How can you know if a church is safe?

There's no guarantee, unfortunately. But watch how power and diversity are handled

The local church is “the hands and feet of Jesus,” as the saying goes. But what do you do after these have been used to harm you; if the body of Christ no longer feels like a place of rest and safety?

This was our dilemma after being driven out of our church in North Carolina. We moved to another state, and walking into new sanctuaries on Sundays brought up all kinds of feelings. I was on guard, slightly anxious, struggling to stay engaged in the service. It didn’t matter if the songs were familiar, whether the people were friendly — every part of the experience drove the pain deeper, reminding me of everyone we would never see again.

The church that abused us had seemed so right, in so many ways. But as I learned about spiritual abuse, narcissism, and more, I started to recognize red flags that had always been there. Now I was on the alert for similar patterns. It wasn’t enough for a church to be free of warning lights … I wanted to see evidence of a healthier community, one where power would be used to serve rather than control, and where differences would be honored rather than turned into dividing lines.

Below are some “green flags” related to power and diversity, which I think are the two most important issues for a church to handle. Of course this isn’t a complete list — every church should at the very least have policies that keep children and vulnerable members safe — but these gave us confidence in the church we joined for our two years in Delaware.

Photo by Josh Eckstein on Unsplash

The microphone is shared.

The power of the pulpit is a great temptation. A pastor can control what the congregation hears, and many use this power to ensure their own voice comes through the speakers every Sunday. At our unhealthy church, the lead pastor preached nearly 50 weeks out of the year. Though we had other pastors on staff, they rarely had a turn at the microphone.¹ And since the sermon was the centerpiece of Sunday services, this essentially centered the church on one man.

In contrast, our next church had two pastors who shared preaching duties evenly. I was encouraged knowing these men chose to regularly sit in the pews and listen to someone else, rather than keeping themselves in the spotlight. Multiple preachers can prevent a church from becoming a one-man show, which is dangerous for him and the congregation alike.

Finally, sharing the microphone should include sharing it with women — a church where gender hierarchy is practiced will be built on a faulty foundation.

Majority culture gives up power and comfort to make space for other groups.

Our church in Delaware was the first truly multiethnic congregation we’d ever attended. It was not the first to say it valued diversity — every church I’ve ever visited would claim this! — but the pews actually reflected a variety of different countries, cultures, languages. It was beautiful.

This church’s desire for multiethnic worship became reality because the majority (white) culture stepped aside in important ways. In the years before we arrived, the church specifically sought out an African American pastor, then a Korean one. In this denomination, it would've been much easier to find a white guy to put on stage. Instead, white women and men chose to place non-white people in authority over them.

They also made spaces of honor for other cultures. This included sharing lunches of Korean food and using other languages in the worship service. We sang songs in Korean and Spanish, had church members read Scripture in their own languages, and once had an entire service in Spanish, including the sermon. I overheard some complaints that day because the translation app hadn’t worked smoothly during the sermon. But I was grateful: those of us used to worship services catering to our preferences had moved to the margins instead.

There were certainly ways our church could have done this better, or more often, but compared to what I’ve experienced in other churches, it was wonderful. Multiethnic worship cannot happen by simply expecting minority groups to join the audience and adopt your preferences — those with power and privilege must hand it over in service of others. This is what Jesus has always asked us to do, after all.²³

Leaders truly listen to others and publicly admit when they’re wrong.

We knew we were in a different kind of church when our pastor sent an apology email to the entire congregation. At the time, we were a couple months into a new Sunday program, one he’d spent a lot of time planning. But one afternoon we got an email canceling it all. Many people were unhappy with the new setup, the pastor wrote, feeling too much was expected of them as volunteers. He could have defended his intentions and pushed ahead with his own plans, but instead he apologized for placing a burden on the church and for failing to recognize it. He asked forgiveness for his “zeal and over-ambition.”

Having come from a church where leaders bulldozed others to get their way and treated the congregation as free volunteer labor — and where pastors never, ever apologized — this was refreshing. We were encouraged to see a pastor simply admit he made a mistake; that he genuinely cared what church members said, enough to change his mind when they disagreed.

Leaders regularly provide opportunities for public accountability, including financial transparency.

Press conferences are an important public service — politicians need journalists asking them questions in front of a crowd, where everyone can hear the same information. If a leader only takes questions behind closed doors, they can control the narrative. The same factors apply in the church. A pastor might offer to “answer any questions you have,” but if this is only available in a controlled setting, you’ll probably just get what he wants you to hear, and will be isolated from others who may know more of the story.

Our unhealthy church in NC never had meetings where pastors answered questions from the congregation.⁴ But our next church periodically held members’ meetings to discuss and vote on significant topics, like changing the time of the worship service or adjusting a pastor’s salary. These could get heated, but the important thing was how they created a space for dialogue, where we could hear one another’s questions and concerns, and pastors might even be put on the spot to explain their decisions. Notably, this church also shared the basic terms of new pastors’ contracts, including their salaries. We could know where our money was being spent, and in what amounts. Then, we had the chance to speak up — in public — if we disagreed.⁵

People are allowed to hold and discuss diverse opinions, even on highly charged topics.

After a few months attending the church in Delaware, we still weren’t sure we were ready to commit. Then one experience changed our minds.

The church announced a special Sunday school class to accompany a sermon series on gender and sexuality. It surprised us: this is a topic people have strong opinions about, a discussion that can get heated and veer into politics. It would’ve been much safer and easier to limit this to sermons, so the pastors could control what was said. Instead, everyone would have a chance to talk, ask questions, and disagree. What’s more, the pastors entrusted this class to non-staff church members (one was a lay elder, the other a younger man who worked for a campus ministry). Again, this was a contrast from our prior church, where controversial topics were addressed by the lead pastor only, and only in a controlled environment.

This was the first and most obvious time we saw the church providing room for diverse views, but it definitely wasn’t the last. The more people we got to know, we realized there was a range of political and theological perspectives represented. Church members didn’t seem to feel they had to hide their opinions, either. Having come from a very Republican church in the Bible belt, I was delighted to see several members posting criticism of conservative policies and/or in support of a Democrat … and as far as I could tell, no one made a big deal out of it.

Those with more to give don’t receive preferential treatment; those with less to give are equally valued and included.

In a healthy family, people are valued for who they are, not what they can accomplish. The same should be true of a church family. But in many churches, those who are wealthy or influential receive special attention. This is human nature, which is why most of the New Testament epistles encourage Christians to honor and submit to one another and resist creating hierarchies within the church.⁶

The lack of a “celebrity culture” around a senior pastor was one encouraging sign for us (partly because there wasn’t just one guy, see #1 above). In our previous church, the pastors deliberately cultivated relationships with those they considered “influential” while those with little to give were generally overlooked and marginalized. We didn’t notice these dynamics in Delaware. There didn’t seem to be an “inner ring” culture, as we’d previously witnessed. Instead, people cared for one another across lines that could have divided — race, age, class — and those with differences or disabilities were treated with respect.

It feels like a family… but in uncool and inconvenient ways.

After I began writing this final section, I realized it deserved a post of its own. Stay tuned for more on potluck dinners, shabby furniture, and doing dishes in the church kitchen.

P.S.: The above are no guarantee that a church will be safe, of course, only that it’s more likely to facilitate healthy relationships than churches without these practices.

What would you add to this list?

1. Even when the lead pastor was out of town, he’d often invite friends from other churches to preach guest sermons, rather than letting our other pastors have a turn. I wish I’d noticed this before it was too late.

2. Matthew 20:24-28; Philippians 2:3-11

3. Race is only one issue where the group with greater power or privilege should follow Jesus’ example in giving these up for others. This would include age, disability, socioeconomic class, and gender — the last of which can sometimes be the hardest to recognize and address.

4. Even at a meeting in August 2022 where the congregation was informed about what had been done to me, the pastors refused to answer any questions in public, but only made themselves available for private meetings later.

5. The more specific and detailed financial information available, the better. Our NC church offered very generic financial information, lumping all staff salaries under one category, for example. This is less than ideal.

6. James 2:1-9; 1 Corinthians 3:3-4; 4:6-7