4 Mistakes Church Security Teams Make // Church Security Basics // Church Security Leadership

[@garyjames8544]

1st if you don’t treat it as a ministry it won’t work! 2nd focus on creating disciples and finally work on building relationship within the team! Recruiting for your team is very important and look for professionals first! They can help with training your other volunteers! I am a director of a large church with an excellent team of 60 dedicated volunteers! I could speak on the importance of this topic for a long time as it’s complex. God bless

[@dustyrustymusty3577]

"Hope for the best, prepare for the worst."

[@almikelipscomb]

We have just started to expand our church security. There is so many facets to it.

[@8Nguy1948]

As a one man volunteer , I try to get as much training as I can . Thank you so much for supplying me with the guidance that I need .

[@ThePunisher1394]

Hello Captain, my name is Efrain Rios, friends call me Frank. Our church, My Church (name of our church) is in San Antonio, Texas. Our team had its official first meeting/training session today, Saturday, July23rd. I’m retired from Philadelphia Police Department. We have an active SAPD Officer on our team, our team has five members that our Officer and myself are training with your videos and our own skills as well. We’re also going to include women that will also receive firearm training. We have a scheduled CPR class coming up. We will do scenarios/role play training, mental health awareness and child protection as well. We call ourselves Congregation Protection Team so as not to use “Security”. Your videos are gold. We’re very excited and dedicated. The first thing I opened up todays meeting after prayer was “Mindset”. Thank you for what you do. God bless you and your teams as well.

[@ChurchSecurityAnswers]

Hey Frank! Wow....you guys are off to a great start with your security team! I am so glad your church has you and the SAPD officer to get the ball rolling and lead the team with your experience. Your people, families and children are so lucky to have you guys. Thank you for watching and your kind comments. Let me know if there is anything our team can help with or talk about. Maybe soon you could come on the podcast and talk about your getting started experiences!

[@speilpotts]

Starting from scratch, I suggested a security team to the board of elders at our small church of about 60 people. I’ve attended an active shooter workshop, and have watched a lot of online content. The challenges I’m facing is participation. The great majority of our congregation is elderly in their late 60s and up. I can’t even get our former chief of police, who is a member, to join me for training. He feels he already knows it all. I’m frustrated and don’t know how to proceed.

[@ChurchSecurityAnswers]

Start with very small tasks...... with having someone you trust sitting by the door or sitting on a chair in the parking lot (even if they are older as you mentioned)...maybe get a couple of radios to communicate with. (here are inexpensive radios I recommend: amzn.to/3q9Setz )....if you can get one person that you trust them to make good decisions, you have "started" a team and if it is not too taxing with training and standing a post for long periods of time, you should be able to get others to see that it can be enjoyable to help protect the church. Then get your training started at the same time, start small, don't get focused on "active shooter" too soon (most problems at churches are small stuff). It is scary to leadership and to people in general to jump into active shooter talk and training. Here is also a video on where to get training both FREE and Paid for training your people and team: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eoa4lZeigs-eZ5Y You can also use anything on our KZbin channel here for free and begin using them to have people view from home or get together once a month to watch a couple of videos. And don't forget to document with a sign up sheet that you did the training. Here is a link to a free form for church security to document training:app.convertkit.com/landing_pages/74272/

[@speilpotts]

@@ChurchSecurityAnswers thank you so much for the advice. I will look into the resources you mentioned.

[@ronr3656]

Wow! he thinks he already knows it all. That is amazing. I am a tenured professional in a completely different profession and the longer I am in it the more I realize I do not know and have to learn.

[@xloverlanding884]

Have him train you then!

[@8Nguy1948]

I am in the same boat , except that I have a few younger members, but no one is interested in forming a team , so I am doing what I can by myself .

[@kS20222]

Convenience! I ran a church security team, until they started complaining the security measures were making it hard for the church staff to do things easy

[@mishasumi6827]

There is a balance in all things. The primary and only function of the Church is to give God the right worship He is due in the manner God desires. As long as that is achieved, convenience is a worthy sacrifice to offer up.

[@jhask64]

Yes. Sadly many will complain about most changes in churches. Even with rising wars and conflicts in the World, some are still blind to the need for setting some boundaries.

[@briangreen256]

Basement doors or doors at the back of the church should always be locked.

[@briangreen256]

I am glad I found your channel! I think security 24/7 so this channel is in my wheel house👍

[@christretch]

Thanks for being a resource. I just volunteered my churches security team. I am glad the main focus will not be active shooter training- I think that would intimidate me from volunteering. I have no security experience other than firearm safety. So I am hoping they will first just train me on logistics, traffic flow, communication systems, deescalating etc, and how to clear the building, and whatever else I need to know on a regular basis...they did recommend several of your videos.

[@revgriz120000]

Thank you for sharing this. I truly appreciate your channel. My biggest challenge as head of our Security is getting our all-volunteer force to show up to training. I schedule quarterly training. This year it is 1. Necessity of security and proper mindset for security. 2. CPR certification/medical trauma. 3. Role-play in Security Incident scenarios (ranging from service interruption to active shooter). 4 Gun range qualification on the Georgia LEO backup weapons qualification course. It seems like there is always someone who cannot make it and since most of these don't lend themselves to make-up classes, it's a real challenge.

[@ChurchSecurityAnswers]

Hey Troy, yes that is a definite challenge with our team members. It sounds like you have some great and necessary courses. One thing I have tried in the past is looking at the titles and trying to jazz them up a bit, which seems to help sometimes. Role playing becomes "Incident Survival Training" , security operations training becomes "Tactical Security Operations". Making it a bit more exciting can help. Do you give out certificates when people attend? It adds a little work but a lot of people are excited to add to their credentials....you can even make security team levels...One, Two and Three and make it time and different security courses that they attend over the one or two years to hit the next level.... Just some ideas. Thanks for your note Troy, everyone appreciates the sharing. As I think about it, this might actually make a timely episode, can I share your name "On the Air" Troy?

[@revgriz120000]

@@ChurchSecurityAnswers Those are great ideas and I will definitely incorporate them. Also, if using my name helps you in any way, please feel free to do so. Thank you again.

[@ShieldMaiden452]

@@ChurchSecurityAnswers Those are great ideas, and I personally have been in security for a number of years and have paid for training just to get good training with certifications to carry on. So when I became part of my church security team, I handed them my resume, my Certs and assured them this was a job for me not a volunteer thing to show up when i could or when training was fun. We just had our 1st firearms class and 3 out of 10 of us were proficient with our weapons. An eye opener for everyone who thought they were an asset and not the liability.

[@ChurchSecurityAnswers]

@@ShieldMaiden452 thanks for sharing and thanks for protecting your people and your church! Great point about being proficient, it is tough with a volunteer team to get everyone to practice enough. Tough these days with the cost of ammo too, to get people to practice, practice, practice!

[@ShieldMaiden452]

@@ChurchSecurityAnswers I'd always recommend daily or weekly home dry fire drills for those wanting to.be armed either at church or day to day. 1 conceal carry firearms class isn't enough to.be proficient in a self defense shooting under stress. And doing stress drills. There is alot out on KZbin. I've made a church security Playlist that covers all aspects from Usher to armed and mental health etc. That's why I found your channel and added your videos. Active Self Protection channel is an excellent source of info and real videos broken down. He is a former pastor and cop, I even attended his church security seminar personally. Chuck haggard is another guy worth watching as well.

[@briangreen256]

Its fine to be enviting but this day and age,security must be at its highest level!

[@alfrench9150]

The mission of the church is to reach people. If security is your highest priority you will have a compound instead of a place to reach others.

[@briangreen256]

@@alfrench9150 Different subject all together. Reaching people is obviously a priority! Keeping everyone safe if just as important!

[@vinceharrison5107]

Good stuff. Totally agree on all 5.

[@navybrat02]

Just watched this video and realized you hit the nail on the head with the 4 mistakes and I need to go to m team and reinforce what we need to focus on.

[@ChurchSecurityAnswers]

Excellent Navy......thanks for watching, commenting and sharing with your team!

[@nicholassanza296]

I know exactly what you’re talking about I was one of security leads out of 4 teams at place in Vacaville California called the Fathers House. I was always trying to get the Director of Security and the senior pastor to get us training and some of the guys needed to be certified in first aid just to be safe and know what to do in case something happens or assist the medical lead. we do have medical on the team a lot of times they’re not there. I always try to get some kind of plan put together in case we ever did have a shooting going on at the campus but the Director and the senior pastor always thought it was a joke and said that we would never be attacked and I said because we are mega church with 11 more churches that we are the perfect place to be attacked. They allowed us to conceal carry with our CCW‘s and some of us that do Carry has a lot of training and they never really wanted to take the time to work with Security and we were really never ever appreciated we were always told to be seen and not heard and we’re only there to observe and take notes not to handle anything else ,so what was the purpose of us being there my main purpose was to make sure that everybody got to church safe and left safe no matter what.I would argue with them back-and-forth about the director and senior pastors comments. we did lose a lot of people on the team out of 60 people because of The church not appreciating a lot of the volunteers that come in and put a lot of time in especially myself I put in over 9+ years and been with the church for 17 years the last meeting they had they finally told us that they no longer want us to conceal carry so now there’s no way for us inside the church of 2000 people per service to protect.so after 17 years I’d say my goodbyes a lot of the people that were under me were pretty pissed because of the way the church was handling us and they lost a lot of guys that day and now I’m at another church and possibly thinking about serving as security for them. At the fathers house I brought it to the senior pastor who oversees the finances our concerns and everything else and his answer was our financial situation is more important than your safety and that is what came out of his mouth and I said this is not the place that I need to be. Since we have gotten bigger and bigger we have probably through all the churches somewhere around 30,000 people and that’s not even including online. your 4 mistakes church security teams make I brought all four of those always to their attention before this video and they just used to laugh at us and said that we were overthinking, so that we never needed any of that. We even had sheep dog security come out and try to give them some pointers but they really didn’t even take their advise.

[@ChurchSecurityAnswers]

Hey Nicholas, thanks for sharing with us!! This is great for people to hear that they are not alone when it comes to the rejection of the church security concept. It is still an issue for some churches. I think one bit of advice I give to all of those reading this great info from Nicholas is to maybe start with the small stuff, when there is concern about an armed security team at your church. I do understand that it is very foreign and scary topic for a lot of church leaders. And really church security is about so much more than active shooter in my opinion. So think about going in talking about have a team that is ready for service interruptions, medicals, disputes and other similar. Then work towards the Armed stuff after we break the barrier a bit. Sadly tho there are a lot of churches still overlooking and wow, 30,000 attendees in a large region need some people to watch out for them! Thanks again for sharing.....so important for us to hear!

[@Willie_MN]

I feel your pain my Brother, oh I feel your pain!

[@jimhurstjr]

Thank you for your information and your service to your church.

[@ericwiltse8054]

Just started leading our security team at church. Average 170 people per service for 3 services. My first time doing this. I am a current Leo but my work is really picky about off duty work. Even volunteering. I'll be absorbing your videos. Thank you

[@ChurchSecurityAnswers]

Thank you Eric, for serving your community and your church and protecting your people during services!!

[@CobaN9ne]

Good input! I just became a member of a church that doesn't have a security team and have inquired about establishing one. The Pastor said it would be a welcomed service so I'm looking into everything needed to do this the best way.

[@ChurchSecurityAnswers]

Hey Ty, we have a few free items to get you started if you choose......www.ChurchSecurityAnswerMan.com has a lot of stuff, also a free ebook www.churchsecurityanswerman.com/free-ebook-7-points

[@a.r.r.5626]

Our training (~125-person church): Local public safety officer experienced with law enforcement, personal firearms training and church/business property security assessments.

[@josuejlugo]

Thank you for the training. I appreciate the resources. God bless you.

[@ChurchSecurityAnswers]

Thank you for watching, sharing and commenting!

[@georgevavoulis4758]

Just have security at the door check people. I had to do this once works pretty good

[@charleslaverygospeltruckin6176]

For Churches that can afford it i would put camera's on all entrances and parking lot. And have a monitoring room with someone continuously watching the screens while any service is going on...!

[@KLUJICS]

Your post is a year old, but I certainly hope that you can help ALL churches. I’m sure you perform this service as an act of ministry, but you still need to be paid. I would hope that you get what you expect from churches that can afford your services. I also hope you have a way to help the smaller churches that may not have the same budget. This is a sad necessity, but obviously realistic. The enemy is getting desperate and ramping up his game. But greater is HE that is in you than he that is in the world. I suggest that a church or churches sponsor several seminars with top security advisors and consultants, with any vendors that may be truly interested in reasonably helping churches with resources that improve church security.

[@dragonrider7080]

I started in Church Security in '08 and knew nothing, I just knew that God called me to do it. So I actually started with 2 other guys and the first thing we wanted to do was to write a policy and procedure guide. So I was lucky enough to have a retired LEO and one person from church leadership and together we wrote our guide. Then we started recruiting, After we had about 7 or 8 recruits we then started to have meetings once a month where we would talk about our P&P guide and also do some training. We started with "Sheepdogs by Grossman" and Cooper Color Codes. We then did "Powers to Arrest" and that we were not a police force. We did First Aid/CPR, and Verbal Judo. We then did "Use of Force and Situational Awareness". That pretty much took up our first year of training. As new recruits signed on we would wait until we had 4 and then we would redo these classes with them, and at the same time going forward with other training classes we had planned. So the new folks had to do double training per month until they caught up. Hard to do sometimes, but I'm been lucky to have dedicated people sign up. We didn't get to active shooter stuff for about 5 years into it. Well, there's a lot more but that's enough for now.

[@ChurchSecurityAnswers]

Thanks Dragon Rider for sharing.....what a great plan you have put together over the years, love the training courses. Yes it sounds like it is a little tough on the new person to the team, but your team is blessed with great people it sounds like. Thanks for sharing

[@truehope287]

Sounds like you did a fantastic job! Bravo Sir!

[@ChurchSecurityAnswers]

@@truehope287 Yes he did ! Thanks True for commenting!

[@BBartelotti]

At our church we were fortunate to have ex PD, military men. We would have security meetings every 2 months, to go over a number of things you talk about, including scenarios from active shooter, verbal judo, and even what to do when an ex spouse comes for the kids. Security teams outside with radios to let inside security know if something doesn’t look right (D.L.R. code) and give a brief description. We want people to come, for sure; but if things are not quite right, we’ll have eyes on them in the congregation.

[@The_Sound_of_Steel]

Make sure your training the church as a whole what do they need to do in the event of an emergency. People are the biggest factor in a chaos moment having momma bear running across the room to get to her cub may block precious vision in a moment of need any many many other factors

[@ChurchSecurityAnswers]

Thanks for your thoughts Tactically!

[@jonbush6245]

Good thoughts, the training is so vital for many reasons.

[@teddybear4020]

good morning.!! YES u r so right . also having a place {{ Office For Security }} to have place to watch cameras . and view . {{ camreas have the abilty to do high ZOOM . !! and can view licence tags and or person that might b high trouble . cam in side and out . YES HAVE POLICE ON SPEED DIAL . a must . and Ambulance. .........................i used to work as a trucker . i have seeen many security office and gate houses. as us truckers do check in at many warehouse and biz . so ya we do see many types . some r in very sorry shape . but some will blow your mind 4 sure . talk with ya later bro. thank u 4 alll u do to help us all to b safe .

[@ChurchSecurityAnswers]

Hey Teddy, thanks for watching and sharing your thoughts!

[@kimstoliker2111]

We had our local police come and give us advice for our church.

[@blutarheel1]

Thank you

[@ChurchSecurityAnswers]

Thank you for watching and commenting!

[@user-pv6lu2zn4g]

Excellent resource. Subscribed

[@JohnSWaldrip]

Please produce a video addressing the spiritual cost of focusing so much on security that your worship participation diminishes and you suffer the loss of spiritual nurture from focused worship.

[@beztintentionz8908]

This is a good subject to cover! We have an intermediate sized team, but large enough for rotation locations and weeks off to minimize burnout. Emphasis to feed ourselves daily in His word…there is no substitute for this discipline.

[@teddybear4020]

by the way u just pop up on my feed . great info.

[@davidmclaughlin2796]

Very good video, thanks

[@JoelMestre-mb7ns]

Just started a security team, looking for advice on how to improve them

[@davidpeightal4918]

Thank you.

[@cb-yl6gj]

Always enjoy hearing your thoughts thanks for the help

[@ChurchSecurityAnswers]

Hey c b thanks for watching and commenting I really appreciate you being here!!

[@ronr3656]

Good information thank you

[@workinman0069]

Thank you. This was great information.

[@ChurchSecurityAnswers]

Thanks Workin for watching and commenting.

[@jthampshire]

Great video.

[@charliepham6889]

Hello sir Joe Puckett my name Charlie I'm a one of our security team @ our catholic church of Lavang parish from Portland, OR, we're have couple Arm Security and unarm, my church don't allow us to carrier a gun during the math in the church property my question if is active shooting come in our church and start shooting what should Arm and unarm security has to do? what if Arm security get there gun and try to stop the active shooting what happen next? what is the law should we're get protected it? Thankyou sir hope to hear from you soon

[@w.m.woodward2833]

Glad I found your channel. I just took over the security team at our church, and first order has been to start training.

[@ChurchSecurityAnswers]

Wow WM we are glad you found us also. Let us know if you have questions or issues you are trying to get through. You can email me at [e-mail]

[@jamesgreen5798]

Great info. Thank you for what you are doing.

[@ChurchSecurityAnswers]

Thanks James for watching and leaving a comment!

[@hiramr1153]

Security team are not te ushers they need to do their job as the security team protect and back up the ushers. If I’m right.

[@BubbasndRayEarl]

One big mistake churches make is appoint people that are grossly overweight and out of shape.

[@user-uf9dh1uu3k]

Thanks for sharing 👍

[@ChurchSecurityAnswers]

Thanks for watching and leaving a comment!

[@courtneyatkins5627]

we are in Jamaica and looking for training idea for our ministry too. Thank you for it.

[@ChurchSecurityAnswers]

Welcome to this channel Courtney. Please let us know if you have questions or items that need to be addressed! Glad you are watching and thanks for leaving us a comment!

[@Shinobi1Kenobi]

Videos, Powerpoints, etc. are not training. That's just low-level education. Training is the development of skills. But BOTH education AND training are important. My point is that education isn't a substitute for training.

[@rossimarti]

Maybe… have some “drills” and “tests”

[@rossimarti]

If you lock doors, have clear signage.

[@GaryBowen73]

3. Minimize the number of doors. 🤣🤣🤣🤣 Well my church literally has one door in and out...front door and nothing more.....dont think we minimize it any further than that! 😉

[@ChurchSecurityAnswers]

Excellent Gary! Thanks for watching and commenting!

[@ShieldMaiden452]

My church has 2 back doors to the parking lot, both of which are next to nursery, or toddler rooms and a kids play area that has side doors for the kids to play in a contained area, and then 2 sets of double doors and all class front froyer. Talk about a security nightmare without limited door use once worship starts lol

[@ChurchSecurityAnswers]

@@ShieldMaiden452 So how does your team control that area? Is it the limited door use? Or do you put security members in that area?

[@ShieldMaiden452]

@@ChurchSecurityAnswers we are a mid size church with 2 services on Sundays. So all doors are open to come and go until worship starts and then side doors are locked. 1 person does parking lot patrols, 1 stays in foyer, 1 is inside with congregation. I've honestly done youth group mostly do to my schedule but will start on Sundays. Hope that helps, it's a fairly new ministry and team. Everyone needs training. Only 3 of us have proficiency in security & 1st responder work

[@ChurchSecurityAnswers]

@@ShieldMaiden452 that sounds like a great operation. I like the idea of open doors until service starts, then locking some of them!

[@Bluponi]

What do you think of the possibility of having people go through metal detectors at Church, just like we do at the airport ?

[@ChurchSecurityAnswers]

Hey Bluponi, My personal opinion goes with the idea of balancing security and the warm welcoming environment and today's church climate. Does your Pastor / Priest want this? Because it might make some people feel uncomfortable with today's church climate. It might cause some people to not attend ?? However, I think in the future as active shooter incidents continue to rise, people may WELCOME this at church. The other side of this is....how accurate are these metal detectors ??? Then if the alarm goes off, what is the body search protocol looking for what was detected ?? Are we going to do strip searches at church if the metal detector alarm goes off?? Most churches will only be able to afford cheaper detection models, which I am not an expert on at all.....but how much do they cost, how much do they miss and how many false positives are there. A GREAT idea, but a lot to consider and unpack for churches today. 5 or 10 years from now, the climate may change to people not wanting to attend your church unless you have visible security measures like metal detectors ??? Great question !!!

[@jameskerrigan2997]

Southern Idaho has it figured out. Buy the time the bad guy wakes up service is already over.

[@ChurchSecurityAnswers]

Go Southern Idaho!! Thanks for sharing James.

[@jameskerrigan2997]

@@ChurchSecurityAnswers yep 930 parking lot is empty.

[@jimhovater8755]

He seems to have s very difficult time getting to the points that he tells you he's going to make 5 minutes earlier. Sort of like a minister that can't seem to find a stopping point for his sermon.

[@ALCANTARA831]

Hello you have information in Spanish???

[@ChurchSecurityAnswers]

Hello Speeding, unfortunately we do not yet. It is on our list for the future. Thank you for the note.

[@jackfrost3573]

Hmmm, I think I need to be armed in church. Thank God...?

[@jeff3638]

Church is not what it once was😅 pray at home ..give a Bumn the "offering" . 😊

[@MissionaryForMexico]

Do not go by this man's information. You cannot regulate doors function to be able to ingress or egress. If you have any kind of emergency, any kind what so ever. You cannot limit access to any door opening! You have personal security or ushers at door openings! This man is wrong big time!

[@Scott-zm8ei]

Perhaps this is true for older doors but not most newer doors. For example. the doors at our church can be locked so that no one can enter but everyone can leave if they desire. I think you have just identified a valid concern for some, but not all, churches to consider: replacing old doors and locks with modern capability.

[@jeff3638]

Church should not = Paranoya 😮

[@Scott-zm8ei]

True, as long as you understand the difference between wisdom and paranoia.

[@whitefiddle]

Good luck with that. 💀

[@PaleoCon2008]

You are so wordy and repetitive that it makes it difficult to listen to your presentations. This 12 minute presentation could have been a much better 5 to 7 minute presentation. You need to write and rewrite your scripts to tighten them up.