Letter to Network Kids Directors
On Thursday, June 23rd, 2022, at approximately 3:15 PM Pacific time, I sent the following letter to the Kids Directors across the Network. Ten of the Twenty-six Network Churches do not publish an email address for the Kids Director, and so I have had to resort to a more general email address (in most cases “info@” or “contact@”, but in the case of Ascent Church, I found “kids@”).
I am providing no additional commentary, but invite any leaders in any churches to reach out to me at not.overcome@outlook.com, particularly Kids Directors.
UPDATE (7/18/22): New information about the details of the incident that prompted all of this is here: Children’s Safety: New Information — Not Overcome
UPDATE (7/21/22): Rock River Church has not corroborated the claims shared on 7/18. That claim by a pastor in the network remains unsubstantiated. Read More: Children’s Safety: No Confirmation from Rock River Church — Not Overcome
Recipients
Here are the recipients of the email I have sent.
The Letter
Subject: “Protecting Children”
Kids Directors of The Network:
This email does not speak to issues beyond those of child safety.
Your Safety
Before I say anything else, you can always email me directly from a private or anonymous email account at [redacted personal email] or not.overcome@outlook.com if you don't feel safe corresponding through your church email address. Even if you just want a copy of this email sent to your personal address, you can request it (I will post this email on my website (www.notovercome.org) as well).
About Me
My name is Jeff Irwin, and I was in The Network for 9+ years, having left Vista Church in April 2021. You may have heard many things about websites which speak about The Network. I am the creator of Not Overcome, and so you may have heard things about me.
I only ask that you hear me out in this email and the linked posts, for the sake of the kids in your care.
Your Good Faith
I assume that you accepted your role as Kids Director out of a heart for kids and helping them grow up into faith in Jesus. This is good and admirable work, and I appreciate your passion for it. I am hoping that at least some of you will be moved by that passion and love for kids to take action to protect them. I've only ever met two of you, but I know that your passion for kids always seemed genuine.
Why I am Reaching Out
The circumstances of my reaching out are regrettable. This is a difficult email to write and I ask for your grace for any spots where my wording is off. I mean to be a help, alerting you to a potential issue.
In May, I discovered evidence that one of the churches in The Network may have failed to take action to protect children from a woman who had previously molested a child. I encourage you to read the full story here. By all appearances, the woman confessed what she'd done, and then was not removed from her position as a volunteer in the Kids Program. I sent this post to the church in question (and the others in the same state) last Friday and have heard no response.
I do not have evidence that a child in The Network has been harmed, but I fear for it. Unfortunately, many churches across the country have been rocked by scandals involving the sexual abuse of children, and I believe that this is inevitable in any church that is not proactively safeguarding against it. The failure of the pastor involved to report what he knew may also legally actionable.
This past weekend, I received and posted the childcare policies from one of the churches in The Network. I do not know if it is a complete set, but if it is, despite my lack of experience, I feel confident that the policies are insufficient to protect children. I also had several documents from Blue Sky Church which also show (my opinion) significant gaps in safeguarding. For comparison, I have just published the policies of a non-Network church which are far more substantial.
In the Network, background checks have been missed, there appears to be no training on mandated reporter laws (which may allow for fines or imprisonment of those who fail to report abuse of a child), and some of the policies around physical touch or maintaining two workers present are either insufficient or are consistently violated. For example, small group childcare regularly takes place with only one worker, in a room with the door closed. In at least one case at Blue Sky Church, this was done for over four months with workers who had not even received the policy documents, let alone actually gone through a background check. Those are just a few of the many issues.
There is also no policy for keeping records of reports of concern about workers or others interacting with children. You will see a troubling story in my linked article. It happened with my own daughter at Blue Sky Church. Caroline Dennis (if you are seeing this - I think you were the Kids Director there at the time), if this story is not familiar to you, please ask yourself why, and why that would be ok? Shouldn't the Kids Director know if someone has acted suspiciously enough around children that they were asked to find a new small group? Wouldn't the safety of the kids in the church depend on that?
What you can do
First, if the policies I have are incomplete or out of date, you can send the full, up to date policies and I will be happy to update my posts (I can remove identifying information such as names and church name from it to avoid it being traceable to you).
Second, I know some of you have degrees in education or have worked in schools, and so you are familiar with the standards used for child safety in those environments. You can work (quickly, I hope) to improve the Kids Program rules to be more in line with what you see elsewhere (I am not an expert, so cannot say what the right bar is). If you do not have experience with this, I highly recommend contacting experts and consulting with other churches or schools in your area to learn from them.
This is not the time for half-measures. If you are not confident that you can state that children are safe (and no, "I trust the workers" does not count - every abuser is trusted until they get caught), consider suspending Kids Program or radically reshaping the practice of it to improve safety for now. As a parent, I can say that a church doing this would send me a strong message that the church cared about my kids. On the other hand, witnessing a church ignore this issue would have me depart the church immediately (in fact my wife and I did this last summer at a church we were checking out over the summer, over a comparatively minor infraction).
I know many of you have Kids Summer Adventure coming up - have all the workers (including pastors) received proper training? Have they had background checks?
This chilling quote is from the latest episode of the Roys Report from the recent RESTORE conference (emphasis mine - and this was one of the few sessions at the conference I can't fully endorse, but I found this particular quote to be shocking):
I think our inability to spot a serial bully is similar to our inability to spot pedophiles, 20 something years ago or so. So, we believed for example, that pedophiles all of them had been abused, sexually abused. At the most 25%. We had this belief that pedophilia was a crime of opportunity. It isn’t. It’s a crime of habit. A pedophile will take a job with a church in a youth group across the country to get access to kids.
Are you confident in the safety of the kids that parents trust you with every week?
What's at risk
The safety of children is the first and foremost concern of mine, which is why I'm taking the unprecedented step of sending out this broad email. I pray that it does not fall on deaf ears.
If a child is harmed, you and the church you serve may also be legally liable for lax standards, but I am not a lawyer so cannot say so with confidence. I can say that, now having received this email, it would seem to me that you would have less success in claiming that you simply didn't know there was an issue. I say this not as a threat, but out of concern for you, particularly if your leaders for some reason do not allow you to make appropriate improvements.
But the paramount risk here is the safety of the children in The Network.
Prayers
I am praying that nothing has happened to the kids in your care. I am praying for your wisdom, and I'll help in any way I can. I obviously have significant concerns about The Network, and you may disagree with me on that, but I hope this is an area where we can agree.
-Jeff Irwin