BANNED! But Still Qualified?

I learned this week that a church, in response to a man who said some disturbing things about his interaction with a baby in the nursery, banned all men from the nursery. All men....banned.

Let's get this straight....instead of dealing with the man who has the problem, this church put all men in the category of being a danger to babies and banned them all, even the fathers of the babies who stay in the nursery.


Yet, even though all men are banned from the nursery, men in that church continue to serve in other leadership roles in the church. Wait, what?

Again, let me get this straight. The men are all deemed to be a danger to babies, yet the men are qualified to serve as deacons, pastors, teachers, trustees and supervisors of other ministries? Uh, no. No they are not.

This is a good example of a church refusing to deal with sin. One man has a problem and instead of dealing with that problem, the church put all men in his category and declared them all a danger to babies. They brought down all their men to cover the sins of one (really two in this case). How can the other men, the men who didn't have a questionable interaction with a baby, allow themselves to be aligned with the one who did?

When the pastor and his wife were given the opportunity to know who the guilty men are in this situation, they refused to listen. Instead, they want all their men to be thought of as potentially abusive to babies. Every single man in the church is banned from the nursery. Get that. Let that sink in. If you are a father in that church and you take your baby to the nursery, you are NOT ALLOWED to enter the room where your baby is being held. How can there not be legal ramifications to a man not being allowed in the same room as his own child?

This is all so deeply disturbing. What else are they hiding?

If you are a father and you go to a church that will not allow you to be in the same room as your baby or toddler, get out of that church as fast as you can.

If you know the men in a church are not allowed in the nursery but are allowed to "serve" in other ministries, get out as fast as you can.

Men who are not qualified to serve in the nursery are not qualified to serve anywhere.

How can the moms of these babies and toddlers tolerate their husbands being aligned with abusers? How can they stand by and let their men be dragged through the mud of abuse without speaking out against it? Oh, wait, I forgot.....women in church are rarely allowed to speak out. So, churches like this get to make rules that turn all men into abusers and the women have to sit down and shut up about it.

Aly Raisman, Olympic gymnastics hero, recently addressed the judge and the court in her victim statement in the sentencing trial of her abuser, Larry Nassar. You can watch that statement here. She is brave and heroic for speaking out, as are all the victims speaking out. She pointed out that her abuser served on the very committees designed to keep athletes safe, yet he was the biggest perpetrator all the time! Think about that.....this is also true in your church. The men are the leaders, the men make the policies, the men have the voices, yet the vast majority of the time, the men are the abusers!

Don't you see? The male dominance in your church is part of the grooming process used to keep abuse alive. In this particular church, all men are deemed unsafe to be around babies and their wives sit back and quietly let this happen. I would not. If I had ever been in a church that restricted my husband's access to his own children, I would leave immediately.

Jesus was trusted with children. If the men in your church are not, they are nothing like Jesus.
Choose your servants wisely.
~Tricia