Background Check Season For Children’s Ministry: One GLARING Caution!

I am on a layover at O’Hare after spending some time with a wonderful church in the south. It is prime season for Teacher Training with it’s ritual of reading through new curriculum, pouring over the latest additions to the Children’s Ministry Manual and the now standard compliance with the criminal background check. There is one loophole, however, in these checks that often leave our ministries vulnerable: The Adolescent Sex Offender.

There is a very detailed and helpful article today in The New York Times Magazine titled “How Can You Distinguish A Budding Pedophile From a Kid With Real Boundary Problems.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/22/magazine/22juvenile-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&oref=slogin). It is a helpful overview of something that only 25 states track and a recent law now makes manditory for those of us who use teenagers or young adults in ministry. The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act (named for the “America’s Most Wanted” host’s son who was murdered in 1981) signed into law last year by President Bush “creates a federal Internet registry that will allow law enforcement and the public to more effectively track convicted sex offenders — including juveniles 14 and older who engage in genital, anal or oral-genital contact with children younger than 12.”

The article takes pains to describe the public policy problems with publicizing children who are prosecuted for one-time-only indescretions along with repeat sexual predators who are adults. This is quite clearly something that thinking people will disagree with and I have no strongly formed opinion to share here. But I can state categorically that the law says these young offenders must be listed PERMANENTLY and check in every 3 months. This Javerian extreme is troublesome.

BUT the article helps us all recognize that background checks simply tell us who is not DISQUALIFIED from serving in children’s ministry. But to be QUALIFIED requires a more extensive demonstration of spiritual, relational and personal maturity as evidenced by a good track record as observed by those mentors who are themselves models of maturity. BUT when we use young people we must maintain an extra vigilant degree of oversight since that “track record” might me spotty and ill-formed.