The purpose of this church security plan is to provide a framework for an effective, proactive approach to the protection of people, property and mission of the church. It is intended to be used by all staff members, volunteers and members of the congregation. The plan is designed to help those involved with security understand their role in protecting the church and its members.
The security team should be comprised of individuals who have been designated as leaders within their respective areas. These leaders will then identify additional personnel who will assist in accomplishing their responsibilities as a part of the overall Church Security Plan.
The security plan is a blueprint or guide for the church designed to help the church protect its members, property and ministries from harm. It should outline those areas of vulnerability that need to be secured and in what manner.
Sample security plan for church
A security plan identifies the types of risks, evaluate the potential harm and decide on appropriate measures to mitigate that risk. It also communicates with authorities if necessary as well as advising individuals about their duties in such instances. To ensure that your church is prepared for all eventualities, we have put together this easy to use checklist > (download our free template now)
Church security audits review the physical and cybersecurity risk management plans at churches, provide best practices and guidance on how to address security issues, help ensure the information security program is effective, protect facilities and staff from harm, fraud, waste and abuse in their network of systems.
How to make Church Security adequate to reduce risks?
Church security is increasing at houses of worship worldwide due to threats such as active shooter attacks and acts of terrorism. So to mitigate these threats, there should be a church safety plan in place and security training for staff and volunteers to help reduce the risk of an attack.
Furthermore, implementing protection measures for churches such as a security team, armed security, and security procedures are all vital components that should be considered by church leaders. It does not require the same security measures as Fort Knox, but having adequate physical protection is essential to make better protect houses of worship. Church Safety and Security need security experts that can help stakeholders formulate the best security plan.
Church Security Plan
Designing and Implementing a Church Security Plan
It appears whenever you put on the news these days, there’s a tragic story about a shooting happening in the U.S., and unfortunately, even worship facilities are not immune. Implementing a church security plan is essential for keeping their churchgoers safe in case of an active shooter. The FBI Hate Crimes Stats report revealed there were 7,175 hate criminal activity events in 2017, with practically 21 percent of those encouraged by a religious predisposition.
How to make a church security plan?
With today’s threats against Houses of Worship, Churches must be prepared to ensure their congregant’s safety. Safety and protection is an essential part of church security. Does your House of Worship have a security plan to mitigate threats? An emergency plan to execute a response if a hazard occurs? Do you have trained staff and volunteers to implement the security plan? These are questions you must ask yourself as a church leader. Our goal is to help you answer these questions to ensure a safe and secure place to worship.
Steps to Make a Church Security Plan
Step 1: Determine the Purpose
The first step of creating a security plan is to determine the purpose of the plan and the threats that may affect your House of Worship. This starts with a strategic planning session with stakeholders to discuss the types of threats and what countermeasures can help mitigate the risks. Additionally, knowing what vulnerabilities are currently present at the Church to assist in the security planning process.
Step 2: Make Security Policies
Security policies are the Church’s security rules to ensure safety and security are followed by the staff and members to alleviate potential risks. Without policies and procedures, staff cannot be adequately trained to ensure the security of the Church. Security procedures are step by step directions for staff to follow should a threat or emergency occur.
Step 3: Cooperate With Local Law Enforcement
It would help if you designed a security plan that includes local law enforcement. Making liaison with first responders will help support the implementation of the security plan should an emergency occur. Having everyone on the same sheet of music will help better execute the security procedures and emergency plan. This is vital for staff working security armed in plain clothes to help identify friendlies that are part of the security team to law enforcement. Planning and training, together with law enforcement, will support the execution of the security plan.
Step 4: Training the Church Leaders
Involving the Church leaders in the plan and any training is vital to the security plan’s success. If the leaders don’t know the plan or how to execute the plan during an emergency, it will lead to failures in the security plan. The stakeholders are a critical part of the security planning process and must involve everyone in a top-down approach. Church leaders must have Buy-in of the security program and follow all the security protocols by leading by example if they wish to have their staff and members follow the Church’s security rules.
Step 5: Allot the Patrolling Staff
Having staff that patrols the church sectors will help ensure everyone is following security rules. This starts on the outer perimeter (Entry Points, Parking Lot), the middle perimeter of the building (Building exterior doors and walkways), and the inner perimeter (interior doors and the aisles). Creating tripwires and having visual surveillance of the entire premises will make concentric rings of security and mitigate potential threats from occurring. The goal is to create a hard target, so threats seek targets elsewhere.
Step 6: How to train a church security team
Training is the key to ensure the security plan is followed correctly and executed. Church security teams can train through tabletop exercises and test the site’s security plan through various attacks that could occur. Training will bring out any vulnerabilities in the plan and will help better prepare everyone should an emergency arise. This will allow stakeholders to go back to the drawing board to fix any issues during training to be revised and updated in the plan.
How to increase church security?
As discussed above, it requires increasing church security by having a proper security plan, procedures, physical security, training, and implementation. The entire goal is to keep the plan simple and easy to follow for everyone that is required to execute the plan. The plan should not be written at a college student level but simple enough that any person can follow should a security or emergency incident occur.
Church active shooter plan
You may not have the ability to avoid a mass shooting from ever occurring. Still, you can enhance the security at the House of Worship and have a plan in place to respond effectively to an emergency. Having a plan is essential if you wish to safeguard your assets and mitigate risks. The best choice to protect your churchgoers and decrease your church liability is to hire law enforcement or private security as protection throughout the services. The presence of law enforcement or uniformed security can be a deterrent to anybody thinking of causing harm. Houses of worship should have a Church active shooter plan included in its emergency action procedures.
This Church active shooter plan will prepare staff and volunteers with a guideline to follow and train to if this type of threat occurs. The probability of a mass shooting attack is low, but being prepared is a critical element for churches. This should include a church active shooter plan.
Security Assessment
Church Security Assessment
To understand the vulnerabilities of a church’s security, it first requires a church safety assessment. It determines weaknesses and probable threats that could create a loss event. A church security assessment will allow the security consultant to understand better the threats, vulnerabilities, and the impact of any loss events. The security measures for churches can be decided after the physical security assessment.
This process is part of the security survey to discover weaknesses in security and to implement the recommended countermeasures for Houses of Worship. It is the first and essential step to conduct a security assessment to help plan your House of Worship’s security program. When the initial security assessment is finished, an annual follow-up security survey is required to monitor any modifications that may have occurred. Complacency is among the biggest challenges in Houses of Worship. We tend to believe people are good, so no one anticipates anything terrible happening at a Church. That’s not true. Not all individuals are good people, and victims of violent attacks will usually say that they never believed an attack would happen to them.
Implementing Church Security Procedures
Having Security Procedures is also an essential part of the security plan. Security procedures are step by step instructions to help better protect the Church. Security procedures allow the security plan to be implemented and applied to security training for the church. Many Churches are open during various hours for worship, allowing entrance to anyone throughout these open hours. Since Houses of Worship welcome a lot of people, this can create access control challenges; therefore, churches should prepare, develop, and execute stringent security procedures.
Security Training
An essential part of church safety and security is having all staff and volunteers go through security training. This training can help better prepare staff and volunteers with security basics such as access control, observation skills, and dealing with emergencies. Another essential aspect of this training is ensuring armed security is adequately trained to use a firearm and tested on their marksmanship capabilities. Just because members of the security team have a concealed weapons license does not mean they are proficient marksman. Shooting is a perishable skill and requires constant training, mainly if an active shooter threat should occur in a setting with many people present inside the Church.
Security Training
Church Safety and Security Training
Every Church should seek to have selected members trained and prepared to assist with its security needs, which will require church safety and security training. Whether it’s reacting to a medical emergency, helping with a missing child, or handling a threat, having individuals on-site who are trained to respond is necessary. For this reason, many churches have chosen to establish church safety and security training. The objective is not to reduce the importance of first responders but to increase the Church’s ability to mitigate and respond to potential threats until first responders arrive. When running a church security ministry, you should bear in mind that having dedicated security members is essential to create a safe environment. When building your security team, the objective is to find competent, self-controlled individuals with sound judgment. Many churches have members within their parish who are actively serving or have previous law enforcement or military experience. These might be the preferred qualifications you need to consider for implementing church safety and security training.
Why do churches have security?
Regrettably, churches are appealing soft targets for attackers because of their open design, accessible to all individuals, and many have weak physical security. Churches have been forced to create security strategies and ramp up training in the wake of recent attacks to Holy places. Since a white supremacist killed members of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, Churches have started active shooter drills and security training for all staff and volunteers to include hospitality teams and ushers. Everyone is now expected to be a part of the security plan and have buy-in to the security program.
Attacks on U.S. churches by threat is becoming a significant concern. Approximately 617 worshipers have been killed in violent events throughout the United States since 1999. The number of attacks at houses of worship has increased almost every year, according to information from the Faith-Based Security Network (FBSN). The most dangerous Church shooting in modern-day history was the ambush on tiny First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas that killed 26 members of the Church. Church ministries now need staff and volunteers to serve in security. These security functions may include security handbooks, emergency plans, and training. Training will help with threat detection, crime prevention, and emergency response. So this should answer the question, “Why do churches have security?”
How do you secure a church?
Beginning a safety and security program at your House of Worship does not have to be complicated or expensive to secure a church. It is essential to do what you can to enhance security and to secure a church. Many churches do not know where to start or think that a substantial budget is necessary to establish a security team. There are lots of things churches can do today that are low cost and or free. Is your management motivated to make security changes? It’s possible to create lasting, meaningful changes. You can secure a church by assigning functions for an emergency, identify who will call 911, who will speak to authorities, and who will talk to the media. Assign backups for each task.
Church Security
What does a church security team do?
Some may ask, What does a church security team do? Well, the goal of the security team should be designed to help safeguard assets. Moreover, this can be accomplished by identifying professionals within the membership, such as doctors, medics, existing or former police officers, and members with military or security backgrounds. Invest in walkie-talkies. Walkie-talkies eliminate spotty cell service and scrambling to find a list of internal phone numbers. Ushers, daycare employees, and workplace staff geared up with radios can relay communications rapidly throughout the building or campus.
How do you make a church security plan?
FEMA offers numerous free resources to assist you in making a church security plan. There are many resources online free to any House of Worship seeking to improve their security. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) offers numerous resources to assist faith-based organizations in making a church security plan for all types of threats that are human-made or natural.
How can church security be improved?
There are many ways church safety be improved that include designating a single entryway into the Church. Once your service starts, appoint an usher or group member to lock doors. Any unlocked doors ought to be actively monitored. All other entryways should be inaccessible from the beyond your Parrish. Ensure that the exit doors remain unlocked from the within. Also, church security can be improved by assigning a volunteer to keep track of any open doors and having volunteers providing surveillance in the parking lots. This security can be improved by equipping volunteers with radios.
Assign security at the front of the churchgoers who can observe the crowd and conduct surveillance throughout the service. Draw attention to the doors, so in an emergency, it’s easy to find all exits for evacuation. Schedule a leadership or staff conference to spur conversation with stakeholders.
Obtain crime reports of the area. This can be done by requestion crime reports for the police department of crimes that have occurred near the site. Invite police, the fire marshal, to your campus to recognize trouble spots. They’ll help you better understand the potential dangers and provide solutions to create a more secure church environment.
Security Plan
Free Church Security Training
There are many Free church security training resources available through the Department of Homeland Security. Some Free church security training programs include” See Something, Say Something” and” Run, Hide, Fight. There is also a Free App through Security Essentials to conduct an internal security survey. If you are interested in some Free church security links and church safety training, please fill out the form below to get a PDF download from ASIS on “How to Secure Houses of Worship.”
Church security training scenarios
Additionally, DHS’s National Security and Programs Directorate offer a wide range of security and durability tools, training, and resources. Through its Hometown Security initiative, these resources are provided for faith-based organizations. The resources were developed to assist the private sector with their security preparation, and a number of these practices can also be utilized more broadly in regional locations gone to by great deals of people, such as faith-based companies.