In the past couple of years, the evangelical church has tragically been engulfed by a number of appalling leadership scandals. These have included Bill Hybels, Mark Driscoll and Ravi Zacharias in the USA, and John Smyth, Jonathan Fletcher and Steve Timmis in the UK. Some of these scandals have included physical and sexual abuse, whereas others have been concerned with the misuse of power and authority in leadership. More and more victims of such ‘spiritual abuse’ are coming forwards, and there is an urgent need to revaluate leadership models that might facilitate such abuse. This talk examines the rapidly developing discourse on ‘spiritual abuse’ in churches. We consider what spiritual abuse is, why it happens, how we can guard against it, and how we care for victims who have experienced it. This helps us ensure that we lead healthy churches in a biblically healthy way. This is Part 4 of a 4-part series.
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John Stevens is the National Director of the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches, a family of over 500 Bible-centred churches in the UK, a position that he has held since 2010. Prior to this he was one of the founding pastors of City Evangelical Church Birmingham, which was planted in the centre of the UK’s 2nd largest city in 1999. He was instrumental in starting the Midlands Gospel Partnership, was the course Director of the Midlands Ministry Training Course and is a visiting lecturer at Oak Hill Theological College. John is also one of the pastors of Christchurch Market Harborough, a church he helped to plant when he took up his current role. He was converted whilst studying law at Cambridge University, and after taking a post-graduate degree at the University of Oxford worked for 16 years as a University Lecturer, ending his career as Deputy Head of the Law School at the University of Birmingham. John is married to Ursula and they have four children aged between 12 and 7. He blogs at www.john-stevens.com on theology, church life and ministry, culture and politics.
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