The Bishop of my diocese did the same. Firmly squashed the idea of a church security team. Between that and my priest continually telling me I was going to hell because I would not forgive something from my past. I stay at home. Catch mass on high holy days on TV. @MikeBKY showed me that.
Haven’t been to confession or communion in 4 years? Catholicism is the only religion I have ever left feeling more at peace than I was when I went in.
Where I live now, there’s a Baptist church on every corner. Where I grew up there’s Catholic churches on every corner.
Exactly. As human beings are are made up of many parts-- emotion, instinct, passion, logic, intellect, and memory. We have the capacity to choose how much prominence we give each of these aspects, how much weight each allow each to have in our decision making process.
I believe that choice is primarily what elevates humans above the beasts. At all times we must choose to BE the human being rather than knuckling under, or giving vent, to our baser urges.
I am the church security team at this point. I have thought about this very question. I am not excited about shooting someone who is not in control of their actions, but I can’t let them kill my pastor or any of the other people in the church. To be fair, I am also not excited about shooting anyone, but I will if that’s what is necessary to protect those around me.
Note that a Legion of demons could not keep the possessed demoniac from coming to Jesus. This tells me that to one degree or another, even a possessed person has some control over their actions.
I am sure that at least some of these church shooters are possessed. As noted above, it doesn’t take a demon to make people do evil things, but I suspect that if you give into them long enough, they get access to more of the controls, so to speak. Most of the top Nazi leadership were into the occult long before they met each other, so the demons they had let take roost were able to drive their agenda.
I lead the security team at my congregation and work with other leaders in our collective in the Louisville area for training on tactics and firearms. There was a young man at church one day and he was acting unusual. I know him and know that he does a lot of unusual things. He had the eyes of 5 of the security team members on him from front back and sides through the majority of the service. Since I know him, I had a private conversation with him after the service letting him know that the wrong move would have had at least 5 guns trained on him within a second.
That was about a year ago and his activities have become more predictable.
I am Catholic and I will be the first to tell you there are some bad bishops and priests. I did not grow up Catholic. My family went from Church of Christ, to Non-Denominational, I appreciate having all of those experiences. They all have good people in them. God is good.
I grew up in foster homes so I have seen an amazing number of denominations. From Charismatic non denominational to snake handling some description. But it’s always the Catholic Church that I feel at peace at. That is important to me.
It is a hard decision when it comes to carrying in what is supposed to be a safe place. I do carry at times in the church. I have a hard time with keeping it concealed and don’t want to alarm anyone. I started a safety team in my church and we need to be more active in training. Evil, a demon or just evil is still a threat and needs to be dealt with for the safety of others. I have served as a vol. in several different capacities in Law Enforcement and have seen evil. I have always figured that the person who comes in with ill intent has made a choice on their own. The sad thing is that they may take the life of someone who hasn’t made a choice to follow Christ. That bothers me more than anything else. This is a great discussion.
Our church is small…less than 75 people. We don’t have a designated security team, but several of us took the (Texas) LTC course in February, right before all the quarantine stuff. I got my LTC in the mail the first of April.
Our Pastor carries, and now so do I. There are a few others who do, when they attend. We’re trying to form a dedicated team, but right now, the Pastor just wants to be told who is carrying. We’ll get there.
My church here in AZ has had an armed security team, the Sheepdogs, for at least 20 years. To become a member of the Special Response Group (SRG’s) and carry concealed, you have to have a concealed carry license and have passed the equivalent of our police department’s 50 shot firearms qualification. We are all ready to do whatever it takes to protect the flock. God bless.
Demons are an interested topic.
A human possessed by a demon is certainly mortal.
Demons are not.
To further confuse matters, conduct we might attribute to demons may actually be caused by mental illness, or some physical condition/chemical imbalance
This is not to make excuses for people who shoot up churches or synagogues, because active shooters don’t allow for analysis of the causes of these horrors. There simply isn’t the time when people are being killed.
Great subject I happen to be on the security team at my church, we have no sigh s and no marking of any kind , so we do not stand out, we took the approach to stay in seen, we let the congregation know we where setting up the team and that’s all they know, we may be lucky as to have a Sargent on the swat team in home town in our church and on our team who was more then willing to devote his time to us. This took him going with us watching and hand selection of the team on carry skills draw and shooting. Witch is important in a crowd you don’t want bullets flying around all directions from unconfident shooters. We then took time to meet in the church building to train and he placed each person in the best position to cover the building. And as the senior adult pastor here, demons in the Bible are talked about multiple times they are most referred to as unclean spirits as far as someone saying he’s battling demons that could mean many things, mental, addiction, just plain evil thoughts only the good Lord knows!
I thought I’d share these resources for those that haven’t heard about them. Sorry if it is off topic. Carl Chinn, in Colorado has studied church shootings for many years, actually going to the sites of shootings and interviewing those involved. He has also been involved in two of the situations that occurred in Colorado, one as a security officer and one as a hostage. He with others like him have a faith based security network that has a conference each year (except this year due to the pandemic). For those of you who don’t know about the organization, here is a link: https://fbsnamerica.com/
The conference is a great way for those on church security teams to exchange ideas and learn a lot of good information. On the site you can see a listing of events that happen at churches, they keep the listed fairly well updated. Not all events involve shootings. There is also the Sheepdog Church security site that is a great resource. Sheepdog Church Security Training | Sheepdog Church Security
Hi everyone, I’m Maxx with USCCA Group Sales and I’d love to answer any group questions you have! Currently, we work with over 350 House of Worship Security/Safety teams. Please ask any questions you may have here (don’t forget to tag me in the question @Maxx ) or send me a PM! I’d love to help your team save on membership costs and continue to train and educate.
I don’t mean to sound argumentative, I just don’t know. What does this “working with” church security teams consist of? Is it something like an informational slide show, or sending a trainer and doing force on force scenarios?
Hi @LordDeinonychus, thanks for responding to my post. I speak with teams to learn more about them and their overall team goals and help them get aligned with a USCCA membership that fits their needs best. I have met with teams virtually to go over membership details and sometimes meet in person to discuss our membership options. Additionally, I can help teams get in contact with a USCCA certified trainer who can help administer some of our training regiments in person.