Denial has no survival value. And pretending that the threats faced by Christian churches in today’s world only apply to “other” churches in “other towns” is both imprudent and foolish.
This year, I visited a local church with family for Christmas Eve services. We arrived early, and I had a chance to people watch. I saw one or two individuals who looked like they might be armed judging by their dress and the more serious folding knives clipped to their pants. Nobody had radios and those men were with their respective families, not watching for threats.
The church had pleasant greeters, but they had no radio communications. Moreover, more than a few of us entered from the lower parking lot through a dimly lit, unmanned entrance on another level. Not at all good from a security standpoint. Later, during services, nobody was anywhere near the pastor in a protective role. I’d just about bet money that all the entrances were unlocked and virtually unmonitored.
I spoke about this dearth of best practices on security with a couple of knowledgeable friends. One suggested that this place of worship maybe had an exceptionally discrete team. I chuckled, given multiple open entrances, some unstaffed? No way. That’s a rookie mistake that can cost a lot of lives if evil comes a-knockin’. That and a lack of communications along with any semblance of protection for the pastor left me pretty sure this place was hopelessly unprepared for bad things that might happen.
There are a host of short-sighted reasons why some might be opposed to an organized church safety and security team. Those reasons usually involve fragile people who would rather not acknowledge that evil exists … and of course those icky guns.
A failure to plan is a plan to fail.
Why have a safety and security team?
A safety and security team will welcome people to each service, and more importantly, they stand trained and ready to assist rendering aid in medical emergencies. One would think increasingly aging congregations would welcome that kind of planning.
Teams also monitor weather- and environmental-related threats as well as help look after child care areas. Sometimes they even direct traffic, both inside with people and outside with traffic in parking lots.
Perhaps their most important function is to protect the congregations from nut jobs, violent criminals and others with ill intent. They do so outside in the parking lots, at the front door and inside the sanctuary, communicating with one another via radios and their earpieces. Video surveillance assists in monitoring the exterior as well as entrances for potential problems, including medical emergencies.
Not having a team to mitigate risks and deal with threats can have costly and lasting impact to the church’s long-term viability. If something happens and the church hadn’t taken reasonable steps to mitigate that risk, people will leave that church. If something bad happens, they could even sue the church. People go to church to find peace and sanctuary, not experience criminal attack or victimization.
Failing to use best practices for church security in today’s world is as imprudent as leaving your house unlocked and your car’s keys in the ignition.
There are worse-case scenarios beyond robberies, thefts and other crime. Some involve physical violence by bad people slashing people with a blade or blasting away with a gun.
It seems hardly a week goes by where there’s not an attack on churches somewhere in America. These are usually carried out by social misfits and society’s losers.
Fortunately, most are thwarted by safety and security teams and these incidents hardly make the news. Sometimes these even happen at high-profile venues like Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church in Houston where the security team stopped a bloodbath earlier in 2024.
Sadly, some attacks are not thwarted and people get hurt. Some even die.
If there’s no team, there’s little hope of deterring or thwarting a criminal attack, especially if it happens during service. Moreover, without a team, there’s scarcely any chance of organized response to a serious threat.
Ensure the safety of guests and the long-term viability of a church. Make sure your place of worship has a safety team and plans for emergencies of all sorts.
Churches have become wokified. Everything is about DEI and extreme liberalism. Rainbow flags are everywhere in churches, now. Even the conservative tradition I grew up in has caved to the “progressives.”
The one good line from the awful “Joker” movie. If something happens to one of these churches, “you get what you f*ing deserve.”
It’s funny how over the years the left became the party of elites, of big corporations, of censorship, of government control, of foreign interference and war-mongering, parading around neo-cons like heroes, and somewhat more recently the party of churchies.
It’s all about self-righteousness and white-saviorism with these people. Six figure earners bending over backwards to prop up (while not actually helping) the indigent, mentally ill, addicts, criminals and foreign populations while ignoring the working and middle class Americans. Apparently that’s what Jesus would do.
They love telling us what Jesus would do, especially when it comes to their open border policies, as they pretend that open border policies don’t exist. It’s another tool in their toolbox of lies.
It’s not funny or new.
It’s the same playbook they ran in Europe which has given them 25+ years of unbroken control. There’s a whole book on the topic written by someone who fought them that entire time, as I’ve pointed out at least a dozen times before Last Exit to Utopia is a must read if you’re not effectively on the other side.
But reading is hard, apparently. Books are, so far as I can tell, the modern American equivalent to taking the One Ring to Mordor.
Regardless, their strategy remains the same, though the tactics change to suit the environment. Mistaking one for the other will result in your defeat, not theirs.
The Jesus bit is just two-bit emotional blackmail. Low brow but a very effective tool, partly demonstrated by their repeated and numerous victories.
It’s all quite Gramscian.
They’re indoctrinated victims. We have to eradicate woke culture the same way we essentially eradicated Nazism. Very few people proudly fly the German swastika these days outside of a few Ukrainians and undercover feds. There’s a reason for that. We need to do the same for the Progressive battle flag (rainbow flag).
Yes, but allow me to firmly plant my tongue in my cheek and say “Good luck with that”.
Simply put, they took the culture from you and you’ve done nothing to get it back. Where you have had victories it’s mainly come from defecting Liberals. Those victories will, left as they are, be short in reach and ephemeral in duration.
For the zillionth time, Conservatives don’t do work. For decades, they’ve just been Leftists with different policy preferences and a penchant for intellectual and organizational laziness.
Which is to say that the Left has dragged you into the deep end of their pool and proceeded to attempt to drown you. So far, they’ve been quite successful.
And anyone who points this out or suggests effective modulation to how the Right should respond is immediately pilloried as being a Leftist or otherwise slandered. Just look at the dozens of times Geoff has had to tell someone here that I’m not a Leftist.
Perhaps it’s fitting that a UK punk band has the Conservatives across the Western world pegged:
You wanna change the system but you don’t know what it is
You should focus on the problems that you have a chance to fix
The work is underwhelming, that’s just the way it is
You wanna build a home but you refuse to lay the bricks
I, for one, am rather sick of it after 20 years of slurs, insults and illogical tripe being slung my way and am starting to hope that people get what they’re ACTUALLY asking for.
Sure, that would suck for me too but I’ve been dead before so I’m much less concerned than these other people will be when they try to chew what they’ve unknowingly bitten off.
Something happened which helped the fight. The media industrial complex began to fall apart. They pushed too far with their lies. That makes the world a different place compared to the past 65 years.
Standard left wing operating procedure for any contentious topic:
“What? No! This thing (tranzing kids, open borders, critical race theory, etc.) isn’t happening!”
Then…
“It’s a wonderful thing that this is happening.”
And occasionally…
“Jesus would want us to do this thing. You’re a terrible person if you disagree.”
That strategy begins to crumble when there isn’t an effective media apparatus to back it up.
That’s not a strategy. It’s a tactic.
Tactics change to suit circumstances, strategy plays on things that do not change much, if ever.
Their strategy is to play on the laziness, ignorance and lack of curiosity displayed by their adversaries. Their primary weapons to do this are subterfuge, power plays, weaponize psychology and neurobiology.
So, as a singular example out of many: If Right wingers can’t grasp that the initiation of all information processing in the human brain has an emotional start point then the Right will eventually lose because that simple fact is an unbelievably powerful weapon in the wrong hands.
As I’ve said before, TTAG has a much smarter average commenter than most other sites. Yet, right here, it’s still argued like this is 3rd grade.
I’m sorry, the time to step up is now. To use a purely academic analogy; these people are playing a very dangerous game at the graduate school level while 95% of the Right plays in the kindergarten sandbox. The victories of “the Right” in recent years are NOT because the Right is better, smarter, faster or more ruthless. It’s because the Right has gotten lucky that the Left’s monolithic appearance isn’t as solid as it seems and they’re running people off by not properly enforcing party discipline.
You want to look at the kind of people who really swung things to Trump? Well first, Trump and no real Conservative. Secondly, they’re all former Lefties. From the Weinstein brothers to Rogan to Peterson to RFK to Tulsi.
That’s not you winning, that’s you getting lucky that they fell on their face. That’s not going to continue forever.
Again, Last Exit to Utopia. I cite my sources. I mean, shit, how many people have actually been to beautiful trouble dot org? I’ve only posted that inside information like 20 times. I know you’re not looking because if you did you wouldn’t be able to shut up about this cache of intel you just found.
As yet another tiny example, so that I don’t go on for days: They very fact that Christians talk about Nietzsche the way that they do tells you who’s going to win eventually, and it ain’t the Christians. If they knew ANYTHING about the guy that was based on his actual positions, they’d be singing his praises for his farsighted warnings while debating the solutions.
They’re not because, Chris is right, they listen to atheists who tell them things that benefit not just atheists but very specifically militant Leftwing atheists. They’re helping the enemy and feeling great about it because they’re too ignorant and too brainwashed to know what they’re actually doing and they’re sure as s**t too lazy to actually read a book.
I worked at a large church for ten years. I never saw so many exhibitions of greed, gluttony, avarice, and jealousy in my entire life. Which is one reason I am such a strong Christian. If all those fakes can get by – and sometimes very good things were done- the faith is strong to have survived so long!
Most churches rely on cameras and ridiculous security measures that mean absolutely nothing. The various churches hire security experts who have never faced a bad guy and have no idea. They spend thousands maybe millions on worthless concepts. The churches that are well prepared are those that hire off duty peace officers to cover certain events and direct traffic. These are well prepared.
Cameras are an important part of the security solution, but not by themselves. There must also be a trained team of responders, whether or not they are current or retired law enforcement.
Our church had a security team but it had to be (officially) disbanded as our insurance carrier informed us that they would cancel our liability policy if we had such a team. Our agent couldn’t find another company that didn’t have that same policy. Hight of stupidity!
I’ve shared on TTAG what a strong security team we have at First Baptist Church in Hammond,IN. Armed cops,armed security team and no prohibition on CC(my wife & I carry).( If they posted prohibitions I wouldnt attend).There are gaps in the 2 story parking lot but overall pretty good.
“Our church had a security team but it had to be (officially) disbanded as our insurance carrier informed us that they would cancel our liability policy if we had such a team.”
Simple, disband ‘officially’, and proceed ad-hoc with the same members as before.
“There’s no security here, senor…”
If I were attending this Church I would ignore all and any directions/law or insurance rider(s) and be tooled up at all time in service.
The biggest problem the christians have is they are weak. They haven’t read the parts of the Bible, that talk about armed security teams for their church.
Yes that’s correct. In the bible it talks about an armed security team for the church. And storing arms in the church as well.
Christians need to stop listening to the atheists. Who don’t have their best interests in mind. Yes that’s right I said it.
The only way to change these laws will be when enough Christians are willing to go to jail.
Like the hundreds of Christians who actually went to jail in the 1950s and 1960s. Protesting against laws in the former confederate states of america.
The COVID attack on the church was a test. And most churches failed that test. Was god testing the church???
Maybe. But the atheists were certainly testing the church. And they got the church to close their doors. And allow BLM and pride parades during the lock downs.
Faith is that which moves one to take action. Faith without action is mere mental assent or confirmation of some belief. Many Christians sit back and say “God will take care of it” (whatever ‘it’ refers to). Things will not simply take care of themselves without people doing something or taking action. God did not give us brains for us to stand down and do nothing. God works through people and those who have faith as defined in the Bible not only agree with the recorded words in the Bible, they also wake up, get up and work to see that God’s plans for them comes to fruition. Pray for God to do things and then get to work as if it depends on you.
Therein lies one of the misfortunes of today’s Christians. Saying “God will take care of it” is not enough. Those living faithfully will put their faith to work. We were not given brains for nothing.
If you take a reasonably deep pass at any of the Journals of Divinity you’ll find that what you’re saying was known to Divinity schools long ago, though the authors didn’t phrase it the way you have. For a very long time now, people were simply unsure of how to actually deal with the situation. This goes back well into the 1800’s.
You can also detect it in religious philosophy starting in the 1100’s if you’re reading carefully.
Abelard touches on this obliquely in his ruminations on the nature of the relation of the soul to the flesh, which are actually very well thought out. But when you actually think about it, he’s trying to square a circle created by battlefield observation of injury and death created by the spreading use of the crossbow against a background of religious assumption about the soul. The widespread nature of the observations requires someone to address the glaring inconsistencies produced by contemporary doctrine because soldiers and witnesses to certain battles have their faith shaken badly by observation of, or participation in, such events.
Abelard uses logic and theology really rather elegantly and ties that off with a bow IMHO.
Ultimately, I think that all of this has to do with the nature of education/observation in society informing religious belief by establishing certain guardrails that no one really talks about, while religious belief does the same in other areas of life, and the Church failing to adapt to the changing circumstances. Ultimately this leaves people with painful thoughts and deep feelings that are at cross purposes and not handwaved away.
Partly this is also due to the fact that for the last several hundred years the Priestly Class has essentially not existed because the Church spread literacy quite effectively. This changed the dynamic between priest and parishioner in ways that no one has really come up with a solution to.
This situation also created a new issue where the decentralization of religious education required a lot more work from the parishioner, particularly those who were intensely curious about life in general. Much more needed to be done in, say 1850, to square the circle created by religious education and secular knowledge. This is likely due to the nature of human psychology when in the steep part of a diminishing returns curve. At that point it’s very easy to say “Oh, well [secular knowledge type] will answer everything”.
This is complicated by a religious education built on a supposedly expert class of priests continuing to exist in an un-updated and somewhat vestigial form. Why would anyone read a book when some guy’s going to tell them “all about it” on a weekly basis? Most wouldn’t, it’s like doing the homework that your friend’s already done for you.
But that approach comes with a significant inherent flaw in that the person doing the work for you is just a person and is therefore influenced by social and other forces you don’t control. This will bias the work they do, work on which you are relying, and you will therefore inherit their biases. Their own secular knowledge is different from that of yours and therefore your questions will differ from theirs.
There is, therefore, no way that a weekly sermon can not leave large holes in one’s religious education and, at the same time, create conflicts with someone’s secular knowledge outside the Church.
This dynamic can, and often does, become a self reinforcing loop that creates echo chambers full of blind spots just as it does in other areas of life. The Minister/Priest/Preacher/Pastor will tend to stay in the “safe zone” for their own congregation leaving areas they don’t feel comfortable with untouched.
While I’d be quite hesitant to suggest that what I’m about to say is wide spread within the Baptist congregation at large because I haven’t looked deeply across that cohort, it was certainly the case at my friend’s Church when I was growing up: They’d hammer parts of the Old Testament like Samuel 1/2 or Ruth or others but avoid other parts of it entirely, notably to me, Ecclesiastes.
About the time I turned 15 I kinda cornered the pastor about it in the grocery store and in his fumbling explanation he eventually spat out that it was an inconvenient book to cover because it raised questions that the congregation would not like and ultimately would probably run him out of town for having brought up.
The same thing was generally true, though I never cornered the Minister about it, of the Church I grew up in which was Methodist.
Sort of sad but not exactly surprising.
===
Background out of the way, this is exactly the insertion point for all sorts of nonsense. At the junction created by those cross purposes I mentioned.
Which, by the by, goes back to Gramsci if you’re paying attention. But he merely elucidates a method for exploiting such an insertion point. The existence of that insertion point, its contained dangers and, indeed, its intrinsic corrosive nature at the personal and societal level was explored by that one philosopher Christians love to hate: Nietzsche.
It simply never occurred to him that it would be actively exploited for reasons purely of political ideology. He saw it as a nature point of decay, like a chip in paint which allows the beginning of rust.
We have a Safety Team.
Just some free advice from a random guy on the Internet. You are almost guaranteed to have a senior adult trip/fall in your entrance area or parking lot. Someone is going to forget to take their medicine. There will be a storm with strong winds. Hopefully, fires are rare but still a possibility. And… there will be someone who NEEDS the outreach of the church.
Your team should sweep the building before and after services. Check that all unmonitored doors are secure. Monitor the entrances. Now, what happens when Mrs. Johnson falls in the Narthex? Where is the AED? Who checked the batteries? Are the shelter-in-placed locations clearly marked? Where are the rally points for fire evacuation? Where is the first-aid kit? Who are the medical professionals in your congregation?
In the last year, we have removed multiple trip hazards in our parking lot and entrance area. We have tapped several doctors/nurses on the shoulder to discretely come check on senior adults. And we have connected scores of individuals requesting assistance with our Outreach Coordinator.
You’ve got the right idea. That’s the same idea behind why our safety team is officially named and thought as the Safety Ministry Team. We are there to minister and help keep congregants safe.
I have my own security team strapped to my ankle. Makes the most sense since I am sitting most of the time. Dry fire practice b4 you try this method. Several people have seen a little round thing poking out of my pant leg. But a wink and a nod is all it takes .
Several people have seen a little round think poking out of my pants leg too.
It’s mostly the females, who give me a wink and nod.
I personally serve on a church safety team and have done so for many years, we are all armed (although some team members not in the way I would have them tooled up if I ran the team), we are also supplemented by local PD.
“… pretending that the threats faced by Christian churches in today’s world only apply to ‘other’ churches in ‘other towns’ is both imprudent and foolish.”
Nevertheless, that is the state of affairs at many churches.
I have tried multiple times to gently and honestly broach the topic at the previous church that I attended and the church where I attend now. Both institutions actively opposed the idea of armed church members at services. If I read everything correctly, it sounded like they were not even keen on off-duty law enforcement being armed at services. I have no idea how to explain that.
I want to press this controversy a LOT harder. However, I fear that my church will explicitly and publicly ban armed church members if I do that. As it stands, state law by default forbids armed church members (unless the church explicitly allows it on a person-by-person basis) so the churches that I have found are opting for the implicitly banned situation. And that has less legal liability for me if I opted to carry in church anyway.
lol protestants
Seriously most “churches” are giga cucked liberal social clubs for agnostics
Here are a couple of great articles by Christian Apologist, Dr. Tim Stratton of Freethinking Ministries, that are directed at this very issue:
https://freethinkingministries.com/jesus-endorsed-armed-self-defense/
https://freethinkingministries.com/let-the-one-who-has-no-sword-buy-one-the-christian-case-for-carrying-firearms/
I’m a pastor in a church in South Jersey. I literally got my CCW permit because of my concerns for my church. Every week I battle with members that intentionally go and unlock secondary doors behind my back as if our world is peachy. I’m the Ron Koons that the N J. conceal carry suit is named after, and I’m unsuccessful at fully applying it.
go figure, Ron
When I go to church with the wife I’m always armed and expecting trouble… It’s a different world….
just kidding … but
Are you saying you are “always armed and expecting trouble” BECAUSE you are “with the wife” … I know the feeling. I have one of those, too! … lol
Christ cautions worshipers, we are the army of God! Act according! Your life as well as others depends on you
“These are usually carried out by social misfits and society’s losers” but the largest major threat is from islamists.
Whoa, whoa, whoa there buddy!
That kinda honest talk isn’t approved by HR, we’re going to need you to do some mandatory sensitivity training.
Lt Col Dave Grossman invites all of you to his first-ever BULLETPROOF HOUSE OF WORSHIP SAFETY CONFERENCE. April 24-26 in Mt Vernon, Illinois (90 miles east of St Louis.
People from 15 states have already registered.
https://bulletproofworship.com
I’ve never been to a large church like this and don’t really have much of an opinion on their security posture or lack thereof past thinking that perhaps they should take it seriously in the current age.
Were I a radical malcontent I do rather suppose they’d be fairly high on my list of targets but then that sort of talk seems to convince most people that you actually are the problem rather than just speaking the observation out loud. Whatever, Deus Vult, I guess.
Personally, I’ve always been quite choosy, perhaps even snobbish, about what Churches I thought were worth attending. Partly that’s the crowd and partly it’s that I don’t much see the point in ordering my life around what amounts to a poor quality book club when I could just… read the book and go from there on my own.
A fascinating subject, generally. Too bad people get so emo about it that it’s one of the two topics everyone knows not to discuss in a bar.
At a minimum, individual communion cups are a must for me. Let’s just say when Covid hit, I didn’t have to rush out to buy hand sanitizer and cleaning supplies.
There’s always a silver lining. For Covid, it’s that (some) people finally learned to respect personal space. Standing close to me in line won’t get you there any quicker. So just back off, okay lol?
A lot depends on the denomination. Some, Methodists, for example, are very anti-gun. Others, Baptist and Lutheran, not so much. Then the pastor has his say. Me, I carry to defend my family first, anyone else after that. Gave up hinting that protection might be a good idea.
Some churches still don’t have Safety and Security Teams? Yeah, and most schools don’t or the continuing shootings wouldn’t still be happening!
The worst part of this is that young people and teachers are getting killed. The second worst part is that all us 2nd Amendment advocates are not protecting our gun rights, and one of these days….
School safety hinges on schools being hardened – period. Limited and controlled access, security cameras, metal detectors, armed security. That’s what it takes, but every time there’s a shooting some component of that is missing. Someone who isn’t bone old like myself is going to have to start a statewide/national dialog. Trump, I feel would listen.
I’ll write to him, and I’ll get 2 friends to write to him, and then 2 of THEIR friends, and 2 of THEIR THEIR friends, and so on.
So will you be one of my 2 friends to write to the President? We have to wait until his email is set up, but it should be less than 3 weeks left to wait now.
Bring a gun to church but not a bible.
It’s called faith in your God.
What a joke.
See my other comment to you.
a gun and a Bible are both tools. a gun can help you with an earthly life. the Bible can help you with a heavenly life.
and it’s not a joke…… it’s life.
strych9 and NEIOWA
in WI we had Advent School school shooting 2weeks ago.
our nit wit governor Evers vetoed a bill that would allow someone to carry in school and church.he has the balls to get on national TV and states thoughts and prayers. yet never admitted he f’ed up and maybe a armed citizen could have stopped it. so NEIOWA add lib a$$ wipes to you list to blame
Wisconsin bans church carry by law?
Hrm… separation of church and state is a Lefty go-to… maybe it’s time to ram that down their throat?
My thoughts.
A church is not owned by the state therefore the state cannot say what the churches congregation can or can not do while in or on the premise.
It’s just disheartening that in these times people feel the need or must be armed while they worship in the House of their God.
The United States of America faces many problems one of which I believe is that of being an American citizen yet flying the flag of the country you’ve chose to start a life in as an American.
Dissident, spy, traitor, terrorist.
Diversity is fine, loyalty to the country you are a citizen of is paramount.
United we stand, divided we fall.
God Bless America.
Correction.
Still flying the flag of the country you’ve left to become an American citizen
The neocommies hate the old idea of America being a melting pot. A cohesive society is too strong. They want us fractured which is why they encourage what you mentioned as well as hatred of this country. You don’t try to save something you’re taught to hate.
Jack Wilson is my father-in-law. He was the one who stopped the shooter at the West Freeway church. He has helped numerous places of worship across the US implement security teams. Some already has what they called security teams but in actuality these teams were lacking in many areas.
Don’t trust the atheists.
They have never supported the 1st amendment. They have never believed in the 1st amendment.”
From 2024
“It’s now official. Silent prayer is a crime in England.”
“British army veteran Adam Smith-Connor has been found guilty of committing a criminal offence after praying silently near an abortion clinic in the city of Bournemouth.”
h
ttps://vision.org.au/news/uk-court-rules-silent-prayer-is-a-crime/
She was arrested for praying silently near an abortion clinic. They atheists want christians arrested in the USA as well.
The ath.eist don’t believe in free speech. They never have.
h
ttps://www.thefp.com/p/abortion-buffer-zones-united-kingdom-free-speech-arrested-for-praying-in-her-head
They want christians disarmed.