I agree with you, Chris! There are so very many people hurting that the generic sermons just don't reach them. We have to get out and serve the hurting people like Jesus did. We started a ministry that we are waiting for 501c3 status for, called Lapeer P.E.A.R.L.S. (Prevent. Educate. Advocate. Restore. Love. Support) that is faith based, using Matthew 18:10 Beware that you don't look down on any of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels are always in the presence of my heavenly Father. Our mission is to share the love of Christ as we help prevent child sexual abuse and provide a safe, healing environment for survivors through education, support, and events.
Through our Church we offer to pray for survivors and caregivers of child survivors on a regular basis via Prayer Warriors. We also offer a monthly dinner for these families to attend and are trying to expand to include other churches so that these families can have dinner and be surrounded and ministered to every week in a different location. We started a new support group for caregivers of child survivors - in other words, single parents or other caregivers who are fighting in court to rescue their child(ren) from a perpetrator or fighting to keep their child(ren) safe. We also refer adult survivors to a support group specifically for them to help in their own healing process from CSA.
In addition to the above, my husband and I partnered with Darkness to Light to become trained Facilitators of their Stewards of Children program. We have been slowly getting the word out about the benefits of this training, and are excited about those we have trained so far. One is the director of a Christian camp who is planning on having us train his staff and volunteers. We have met with two pastors who are looking forward to taking the training so that they can help make a difference in their Churches by implementing better policies to keep children safe. We have several more meetings coming up with groups of Pastors in our county to get them involved in the Stewards of Children program as well as provide support to survivors & caregivers.
Our Church, the Valley church of Christ in Burton MI is having a seminar on June 7th from 9:30am-Noon. The speaker is a Preacher from Pennsylvania who will be sharing his own experience as the son of a pedophile as well as talking about how this pedophile was able to deceive everyone in their church and sexually abuse the children there, and what we as Christians should be doing to prevent this from continuing to happen. I don't have the flyer yet, but will post it as soon as it becomes available to me.
Praising God for opening eyes and hearts to the epidemic of abuse of many kinds. ACES are extremely prevalent everywhere and we can't afford to be blind to them any longer, or to allow them to continue to happen to more children!
God bless you in your work!
Jeanie King,
Founder & Director of LAPEER P.E.A.R.L.S.
facebook & twitter: Lapeer Pearls