So in Closing ... continued

Build a safe environment

The church should and must be a safe environment for everyone, including and especially the most vulnerable of our society. Every Church must work at building a safe environment, it will not be something that simply comes into being. I think most Christians know that church can be one of the most hurtful of environments, and this is probably that we expect it to be safe and loving.

A safe environment requires the following ingredients:

Clear Boundaries
Create clear boundaries about what is acceptable in church and what is not. Ensure that every member of the church understands what these boundaries are and the consequences for crossing them

Sound doctrine
What we believe is most important, someone once said "you are what you eat". For Christians it is true to say you become what you believe.

Remember what you believe about one thing will effect what you believe about everything else.

Loving and non-judgemental attitudes
There is a simple spiritual principle that says "A man reaps what he sows". We should be careful to reap only love, graciousness and sweetness of spirit, but to do this we must sow these things into the lives of others.

Criticism is the assassin accomplice

A trusted and trustworthy leadership
Sometimes it just takes faith to trust a leader. Faith in the one who called and equipped him or her. It will take a long time for any leader to earn that trust and leaders must work at earning the trust of the people whom the Holy Spirit has put under their care.

Remember, even if you make mistakes and love the people they will love you and love is the only thing that covers over the mistakes of many leaders.

Clear Guidelines about the use of Spiritual Gifts
It is essential that people in the church know how to handle spiritual gifts. Even if the guidelines do not conform to sound doctrine people will feel safer with faulty guidelines that with no guidelines at all

It is the responsibility of the church leadership to protect the church from that which is unhealthy and unsafe. But how can we provide such protection? We have listed three things that leaders can do to provide protection.

They can take a lead.
They can teach sound doctrine.
They can provide pastoral care.

The two main dangers for the church of today is Apathy and the abdication of leadership. Both provide a vacuum for the devil and others to fill.

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