Ridgell's Originals

Eloise had a good question during my posts on second chance churches concerning legal records.  When is it    acceptable to do background checks?  Do you check every "questionable" member?

So here a couple of my reactions based on what we do at Southern Hills.  I welcome input from those of you who have worked on this in your congregation.

In some ways, we are all questionable, but I get the point.

We do not do random searches to find issues, but we have a couple of standard rules for certain situations.

Anyone who wants to teach in our children's department thru high school agrees to a standard background check  By the way, all of our staff and elders do this also.

Anyone who drives one of our vehicles, or a private one on church business, agrees to a licence check.

We have a risk management team that looks at those types of things.

We have a security team that circulates thru our building and grounds during every service.

Registered offenders are not allowed in certain parts of the building.  Our security team and leadership knows their identity.

Having said all of this, we welcome them to be part of our fellowship.  There are just certain restrictions and limitations.  For their protection and ours.

We have had many ex-offenders in our fellowship.  And by that, I mean from the legal system of our country. 

Spiritually, we are all ex-offenders.