OBSERVATIONS FROM THE GUY

WHO CASED YOUR CHURCH

This is the first of a series of articles from someone who can step inside the box of how do I damage this church as I visit random churches to evaluate security measures. I have been working in church security for a long time and part of this is regular visitation of other churches to evaluate thier proceedures to look for ideas that I can impliment and gaping holes that can be exploited. More than once I have sent an email regarding security issues at a church I visited with mixed replies from a kind "thank you for the advice", "we appreciate your comments" to "Who are you? How dare you come in our church with a gun? Who are you to critisize our security measures?"

First off I like to visit other churches as one never knows when God will lay on your heart that its time to move. Also if only stay at your home church for years or even decades tunnel vision on your security to even how The Word is taught can become stale and outdated. I love to study God's Word and do daily devotions and prayer. My home church for over a decade ran multiple morning services in multiple sanctuaries on multiple campuses every Sunday morning. As such we didn't do Sunday night services but used this time for small groups to meet. For years used Sunday nights to visit other churches. At present I am between churches due to feeeling the push of the Holy Spirit so am visiting new curches most weeks. Have a few churches that have asked me to come head security but none feel like home yet so in the meantime going to share my experiences online and if helps stop just one person from injury the effort and expense is worthwhile.

So that Sunday evening visitor in the past or Sunday morning visitor currently to your church could be me, or at any service be someone with evil intent looking for the chink in your armor to exploit. I know this as have personally caught people in disguises whose only reason in sanctuaries was to evaluate security of previous posts with intent to do harm. Two or three nicely dressed large men greeting and interviewing them has resulted in everything from discovering active plans to shoot someone, plan a shooting to perpetrators making a hasty escape. On occasion kindly but firmly showing someone the door has saved imminent or future disaster as perpetrator realized how tight our buildings and individual areas are secured. Have caught sexual predators, upskirters and thieves. The world is always welcome at church and unfortunately some are not there to worship.

Due to more than one tight situation I never go out in public without body armor and a duty sized handgun with spare ammo on my person. I keep well tailored clothing so in a sport coat I just appear to most to be an average size middle aged male starting to put on a little weight to most except the astute observer. In visiting over 100 churches only two have noticed that I was wearing body armor and carrying a large handgun plus backup. You may want to digest that, in 99% of churches I can walk in, meet the greeters wearing a bullet proof vest, two handguns, 50 rounds of spare ammo and have them extend a hand of welcome without noticing a complete stranger is in their midst with enough firepower to cause a massive disruption. They see a Bible in my weak hand, smile on my face and want to first make the visitor feel welcome. Thats a greeters job right? Not a well trained greeters... Any stranger should be carefully looked at for odd buldges, biefcase or small packs and if necessary pulled aside and counseled. That goes with your regular congregation as well. The only active shooter have encountered was an occasional visitor and recognized by greeters but his posture alerted security and the incident delayed and happened off campus.

I recently visited a church with over a half dozen large campuses. Had never been on their property and as walked in a greeter pegged me as new, asked me if was my first visit and replied yes. Asked if I wanted a staff member to give me a tour of the facilities and happily replied positively. Ninety secods later a trained person showed, escorted me to the church cafe/coffee kiosk and put my first cup of coffee and donunt on the "vistors log". I was then given a complete tour of the facilities including the nursary, childrens church, teen church, activities area and then escorted back to the main sanctuary. There I was standing among all the churches children wearing armor, carrying two handguns and enough ammunition to likely ruin the lives of hundreds of families all in the name of impressing one visitor??? If I have anything to do with a church, the children are behind locked doors and unless someone gone through a background check no adult enters, not even parents.

One church I visited was met at the main entrance by metal detectors, armed guards and two sets of doors. Till passed through the gauntlet of security that rivaled an International Airport nobody came in. My guns had to be returned to vehicle before going through first door. There I was politely passed through metal detectors after emptied pockets of all metal into bowl and a sweep with a hand wand due to belt buckle. Once inside the greeters were nice and enjoyed a wonderful service with a mix of uniformed and plain cloths security officers. The experience was quite enjoyable and realized why this church was so popular. Its people felt safe. That said, they have a shooting in thier past at a small group meeting outside of sanctuary.

So where do we land? Do we need metal detectors and uniformed screeners or no security at all and leave it to God? That is for each church to decide but realize, satan has an abundance of workers that want to hurt your church from thieves to sexual predators and even active shooters. the goal of this site is to help you decide how much security your church needs and how to impliment it. To God be the Glory, lets keep our congregations safe. We will be adding articles as time permits and this page will be the gateway to more than one page of observations.

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