How Safe Is the Sanctuary?

“But we prayed to our God and posted a guard day and night to meet this threat.” (Nehemiah 4:9)

In our language, sanctuary (literally a holy place) has come to mean a safe place.  However, since the Wedgwood Baptist Church shooting in 1999 and many other church shootings, along with news stories of vandalism, arson, and sexual abuse, the church doesn’t seem so safe anymore.  Over a thousand places of worship in the United States now have volunteer safety & security teams, and members in many more congregations are considering starting their own ministries.

Most of us still tend to think of a church as a sanctuary, not only as a religious center but as a safe place.  In recent years, however, frequent news stories of theft and violence shattered the image of churches as safe places.  Yet, many congregants still hold to the place of safety image with the idea, "It can't happen here."  The sad truth is, it can.  

Churches may now be, on average, more fireproof and better able to withstand storms, but criminal activity has become more of a threat during the past few decades.  Violence also includes non-deadly means of assault, with fists, elbows, feet, and less-than-lethal weapons.  Non-violent crimes which happen in churches or involve pastors, staff, and volunteers, include sexual abuse, physical abuse, kidnapping, and theft.  

Sexual abuse in churches is more prevalent than most want to admit.  It might not be as prevalent as theft, but it is more damaging to the minds, emotions, and bodies of its victims. Related to this is kidnapping.  Victims often suffer both physical and sexual abuse. Abduction is most often committed by a non-custodial parent, but children are also kidnapped by sexual predators or for ransom.  Rare, but still a concern, is child theft, when an unrelated person takes a child to make it her own.

Theft of various kinds may be the most prevalent non-violent crime in churches, even when excluding robbery since it threatens violence.  Vehicles in the parking lot are also targets for theft, usually for contents but sometimes for the vehicle itself or its parts (such as wheels).  The most expensive form of theft is embezzlement.  Embezzlement is also the type of theft which can go the longest without being noticed.

Criminal activity is not the only threat, challenging the church’s status as a safe place. Other threats are natural forces, technological failures, and human caused failures.  Natural events which threaten churches include severe weather, earthquakes, floods & landslides, wildfires, and epidemics.  The most dangerous severe weather events are tornadoes, hurricanes, winter storms, and extreme temperatures.  Wildfires can occur in any state, but are more likely in some, especially under dry conditions.

Fire can result from natural causes (such as earthquake or lightning), technological failures (such as electrical shorts, overheated equipment, or gas leaks), and human failure (such as candles not fully extinguished, range burner left on, etc.).  It can also be caused by criminal activity, especially arson.

How are the church and its members to be protected from the various threats to their safety and well-being?  That is the mission of a church safety & security ministry team, protecting the flock.

Be safe!

Integrity Security Consulting

Russ Sharrock

405-762-2471 | integrityseccon@hotmail.com

 I have developed and made available to anyone interested, for FREE, a series of Security & safety forms that can be printed for your use:

1) A Safety & Security Risk Assessment Form

2) Church Security Plan Template

3) Church Emergency Plan Template

4) A General Fire Safety Checklist

5) A Bomb Threat Checklist

6) A Bomb Threat Distance Chart:  Includes various types of explosive devises and to be referred to in an event of a bomb threat evacuation.  These are minimum distances to evacuate away from the area of explosion.

7) Facility Lockdown Checklist

8) Child Protection Covenant

These MS Word documents can be adapted as necessary to fit your church size and needs.  I will be adding new forms as time allows.

For a copy of any of these FREE forms, or if you have any questions, contact me and let me know what your needs are.

Areas of Church Security That Need Your Attention

“Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.” (Acts 20:28)

When it comes to keeping a church functioning, security is important.  Seems like an obvious statement, right?  And yet, you still hear spine-chilling stories about accidents and criminal activities that wouldn’t have happened if the church took the issue more seriously.  People are trusting the church to get this right, and we can’t afford to let them down.

Here are five areas of church security that we need to take seriously:

1) Child Security

Nothing is more heartbreaking than hearing about a child hurt or abused at church. We need to excel at taking care of the most vulnerable among us. If we can’t do that, shame on us. 

This means we really need to nail down:

a. Check-ins:

I’ve talked to churches with rather lax standards for checking in children, and it often boils down to feeling like their children’s ministry isn’t big enough to warrant that kind of red tape. The truth is that even if you have only one child in your kids’ ministry, you have enough children to justify tight security.

b. Background checks:

Do a background check on everyone who is helping out in children’s ministry.  This is not an area to make exceptions.  A child should never be hurt because we neglected to ensure the people ministering were trustworthy.

2) Facility Security

This is another area where I find churches making strange mistakes. You would be surprised at the number of churches who have state-of-the-art security systems, but they don’t use them for a number of reasons:

a. They’ve forgotten the security code.

b. They haven’t kept up payments to the security company.

c. Security codes got lost in a staff change.

d. It seems like too much of a hassle.

Whatever the reason, don’t be negligent here.  If people come to the church in the off hours, they need to know that the building is secure.  But it’s not only their personal safety you want to consider.  There is also the issue of protecting resources.

Don’t risk having expensive equipment stolen or the church vandalized because you haven’t bothered to secure the premises.  In the end, the money you “save” on security won’t add up to the damages you’ll pay without it.

Don’t forget that securing the facility also means that you’re paying attention to details like whether the parking lot is well lit or window locks are working.

3) Financial security

There are a lot of ways that finances can be mishandled in churches.  I know pastors whose Sunday deposits have been lost or stolen.  I once pastored a church were the previous pastor had sole responsibility for the offerings  After he left the church was never able to find any financial books, nor could they locate the any of the cash offerings.  It is particularly dangerous when you’re dealing with a lot of checks and cash every week and a lack of strict money handling policies.

Even better than that, consider moving away from cash and checks.  If you train your church to give through a mobile app, you mitigate a lot of the problems that come with having lots of cash lying around.

Using a solution like Pushpay not only transitions you away from reliance on checks and cash, but also brings you into a new world of security.  Payments are logged and encrypted on secure servers and monitored with the highest security standards.

4) Informational security

Your members are entrusting you with personal details and information.  If you have a database or any other software where you are storing information (e.g., church management software, emails, check-in areas, etc.), make sure it’s secure.  Make sure that the only people who have access are people who need it.  Change passwords frequently, and ALWAYS change passwords when a staff member leaves their position.  Keep your software up-to-date and compliant.

5) Sensitivity and awareness

One of the most important areas to make sure people feel secure is also one of the most difficult to monitor accurately.  People need to feel personally and emotionally safe.  This means that women shouldn’t feel like they’re going to be the victims of unwanted attention, minorities aren’t going to feel unwelcome, and people with disabilities aren’t going to feel like second class citizens.

Churches have a hard time in this area because drawing attention to it is often seen as being “politically correct.” That’s just not the case. There are a lot of security woes that people will forget, but they’ll never forget the ways that they were made to feel unsafe or uncomfortable.

As silly as it may sound, your staff needs to know what is and is not appropriate.  If that means subjecting them to some sensitivity training, so be it.  In the long run, they’ll not only benefit from it personally, but they’ll learn to recognize potential problems in the church before they become disasters—or lawsuits.

Better early than late.  We don’t tend to take security issues seriously until something bad happens, but we can’t afford to think that way.  It’s better to have security you’ll never need than to need security you never had.

Start hardening up your security today!