A Hard Look at Forgiveness

Blake Coffee - The Church Whisperer - tells us a difficult story from a church he worked with. A member had done something terrible, and the question was, "what does it mean to forgive him?" Does forgiving mean forgetting? Does forgiving mean refusing to press charges or testify in court? Does forgiving him mean he can come back to church again and serve?

What does forgiveness mean? Blake takes a serious look at this issue.

I once consulted with a church where a deacon was caught sexually molesting a little girl in the children’s department. He was the only adult (1st mistake) in a children’s Sunday School room with no windows (2nd mistake) and the church had never run any kind of background check on him (or any of their other volunteer workers…3rd mistake). The man fully confessed to the authorities and to the parents of the little girl, and then even more fully confessed to both a problem and a history in this area. He stood before his church and confessed as well. There was actually reconciliation between him and the injured family and there was spiritual restoration of this brother. It was a pretty extraordinary situation in that regard. All of this happened before the church ended up calling me for mediation....Read More

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