Oversight plan for SBC’s Ministry Check website revised; no longer focused on one firm

Leaders of the Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force announced a strategic turn in their efforts today (April 4) related to the plan to establish and maintain a Ministry Check website. They are no longer focused on partnering with one firm to do all the work.

“In the spirit of unity and cooperation, the ARITF met in Atlanta on Monday, March 27, and voted to consider alternative pathways (dividing the work among smaller firms which share our values)” for overseeing the website, according to a statement from ARITF leaders.

Read the full statement here and read the background to this current news update here, here and here.

ARITF evaluating additional firms

“The ARITF is presently sourcing and evaluating additional firms to assist with the Ministry Check process who meet our qualifications for the highest professional standards,” task force leaders explain in the statement.

“The Ministry Check website is a vital tool in combating abuse. The ARITF possesses an unwavering commitment to the SBC messengers’ mandate to establish a reliable and trustworthy Ministry Check website and to advance true and effective abuse reform across our Convention.”

An archive of previous coverage of the task force and its work can be found here.

April 18 update …

Marshall Blalock, chair of the Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force, shared this clarification of the March 27 decision with The Baptist Paper:

“The ARITF voted (and the Credentials Committee has concurred) for the sake of building widespread confidence in the Ministry Check website, to seek firms other than Faith Based Solutions and Guidepost Solutions to create and manage the Ministry Check system. There were many factors going into the decision, primarily that breaking up the work into different parts would allow us to search for smaller firms to do the constituent parts. There are advantages to having one firm do it all, but in the estimation of our team, the unity of the Baptists around the country outweighed those advantages. The work will not be compromised by dividing the responsibilities, which was our major concern. The messengers voted in Anaheim to build the Ministry Check website to help churches identify abusers so that they cannot quietly go from church to church, causing harm to vulnerable people. The ARITF is working under that mandate and we understand the sacred urgency of this task.”

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Oversight plan for SBC’s Ministry Check website revised; no longer focused on one firm