You Skipped the Background Check Because You Know Them
•Episode 712
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In this episode of the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, Todd Rhoades discusses the critical oversight many churches make by neglecting to conduct thorough background checks, even on individuals who are well-known within the community. Relying on familiarity or family connections instead of proper screenings can lead to risky shortcuts that might result in significant issues in the future. Rhoades underscores the importance of consistent background screening for all church staff and volunteers to ensure the safety and integrity of the church environment.
• The importance of conducting background checks on all staff and volunteers, regardless of familiarity.
• Relying on family connections or long-term knowledge as a shortcut is not safe or sufficient.
• The need for a consistent and thorough screening practice for everyone in the organization.
• Neglecting proper checks can result in future risks and damages.
• Background checks are essential despite their costs and should be prioritized in church operations.
You ran a background check of the nursery file. The filled out form, you paid the fee, you got the report back, you put it in the file. You hired the youth pastor because his dad is an elder. No screen, no references outside the family. You've known them, you've known the family for years. But that's not discernment. That's a shortcut with the last name. And we're gonna talk about that today here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Hi there, my name's Todd Rhodes, one of the co-founders over at chemistry staffing.com. You're listening to the Healthy Church Staff Podcast.
All right, this is not a legal seminar today on the webinar or on the on the podcast. And this is not the personnel file that you forgot after they started. This is a screening that you never ran on the way in, the background check. And a lot of times, background checks don't happen because of this one sentence. We've known them for years. It's a volunteer who's been around forever who became staff. It's the elder's kid, it's the person that grew up in the third row. You've known him since he was five. My wife used to change his diapers, kind of a thing. You tell yourself, you already did the word. You watched him, you trusted him. The room actually, you can tell yourself the room would actually be a little bit offended if we asked them for a background check. So you just skip it,
right? Knowing someone is not the same as screening someone. And being familiar is not a background check. A last name is not a reference. And you already know this, you already know how to do this. You do it for strangers. You screen the stranger, you screen the new hire from outside, right? You screen the new kids' ministry volunteer that just came into your church. They filled out the form, you paid the fee, you waited on the report, then you told you let them hold other people's kids. Youth pastor got a title because somebody raised him. And that's a second bar. Same building, same students, but it's a different bar for both the person that you kind of let skip the process and those that you may jump through all the hoops. If you'd require it of a person that you met last month, you should require it of the person that you've known since they were baptized when they were a teenager. Otherwise, you don't really have a screening practice. You've got a vibe, and vibes are just incredibly dangerous to go on. A vibe is how you tell one person that they're trusted and another person that they're at risk. The difference is not in
the character, the difference was proximity. So the volunteer to staff jump is usually where this gets hidden a lot of times. They were already here. You just called it formalizing the relationship, moving from volunteer to a part-time staff position, maybe. Maybe they ran sound, maybe they ran students, and you decided, hey, I'm going to put them on the payroll. And nobody ran the screen. Nobody asked if the volunteer file even existed. You treated, we've known them as your whole process. And the new role is a new door. Keys, access, authority. The fact that they already had a badge does not mean that you already did the work. Promotion is not a loophole. Okay? Internal candidates are not exempt. Now, I know a lot of you think, well, I just I skipped it, I didn't want to insult them. Maybe you thought maybe a background check on somebody that you would love would look like you're suspicious of them. Maybe you're trying to be a family, not a corporation. Those are all decent kind of things to think, right? That's decent. It's also a shortcut with a last name or somebody that you know that's familiar
that becomes a story sometimes that you just never wanted to tell. Kindness that refuses the same screen that you give a stranger is not trust. It's a bet that you placed in other people's kids. It usually doesn't blow up in the interview, it blows up on a Tuesday two years in. When the thing that you think you would have seen on the way shows up in the hallway. Or when the board asks what you ran as far as background check. When you have to say, We knew them. We knew them is not a process. I'm trying to help you out here. If you have people on your staff that you've not run a background check on, we knew them is not a process. We knew them is the sentence that you say after the damage is occurred. And you can't discern what you refuse to look at. The screen is not a lack of faith. It is how you refuse to make the congregation pay for your comfort. Do the boring thing while the story is still
unwritten. It's the same screen, it's really simple. It's the same screening process for everyone. List everybody on your staff, every volunteer and kids and students. Not the people should look at. Everybody. Every single person. And if anybody skipped the screen, the same screen you'd be requiring of a stranger, run it. Don't wait for a story. Don't wait until a parent asks. Don't exempt the last name the volunteer turned staffer or the person you know that you've known forever that sits in the third row. Tell them why out loud. Hey, we do this for everyone, including the people that we love. That sentence is the opposite of suspicion. It's all in how you present it, and it's how you prove the practice isn't actual practice. Here's your bottom line for today, and it's really important. You screened the nursery volunteer and skipped the youth pastor because you knew his dad. That is not discernment. That's a shortcut with a last name, and it's a remedy for a future disaster. I know. I know. This one is awkward. But I also know that you don't want a shortcut to become a story. And that's why you're listening to this podcast.
I would encourage you, man, if you are behind, and I hear churches all the time that not as much as I used to, but I still hear this from time to time. Churches that don't run background checks, particularly on volunteers or on kids and teens, because of the expense. Come on. Come on. Let me admonish you now. You are you're flirting with fire there if you don't run background checks because of the cost. It's the cost of doing business, it's the cost of being a church. I wish we run background checks on candidates. I wish we didn't have to do that. Oh, do I wish that we could go back to my my word is my bond. Unfortunately, in in our culture today, background checks are an absolute necessity. If you're not doing them, man, do it wipe everything off your desk today, get a list of people, and get a policy.
If you need help with that, you can reach out to me, podcast at chemistry staffing.com. We've got some trusted background check providers that we really trust that can really help you work through that. Podcast at chemistry staffing.com. Also, head over to churchstaffassessment.com, take the free Church Staff Health Assessment. I would appreciate it. That it would really help us out as we do our assessment this year on a couple thousand staff all across the country. All right, that's it for today. Thanks so much for listening. I will be right back here tomorrow on the healthy church staff podcast.
