Church leaders not prepared to handle abuse cases

Sometimes people who come to pastors and ministers for counseling don't seem like they would be victims of sexual abuse, but often that abuse shows itself in other ways like addictions or depression.

"It's the secondary symptoms that send people for help," said Sallie Culbreth, who founded a ministry for sexual abuse victims.

And the church sometimes gives people "lousy advice" because its leadership isn't equipped to handle the issue of sexual abuse, she said. Culbreth, who is also a sexual abuse survivor, founded Committed to Freedom Ministries Inc., based in Hot Springs, Ark. She also has written a curriculum used by the Teen Challenge program to help adult survivors of abuse.

Culbreth led a lunch meeting Monday for 20 area ministers and church leaders and is leading staff training for the Teen Challenge Mid-America campus here, as well as speaking at area churches.

As the Catholic Church rebuilds after its clergy sex abuse scandal, Culbreth said all churches must set new policies to prevent future problems. It's not just the Catholic Church, though that scandal had high-profile coverage, "it's all across the board and it's not about celibacy but about power and control."

The Rev. Ann Mowery of Zion United Methodist Church in Gordonville, said the Methodist Church has allowed local churches to develop their own policies for screening youth workers and Sunday school teachers.

And while some people might balk at the idea of background checks, "that's just our reality," Culbreth said.

The challenge the church faces is giving abuse victims honest answers to their questions. "The rage that is unleashed in them makes the rest of us uncomfortable," she said.

But the church needs to have a respect-filled response to their feelings. Culbreth, who was abused by a clergy member and relative, said the key is helping people find wholeness.

"It's not just that I had a shattered sense of identity or didn't understand how relationships work or how my body works or what sex was about, my deepest place of wounding was a broken spirit," she said.

The church must help the spiritually broken person work in concert with counselors and therapy, she said.

The best way to do that is to forget leading questions but to preach about trauma and how God can take the hard questions people ask, she said. "We have to be sensitive in how we help them navigate through the healing."

ljohnston@semissourian.com

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