Safe Sanctuaries for North Texas:

Policy Overview

Need for a Policy

• Children in the United States are the most vulnerable group in American culture.
• As the landscape of American families change, the culture surrounding children continues to change.
• The Church’s response to children in families inevitably changes as well. In the current milieu of American culture, safety and security is an important topic for churches to embrace as part of their operation.

Focus of the Policy

• To the question, “How do we keep our children safe in an ever-changing world?” the Church’s response is, primarily, “hope.”
• The growing sense of fear and fear-based media influence shapes policies in such a way that fear instead of hope thrives.
• As an institution, the Church, at its core, promotes hope and a new way of being in the world. Therefore, within the North Texas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, this iteration of the Church will be shaped by creating open and loving environments with loving and accountable guides who are shaped by the greater message of God’s love in Jesus Christ.

North Texas Annual Conference Policy

• Our Conference policy is a guideline to shape children and family ministries within the local churches to create safe space.
• It is of the utmost importance to note, first, the state of children and families in our culture.
• The policy and local church guidelines can be found on the North Texas Annual Conference website (see site map below).
• As the Church we are bold enough to proclaim in a prophetic voice the holistic and powerful words of transformation for the world for children and adolescents.

Safe Sanctuaries Site Map

www.ntcumc.org → Ministries → Life Stage Ministries → Children → Safe Sanctuaries

       (at the bottom there are five PDFs with information on the policy and evaluation)