Reasons you should care about Child Sexual Abuse:
- The most likely candidates to abuse your children are people you wouldn’t expect. People like relatives, babysitters, etc who have developed trust relationships with them.
- Abduction is not something that happens to other people. It happens to people who don’t think it will happen to them and their children.
- If you’re a church, you need your children’s ministry to be a safe and secure area, with as much transparency, accountability and safety protocol as possible.
- God cares about it! (See the Scriptures below)
- Children who have been sexually abused are the most likely to become abusers themselves so quality care, like what The Firecracker Foundation provides, is essential.
- 1 out of 4 women have been sexually abused, as have many men. This means that you all know victims of sexual abuse. If you aren’t aware of the problem, how will they ever be able to turn to you for love, care, grace and support?
We are doing a “Pie Party” to fight against child sexual abuse on Wednesday May 7th from 5-7pm at the downtown Lansing Grand Traverse Pie Co., which I invite you to join us for if you’re in the area. See below for the origins of this party, and click here to RSVP to the Facebook event.
I was preaching a series on biblical justice back in February, looking at God’s love and passion for the oppressed, the enslaved and the orphan. Texts like Isaiah 1:11-17 and Amos 5:21-24 go as far as saying God hates our worship services, our songs and our church meetings if we are not also fighting against injustice. Pretty powerful stuff!
At Crossroads, we do a big 5K run fundraiser every January to support the most vulnerable in Haiti and we do a lot with youth in two of Lansing’s inner city parks throughout the year. I always tell our congregation that if God has placed something on their heart, we’d love to come alongside of them and help see it become a reality. During the biblical justice series, one of our members who is a victim of childhood sexual abuse, came up to me and explained that they had an idea to do a fundraiser that went along with April being Child Abuse Awareness month. This fit in perfectly with the sermon series we were doing and so we linked up with Firecracker Foundation.
One person, or one church, certainly can’t support every good cause out there, but there’s definitely something to be said for bringing some encouragement to people like those at the Firecracker Foundation who are doing great work in the lives of the most vulnerable. What I liked about our fundraiser approach is that it didn’t require people to shell out huge quantities of money, which isn’t always realistic, but it did allow them to contribute something. It also allowed us to become more aware of the great need facing children who have gone through sexual trauma and to see how we can become part of the solution, rather than perpetuating the problem by ignoring it.
We are capping off our month of fundraising with a Pie Party at the downtown Lansing Grand Traverse Pie Co. where we’ll have free pie and coffee and a chance for people to come and hang out, give additional donations and tape more Firecracker logos on our window, demonstrating to our city that as individuals and a community we care about abused children and are doing something about it. Everyone is invited to join us for this Pie Party; you don’t need an affiliation with Crossroads or the Firecracker Foundation. We invite you to come out and have a good time supporting a great cause!
Related posts:
He is:
Author of Beyond the Battle: A man's guide to his identity in Christ in an oversexualized world
Host of the The Flip Side Podcast
Join an online men's small group led by Noah and team at BeyondTheBattle.net
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