Armed Church Security Teams: Good Idea or Bad Idea?

0:00Welcome to the Rayner on Leadership Podcast. You're online home for leadership lessons and advice for the local church. We talk about practical solutions for pastors and church leaders. Episodes are hosted by Tom Rayner, Sam Rayner, and Josh King. Hey, what's up and welcome to this episode of Rayner on Leadership. This is a podcast where we talk about leadership and particularly leadership in the local church. My name is Josh. My name is Sam and I'm armed and dangerous. Are you actually armed right now? No, no. I'm sitting in a room by myself on a vacation. So while I do have my CCW, I probably shouldn't say these things. But yeah, I'm not armed right now. But I do have access to a weapon if I need one. I really want to make some sort of joke. I'm not like kids and like flex my arms and be just these guns. You know, that kind of thing.

1:00I'm not armed. I just figure out, I'll just reduce my wit if I ever get into it. Yeah, you know, I don't think I'm going to surprise anybody with something that really is not a biblical issue, the second amendment. But something that I do feel very strongly about. I'm very supportive of, let me put it that way. I am supportive of it. Yes, but I myself, I'm uncomfortable around having guns like at the home and stuff like that. But yeah, I'm very, very much supportive of it. But I'm not armed. Okay, but we're going to talk about armed folks at church. Yeah. Yeah, so I don't carry a church. Again, I've got to be careful what I say here. But let me put it this way. I'm not usually carrying a church. That's good. Yeah, maybe this week. So don't try to do it. Maybe this is what I am. I give a lot of hugs to elderly people and granted of all of the folks in our church. If they felt something on me, they would probably be like, where you go pastor? They probably wouldn't care.

2:01But I just, I don't like at church. It's kind of a thing for me. But the question of today's episode is, you know, should you have an armed church security team? And by the way, you have to be careful with that term security because there are legal issues around that. So you might want to call it like a safety team or a hospital safety team. Yes. Yeah, there's licensing issues with security. Yeah, that you do have to be careful about. But for the sake of today's episode, we're just going to be using all these term terms. Insecurety, by the way, just calling it the security team. Security team. It's completely legal. It's only come from security. Security. Security. Security. Yeah. Be careful about that. Hey, let's talk about church. Let's talk about chemistry staffing. I'd say church search, but they do more than just church. They really just spend any sort of nonprofit. Go check them out.

3:02They run pastoral searches every day. All kinds of positions. They can help you clarify your church profile. So if you're from the church perspective and you're looking for a position, you really should reach out to them because they can help you vet candidates. They'll do personality assessments. They're really, really good at what they do. They find the right leader for the right church with the right fit. That's kind of their tagline. Which is really good, really good tagline there. And then on the last episode, you were pulling up like a couple of positions that were available. You should do another one on this episode. So I mean, if you went there right now, you could find positions like Faith Arlington. It's in Tennessee. Run about 1,500, 1,500 people. It's a Baptist church and they're looking for a discipleship pastor. So it's a full-time gig. And the name of the church is Faith Arlington. You go to church staffing.com. And you can look at their open positions there. It's an Arlington Tennessee, which I don't know where Arlington Tennessee is, but I bet it's beautiful.

4:02There's just like, I don't know where that is either. I know the Arlington, Texas. I had it too. I love Arlington. I mean, there's just one tiny little corner of Tennessee that would not necessarily be beautiful, but the whole rest of it is gorgeous. So I'm sure it's nice. So tell me it's not in that corner. I see it. I don't know what's going on. No, no, no, no, no. It sounds like a Memphis, which is north of Caldureville, which is actually pretty nice area. And if you're talking about the other corner, I used to pastor in that area. No, I was talking about that corner. So my bad. But I'm looking up pictures right now. It's actually pretty rare that I thought it was. But to each their own. Each their own. You know, that's a great position. I like it. I was in Murray, Kentucky, which like I used to run, I'm still a runner, but I would run to Tennessee and back. Because what I would to Murray's that close. So yeah, it's a nice area.

5:03But anyway, they got all sorts of positions. So check to see if Tennessee ain't your thing, which it is for a lot of people. They've got others. Oh, nice. All right. So safety teams, security teams. You know, the label is important here. So let's just get that out of the way. Check your state regulations, please. Seek legal advice before you tag, before you just label everybody who has a job. Everybody who has a fire arm is on the security team. That's not something you want to do. But that is literally the approach of many churches in my area. We don't need no security team. Everybody's armed. Oh, you love guns. Well, guess what? We've got a role for you here. First time to church. Oh, yes. Come on, William. Just, you know, look before you shoot. So I mean, that's definitely something you don't want to do. Just make everybody who's armed. I'll tell you Sam, we actually had a little security, safety, security, this last Sunday.

6:04We had a break in. We had a break in. We came in in the offices and there were stuff disheveled. It wasn't too bad, though. But we have so many security cameras within our church. I mean, there is nowhere. You can go in this church that you're not on camera. I mean, the restrooms. But everywhere else, you're on camera. And so we've got so much clear footage. And it's turned into just one of the most entertaining things. He was here for about three hours, slept for two hours. And therefore, a long time we thought he just took a shirt. And so here's the fun thing is that these shirts, we pre-ordered them for a big event we have coming up. They're right now, as of today. There's only one person in the whole world that has one of those shirts. And so if anybody in our town sees somebody wearing one of these shirts, and we told our church what they look like, we were like, if you see this shirt, 100%, that's the dude. So let us know. So anyways, it's just a minute ago. Just somebody up a good ear church on a Saturday night in this slept early, early Sunday morning.

7:07So 12.30 to 3. And that's kind of pushing it because you know people are going to be showing up here pretty soon. Yeah, I mean, my executive pastor gets a church of like four or five in the morning on Sundays. Yeah, if this, if this, if this dude, he might be somebody on the security team. So you might want to mess with it. Yeah. So yeah, okay. So what are some other things that we need to think about, about whether or not we need to arm these folks? Yeah, I mean, always you want to start with prevention, not weapons. Like I under, I totally understand those that enjoy exercising your second amendment rights. Like I get it. I totally understand. I'm among you. But we don't want to start with firearms. That's just not a good idea if you're talking about a security team or a safety team or however you're going to do it. You want to start with visibility.

8:08Our doors locked where they need to be locked. Our greeters trained on recognizing people that might not be in their best state of mind. Do we have good child check in procedures? Are we aware of suspicious behavior? That's where you want to start. Of course, there is a place for people who want to carry, according to state regulations. Please follow all local laws. But let's not start with the weapons. Let's actually start with where security, where most, if not all, of your security issues occur. You're not often branching a weapon in church. That's not something you want to do. There are plenty of other things to work on before we jump right to. We're going to be armed. Even though I'm not opposed to that, it's not where you want to start. Yeah. Now you're exactly right. There are so many other things. Even in this conversation that we just recently had about security is... I was trying to point out, it's a scary world that we live in.

9:11There are opportunities for bad people to do bad things. We are by our nature, and this is just something that churches need to understand. We are a soft target. We're a porous target. We have doors all over the place. A lot of churches are old. Doors are hard to keep locked and shut. On top of that, we're an open sort of organization. Even like, as big as Walmart is, there's just like two doors. For people to come in and out mainly. For people to come in to doors. Whereas the church has doors all the way around. And oftentimes, multiple entrances. And we're inviting the community to come in. And we're not making them walk through metal detectors and stuff like that. So there's a number of reasons why there are preventative measures. There's so many things you can do that would help to kind of shore that up a little bit more before you jump to the idea of guns. Yeah. I think child safety is a more important issue. And just recognizing that many threats come from within when it comes to predators.

10:16So I would just say, hey, I'm very grateful that churches think about who might have a weapon and doesn't, where they're stationed and all of that stuff, and active shooter situations. But let me just be real about any sort of active shooter situation that may occur. Please be as prepared as you can. But you know what, when that happens, hopefully never happens ever again. Goodness. But it probably will. And it's chaos. Like, you can't plan for everyone to understand the flight, fight, or freeze response. People are just going to do what they're going to do. So, you know, everyone, when they talk about security, often goes to, well, active shooter, what do we do? A lot of times it's, well, there's not a whole lot you can do. Frankly, is, you know, the best course of action is to fight. You know, people don't really want to say that out loud, but most studies show that, you know, you're, how do I survive that? What do I do? Well, you've got to be ready to fight.

11:16But I would just say that's a pretty rare. That's pretty rare occurrence. What is more common is grooming with a sexual predator who is at church because there's a lot of kids there. And everyone's like, hey, come on in. We're so glad you're here. Oh, you knew. Let me get you a coffee. Let me show you where the kids all is. I mean, like, you know, that we, we're very welcoming as you should be, sort of institution as the church. And at the same time, we tend to have very low security. So, that awareness is far more important than a weapon. Yeah. It brings up another thought that I don't, I don't know. I haven't talked a lot of pastors that have thought through this, but then when you ask them about it, it is sort of an idea. And it's the receptionist. Similar to thought, you know, we have security and we think through all these kind of things on Sunday mornings, and when there's gatherings here, whether it's Sunday morning or not. But the office is open all week long.

12:16And very often in a lot of churches, it's just a, it's just an open door. You just pull it open and you just walk straight in. There's very few churches are, they're becoming more like ours. You have to be buzzed in. Oh, please. Yeah. Yes. It's important. Yes. It's important. Yeah. It's a buzzer system. If you have not installed that one, it's relatively inexpensive. You can find cameras very cheaply now. There is, you have zero excuse. No, you can go to Walmart and just buy some cheap cameras and, you know, put them on, you know, it connects to the receptionist's smartphone just so they can see people walking up, you know, and get an alert of movement. These things are so cheap now. Oh, yeah. There is no reason for you not to have a minimum amount of cameras and some sort of buzzer system so that people just can't walk right in without some record of them doing so. Right. But even with that, you know, it's very hard to tell if somebody's a threat. And before you let them in sort of things.

13:17So I heard this a long time ago. I don't know what I've done. It's drug addicts that come by, like looking for money and, you know, you can tell some of them. I will say that. But what I heard a long time ago that I've done at every church is wasp rape. It's a very small little easy thing to do. A lot of your receptionists aren't going to want to sit there and be armed. Some of them might be, but wasp rape is an easy. The thing will shoot 25 feet away. And apparently it sucks if you get hit in the face with wasp rape. So that's the kind of protection. Just a small, simple step that I'm thinking of right now that could be a game changer down the road if something happens. Yep. Now back to security teams. And whether they should be armed or not. You've training is a non-negotiable here. Like, if you're going to have a security team, like not just hospitality where people are trained on awareness,

14:18but like an actual team that is there to do security, please understand what licensing requirements are in your state, understand what it means that you would say that, that we have a security team, and you have to get these people trained. And especially trained on de-escalation. You don't want to put anybody on a safety or security team that likes to escalate. I mean, you want people that are a calming sort of presence, not the opposite when it comes to issues that may arise. Security issues that may arise. Yeah, that's exactly right. And it wouldn't be the worst thing for your staff and other ministers to know how to de-escalate situations in everyday circumstances when people are emotional or upset about things. Yep. And I'll just say that pastoral leadership is really key on this.

15:18If you are not somehow involved, you should at least be providing oversight to this particular issue. We've made some decisions at my church as to who is where and why. And I am in the know about those decisions. I don't need to make every decision, but I'm certainly somebody who is overseeing that process. We have trainings available to everyone who was on the hospitality team, as well as our children's ministry. And we actually integrate our security measures into each ministry. So we do not have a separate quote-unquote security team. We have people in each ministry area and on each floor of our church, because we have three floors in multiple services, who are prepared to act should something happen. And they are trained to not just with the extreme sort of active shooter situations, but also trained just to recognize these are some warning signs in somebody that they may be a little off, you know, for whatever that may be.

16:24So we don't even have a separate team. We just have people who are trained on every team that already exists to know what to do. And I think it's a good idea. If you have multiple floors in your church, like we do, at least have one person on each floor. That's kind of ready to act should something happen. Yeah, I think those are all very good words. And being involved as a pastor, this is part of protecting the sheep. And I know, listen, I know it's impossible. This feels like it is just so overwhelming. And when you start pulling these layers back, but get a team of people together, there's some folks in your church that promise you that are passionate about this kind of idea. They love this concept and these topics. And get them together, get some money behind it if you've got it. Cameras can multiply the leadership there, but then also if you're going to make that decision to be armed or to have that kind of armed presence, then there has to be some training and you have to be involved in that. And then the last thing that I'll mention is just have a written safety policy.

17:25You know, it doesn't have to be, you know, this massive document full of legalese. But put together something that is helpful. We actually have a red and a green. It's very simple system. So if something happens, green means stay, red means go. So in the case of a bomb threat, you know, a lot of times you want to shelter in place and then get people out into the safety of a field area after you're in a state of emergency. And then after you realize that there's not an active shooter on the outside waiting for people to come shoot you, you know, poach poach on you as you're walking out. So we with our particular with our children's ministry, it's very simple. It's here are the cases where you would stay. Here are the cases where you would go. So green means shelter in place, red means get out and we have, you know, the egress that we need to get out.

18:27And for us, it's just a very, very simple thing. Every incident is reported that needs to be reported. We don't hold anything back. If we feel like, hey, the authorities need to know about this. That is the first step. We don't do any sort of internal investigating before we report things. We just always report anything that needs to be reported. And then even something as small as like a biting incident, where a kid bites another kid, we have incident reports that we do. So you're not calling the cops for that. Please don't, please don't waste the officer's time on something like that. But we do file incidents reports internally as well. And just every time there is anything that we feel like if a parent found out about this, when they probably, you know, they might be upset when we need to tell them and then we need to document what we did and what we told the parent. Yeah, these kind of policies need to be well thought through. Yeah, I mean, we've talked about this stuff. Other people, there's resources out there.

19:28You don't have to recreate the wheel or anything like that. Make my churchsafe.com. There you go. Well, that's all I've got. Sam, you got anything else? Oh, I've got plenty of things, but I will let everyone have kind of, let's land the plane. Yeah, I'll do it. And we will, we've got more good episodes coming. And so we certainly want to thank our sponsor, chemistry staffing in Churchquip, our curriculum line at Church Answers, Churchquip.com is where you can learn more about getting curriculum for every adult in the church for 15 bucks a month. Yes. And as always, thank you for listening. And we hope that it was beneficial conversation to you. If it was, please share the episode with somebody else so that we can continue to grow the show. And we will see you next week.

20:43Thank you.