When I started in youth ministry, my top priority was to make sure that people felt loved and cared for and that church was a safe place for all people. When I interviewed at churches and then when I cast vision at new ministries, I would be intentional in creating a safe place where people…

Shortly after beginning my job in Kentucky, one of the pastors on my staff encouraged me to take a handful of my staff to visit a church in South Carolina that we were modeling ourselves after. We were a decent sized church that was just figuring ourselves out and the church in South Carolina was…