Church Security Answer Man

  The Top 10 Safety and Security Issues We should be prepared for in our Ministries.       Medical Emergencies Trip and fall – heart attack – loss of consciousness   Disorderly Conduct or Service Interruptions   Domestic Related Issues (Custody or Disputes)   Restraining Order Violations  (No Contact Orders)   Issues in the Parking Lot or Around Perimeter   (Vandalism, Attack, Abduction, Arson)   Natural Disaster  (Earthquake)(Power Outage)   Child Abuse / Child Abduction Members Attacked  (Arriving or Departing)   Violent Intruder / Active Shooter          

  What I want to discuss today is the idea of being a team…..everyone in your ministry being on the “security team”.    If we are going to truly protect your ministry everyone has to be trained and be eyes and ears and part of the plan to protect.     The reason for this is, that problems do not often times just appear one time.  In fact some of the worst problems like violence or predators, may in fact grow over time as a problem.   The issues such as predators of your children my scope out your facility, ministries and personnel, so we all have to be part of that team looking for those things growing or evaluating you to prey on you and your ministry.   So everyone has a part and needs to be involved to one degree or another.  Office staff are not trained to respond to service interruptions on Sundays, but they are trained to be aware of things going on during their duty times maybe Monday through Friday.   They may notice someone in crisis starting to hang around the church and can alert you to this fact. 

This episode discusses issues that we should preplan for in our children's ministries.  Items discussed include establishing a safety perimeter to protect the children, the role of the gatekeeper, custody issues and child predators. First thing we need is a perimeter or safe zone around our children when they are in the nursery, classroom or gym.  A perimeter is the most basic principle of security.     How do we establish that perimeter? Next, for the little ones we need to make sure that we have ONE entrance in to the children’s area.   Standing at that one entrance needs to be an adult gatekeeper who is making sure that only adults with children enter the area, or the proper ministry leaders and teachers are in that safe area.    We also need to make sure if we want to be most efficient, that the gatekeeper is NOT the adult operating the check in and out system for the children either (this will obviously depending on the size of you ministry) Next we have to make sure we know that people inside of that s