Safety in the Sanctuary: Is Your Church Prepared?

Churches should recruit qualified members who will be most effective serving on a safety team. Willow Creek’s team is made up of volunteers who are retired or off-duty officers with the exception of one paid staff member. “They meet each weekend prior to the services to review current church programs or events and evaluate how the plans need to be updated or altered,” says McAuliffe. “We have a monthly safety meeting involving all the major departments to go over upcoming and prior events, to look for learning and to have everyone prepared for the next event.”

It should be very clear to team members what they are expected and not expected to do. Do they observe and report? Do they help plan and write procedures? Who will carry weapons and who will not? Are they expected to intervene if there is a problem? And if yes, do they have the skills and training necessary to do so?

McAuliffe says that strong leadership is also crucial when it comes to a solid security team. “Churches need someone who is both sold out on the Lord and very experienced. They keep the correct balance of making sure ministry happens the way it needs to happen and still keep one eye open for trouble.”

At Houston’s First Baptist, Andy Rodgers says their team includes uniformed private security and law enforcement officers as well as plain-clothes security professionals. Other volunteers have important roles, such as helping plan and prepare security policies, serving as ushers and greeters, patrolling hallways and parking lots during service times and providing pastor assistance during services that does not include security intervention.

Rodgers believes it’s important for churches to first use existing law enforcement officers and security professionals if possible. “You’re asking someone to do a task that is very specialized and will likely require him to a make an instant decision on how to handle an issue that could involve someone’s life,” he says. “This can be a tough call under the best of conditions, which this will almost certainly not be. There isn’t time to call a meeting or ask a couple of others what they might do. It’s good to have a person in the hot seat who can quickly draw from his own knowledge and experiences on what actions may be needed.”

Seventeen Seconds

Carl Chinn is a writer and speaker who frequently talks with church groups about security based on almost 20 years of experience dealing with security issues in ministry situations. His first experience was at Focus on the Family shortly after they moved the organization’s offices from California to Colorado Springs, Colorado. In 1991, as building engineer for Focus, Chinn’s attention was the ministry’s building program. But when a bomb threat was received, security also became his concern.

“The operators who took the call didn’t know what to do with it; and since I had facilities maintenance, it wound up on my desk,” recalls Chinn. “That’s when I got introduced to Colorado Springs’ Police Department; and when the second bomb threat came in two months later, I met with them again.”