NASHVILLE (BP) — The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) Executive Committee (EC)  is relaunching its abuse prevention and response website with expanded resources to equip churches to create safe spaces for children and adults to worship God unhindered by abuse.

An updated Essentials 2.0 curriculum, blog posts from experts in the field and a centralized landing page for all related state convention resources are features slated for the updated sexabuseprevention.com, with some features already available.

Jeff Dalrymple, SBC Executive Committee director of abuse prevention and response, said the new website features will meet churches where they are, providing essential resources to help prepare churches before the need arises.

“Having a response plan is critical to help pastors know how to respond when there’s an allegation of abuse,” Dalrymple said. “We want to report it and to provide care for survivors and to work with available resources that they’ve identified in advance. And so I think that’s really, really important in our next level of abuse prevention and response, is getting churches prepared.”

Dalrymple, who joined the EC in January, heads to the 2025 SBC annual meeting in Dallas with a host of new resources to help churches prevent and respond to sex abuse.

Two key points of the Essentials 2.0 curriculum launching on June 6, Dalrymple said, are the addition of child safety coordinators and the development of abuse allegation response protocols.

Child safety coordinators take responsibility for abuse prevention in the local church, and learn prevention measures and how to respond. Having a response plan in place equips churches to respond when allegations are received, Dalrymple said, whether the abuse has occurred within the church or elsewhere.

“I would just emphasize that abuse response is not just internal abuse that has happened in a ministry setting, but it’s also external abuse that has happened in another context or environment, such as maybe a child’s home,” he said. “So we want to encourage our churches to make sure that all of their staff and volunteers are trained to identify indicators that abuse may have happened and then to report it to the appropriate authorities.

“That’s critical. That could be a life-saving moment in that child’s life,” Dalrymple said, “that that Sunday school teacher or youth group leader maybe is the only person reporting that particular abuse. So it’s really important that our churches know that and take action.”

The relaunched website serves as a centralized access point for abuse prevention resources from state and regional Baptist conventions under the Ministry Toolbox tab.

“That has been an absolute delight to see how our state and regional conventions have really been leading in this area, and coming alongside to support them and to collaborate, has been my favorite part of the job,” Dalrymple said, “learning about what they’re doing and how they’re serving their various conventions at the state or regional level.”

June 9, churches will be able to register for two free webinar training events beginning in September, one on recognizing grooming as a precursor to sexual abuse, and another providing training on the gracious ministry of receiving sex abusers into church.

“We call it a careful grace, this idea that some churches are called to integrate convicted sex offenders into a church,” Dalrymple said. “And that’s not something we want to take lightly. So we want to make sure that we safeguard the vulnerable and that we have certain measures in place to make sure that that convicted sex offender is able to also grow in Christ, but with certain parameters around his or her involvement. So there’ll be a webinar on how to do that properly.”

(EDITOR’S NOTE — Diana Chandler is Baptist Press’ senior writer.)