Alabama Baptist youth minister Donald Brent Page was charged Oct. 16 with traveling to Tennessee to have sex with a minor.
According to the Shelby County Reporter, Page, a 33-year-old husband and father, was arrested at a Memphis apartment after arranging a sexual encounter with who he thought was a 13-year-old girl. Page actually had been corresponding with a member of the Memphis FBI Crimes Against Children Task Force.
While still in FBI custody, he called Pastor Todd Burr to resign after serving only three months as youth minister at Dogwood Grove Baptist Church, Montevallo.
"Under our church policy, if he had not resigned, he would have been terminated immediately," Burr said.
Prior to serving at Dogwood Grove Baptist, Page was youth minister at Siluria Baptist Church, Alabaster, for nearly seven years and worked with youth at Hillcrest Baptist Church, Birmingham (now The River Church in Birmingham).
At press time, no parents or students had come forward with claims of inappropriate behavior.
"With any youth function we have at [Dogwood Grove], he would have had no opportunity to be alone with any young person," Burr said. "The background check that would have given us any heads-up on this was clean."
Although "shocked" and "disappointed," Burr said the "saddened" congregation is pulling together and working to increase awareness of this issue.
"It’s not just something we see on TV," he said. "It’s happening in our schools, workplaces, families and in our churches. It’s happening all around us, and people need to be aware of what’s going on with our young people."
According to him, even community residents have responded well to the church’s reaction to the arrest.
"Many of the unchurched in the community have been encouraged by the stand we have taken, and we are bound and determined to do something about it," Burr said. "It has got to stop, and it’s going to take our churches rising up and having a voice again and saying we are not going to tolerate this."
He said the whole issue boils down to sinfulness and repentance.
"Sin destroys peoples lives," Burr said. "When we don’t deal with the sin in our lives, it consumes our life and we begin to understand that Satan is that roaring lion seeking to destroy our lives."
In the end, he believes the church will be stronger having dealt with this problem. "We understand that God is in control and He could turn this around to use it for our good and for His glory, and that’s what He is doing." (TAB)
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