CHURCH SAFETY & SECURITY TEAM

Church pastors and lay leaders, do you have a volunteer safety and security team in your congregation? If you don’t, you need to think seriously about getting a team set up. While it might seem daunting to think about asking for volunteers with specialized experience and skills to fit the needs of your church, here are 4 easy steps you can take to get a safety and security team up and running.

1. Identify people in your congregation that would be a good fit for the team. Think through characteristics that would make people a good fit for this organization, such as a good people-person, mental and emotional stability, observant, and good judgment. You may have people in your congregation who were or are in law enforcement. It’s also important to determine if the volunteers whom you are considering have any background with firearms and already hold any firearm certifications. Finally, it’s important to get EMTs, nurses, and doctors involved in the safety and security team for overall protection.
2. Ask those people you’ve identified as potential volunteers to consider participating. Make sure you describe what you have in mind for the safety and security team. Also, it’s important to tell the prospective volunteer that a criminal background check will be required to officially join the church’s safety and security team.
3. Make sure all of your volunteers receive appropriate training and orientation. This is where Shooter’s Depot comes in! We can help with individual and group training for this volunteer team. We provide training through a wide range of firearms classes and a place to train. We can also help provide security training that doesn’t involve firearms, what is most commonly thought of as self-defense maneuvers. 
4. Deploy and manage the team! Once your volunteer team has been selected and trained, it’s time for them to get started. Make sure to check in with the safety and security team at regular intervals to make sure that all is going smoothly. It’s also important to have team leaders so that there is a “chain of command” inside the team. Establish a serving schedule so that volunteers have time where they are not serving on the safety and security team, this will keep all team members fresh and ready to serve.

If a safety and security team something that you would like to implement at your church, the team at Shooter’s Depot is happy to help. Give us a call at (706) 406-0300.