#17 Registered Sex Offenders At Our Church?
Registered Sex Offenders are people who have been convicted of a sexual offense and are required by law to register their whereabouts with the authorities, typically for the safety of the community. Brad Hambrick lays out a church membership guideline for Registered Sex Offenders in his article https://bradhambrick.com/rso/. This approach seems fair to me.
Why Our Church?
I would wager a guess that most christians don’t want Registered Sex Offenders at their church. But the thing is we don’t want liers, thiefs, prostitutes, adulters, and murderers, in our church. Yet the church is not just for the saved but for the unsaved as well. As a father of two young children and a pastor this is a hard point to make. Those people who we most want to keep out of the church are those we most need in the church. It is not just for them but also for us. We want all of these people to come to know Christ. Yet even still we all need to learn to live like Christ, and Christ loved us even while we were sinners.
That is great and all but we are a family church, leave it to the recovery church. Different churches may have different focuses for ministry but we must disciple those whom God puts in our path. If our church is truly ill equipped to deal with people with real problems we must have another church whose leaders we know that we can send them to.
What The Bible Says
The example Brad Hambrick sets out seems to be a good approach yet it is not backed up by the Bible or by experience. The Bible doesn’t really have any examples of how the Church should deal with RSO.
John 8:1-11 Jesus is brought an adulterous woman. What happens is that all who point out her sin leave as they realize they too are sinners. And in the end Jesus tells the woman to go and sin no more. This story when applied to RSOs shows us that we are all sinners and therefore should show some grace. While also keeping them accountable to not sin anymore.
What My Wife Says
Kessa pointed out to me that there is no goal in this. Perhaps there should be a path to full membership? I think that RSOs can become leaders in the men's ministry at the church assuming personal growth and time has passed. It is my belief that no failure disqualifies someone from the love of God or to become someone that others could learn from.
Conclusion
Anyone you would wish to disclude from the church are people who probably need the church more than you and ought to be there. Ultimately we must pray and do our best to discern the will of God.
