Thank you so much for making the journey here. For some, it’s much further than others, but we appreciate each of you. We have had a good time in the house of the Lord up to this point. We trust the best is yet to come.
We have a couple of announcements, and we may move quickly as we go through this just due to time management, so bear with us.
We have a variety of ways for you to listen to audio versions of our magazine articles, daily devotionals, and Portland sermons. An email was sent to you a few days ago on Monday, February 27. It was related to promoting podcast access. Not only can you benefit from that information, but you can share it with your congregations, so they can listen too. They want audio via podcast. The younger generation in particular listens more to podcasts, so take advantage of that.
Expanded Tracts
Since last summer, we have added seven new expanded tracts to our inventory. These include the testimonies of Lee Spakousky, Confidence Nemaungani, Mark Zetter, and more recently, Jodie Hinkle. These also include the testimonies of Earl Phillips, Robert Moore, and Berda Northup, which have not yet been released. Several more expanded tracts are in the works, featuring the testimonies of Duane Wilson, Pete Friesen, and Lavon Brown who hails from Florida. She has an exciting testimony, by the way. Some of these are being published for the first time while others are being republished in the new format.
If you would like some of these tracts or any of our literature for use at your church, place your order by April 1. You can do that via email to Zelma Pierce in the mailing department. You can also fill out an order form at the back desk where Alicia Parker and Catey Hinkle are seated. We are hoping to print literature only once per year. If you don’t put your order in by April 1 of this year, don’t worry—you’ll have another opportunity to order literature next year. This will help a great deal.
Winter tabernacle meetings
We are looking to have next year’s winter tabernacle meetings, if Jesus tarries, February 23 through March 3. This is a bit earlier than usual, but the Easter season begins in March. Also, we want to have as much distance as we can between the winter meetings and camp meeting. These dates help in other ways too. One challenge we have in the Portland metro area is that we have school music events where some of our kids are in competitions. I don’t know if this is true everywhere else. There is really no ideal time for students, though, so we will name the dates and then work around whatever schedule they have.
Agenda
We will have three sessions today. Briefly, the first will be on the subjects of “Tithes, Weddings, and Communications.” After that, we will take a one-minute break before viewing a twenty-minute presentation, which was shared at ordinance a couple of weeks ago in Portland. It gives an overview of what branch church offerings have accomplished in the last several months. That should take us to about 10:20, when we will have a fifteen-minute break that includes some refreshments.
After the break, Mark Staller will present the second session for an hour. That will be followed by another fifteen- minute break and then Josephine McElveen will do the third session, ending no later than 12:30. After that, lunch will be served in the Fellowship Lodge. Sister Kim Habre and her crew have put together something very impressive. It is a taste of India, with foods that have names I cannot pronounce, but you will enjoy it.
Introduction
Some questions have come up concerning finances, weddings, communication, and reporting moral failures. I will address these by category.
“Thou shalt truly tithe all the increase of thy seed, that the field bringeth forth year by year.” – Deuteronomy 14:22
Question: Do I tithe on social security income?
Deuteronomy 14:22 emphasizes that we are to bring the increase. That concept is applicable here. Therefore, the part of social security income that is tithable is the amount you receive above what you paid in. This is assuming you already paid tithes on your gross income as it was earned before it went into your social security account. We tithe on our gross incomes because God takes priority over the government. Presuming you have done that, when you begin to draw social security, you recover your cost and then tithe on the increase. If you choose to tithe the whole amount, the extra tithe is an offering.
Question: Do I tithe on unrealized gains in my retirement account?
A retirement account has a balance of funds contributed by you, your employer, or both, that earns interest and theoretically grows over time. The increase in the account is called “unrealized gain” until it is withdrawn, because the unrealized gains of today may become unrealized losses tomorrow. What is an increase in your account now could be a decrease in a decade. Therefore, you don’t tithe until you withdraw funds. Then you tithe on the increase over your contributions.
Much like Social Security benefits, if you already tithed on what you paid in, you recover that cost and tithe on the increase.
Question: Do I tithe on the gain from the sale of a residence?
A case could be made that there is no tithe when you move equity from one personal residence into another. However, after selling, if you withdraw any part of the realized gain for other purposes, that represents an increase, and tithe is certainly due.
I can’t possibly address all the dynamics or possibilities that exist pertaining to when to tithe. However, the main principle is that we tithe on the increase.
Question: Where do we tithe?
You tithe where you attend church. You benefit by where you attend church from the utilities and other maintenance, so that is where you tithe.
Question: Can I self-direct tithes or offerings?
A donation that is self-directed is not a tithe. If you earn $1000 per month and plan to tithe ten percent (the word tithe means “a tenth”), and you self-direct $100 per month, that amount is not a tithe. In addition, a tithe or offering that is self-directed is not tax deductible. The IRS doesn’t allow deductions for donations with strings attached. However, if you make an offering with a request that the funds be used for a specific purpose, the church certainly tries to honor that.
There have been times when we needed to contact, particularly pastors, who wanted to help with a certain project that was already provided for. Recently, multiple pastors wanted to help with the same project. We contacted some of them, asking to redirect the funds to another need. We might do that with an individual as well.
There have also been cases where money has been donated through the tithe box for a specific person. When this is a check, typically the donor expects to deduct that amount on his or her income tax return. What we have had to do, not many times, is return the check and graciously explain that we cannot be a conduit. For perspective, suppose I wanted to support my grandchildren by giving them $100 checks, so I gave that money to the church to give to them. The church would have a duty to return the money. We do this graciously. What we leave unsaid is that we also don’t want to become complicit in a situation where someone goes through life with his hand out.
Question: Does the perspective of powerful/prominent church members or families drive economic decisions?
This was a question that arose and I recharacterized it to include the word “prominent.” It could be restated as: Is there donor influence? The answer is: Absolutely not! It is insulting that this would even be implied. In Portland, I will tell you that I have never even looked at who tithes and who doesn’t. I have learned in the last couple of years that perhaps I should have, but I didn’t. Tithing is a sacred act between an individual and God. It has no impact whatsoever on church decisions. If someone has donated a lot of money or hardly any, I wouldn’t know.
To me, the words prominent and powerful equate to prayerful. The people who are prayerful and devout by all evidence guide decisions without regard to their economic standings. What matters in terms of influence is integrity. Wealth or the lack thereof has no influence.
Expertise also matters. If we have a construction project, we are not going to consult with an IT person, unless some part of the project falls to him or her. Similarly, if we have an IT problem, we are not going to call a construction contractor.
Question: What do I do about a key worker who does not tithe?
Well, as far as workers go, you tell me. For ministers, we have revised our minister questionnaire—the background information form that ministers fill out before they begin preaching—to now ask, “Do you tithe?” It would not hurt to be aware of this information before you ask someone to participate in the work. I have learned that particularly for those in leadership positions, this speaks to one’s loyalty (or lack thereof) to God and the work of the Lord.
Question: May a pastor use church funds for personal expenses?
Absolutely not! We don’t commingle funds. If you have more personal bills than you could possibly afford to pay and the church has money, that is totally irrelevant. Church funds are to be used for ordinary and necessary expenses of church operations. The church has no business paying for any number of personal expenses—my eyeglasses, my suit and tie, my dentist, my dog. These do not constitute ordinary and necessary church expenses. If you are in question, ask yourself, “Who benefits by this expense?” The church does not benefit if I buy a new pair of shoes.
We pay some full-time workers in Portland. Though the pay is modest, we don’t pay their personal expenses, nor are mine paid. That is not the responsibility of the church.
The church checkbook, and you have heard this over the years, is not an extension of our own checkbook. I will emphasize again that there is no commingling of funds. If we overspend personally, even for a good cause, it is not the responsibility of the church to bear that expense.
The proper span of control requires that accountability be built into our handling of church finances. I realize that branch churches already submit monthly reports to Portland, but there should also be some sense of accountability locally.
We have always said in the past that two signatures are required on checks. That does not mean we hand someone one hundred blank checks to sign so the pastor can pay bills. That practice was abandoned literally two decades ago. We don't do it. It may be different if the pastor needs to make a run to Costco. One signed check can be given, but even then, the amount needs to be reported back with a receipt.
Going forward, we are going to take this two-signature rule even further. There should be dual signatures on financial reports. Not only do the reports come to Portland, but locally, some trusted minister or elder unrelated to the pastor needs to see the financial report. That will build accountability locally. I realize the risk exists that suddenly finances become the paramount concern of the local church. That is not the intent. However, we certainly want to build in accountability to the extent that everyone is confident that financial matters are being handled above reproach.
Dual signatures are also needed for electronic payment receipts. Many in some countries don’t even know what a check is. Everything is done electronically, and eventually it will come to that in the U.S.
“Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” – Genesis 2:24
It is not my intent to give a teaching on marriage or weddings, but we want to make sure we have the same mind regarding both.
According to Genesis 2:24, a man is to leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall be one. The instructions are: leave, cleave, be one. Someone who not ready to leave home and cleave to his or her spouse is not ready to be married. That is part of the reason we get together with couples and ask them a number of questions over a period of months. It is to make sure they have confidence that they ought to be married.
We do not officiate second marriages where there is a living spouse from a previous marriage. Let that sink in. We don't even want to get into a situation where we are investigating what happened with that first marriage. We don’t try to find out if that first marriage was with one who had been married before. I heard Brother Loyce Carver say thirty or forty years ago, “We are just not going to officiate those weddings where it is mixed up, even though they might be free to marry.” That is still our policy.
To be married in our church sanctuary, the two participants must be saved and church members in good standing. Many, many years ago, I officiated a wedding for a couple who were not saved but already had children. They were already a family and needed to get married. (They are still married today, by the way.) However, I didn’t officiate the wedding at the church. I had been taught that the sanctuary is for the saints of God. We do not allow our sanctuary to be used to marry unsaved couples or those who are not in good standing with our church. In addition, whether in or out of our sanctuary, we don’t marry a saved individual to an unsaved individual.
Before we officiate a wedding, we need to have the opportunity to meet with a couple three or four times over a period of months. We need to have time to make sure the couple knows one another.
When meeting with couples, I convey to them that all others are to be on the outside of their relationship, including myself. During the sessions, I will need to raise some questions. However, I tell the couple, “The two of you need to talk together outside of my presence. I am not going to insert myself into this union.” If they have questions along the way that need my response, that’s a different matter, but I belong on the outside of the marriage. So do their parents. That’s one caution I tell every couple—they need to be careful of in-law interference. I’ve told the groom-to-be, “It is your duty to protect your bride-to-be from your mother.” And I tell the bride-to-be, “It is your duty to protect your groom from your mother and father.” Typically, the mothers are the issue. If the couple is not ready to leave and cleave, they are not ready to get married, as I have already said.
I have learned over the years to ask questions that I didn’t ask at first. One of these is about pornography. I will say to a couple, “When we leave here, I want you, bride-to-be, to ask the groom-to-be if he has ever engaged in pornography.” One bride-to-be asked, “What will I do if he says yes?” I told her, “You ask him to what extent. Get the facts.” Then I told the couple that if they had questions after talking with each other, they could come back. They didn’t, so I don’t know how that went. And I don’t need to know—I’m not marrying, they are. It is none of my business. But the brides need to know what they are getting into when they marry.
Today, a person can’t even walk through the mall, which I try to avoid, without seeing some form of semi-porn in the windows. It is all over the place. A person can’t look at his online news feed without seeing the latest of whatever is out there. I cover that with the couples. I tell them, “Don’t click on those things. Don’t even go there. Don’t do it!”
After meeting with a couple over a period of months, the two will either have more confidence to go forward with their wedding or . . . well, they usually go forward. Remember, however, that we are not required to officiate a wedding. I told one couple, “Yesterday, you had a problem, and you may be okay with it today, but now I have a problem. We are not going forward with this wedding, and we are not going to reschedule. We are going to postpone without rescheduling.” That situation worked out to the glory of God.
Before we officiate a wedding, we must have confidence that neither party has been married before. A question on my checklist for couples is, “Have either of you been married before?” For most of these weddings, and coming up we have a few, we have watched the couple grow up and we know them. It is possible, though, not to know if the parties have been married before. In fact, it would have been a risk with me. I should have been asked that question. I was twenty-one years old when I got saved. I hadn’t been married before, but Debbie should have interrogated me more carefully.
We want to especially ask the question of someone who came from abroad before attending our church, since we don’t know their background as well. If they came from an Apostolic Faith church, we can call the ministry there and ask, “Do you know so and so? Can you tell us something about him/her?” We need to know the couple and the couple needs to know each other.
We encourage couples to have parental and pastoral blessing. This can be delicate, but it is the ideal situation. We do not have to give our blessing as an officiant or as a pastor. We have the responsibility to say, “I don’t approve of this wedding” if that is the case. We want to be able to endorse the marriage.
We don’t perform ring ceremonies, nor are ring ceremonies allowed in our churches. If someone asked me to officiate a ring ceremony, even away from our church, I would decline. I realize there was a time when we said, “Well, you can step aside for that part of the ceremony and then re-enter.” That’s awkward. We’re not going to do it. If the couple wants rings that badly, let them use the other person for the whole ceremony.
You could perform a wedding where you knew that afterward the couple was planning to wear rings. If the exchange was going to take place privately and completely outside the ceremony, without you, that would be their own business.
I planned to address something later but will do it now while I am thinking of it. We don’t say that workers who plan to wear rings after marrying are backslidden—that decision is between them and God. We ask that those who participate in our work not wear jewelry, such as rings, whether at church or away from church. The burden is on the workers to comply. If it becomes a problem—if a couple posts photos of themselves on social media—we would go to them and say, “This isn’t going to work.” We would tell them that we respect their right to make that decision and we hope they respect our right to make our decision. This was covered in the Minister’s Manual excerpt emailed just a week ago, so I won’t go into details.
We use the wedding vows that are in our Minister’s Manual rather than what we or the couple have written. We can still personalize a ceremony. We do so by telling how the couple met, when each got saved, and how they feel God brought them together. The foundation of their marriage is the fact that they are saved. Telling about this is an evangelistic tool, but the purpose of the wedding is not to preach the sound doctrine of the Apostolic Faith Church. Don’t ruin the bride’s wedding or that of her family by preaching repentance. Memorialize the wedding and the ceremony.
The vows come from the Minister’s Manual, but if the bride or groom wants to recite a poem or sing to each other, that’s fine. Our job is to marry them and make sure we don’t interfere with the bride having a wonderful day.
What constitutes a marriage? Marriage is first defined by the Bible. We know that. Next, it is defined by local law as long as it is not in conflict with the Bible.
There are real-life situations where the question “What constitutes a marriage?” comes up. One example I have used before is that of a couple who meets for the first time at the courthouse before the judge. He pronounces them man and wife. They leave the courthouse and never see each other again, except maybe to sign the divorce papers—or maybe they don’t even divorce. Is that a marriage? Yes, it is a marriage. They were married even though they never came together physically. The legal act consummated that marriage.
The lesson here is that the couple needs to know who they are marrying, but also as a minister, we need to know who we are officiating for. Those kinds of marriages are done for immigration purposes. Some think if they can just find a groom or a bride in America, they can move to America. They are predators. They use people. So, investigate. If you haven’t seen the couples grow up in the church and are totally unaware of their background, you need to inquire.
We have had some very grievous situations where one was unwittingly married into adultery and found out after the fact. We have a responsibility to do some investigating to protect our young people.
What if one unwittingly marries into or officiates a marriage that later proves to be adulterous? Well, what is there to say? This is one reason why the couple needs to know each other, and you need to know who you are officiating for.
How much control does an officiating minister have over the wedding reception whether at the church or away? The wedding ceremony is sacred. It is a holy event. It’s very serious. It is so serious that God uses it as an illustration of the relationship between Christ and His bride, the Church.
The subsequent reception should reflect the seriousness of the vows just exchanged and the testimonies of the couple. We just declared that they love God, and the foundation of their marriage is the fact that they are saved. We claimed they have separated themselves from the ways of the world and are devoted to being examples of holiness. Then everyone is invited to a reception where there is a rock and roll band and dancing? That is disgusting. Where did that come from? It came from the world. It is an example of emulating the world. We have just said we are pure and white as the bride of Christ. Are we then going to step away into the world and conduct ourselves like Jezebel and Ahab? No! If you are the officiant, find out about that reception because your name is attached to it. Know what you are getting into before you accept a request to officiate a wedding.
We are blessed in Portland. Over the years, we have had very good wedding coordinators who help set appropriate expectations. Even at that, there has been a time or two where everything hasn’t gone perfectly. The wedding day is not the day to tell the bride that something is not going to work. It is too late by then; you will just bear with it.
We have coordinators who work ahead of time to try to limit surprises. They check that the bridesmaids and the bride are properly attired, and the groomsmen are properly groomed. Also, that the music is sacred or classical rather than something worldly. There have been a few times when I thought, Well, that isn’t ideal. But I only thought it; I am not going to ruin the day by saying it to the families. On those occasions, I should have talked with the coordinator beforehand to make sure everything was appropriate. Jessica Oilar currently oversees our wedding coordinators, and she does a good job, as have her predecessors.
Photos of a couple, both participants in the work, have showed up on social media sporting engagement or wedding rings and/or other jewelry. How do we handle that? We tell them the truth. We request of our workers that they not wear jewelry at church or away from church. We say, “It does not work for you to take off your jewelry right before you walk in the door and then after you leave, put the jewelry back on.” That is odd. What are they teaching? No, they can’t do that. Tell them, “If it is that important to you, it is your decision. We will respect your right to make that decision and hope that you respect our right to employ the standard that we have long employed.”
As I said earlier, this was just covered in the Minister’s Manual topic emailed to ministers a week ago. That email gave the Scripture references for what holiness groups for centuries have stood for. Though some groups have yielded under pressure. Pressure from where? From the world. Some have said that wedding rings are a symbol of marriage. My reply is that they are just as much a symbol of divorce—fifty percent of those who put on the ring later take it off.
If someone has photos of themselves wearing jewelry on social media and decides later that they want to rejoin the work, have that person purge the social media account. Doing otherwise sends confusing signals. Actually, it sends a clear signal that confuses.
Is initiating a divorce ever an option? Some real-life situations are: “My husband beats me” or “My husband is a womanizer.” Typically, we don’t hear complaints about something the wife is doing, but about the husband.
There is a distinction between a divorce and a legal separation. That distinction is legal. In either case, a person is still married in the sight of God, providing that the original marriage was a Biblical marriage.
Initiating a divorce is not an option. A legal separation is an option if personal safety is in jeopardy. A woman, for example, has the right to protect herself. That protection applies to not only beatings, but to the diseases her adulterous spouse brings home. A legal separation could protect her financially and physically. May God have mercy and help.
This gets back to the couples knowing who they are marrying. They need to know each other’s backgrounds. They need to know how the other was brought up. Did the groom-to-be grow up in a single-parent home without a dad? Did he grow up in a home where his dad hollered at his mother (the dad’s wife)? If he did, that is what he learned. When a young couple is getting married, I want to know about their parents. That young twenty-five-year-old man might be a great guy in church, but he may have learned some bad lessons at home. The risk of him being like his dad exists, so we need to ask.
Regarding divorcees and unmarried individuals in our congregations, is it appropriate to have singles fellowship events? First, I don’t like to use the word “divorcees.” They are not single, nor are they unmarried; they are married. Secondly, we are not a dating service. It is inappropriate to have singles fellowship events. It is appropriate to have fellowship events where we all get together. And honestly, we have these events in the narthex every time we hold church. Fellowship is good; we don’t want to discount that, but we are not a dating service or a matchmaking service.
“Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” – Ephesians 4:31-32
A positive outcome
I recently received a four-page letter, which was very long and tedious. It was signed by one who was representing five individuals. It was copied to the leader where they resided, and it was very much indicting that leader for matters that he really was not responsible for. I won’t get into all those details but I will say that the letter itself was tedious and combative. It was inappropriately written.
On the positive side, it wasn’t written behind the leader’s back, though the five of them must have operated somewhat in the background before they ever wrote the letter. Now that I think about it, the letter was written to him, and I was copied. I replied with the subject line “Your Long Letter.” Here is my response:
Dear brother,
Your letter is hereby acknowledged. I have read it with extreme disappointment. It was written in a manner that is extraordinarily disrespectful to Brother so-and-so and the order he represents. The approach of your letter must be corrected before you can be taken seriously.
You will be given the opportunity to rewrite your concerns in a manner that reflects the holiness we stand for. But first, we need to see five separate letters [“we” being the leader who I was thinking of more than myself]; one from each signer of the original letter, acknowledging and apologizing for the spirit in which the original letter was written. We must remember that frustration, which we all experience, does not give license to convey our thoughts in a destructive manner. Our perspective must always be expressed in a productive manner. It also helps to use brevity and specificity, rather than write generally and laboriously.
Then I signed off. Within one day, I received five separate letters, apologizing. Apologies were issued to me and to the leader in question. Afterward, there was a rewritten original letter one-fourth as long as the first letter. It cut to the chase. In my reply, I thanked them, adding the following:
We thank the Lord that we can all strive together in unity for the good of the Gospel. It does not surprise us when the enemy of every soul attempts to divide us. However, it does not surprise us to see God use those nefarious efforts, and overcome them, in order to achieve great victory. We believe that many victories are about to emerge . . .
It went on a little further, but I will stop there.
We have already seen some positive outcomes result from those legitimate concerns, and God will get the glory in the days to come. Why was this a positive outcome? Because they owned it. They fixed it. Please, convey that concept to people. Own it and fix it to the extent that you can. That applies to less than stellar communication on our part all the time. So many things are easily remedied if instead of justifying or excusing our behavior, we just say, “I blew it.” Say, “I’m so sorry” and stop there. Don’t say it was because of a lack of sleep. That is no justification. Don’t say it was because you were sick last week. No, just say, “I’m so sorry; I blew it,” and then fix it. You can’t unring the bell, but many minor infractions can be easily remedied by owning our mistakes and then doing what we can to fix them.
The remedy is Ephesians 4:31 and 32. It is the remedy for the next topic as well.
Personality clashes
Most communication conflicts are not carnality related. Instead, they happen because we are different. We have different upbringings. I grew up in a home that was relatively stable though unsaved. My wife grew up in a home that was not stable at all, though they claimed to be saved. Our perspectives vary. We are products of not only our personalities but our environments.
At times we communicate imperfectly or misunderstand one another. Other times, conflicts arise due to personality differences even though something was communicated clearly and understood perfectly. That is not carnality, but humanity. We are human beings.
We know the Biblical approach to offenses is Matthew 18:15-20, though 99% of the time we can stop at verse 15. It says, “If they brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone.” That’s it. But so often we tell one here, one there, and one there. After the problem is fixed, you better go back and tell one here, one there, and one there. Say, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. I don’t want you to know or think anything ill of a brother.”
Character slander is a boomerang. Proverbs 21:23 says, “Whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue keepeth his soul from troubles.” Church disputes need to be handled within the framework of Matthew 18. I have only quoted one verse because most of the time, if you just deal with a matter privately, locally, carefully, it’s over. It’s done, resolved.
If a conflict doesn’t get resolved, taking a church matter to secular courts won’t afford a good outcome. The Bible forbids it. Not only for legal tax situations. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6, “I speak to your shame . . . [when you take your brother to the law]. Why do you not rather take wrong? Why do you not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?” If you don’t quite see things the way another brother does, just accept that. Let it be over and move on.
When disputes arise between a pastor and parishioner, do we always side with the pastor? No, we actually don’t. If the pastor is impetuous or a hothead, in which case he never should have been a pastor, we are not going to support disrespect of a congregant. Neither would we support disrespect by a congregant of a pastor.
If there are other questions about how to communicate, we have the Bible.
How should we report moral failure, specifically sexual misconduct? This is often a result of abuse of power. I have had to deal with this and said, “I am not going to sit on the same platform as those two people.” Basically, I was saying, “Either they go or I go.” Then we held a big workers’ meeting and I told everyone, “Resignations are expected. If, since you became a minister, you have been guilty of sexual misconduct, you are expected to resign. If you are the superior of one who is resigning, you are expected to accept that resignation. This is all to happen immediately. We are going to cleanse the corruption.”
Who should report an incident? If you are aware of something, you should report it. If you become aware of something that is in someone’s past, you should go to that person and ask, “Is it true that you have been guilty of such and such?” If it is true, tell them, “You need to resign. Now. You either go quietly or you can go loudly, but you must go.” You might say it a little more diplomatically than that, but we do expect resignations.
Typically, sexual misconduct is an abuse of power—someone who is highly regarded takes advantage of someone else. Whether it was consensual or not doesn’t matter. Resignations are expected and they must happen. The victim is asked to report the incident but does not need to first confront the accused. Matthew 18 is not applicable here, because for one thing, the accused is not a “brother.” The victim should report it to the superior of the accused. If someone is not comfortable doing that, everyone has my email address at the Portland headquarters. Report the incident to me and we will look into the matter.
We are tempered by 1 Timothy 5:19 which says, “Against an elder receive not accusation but before two or three witnesses.” However, typically a predator or one who is an abuser of power has more than one victim. Like a child abuser, if they are predatory in that nature, usually there’s not just one child. Likely, there are two or three or twenty or thirty. So, if one woman, for example, reports and there is a denial, if the allegations is true, there will likely be more victims to substantiate her claim.
I had one situation where I told a brother that he was being awkward and making ladies feel uncomfortable. His actions were not sinful, but off-putting. It was correctable. I told him, “I’ve got your back. You might want to correct this behavior.” It never should have gone beyond that. He should have said, “You're right. I’m Sorry. It will stop.” It could have ended there, but it didn’t.
Villains are not victims. The villain will recharacterize himself, very smoothly, as the victim. That is not fair. It is not right. They will say, “It wasn’t that bad.” Don’t facilitate that behavior. Don’t accommodate that. Be careful. The fact that one would go about seeking sympathy is evidence that he has not accepted responsibility for his actions.
How can one avoid being falsely accused of sexual misconduct? Never put yourself in a circumstance that could later bring your conduct into question. At the headquarters office, we have glass doors. Someone suggested that we cover the doors, and I rejected that idea. We have no secrets there. Everyone can see what is going on. If I wanted to lean back and take a nap, everyone would see it.
That is the end of the first session, we will now take a quick break before the slide show presentation.
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