Welcome to the Unlovely Truth. I'm your host church safety advocate and coach Lori Morrison. I help ministry leaders assess and address the 12 critical safety issues that exist in every church. Our churches need to be the safest places in our communities, so my mission on this podcast is to give you actionable steps to make your house of worship a true sanctuary in your community. Let’s investigate the unlovely truth about real crime stories happening in real churches. I've got three cases to explore today, so let's dive right in. 

Important points from this episode include:

• Proven character is more important than a title

For anybody who says they're a follower of Jesus, their character should be producing such amazing fruit that we know exactly who guides their steps. And in Galatians chapter five, verses 22 and 23, it says, “But the fruit of the spirit is love. Joy peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law.”  

So if we think back over our three cases from today, we definitely didn't see any faithfulness in that first one. And the second one -- we didn't see kindness. And that third one, golly. We did not see any kind of Christian love. 

And I know none of us are going to be producing all of this, all the time. But when we look at our leaders, our volunteers, the people we look up to in our spiritual lives -- we should see the fruit of the spirit in their actions. 

So I want you to ask yourself. Is there anything in your church where you think that leadership is not really showing the fruit of the spirit? Maybe they need to step aside for a time, maybe they're going through a tough time. Maybe they never should have been a leader in the first place.  But things aren't going to be better unless somebody steps up. And is willing to say the hard thing and have those conversations. And if you need help with that, please, please get in touch with me. 

I would love to help you with that.  

Visit my website to access more episodes. If you would like to contact me about booking me as a speaker, or ask about my consulting services, please email me at [email protected]. 

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Read more about today’s cases:

Pastor murders one of his girlfriends

Spiritual abuse busted

Tasers and tambourines