Slideshow image

Earlier this week your Parish Council took an important step in further building our Safe Ministry culture at St John’s by formally adopting two key documents. In a unanimous vote they agreed to adopt:

We’ve been using these two documents to guide us since their inception but Tuesday night’s vote was a wonderful way of reinforcing our key principles. The next step for us as a church is to continue the important work of turning the many policies in those documents into procedures that reflect the nature of our ministry at St John’s. The whole process moves us from standards set at a State level, through the Diocese’s careful translation of those standards into policies, into specific tailored procedures that we (and other churches) develop in our local context.

It’s tempting to think of these important compliance measures as an unnecessary burden upon us when we’re already very busy doing core gospel work. The reality is a lot more positive. Establishing policies and procedures provides three core benefits for us:

  • Armour to protect us as a church—both in making all our ministries as safe as they can possibly be for everyone and demonstrating that we’re doing everything that we can do to be as safe as we can be.
  • Compass to keep pointing us in the right direction. Sometimes we can feel that we don’t know what the next step is, especially when we enter uncharted territory; perhaps something new in our ministry that we’ve not come across before. Having policies and procedures in place allows us to know where we are and where we can safely go.
  • Launchpad to get us going as well and as efficiently as possible when we start a new ministry. By having policies and procedures in place, we don’t need to keep asking the same questions over and over again. We can start to implement Safe Ministry practice as soon as possible.

As we continue to get all of this implemented, you should expect to hear about procedures for your own ministry where necessary. If you’re not sure, then please ask. Remember, building a Safe Ministry Culture is something that we all do together. Getting our policies and procedures properly in place is an important step—but it’s a framework of support for the responsibility that we all share together.

And finally, please give God great thanks for the hard work of our team, who labour diligently to make so much of this happen. God has been good enough to gift us with a number of wonderful individuals who ensure that St John’s can pursue a Safe Ministry Culture. We’re very, very grateful for them.

If you would like to discuss Safe Ministry or raise any concerns, please don’t hesitate to speak with any of our Pastors or our Safe Ministry Representative, Julia Kim.

David Ould
Senior Associate Minister

 

Pray for Safe Ministry at St John’s
Give thanks for the commitment of the St John’s leadership to building a Safe Ministry culture. Ask God for wisdom and care as policies are put into practice in our ministries. Ask God to use these to protect, guide, and grow our church so that all we do may be safe and bring glory to him.

Ministries
Safe Ministry