Mission Critical: Survivor Care in the Local Church

1 in 3 girls and 1 in 6 boys will be sexually abused before the age of 18. The children represented by these grievous statistics grow up and may become members in your churches, adults in your community, and lost people in your sphere of influence. Most will never share their story and find true healing from their trauma. The local church should be a place of refuge for the broken, where survivors feel safe to tell their story and find help, hope, and healing through the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

This session will discuss how offering care for adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse aligns with the mission and calling of the local church through three key areas of alignment: Evangelism, Discipleship, and Shepherding. 

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Dr. James Reeves, D.Min., is the founding pastor of City On a Hill Church (SBC) in Fort Worth, Texas, and pastored the church since its founding in 1984 for 38 years.

The church is known as the Hospital Church for its ministries of Help, Hope, and Healing in Christ.

In 1992 the church implemented ministry to adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse because of a growing understanding of how prevalent this issue was.

James has decades of experience seeing survivors from all walks of life live beyond the trauma of their abuse.

James is the creator of The Fearless Series for Women, and The Fearless Series for Men, resources to help local churches implement this ministry.

James thrives on seeing local churches discover the amazing power of Christ working through His church to bring healing to His people.

Brad Eubank is the lead pastor at Petal First Baptist Church in Mississippi where he served for the past 14 years. He‘s been married to his wife Rebecca for 24 years and they have 3 children, William, Matthew and Emma. He has been in ministry for over 36 years serving churches in Texas, Alabama, Louisiana & Mississippi. He has been deeply involved in the work of abuse prevention & response for over a decade. He served as the head of the Mississippi Sex Abuse Response Team as well as a member of the (ARITF) Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force for the Southern Baptist Convention. He is deeply passionate about helping those who have suffered from abuse, especially inside the church. He is also equally passionate about helping the church understand the clear gospel call for prevention and response to make our churches the safest place on planet earth. He is a survivor of childhood clergy sex abuse & he loves telling his story – a story of God’s miraculous hope, healing, and redemption that only God could bring about!