We receive a lot of e-mails asking questions that are facing churches throughout the country in terms of security and emergency planning, and do try to answer as many as possible. But I would like to address a topic that has been asked several times recently and seems to come up frequently during training.
"What do you do with a person with a criminal record that wants to work or volunteer for the church?"
First let me emphasize that we believe all staff and volunteers should have a background conducted on them. Many churches just do a background on those people "who work with kids", and I have never quite understood this rational?
First, you are not doing backgrounds just to find the convicted sex offender, there are many things you want to see in a background like what types of crimes have they committed, trends of violence, financial problems, addictions problems - all can be found in a thorough background check.
And second, do you have a wall that separates the people "who work with children" from those that don't?
Of course not, many of the crimes against kids we have seen in churches are committed by people who are in other roles - maintenance, pastoral, just general volunteers.
If you are going background check some, do all, otherwise you are creating a false sense of security.
And we have covered pretty thoroughly in past articles (which are available on our website) what to do if you have a registered sex offender who begins to attend your church, so this has been covered.
But the question has come up more lately, what do you do if someone wants to volunteer or work for your church or ministry and has a criminal background, but not necessarily a registered sex offender?
During my career, I have been in charge of conducting thousands of background checks on people in all levels of positions, from housekeeping to executive, in secular and Christian organizations.
By far the hardest decisions are those in a Christian organization when someone has a criminal history.
In the secular world standards are usually set and certain criminal convictions will automatically get you disqualified from certain positions (and the states are changing a lot of this, so always check with your state laws and consult with your background check company and legal counsel).
However it is not that easy in the Christian world (and this varies of course from organization to organization).
After conducting a background on someone, no matter what criminal history that come back with, Christian organizations feel that they have to take into consideration the testimony of that individual and that adds a whole other dimension to the background process.
Let me state right here that I am not making any judgments on this process; I have been part of it and sometimes I agree with the final decisions and sometimes I didn't, but as a Christian I understand the reasoning.
For example (and this is a real example), if you run a background check on someone and they have been convicted and served time for murder, do you hire them or let them volunteer in your church?
When I first encountered this my law enforcement/security instinct was "Of course not, are you out of your mind?” until I looked at it from a Christian standpoint and remembered the saving Grace of God.
What is this person's testimony? What if they were a hard-core gang member, killed someone, went to prison and was saved by a Prison Ministry? Isn't that why we have Prison Ministries, to save those who may have no hope?
So this person went into prison a criminal and came out a believer - what do you do now?
If you don't hire or let this person volunteer, isn't that contradicting what we believe, that God can save anyone and Jesus died for all our sins (Romans 8:1 comes to mind)? However, what is the liability if this person commits a violent act after you let them work or volunteer for your church and you knew of this person's criminal history? What is the church's liability?
This is not meant to give legal or theological advice, but these are real life situations.
I was at a church recently where the head of security pointed to a Facility's person who had more prison tattoos than I ever saw - the guy was scary looking. But as they told me his story, he was hard core gang guy, actually did kill someone, turned his life around, loves the Lord and is one of the best people they have working in the church.
I was always thankful that I was not the person making the ultimate decision on people's hiring based on their background check and testimony (I was for security personnel, but for others, it was someone else's decision). It was hard enough in the secular world, but in a Christian organization, there are some tough decisions.
I use murder has a worst case example, but have seen so many other crimes in people's backgrounds and many were disqualified from being hired as a staff member or volunteer.
One position involved handling money and the person had a conviction for financial theft. Yes this person was saved, but to put them in a money handling position might not be the best "fit". The same with a person with a history of DUI convictions; do you really want them driving the church van? One conviction, maybe, several, probably not so much (plus I doubt your insurance carrier would approve).
Maybe the answer is to put them somewhere else, but as I mentioned above, just because someone works or volunteers in one area, doesn't mean they won't have access to other areas, especially in smaller churches where people have to do multiple tasks.
Lastly I will just say that there is also a church reputation/public relations side of this that must be considered.
I remember not too long ago a business man who stole money from multiple people in a pretty big scam, was convicted and was saved in prison, came out and started volunteering at a church in the same community he cheated people out of money. He was instantly recognizable and the media picked up on it and it turned into a circus that not only was this man attending there, but also he was accepted as a volunteer.
The church backed him up and did all the right things, but be prepared for some backlash from within your own church.
As I have told people who have asked this question before, I know this isn't an answer and probably adds more questions to your process, but they are needed questions that have to be answered because if you don't answer them upon hiring the person, you may have to answer them to your congregation, the media, and maybe in court - be prepared now.
In Christ,
Jeff Hawkins
Executive Director
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