So I work part time as church staff for a medium sized church. We run around 500 on Sunday mornings. One of areas that falls under my purview is security. We have 2 other gentleman that help out, one of which is moving to Florida this week and the other who is a Johnson Co Deputy. I pretty much leave everything in the Deputy's hands.
Obviously, we are on the lookout for active shooter situations, but our primary roles are just to make sure the building is locked up once the service has started, clear all the rooms, make sure none of the "strangers" we pick up from the downtown missions have accidentally found their way to the children's wing etc.
We've had very few issues over the years, but when you run buses and go out into the highways and hedges and bring folks in, you will run into strange situations from time to time.This Sunday happened to be one of those times.The deputy usually patrols the halls during Sunday morning services and happened to be watching the service from the TV monitor in the lobby. Once I had gotten done checking the building, I made my way into the service just as the preaching started.
Preacher had a long introduction, giving the background to Joshua, Moses and the Israelites captivity in Egypt and their trek toward the promised land. He got to the first main point of the sermon which was God commanding Joshua to "Arise, go over this Jordan..." The first point hitting home our need to get off our back sides and put our hand to the plow. My word, not his lol. So while Preacher was hitting this point he says "ARISE, STAND UP!" At this point, a dark skinned young man sitting close to the front, stands up. He was either Arab or Hispanic, I could not tell from the back row.
Now at this point, I'm watching him like a hawk. I'm hoping that he took the command to "Arise" a little too literally. That's happened before. He was standing up for a good 8-10 seconds and then he starts moving from his chair to the center aisle.At this point, I'm still hoping he just wants to head to the bathroom or maybe even the altar to pray. Not something that happens in the middle of the sermon at our type of church, but maybe this type of action is ok in the more charismatic type of church.
Well then he walks to the stairs that lead to the platform where Preacher is going his thing. At this point, I'm in the aisle making my way toward the platform, hand on my pistol. I'm kicking myself because I decided to carry my LCP instead of my P938 or SR1911, so I took my hand off knowing there was no way I could hit him at that distance anyway. The young man walks up to the Preacher and is chest to chest. If harm was meant, there would have been nothing to stop it. Preacher starts looking out over the congregation asking for some help, sees me and asks if I would pray with him.
The young man then walks to top of the steps and is just standing there for a few seconds, which is when I reached the bottom of the steps. I will be honest, I thought we were all about to get blown up. From the lobby, our deputy has seen him on the platform and has also rushed in. Unbeknownst to me, he is coming up the right side of the platform as I am coming up the left. The kid leaves the top of the steps and again comes chest to chest with Preacher. I reach him and gently turn him and myself, deputy and the young man exit stage left where the choir comes in and make our way to the gym.Now the young man ended up being Hispanic and was obviously having issues, but he was not a problem after that. I was able to speak and pray with him and did lead him to Christ, but this could have ended horribly.
Now on any given Sunday, there are more men carrying than not. A few of our "preppers" were within feet of the young man when he started moving toward the platform. When I spoke to some of them later, they felt like that lacked the authority to run up on the platform in this scenario.After assuring them that they have my blessing to deflect any individual that does something similar in the future, we have all decided to have a meeting to discuss things further.
There were so many fails I don't know if I've listed them all. I was unaware that this young man was crying heavily during the singing. One of the things we have asked people is to let us know if you see something untoward. I am going to establish a group chat through a phone app that all the "security minded" men can be apart of.While a lot of our emphasis has been to prevent unwanted guests from entering the building when we are not looking, there was a gapping whole in our defense. I know that this was handled poorly and our reaction time to the incident was even worse, so any thoughts or ideas would be very helpful.
The other issue we are going to have is all the "security minded" men are ALPHA males to the extreme. Many of them are a little rough around the edges. While I know the least compared to the retired marines, tank commanders and deputies, I am still "technically" in charge just because I'm on staff and I know how to season my speech and actions with salt. I have left the deputy in charge, but once we get others in the loop, they are going to challenge his authority and his way of dealing with things/setting up SOPs etc. So I not only need tactical advice, but I also need some advice on how to run this group. We have too many chiefs and not enough Indians...
Obviously, we are on the lookout for active shooter situations, but our primary roles are just to make sure the building is locked up once the service has started, clear all the rooms, make sure none of the "strangers" we pick up from the downtown missions have accidentally found their way to the children's wing etc.
We've had very few issues over the years, but when you run buses and go out into the highways and hedges and bring folks in, you will run into strange situations from time to time.This Sunday happened to be one of those times.The deputy usually patrols the halls during Sunday morning services and happened to be watching the service from the TV monitor in the lobby. Once I had gotten done checking the building, I made my way into the service just as the preaching started.
Preacher had a long introduction, giving the background to Joshua, Moses and the Israelites captivity in Egypt and their trek toward the promised land. He got to the first main point of the sermon which was God commanding Joshua to "Arise, go over this Jordan..." The first point hitting home our need to get off our back sides and put our hand to the plow. My word, not his lol. So while Preacher was hitting this point he says "ARISE, STAND UP!" At this point, a dark skinned young man sitting close to the front, stands up. He was either Arab or Hispanic, I could not tell from the back row.
Now at this point, I'm watching him like a hawk. I'm hoping that he took the command to "Arise" a little too literally. That's happened before. He was standing up for a good 8-10 seconds and then he starts moving from his chair to the center aisle.At this point, I'm still hoping he just wants to head to the bathroom or maybe even the altar to pray. Not something that happens in the middle of the sermon at our type of church, but maybe this type of action is ok in the more charismatic type of church.
Well then he walks to the stairs that lead to the platform where Preacher is going his thing. At this point, I'm in the aisle making my way toward the platform, hand on my pistol. I'm kicking myself because I decided to carry my LCP instead of my P938 or SR1911, so I took my hand off knowing there was no way I could hit him at that distance anyway. The young man walks up to the Preacher and is chest to chest. If harm was meant, there would have been nothing to stop it. Preacher starts looking out over the congregation asking for some help, sees me and asks if I would pray with him.
The young man then walks to top of the steps and is just standing there for a few seconds, which is when I reached the bottom of the steps. I will be honest, I thought we were all about to get blown up. From the lobby, our deputy has seen him on the platform and has also rushed in. Unbeknownst to me, he is coming up the right side of the platform as I am coming up the left. The kid leaves the top of the steps and again comes chest to chest with Preacher. I reach him and gently turn him and myself, deputy and the young man exit stage left where the choir comes in and make our way to the gym.Now the young man ended up being Hispanic and was obviously having issues, but he was not a problem after that. I was able to speak and pray with him and did lead him to Christ, but this could have ended horribly.
Now on any given Sunday, there are more men carrying than not. A few of our "preppers" were within feet of the young man when he started moving toward the platform. When I spoke to some of them later, they felt like that lacked the authority to run up on the platform in this scenario.After assuring them that they have my blessing to deflect any individual that does something similar in the future, we have all decided to have a meeting to discuss things further.
There were so many fails I don't know if I've listed them all. I was unaware that this young man was crying heavily during the singing. One of the things we have asked people is to let us know if you see something untoward. I am going to establish a group chat through a phone app that all the "security minded" men can be apart of.While a lot of our emphasis has been to prevent unwanted guests from entering the building when we are not looking, there was a gapping whole in our defense. I know that this was handled poorly and our reaction time to the incident was even worse, so any thoughts or ideas would be very helpful.
The other issue we are going to have is all the "security minded" men are ALPHA males to the extreme. Many of them are a little rough around the edges. While I know the least compared to the retired marines, tank commanders and deputies, I am still "technically" in charge just because I'm on staff and I know how to season my speech and actions with salt. I have left the deputy in charge, but once we get others in the loop, they are going to challenge his authority and his way of dealing with things/setting up SOPs etc. So I not only need tactical advice, but I also need some advice on how to run this group. We have too many chiefs and not enough Indians...