Over my 4 decades of pastoring we dealt with this issue about 4 times. In only one instance did we allow the convicted offender to attend…attached at the hip to a deacon. This was a young adult man who had grown up in our church. He was convicted of having child porn on his computer….don’t remember exactly how it all came about but he was never suspected or accused of improper contact with a child.
The 3 other times, we decided that it was better overall for our ministry to decline to have them attend. Our children’s ministry had an excellent reputation in our community….our VBS averaged over 1000 kids per night.
We decided that it’s hard to encourage parents to trust us with their kids on one hand and allow convicted, registered child molesters to attend our services. We weighed the options and did what we thought best for our church.