While complete transparency may be required if you are an officer or employee of the church, being a member of a church doesn't require complete transparency.

In most churches, there is a time to confess your sins to God. It is silent prayer time. The rest of the conversation doesn't want or need to hear your confessions.

The same can be said for non-sinful parts of your personality which are likely to cause people discomfort. For their sake, it is polite to keep those under wraps. However, for your own integrity's sake before taking any responsibility involving children, ask yourself "if the parents of these children knew me 100%, would they want me doing this?" If the answer is no, exclude yourself from the position if you can so that if the parents do ever find out, they will not suffer emotional harm. Obviously, if your excluding yourself means a necessary job won't get done, then do the job on an emergency basis but try to quit gracefully as soon as possible.


Yeah, it's a bummer, and yeah, I'm probably a hypocrite in this regard, but it is the right thing to do, for their sake. Notice I didn't say it was the right thing for the children's sake, or for your sake, or for God's sake.

What does this mean in practical terms?

It means if you think the parents in your church are pedo-phobic:

It means instead of volunteering to be a Sunday School teacher, volunteer to be on the team that recruits teachers.

Instead of volunteering to be a teacher at Vacation Bible School, volunteer to do behind-the-scenes work.

Instead of leading the youth group, see to it that the youth supply cabinet is stocked and donate money to their fundraisers.

On the other hand, if you think they are pedo-tolerant, it may mean "business as usual."