SDA pastor: Church must reassess messaging if single members feel pressured

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Mt St George Sev­enth-day Ad­ven­tist (SDA) pas­tor Dar­i­an Rouse has called for a re-eval­u­a­tion of the church’s mes­sag­ing to en­sure all mem­bers feel val­ued.

He spoke with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day fol­low­ing the mur­der of SDA dea­coness Neisha Roberts, 40, who was found stabbed to death at her home in Mt St George. A Trinida­di­an man known to Roberts was ar­rest­ed on Wednes­day af­ter he al­leged­ly fled to Port-of-Spain aboard the Galleons Pas­sage hours af­ter her death.

He was tak­en in­to cus­tody by homi­cide of­fi­cers as he dis­em­barked the ves­sel at 2.15 pm.

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine, a mem­ber of the SDA com­mu­ni­ty, has al­so called for re­flec­tion on church cul­ture fol­low­ing the shock­ing mur­der of his “sis­ter in faith.”

In a Face­book post yes­ter­day, Au­gus­tine said he knew Roberts well and de­scribed her as pleas­ant, help­ful and nev­er con­fronta­tion­al.

He re­called de­liv­er­ing the ser­mon at the Mt St George SDA Church ear­li­er this year, not­ing that Roberts had cleaned the church less than 12 hours be­fore her death.

Au­gus­tine said Roberts may have un­wit­ting­ly in­tro­duced her al­leged killer to him.

“As is cus­tom­ary in our church, the el­ders stood at the door af­ter the ser­vice to greet the con­gre­ga­tion. Neisha ap­proached me with a gen­tle­man and proud­ly in­tro­duced him as her fi­ancé. I do not re­mem­ber his name, but I vivid­ly re­mem­ber how un­usu­al­ly bub­bly and ex­cit­ed she was,” he said.

Au­gus­tine said he left the ser­vice feel­ing hap­py that Roberts had fi­nal­ly found love.

How­ev­er, he said her mur­der has prompt­ed him to re­flect on church cul­ture and the un­in­ten­tion­al pres­sures placed on mem­bers.

“Some­times, with­out in­tend­ing to, we make our sin­gle mem­bers feel as though sin­gle­ness is a con­di­tion that must be ur­gent­ly cured.

“We cel­e­brate re­la­tion­ships so en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly that we can be­come blind­ed to in­com­pat­i­bil­i­ty or warn­ing signs sim­ply be­cause we are re­lieved that some­one has fi­nal­ly found some­one. In our ex­cite­ment, we may un­in­ten­tion­al­ly place more em­pha­sis on find­ing a part­ner than on find­ing the right part­ner.”

He urged peo­ple not to let the tragedy pass with­out re­con­sid­er­ing how church mem­bers sup­port and en­cour­age those who are still wait­ing for a re­la­tion­ship.

He al­so warned that “wolves in sheep’s cloth­ing” could de­ceive un­sus­pect­ing peo­ple, say­ing Roberts may have been mis­led.

“Some­times evil comes dis­guised as af­fec­tion, and ha­tred ar­rives wrapped in the ap­pear­ance of love.”

Au­gus­tine ex­pressed con­do­lences to Roberts’ fam­i­ly, say­ing they had lost some­one they be­lieved had no en­e­mies.

“It is heart­break­ing. It is un­fair. I pray that God will sur­round her fam­i­ly and loved ones with His strength, His peace, and His com­fort dur­ing this unimag­in­ably dif­fi­cult time.

“May Neisha rest in eter­nal peace.”

Rouse agreed with Au­gus­tine’s as­sess­ment, say­ing a per­son’s val­ue is not con­tin­gent on their re­la­tion­ship sta­tus.

“Every church, every con­gre­ga­tion should have a cul­ture where, of course, while we preach and teach bib­li­cal prin­ci­ples and the val­ues of God, we al­so en­cour­age our sin­gle per­sons and our young peo­ple to know that whether they re­main sin­gle or whether they get mar­ried, it doesn’t make them less valu­able, be­cause their val­ue is tied to God and the love that Je­sus has for them. So they are in­her­ent­ly valu­able whether or not they are mar­ried.”

Asked whether church­es in­ad­ver­tent­ly pres­sure mem­bers in­to com­mit­ted re­la­tion­ships, Rouse ac­knowl­edged that the way cer­tain mes­sages are de­liv­ered could be in­ter­pret­ed that way. How­ev­er, he said mem­bers should nev­er feel forced in­to mak­ing such de­ci­sions, adding that a re-eval­u­a­tion of how those mes­sages are com­mu­ni­cat­ed is nec­es­sary.

“Mem­bers must un­der­stand that it is their free­dom of choice. It is your choice to do what is right by God, but you shouldn’t feel pres­sured.”

He added that all mem­bers should be al­lowed to feel com­fort­able and make choic­es that re­flect the king­dom of heav­en.

Rouse said the church has en­gaged the ser­vices of a psy­chol­o­gist to help mem­bers cope with the anger and grief they are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing.

“Our church is very bro­ken... It is a chal­leng­ing and dif­fi­cult jour­ney, but as of last night I pulled my dis­trict to­geth­er and we had a pow­er­ful ses­sion with a psy­chol­o­gist.

“Folks were able to ask ques­tions and vent a bit... While we know for­give­ness is a bib­li­cal prin­ci­ple, there is al­so the prac­ti­cal as­pect of this and folks have to process this event.”

He said that with pas­toral guid­ance, pro­fes­sion­al psy­cho­log­i­cal sup­port and God’s help, the con­gre­ga­tion can be­gin to heal.