Engaging sex trafficking is the work of the church regardless of size and location. However, it is a justice issue that often appears daunting or distant from the small, rural church. It feels like sex trafficking is an issue better suited for megachurches with big budgets in major cities.
The Greeley Vineyard is trying to change that narrative. Greeley, CO is a city of , people about 50 miles north of Denver. Recently, I sat down with Todd and Jenny Beilman, Lead Pastors at the Greeley Vineyard , to talk about their journey of partnering with Free Our Girls , an organization that accompanies women as they disentangle from commercial sexual exploitation and domestic sex trafficking.
But that one felt overwhelming because at that time our church was only about people. Through her story we discovered that they were working out of a storage unit. We told her that we had available office space in our basement and she was welcome to use it for free. They were able to move here and that allowed them to concentrate on expanding their whole program. TODD: They were particularly standoffish to a religious organization.
We would greet them when they came in, they would ask to use things and we freely gave them anything that we could. It provided so many opportunities for us to pray for them, to encourage them, and to answer questions about faith, about Christ. I met with Jenny first and told her that our job training program was in a storage unit. MEGAN : My next concern was that we serve individuals who are coming from a variety of faith backgrounds and a lot of them have experienced trauma within the faith community.
How are they going to be treated? Finding out that the church doors stay locked during the day and there are security cameras β those things have felt really safe to us. I always tell everybody; I wish more Christians were like Todd and Jenny and the Vineyard because I think fewer of our ladies would have had traumatic experiences in the faith community and they would feel safer reaching out to the faith community for help.
