Hello and Good Afternoon Everyone. My name is John Nowak and I’m a USCCA member living in Arizona. We’ve recently had some church fires and one was actually burned to the ground. The church down the road was vandalized. All on the same day. How can we better protect and serve our places of worship? I have a pretty good idea and have some men and women willing to step up and ensure our parishioners are safe. We have a great greeting team, a child check in system and a lot of retired Veterans and concealed carry folks including myself. Any advice or feedback would be great. I’m an elder at the church and my wife and little girl and I attend there. Thanks so much I’m advance and be safe out there.
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If you want a long term answer, grab Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Company’s book “The Church Safety and Security Guidebook.” You can pick it up even if they aren’t the insurance carrier for your church. They have an in depth process to make your building, congregants, and visitors more safe. If your church is willing, in the interim, hire off duty police officers to work during church services if you feel that there is an immediate threat.
Also, there is a book called, “Defending the Flock” that goes through the process of creating a safety team and what you need to do to implement it. Hope this helps and good luck keeping everyone safe.
Edit to add: I’m not affiliated with either of the two organizations whose books I recommended but our church spent the last couple of years getting up and running with these two sources and found them invaluable.
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awesome references - I was just talking with a friend about his mosque’s desire to get a security plan together, I’ll suggest those to him. thank you!
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