Deep Thoughts: Demand a background check

Friday, November 01, 2013

Demand a background check

I do not understand the appeal of small churches, but I guess lots of people like them. Small churches should not escape controls though, otherwise sex offenders can sneak through, like in this case.

Steven Lennard Johnson was volunteering as a youth minister at St. Mark Missionary Baptist Church when authorities found out he was a sex offender and arrested him. He was the dating the pastor's daughter, so no background check was done. He's on his way to back to prison now.

A registered sex offender has been convicted in Winston-Salem of working as a youth minister at a church.

The Winston-Salem Journal reported that 53-year-old Steven Lennard Johnson of Winston-Salem pleaded guilty Monday to working with children and being in a place where children were present.

Prosecutors said Johnson is married to the daughter of the church's pastor, but the pastor said neither he nor his daughter knew about Johnson's criminal background.

Source: Youth Minister Revealed To Be Sex Offender

Church folk… by now you all should know not to trust anyone with your children. Always demand a current background check. If the church refuses, move on down the road to the 2nd Baptist church of your little burg. I should not tease about the baptist church thing as there are seven within three miles of my house.

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Nancy · 597 weeks ago

Absolutely WONDERFUL idea! There are so many preachers who molest not one, but multiple children over the course of their career as pastor, and I'm not referring to the catholic priests. I offered testimony on behalf of my Baptist perpetrator only to learn I was caller 13 and that he'd been doing it for over 30 years,. No one had told until I was in my 40's and it began for me around age 9. But, you know grandma says you can't tell, cause daddy might kill his good bud and then we'd all be in a pickle. God spoke to me one day when I was around 15 years old and he spoke in an audible whisper. The audible whisper said, "You don't have to take this anymore." It changed my life, I got so excited because at the time the whisper occurred, I was looking through the front door window, cringing because I had to let him in the house and I was alone yet again. (I only figured out it had been God whispering to me some time AFTER the perpetrator got 6 months of probation and an order to get counseling--I was in my early 40's. Nothing more than a hand slap.) I know it was his first REPORTED offense, but let's get REAL here. Perhaps all the little girls weren't sacrificial lambs like I was, but you know the odds are that more than just me had been told they may not tell.

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