This session explores how churches can cultivate resilience and care by building safety and security structures that protect the vulnerable and support ministry health. Through a discipleship-first lens, leaders will learn how readiness and response can serve as tangible expressions of faithfulness, helping ministries steward people, purpose, and trust so that the Gospel continues to go out undisturbed.

Jesus always showed great love, mercy, & compassion for the broken, vulnerable, and wounded of this world. He invited all those who were weary and had heavy burdens to find rest for the souls in Him. Today, the church and all followers of Jesus have the same undeniable calling to reflect Christ’s heart and offer help, hope, and healing for survivors and their families of sexual abuse. This session will address how churches can respond with great care, compassion, and resources to provide a place where survivors are believed, supported, and safe—and where the love of Christ can restore what sin and silence have broken.

Responding to reports and allegations of abuse can be both an urgent and complex crisis for ministry leaders. Whether you are responding to an internal allegation or reporting abuse from outside your ministry, what you do next can have lasting effects on victims, employees & volunteers, on your congregation, as well as your own career and witness before a watching world. How to manage crisis response for churches and Christ-centered ministries is something worth considering beforehand. How and when should you report? How do you care for individuals impacted by abuse? How should you form and lead a crisis response team and who should that include? When and how should we notify parents, members, our congregation or other stakeholders? When do we need an attorney and how can my insurance company assist? This workshop is for any ministry leader including administrators, pastors, directors, board members, and trustees.

In the course of your service in ministry, you’ve just learned of a possible case of child abuse.   What are your obligations?  The answer may vary widely depending on what you know, how you know it, and the capacity in which you serve as well as the laws of the place you are serving.  We’ll provide you with the tools you need to be prepared before you receive a report of potential child abuse, to know your privileges, rights, and obligations, and to respond in a way that protects yourself, your ministry, and those you serve.

Child safety and abuse prevention are issues of Great Commission significance. If our goal is to make disciples, we must also be good stewards of the precious resources that God has entrusted to us, especially vulnerable image-bearers. Unfortunately, abuse is a problem in our culture from which the church is not exempt. The good news is that there are steps that ministry leaders can take to protect children under their care. 

In this session, we will cover the basics of creating a child protection program at your church including appropriate screening measures, children’s worker training, and response plans. Creating a child protection program can feel like a daunting task, but ministry leaders should leave this session with resources and simple, actionable steps to get started.

This presentation equips church and ministry leaders to understand and confront the reality of grooming with both biblical conviction and informed practice. Grounded in Scripture’s clear call to protect the vulnerable and shepherd God’s people with integrity, the session examines how grooming operates as a deliberate process that exploits trust, authority, and access within ministry contexts. Through an educational lens, leaders are guided to recognize behavioral patterns, environmental risks, and digital dynamics that can precede abuse, while also learning how sound governance, vigilant supervision, and accountable response plans reflect faithful stewardship. By integrating biblical principles with proven prevention standards, this training affirms that safeguarding children is not merely a legal responsibility, but a core expression of the Church’s pastoral mission and witness.

This session will cover the path to human trafficking and sexual exploitation. We will outline why the Church is the first line of defense against sexual exploitation, especially in the digital world. We will cover how to shift your ministry from a reactive role against exploitation to a proactive one.  We will discuss the intersection of technology and how to better equip youth against the inevitable risk they are facing to becoming sexually exploited. 

Child and youth safety is not optional—it is a calling. This course gives you the tools and confidence to start strong or strengthen what you already have. Whether you feel fully called, or simply willing, this work protects the vulnerable, builds trust, and reflects the heart of Jesus.

Join us for this training to:

• Understand the role of a Child Safety Coordinator and why it matters to the mission of the Church
• Identify the core responsibilities and practical steps to launch or strengthen that role at their church or organization.
• Gain tools and resources to start or refine a Child Protection Plan in their own ministry.
• Leave encouraged to do this work in God’s strength, not their own.

Having a plan for how your organization would respond to a discovery of abuse is invaluable. Whether the abuse were to be perpetrated by someone within your organization or someone without, how you respond will impact the victim’s recovery, perpetrator’s sentence, and your organization’s reputation.

We don’t like to think about the fact that one of our own could be abused in our care or that one of our own could be an abuser. But that is precisely why it is so vital to create and maintain an abuse response plan while heads are clear, and hearts are not burdened by the sorrow that comes when abuse is uncovered.

Although we do everything in our power to protect kids and prevent abuse, on this side of heaven it still happens. You don’t want to be caught on your heels when faced with such a heavy, heartbreaking situation.

Let us come alongside you to give guidance on how to build a response plan that works for you and your specific ministry context.

Having a strong child protection policy is only the first step to safeguarding the children in your care.  The next critical step is making the policy a living part of your organization’s culture with frequent audits of your policy and learning from stakeholders how it’s working in practice.  This session will help you learn principles for evaluating and adjusting your policies.

Meaningful reform in abuse prevention often meets resistance—not only from systems but from the fears and habits that shape them. This session provides practical wisdom for pastors and leaders seeking to shepherd their congregations through the challenges of implementing safety reforms. We’ll discuss how to lead with conviction, communicate with grace, and cultivate lasting change that honors both survivors and the mission of the Church.

Having a strong child protection policy is only the first step to safeguarding the children in your care.  The next critical step is making the policy a living part of your organization’s culture with frequent audits of your policy and learning from stakeholders how it’s working in practice.  This session will help you learn principles for evaluating and adjusting your policies.

In this fast-paced, interactive workshop, attendees will examine real-world cases where organizations became vulnerable to predator or abductor behavior. Through guided discussion, participants will uncover how these threats infiltrated the organization and identify the warning signs that were missed. The goal of this workshop is to equip leaders with practical insights and strategies to build a proactive culture of prevention within the organizations they lead.

In abuse response, we are right to prioritize the needs of victims. But churches must also be intentional in caring for offenders. How can we minister to offenders in a way that balances accountability, necessary consequences, and safety concerns with genuine love, aiming at a restoration of their dignity as God’s image-bearers? How do we apply the gospel to those who’ve diminished their own humanity by hurting others? And what practical considerations must we always keep before us? In this talk, we’ll explore these themes together, providing real help to those caring for offenders. 

Is child safety a document in a drawer or the heartbeat of your ministry? Effective protection flows from culture, not just checklists. Drawing on 20 years of experience, this session moves beyond the basics to transform compliance from a bureaucratic burden into a sacred commitment to stewardship.

Learn to lead teams where 100% compliance is the non-negotiable standard for protecting “the least of these.” We will bridge the gap between heart and execution, providing practical tools for screening, training, and digital boundaries that protect your children, your volunteers, and your mission.

Key Takeaways:

• Shift the Narrative: Move from seeing safety as a “legal requirement” to a vital expression of your ministry.
• Operationalize Excellence: Maintain 100% compliance in screening and training without causing volunteer fatigue.
• Manage Modern Risks: Master practical frameworks for digital boundaries and social media safety.
• Build Sustainability: Replace “audit-season scrambles” with a year-round rhythm of safety and excellence.