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Another Church shooting — Its hard to think that it has happened again! But another reason we need to have Security Teams at our Churches. — I just found the website and want to say thanks for all the info you have.

I had no idea that people would have a problem with someone

carrying a weapon to church. I carry daily and have just started

to carry to church, but i will not be there without carrying now.

however i will be a lot more careful to keep my weapon very

concealed. I look forward to learning more from the rest of the

folks on here. Lets keep this church in our prayers.

cowboy

Glen,

Thanks for responding to my post. I do understand the "profiling" stigma, but I struggle to call it something different? I don't feel I respond it the way you described (and I'm not saying you said I did), and I do understand people who appear to be distressed do need our (the Lord's) help. I just sometimes get this realy weird feeling about certain people who enter the church under conspicuous circumstances. I feel like it could be the Holy Spirit prompting me to do my job? This is why I struggle to catigorize this "feeling" and try to convey this to my team members. I do thank you for reminding me and others to respond first by "reaching out", this is a something that needs to be taught to my team members first and foremost!

Thanks

Hello everyone

My name is Kurt and I am new here.

With all due respect to Glen, I think this could have been prevented in the context of what has been reported in the news.

You have a single male come in the middle of a service, he walks completely down the aisle, then up to the platform.

First though we do not set up barriers per se we do set up zones, layers or perimeters (depend on where you are in the world as to what you call it). Each zone having its limitations.

The outer zone where everyone can come through without being confronted unless prompted by the Holy Spirit, obvious visual cues, or previously know information.

A middle zone where, we are extremely watchful and pleasantly confronting in needed.

Then there is the No Fly Zone such as the front row (I actually recommend the first 3rows, and use the first three for leaders, dignitaries, family i.e. known people there are several reasons for this) where you will not be going past unless, called for by the minister or you are known to have a seat.

Now with a single male in the middle of a service, a few things could be ascertained 1) No one had seen him walk out so it could have been decided that he was not returning to a seat 2) Most people who are late especially nearly an hour don’t head for the front, that is a church behavior abnormality for a known person much less an unknown person 3) He was unknown.

Head Deacon, the main reason you can’t call it profiling, is because it sounds to me like you are not going off of and visual cues (whether behavior appearance etc..) you are more going by what Romans call a “witness” from the Holy Spirit.

But truth be told I am all for profiling. Because politically correct or not, there is a reason we have stereotypes…. Because most of the time things are stereotypical.

Spence is also correct that you should train all of your people starting with greeters/ushers etc.. what to look for and how to handle it and who to tell.

We should also train certain key people how to loveingly confront people and determine their intentions. Usually non-problem people will reacting kindly to a struck up conversation where as the reverse is true with problem people.

I also would have seen nothing wrong with having someone follow the man up onto the platform, I have done this many times, and had team members do this many times (unless waived off by the minister) because honest people realize that the person is out of order and you are just being diligent. The only people I have had get offended at us or in churches I have trained, are people who, if they were not offended by this, they would have found something else to be offended by and thus should not be considered.

Just my two cents, oops probably for as long as this is it might be four cents.

I like this site. You do have some good info for people.

Thanks

Whether it's called profiling or "whitness", I don't know? One thing is for sure, Glen is correct, sometimes no matter what blocks are set-up, nothing might of been done to prevent this. Here is an example of what I'm talking about:

One Sunday morning I just happened to walk out to the front doors to check on our "doorman", who open the two double front doors for people. Our church is located in a plaza, and while talking to the doorman, and greeting people, I noticed this man nerveously pacing back and fourth and the department store front next door. He seemed to be a middle aged man, in his late 30's, and he had a packpack on and it was packed out to it's limit. A middle aged man with a bulging backpack just seems weird to me, now if it was a teenager, that would seem more normal. This man finally made his way over to the chuch and nerveously looking down at the ground walked past the doorman ignoring the "hello sir, good morning" from the doorman. I immediatley felt something was wrong with this man, wheather he was in need of some spiritual healing or was up to no good, I don't know, but something didn't seem right with this guy. I immediatley went strait to my #2 in charge and asked him to have a deacon keep an eye on him, not intervene or approach him, just watch him. He sat in the back, which is a good sign, and this one particular deacon took up a seat behind him. This is an auditorium that seats 550 and was about 80% full, so someone sitting behind him was not unusual, basicaly it was a packed house! The man was sweating profusely and rubbing his hands. Could he be a drug addict wanting to get his life strait, sure. Could he be a homless man in need of some care, sure. Could he have been some guy who wanted to make some sort of political statement during our service, sure. Could he of been a child molester checking the place out, sure. I will never know? One thing I teach my team members, in this situation, is to pray. During praise and worship, the man unexpectedly ran out. I mean he just ran full bore out the front and was never seen of again! Did God intervene and "spook" this guy, or did we as a security team "spook" him? He never tried to receive anything from the church or pastor, so I'm not sure he was there for spiritual healing? If he would of just walked out, I have alwasy instructed my team to "reach out" and ask in a loving way, if there is any assistance we can help him with, but he just ran out. Is this "prompting from the Holly Spirit" or is it "profiling" I don't know? But if you guys think I was in the wrong for doing this, I would like to get some feedback. Thanks.

Yes we did, but this is nothing unusual for our church. We are very youth oriented, and we get backpacks, trench coats, and strange behavior all the time. We also have a very large benevolence program, so we get a large amount of “less fortunate” people who need finacial help! We want these people at our church, but it can cause problems in spotting individuals who are there to cause problems.

I guess I should clarify, in the story above, the extra attention given to the man's peculiar behavior is what I considered “profiling”. I try to teach my team to notice behavior and body language and too look for indicators? This is the type of training I was wondering if Glen or Jack could supply to us members??

Well as far as doing formations and Pastors being like the President I think there are several things to consider.
One, I think this is a bit of hyperbole. This happens a lot when talking about real security in a church setting. There is almost always this worst case scenario of a heavy handed police state, with the emphasis on heavy handed. Just because you talk to someone, question someone’s intentions, or even just your presence, does not mean it has to be heavy handed. Someone questioned how detrimental would it be for a ministry when I said “lovingly confront” someone one. Confront does not mean conflict which I think is an underlying problem in thinking about security. (The truth is having lovingly confronted multitudes over the years, genuine people don’t give you a problem, it is the people who realize you will not let them fulfill your agenda that cause the conflicts).
Next, you have to consider that people who believe that everyone always had open access to Jesus have a religious idea and not a scriptural idea about Him. There are instances where people could not just walk up to the Lord Jesus. One of the teachings we do in churches is proving scriptural that Jesus himself instituted security measure to protect Himself from the people. So we are not obligated as ministers to give people unrestricted access to us.
On a personal note, I have problems with ministers who think they are rock stars and want to be treated like one for personal vanity, however I completely respect a minster who realizes that people think He is a rock star (as Smince stated) and are wise enough to realize not everyone has good intentions. Or they institute measures to teach people to honor and respect their ministry so that the people can receive more from their office and they realize as crowds grow not everyone will know how to behave, or will want to behave, or will want to test the resolve of your beliefs.
I also think for the purpose of security we have to differentiate between a traveling minister and a pastor. Because as a Pastor I must realize that, even the President can “work the lines”. That we can still be approachable within reason and with certain precautions in place.
As a traveling minister, it is not as necessary to be out among the people, but they have entirely different security and access problems that I guess we discuss elsewhere.
Lastly, let’s remember that visible security can be an incredible visual deterrent to someone trying anything.
Having reviewed 70 something case studies of people who successfully commited church violence, and studied other acts of violence, it is obvious that in non-personal attacks (someone was not out to get one particular individual or group of individuals) they are looking for targets of easiest opportunity. There are many instances where they have “cased” a venue but realized it would be too difficult to accomplish their goals so they looked for an easier place. When they see “man they have people everywhere and if this is what I can see, what can’t I see. I need something easier”, whether we know it or not we have averted and attack. So there are some that can be some advantage to the “diamond formation” routine. (and of course the diamond formation is impractical anyway in the context of a church service ha ha)