A Parent Attacked Me in Church Yesterday.

[Rob Shaffer]

We have an elementary after school party on Wednesdays, we are about two blocks from the elementary school and most of the kids just walk to our church.

So two of them showed up without permission from their parents so we tried to call them without success but we did get a hold of the grandmother who said it would be alright.

So about a half hour later their father who is a well known drunk storms into the sanctuary where we had the Nintendo Wii hooked up to the overhead projector and was full of kids and starts shouting at the top of his lungs for his children, cussing, shouting and carrying on like he was Satan possessed, (maybe he is) so I walk over to him, addressed him by name, told him his children would be there shortly and to please calm down, he then stated to me ' Let me make myself clear I don't want my kids in this *expletive* church.

I replied " that's fine but let me make myself clear, please stop cussing and shouting in front of all these little kids" he then cussed me out and said a few things I can't even hint at on this forum to me and about me, by the way this guy is 6' 4" and could likely punch me from 4 feet away, I'm 5' 7" and during his tirade about the church and me he stepped closer and closer to me, never got completely in my face but close.

So my wife comes up beside him and begs him to go outside so we can bring his kids to him and about that time his kids came walking up with tears and fear in their eyes and went out the door with him.

The rest of the kids who witnessed it were in shock, some ran out of the room, some hid behind some other adults in the kitchen who were helping us and many of them told me afterward they thought there was going to be a fight, quite a few hugged me I guess they thought I was in danger.

I went and got the senior pastor who contacted the sheriff office and they gave us two choices, they would either drive to his house and notify him that if he ever stepped on church property again he would be arrested for criminal trespass or the second option was he could be arrested right now for disorderly conduct and taken to jail.

He just got out of jail two weeks ago and the entire time he was locked up we ministered to his kids, his wife and had them at our house nearly everyday taking care of them.

The whole thing makes me sick and sad, my wife and I really don't know what to do with it all.

Oh, by the way he is a former member of our church and his main beef is that we wouldn't bail him out of jail.

[Ryan Charles Rice Sr.]

Wow what a story, I think you handeled that very well and praise God it ended safely for the kids and yourself.

[chadkmiller]

Sounds like you did the right thing. There is space for redemption, I pray he will find it soon. Alcoholism is such a sad disease, it has ailed many members of my family.

[janie gausmann]

WOWOWOW! I cant hardly imagine what that was like for you. The closest experience I had to that was there was a homeless man who lived in his car on our church property for a time....

I will be certainly praying for those kids and wife.... wow.... I will also pray for wisdom for the church staff there as well as the softening of the husband/father's heart to the voice of the Holy Spirit.

[felicia evans]

You know it is a shame how people will let saten use them and they don't care, but you let Jesus shine through you both by how you handle the thing. I have been in some things like this before and I know how hard it is to just take it and show Gods love instead of fighting back, but when you do the right thing you can change so many people that you never imanged. Now you can use that to teach the kids a valable lesson on how to handle yourself and show Gods love in a rough sistation.

[Joe McAlpine]

what did you guys choose to do?

He would have gotten jacked up at our church. :)

[Rob Shaffer]

Everything seems to be fine now, we sent the sheriff to the guys house right after the incident and they told him to stay away from our church property plus the sheriff's department is only 3 blocks from our church on the same street and they cruise by a few times a day when we have our after school program.

Sad part is my wife goes to the elementary school a few times a week to have lunch with some of our church kids and the children of the guy who did this want to talk to my wife but feel like they can't, the man and his wife have done their best to poison them against us plus they filed a complaint with the school claiming my wife was leading kids to the after school event without asking parental permission but nothing came of it, the school knows administration knows us better than that.

We actually have every advantage in the situation, the sheriff comes to our church once a month for a Relay for Life meeting we sponsor and is a good friend of the staff and the administrator for the school district has lunch with our senior pastor on a weekly basis, the people trying to do us harm have no chance at success but they are clueless to that fact.

Plus of course if God is with us, who can be against us?

Also we have now moved our after school event into one large room and in order to get to that room you have to enter and exit from one outside door into an adjacent room with a staffed check in area so it's pretty hard to get the children's area unless you are supposed to be there.

[Val Lawrence]

You most certainly handled it well. Having seen alchoholism first hand I know how much damage it can do. I am so glad you have had an opportunity to minister to the family. I have prayed that you will have continued opportunities to minister to all of them!!