any scenarios where someone was a sex-offender and really was not a danger to children, but wanted to serve.  Would I let them serve unsupervised? Probably not. Would I be on guard for problems or false accusations? Definitely!  Monitoring would also be a good idea.Anyway, my general first response is “No!”, but I realize that this is an area that does need to be treated carefully all around.  We really do hear “Sex Offender” and immediately think “Child Predator”, which just isn’t the case.  As for being on staff, I’d probably be inclined to not have someone on staff as that is really asking for trouble (depending on the staff area and their duties, of course).Guess this is just a really long way to say “Generally, no, but it depends.”

-Pete

I would ask someone who I knew to be an offender to attend a different church.  I cannot at this stage of our churches history devote the time, energy and effort to develop a safe place for the offender or for the church.  A young church like ours… Less than three years old… does not have the staff or leadership yet to deal with such a situation.  We are also not in a place where a violation could be withstood without eroding the confidence in leadership and wisdom of leadership necessary to grow a church.  There are churches in our area who actually have ministries that will help some one in this situation

I agree that anyone who has “offended” with children in any way should never be allowed to work with children, both because children are too precious for us to take a chance on trusting the offender and because just like we shouldn’t give alcohol to and alcoholic we also shouldn’t put temptation to anyone else with a compulsion.

That said, here’s my story. 

I’m not a registered sex offender but I was arrested about 20 tears ago for being in the backseat of a car with my then fiancée/later wife.  I was charged with Public Lewdness and given a year of probation.  Fast forward 20 years to where I’ve been attending church for about 3 years and I volunteered to help direct traffic and parking in the parking lot and was asked to complete paperwork for a background check.  I informed the Asst. Pastor in charge of volunteers what he would find and he said that shouldn’t be a big deal.  Until the background check came back and the Board decided they “couldn’t have someone of my background to representing the church in any way”.  I was volunteering to help direct people where to park!

Not only could I not volunteer, but suddenly I was like a leper, no one on the board or staff or in the church leadership would talk to me about it.  And it didn’t take long for the rumor mill to go to work and soon most of the congregation knew just enough about the situation that we were basically shunned.

That was a couple of years ago and now we attend a different church and when we were asked if we’d like to volunteer I lied about being very busy with work and not being able to help right now.

And the funny thing is that my wife and I were in that back seat together consensually, I was arrested and charged with a crime which makes me a pariah to “loving Christians” while she was not arrested and now works with small children in the church daycare.

So in my opinion the church and Christians fail miserably to respond to “sex offenders”, whether registered or just perceived.

Leonard, I’m going to push you a little bit on your stance here… In what way can your church ‘not handle’ a sex offender right now?  Do you mean there aren’t enough resources for a sex offender on staff to be held accountable, or do you mean you don’t have enough bodyguards to let the sex offender attend your worship service?
The former seems unproblematic; the latter… well, I think that would be problematic.
My own thoughts?  Tackle the issue on a case by case basis, and be gentle as a lamb (though wise as a serpent).

Peace,
-Daniel-

Leonard, I have to agree with Daniel here.  If a sex offender just happens to wander into your church, it might be very reasonable to send them on to ministry at another church (your mother church certainly has plenty of resources).  How likely is that??

Most people come to us because of relationship(s) with people from our community.  The Holy Spirit uses those existing relationships to bring about spiritual healing.  We can’t simply send someone on their way to start over when the HS has already begun to work. 

And, in my mind, part of the Apostle Paul’s teaching in Ro and 1 Cor 12 is that our faith communities are miraculously woven together as God intends (even is He should weave in redeemed sex offenders).  Consider Ps. 139 as an image of the church (isn’t it reasonable to apply Paul’s body imagery to the Psalmist’s words centuries earlier?).  Here is a [to some heretical] Wendi paraphrase:

For you created our church’s inmost being; you knit us together in our mother’s womb.
We praise you because we are fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful for us, I know that full well.
Our family make-up was not hidden from you when we were formed in the very beginning.
When we were woven together in the early days, your eyes saw our seemly random and unformed collection of people.
All our days as a church were ordained for us and were written in your book before one of them came to be.

I just think that whoever God brings into our doors is part of His plan, and unless it’s very clear that we are being led to pass them on . . . we should assume God intends us to “knit them in” to the family . . .

Wendi

I have had a bit of (required) orientation in sex sex offenses (I’m talking about REAL sex offenders here, not the 18 year old who had consensual sex with the 17 year old and stuff like that, perhaps at some point our laws will “bend” to understand those situations).

Someone who has truly committed a sex offense with a minor must never ever be in a position to be around them for any length of time again. Many of those offenders will tell you this is true. They are no longer eligible for any kind of church leadership for sure, neither should they serve in any capacity where they have easy access to children.

Period.

From earlier posts it is clear that the words sex offender are the leprosy of today.  Some are branded and cast off by society.  If we as the church cannot minister them, who will.  If we cannot have them on staff (supervised of course) or even in church with us, are we saying we do not believe in forgiveness, or in the power of the Holy Spirit to redeem them, or in the power of the Spirit to make us a new creature and change us?  Not sure what I would do, but just some theology to think about.

Leonard--thanks for the feedback.  As far as I’m concerned the question of whether someone is welcome is different from the question of whether or how they may serve and be given responsibility.  One striking feature of the book of Acts is how often the new Church is engaged in acts of discernment--choosing gifted followers of Christ to fill specific roles.
Analogously, I think (with Bart) that sex offenders (as well as murderers, prostitutes, etc.) should be unabashedly welcomed into worship (this is the being ‘gentle as a lamb’ I mentioned earlier).  However, when choosing to fill a role, I firmly believe this should be done on the basis of a person’s giftedness (the discernment involved here requires being ‘crafty/wise as a serpent’.  And I’m willing to concede that, much like alcoholics should not go near alcohol for the rest of their lives, pedophiles should also not be allowed around children unsupervised, for the rest of their lives.  These two views are not contradictory.
So then sex offenders shouldn’t be youth counselors, but perhaps (pending proper case-by-case discernment) they could be traffic-directors, administrative assistants, preachers (without the corresponding pastoral one-on-one responsibilities of course), worship leaders, etc.
We simultaneously want to be wise and not quench the Spirit of our Lord.

Thanks for the dialogue.
Peace,
-Daniel-

Well said Wendi,
I must add that this has not happened at our church.  We simply have a plan should it happen at this stage of our church.  Most likely we will not be dealing with this at all.  I am glad that we have thought this through and have a plan with resources to execute this plan should we need to.

In response to the post by Still a little angry…

I’m sorry you were treated like this.  I hope you can work through this issue and forgive those who offended you.  I pray that your faith will not be shaken by the whole incident, and that you will grow stronger as a result of it.  Again, I’m sorry this happened.

According to a research study just published by Human Rights Watch, only 1 out of 4 adult sex offenders ever re-offend during the course of their lives. The big majority of sex offense arrests against children are by family members being caught for the first time. Saying “There is overwhelming research that sex offenders have the propensity to re-offend, which puts everyone on red alert” seems totally out of line? Here’s a link.

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/09/06/usdom16819.htm

And a quote:

In addition, the laws reflect the widely shared but erroneous belief that “once a sex offender, always a sex offender.” Authoritative studies indicate that three out of four adult offenders do not reoffend. Moreover, treatment can be effective even for people who have committed serious sex crimes.

i do not think you can put all sex offences in the same box, just say a seventeen year old and an eighteen or nineteen year old has sex in the back seat or any place, not either one is thinking about consent, that would be bad to brand the boy for the rest of his life as a sex offender.down south here we have these hot spots for spring break, in that throng of boys and girls you could probially put half of them in jail for sex offence. but you take a man or sometimes women that preys on children is a lot different, but god will save them and people should forgive them, but to put them in leadership is another thing altogether, a pastor has a big job on his hands, and it takes the leading of the holy spirit to guide him, when a pastor or any of the leaders feels there is somthing wrong but cant put their finger on it as the above person wrote, in most cases it is the holy spirit warning you,sometimes we are so egar to please and make welcome we over look the holy spirits warning.  but to put every one on the same level is not right.