Earlier this month, the Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC) Abuse Reform and Implementation Task Force (ARITF) told the messengers at the annual meeting of the denomination that after two years of work, the highly anticipated “Ministry Check” website was on hold due to insurance reasons.
The Ministry Check website will house a database of church leaders who have been criminally and credibly accused of sexual abuse within SBC churches.
The ARITF was a task force recommended by the SBC’s Sex Abuse Task Force (SATF) at the 2022 Annual Meeting in Anaheim, California, approved by the messengers, and later formed by then-SBC President Bart Barber.
After being approved by the messengers at the 2023 annual meeting to continue its abuse reform work for another year, the ARITF reported that it focused on three main priorities: expansion of the Ministry Toolkit, establishment of the Ministry Check website, and creation of a permanent home for abuse prevention and response.
During the 2024 annual meeting, the ARITF presented the following two recommendations, both of which were accepted:
That the messengers of the 2024 Southern Baptist Convention affirm the objectives outlined in the 2024 Report of the Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force, in particular, 1) the expansion of the Ministry Toolkit, 2) the establishment of the Ministry Check website, and 3) the creation of a permanent home for abuse prevention and response, but the Convention does not require the use of any particular organization outside the Convention’s entities or commissions to accomplish these objectives.
That the messengers of the 2024 Southern Baptist Convention urge the Executive Committee to work earnestly to complete the implementation of these objectives by recommending a structure adequate to support these objectives, by recommending the allocation of funds sufficient for the effective accomplishment of them, and to report back to the messengers to the 2025 SBC Annual Meeting on actions taken in response.
ARITF Chairman Josh Wester, who is lead pastor at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Greensboro, North Carolina, told the more than 11,000 messengers in Indianapolis, “We always, as a task force, believed that abuse reform would be best served within the SBC, because by being internal to the SBC long-term, it would hold the trust of the churches of the SBC.”
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Wester said that the ARITF has “a lot of confidence” that under the leadership of the newly appointed president and CEO, Jeff Iorg, the Executive Committee will complete the unfinished task of launching the Ministry Check website.
 Abuse Reform and Implementation Task Force (ARITF) told the messengers at the annual meeting of the denomination that after two years of work, the highly anticipated "Ministry Check" website was on hold due to insurance reasons.){kind=link}