An Illinois pastor was shot and killed, and two parishioners injured after an unknown gunman opened fire during Sunday services at the First Baptist Church in Maryville, Ill ON March 9th.
Read more at …
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,506820,00.html
Our heart goes out to them over their loss. Is your church ready for such an incident? Where do we get training to prepare for this kind of stuff? How do we make sure it isn’t so easy to repeat it? If you have a favorite resource for offering training, security for such incidents, or awareness coaching (or if you yourself offer such training), please pass the word by clicking on “Comment…” below and sharing your lead.
Steve Vereb and Crawford Hitt offer exactly this kind of training for churches and specifically for those who send short term mission teams for overseas service. More and more teams run into critical incidents on the field and churches need to be aware of this and prepared for it if it should happen. See their website at http://verebhitt.com/
PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE!
It’s not JUST shooters. It’s fire, flood, tornado, terrorism, and the parishioner that is upset with the spouse and comes to the assembly to even the score.
Plan for ALL hazards. What will happen if there’s a church fire during the assembly? What happens if there’s a church fire on the Thursday before Sunday? Jim Brown at First Christian Church in Altus, OK can tell you about the latter.
What if there’s a tornado on Friday before Sunday? Damon Smith at Wichita Community Church is certainly learning the lessons on that in real time.
What would one do about this?
1. Contact your local emergency manager and ask what hazards the local community faces. Would you need to plan for a tsunami in the middle of KS? Tornado, flood, and winter storms are more likely.
2. Ask your congregation for volunteers to serve on a planning committee. Given the list of hazards, this committee should develop a plan for how the congregation will improvise, adapt, and overcome.
3. Develop a process for helping members become 72-hour self-sufficient. At http://www.ready.gov is a plethora of information about disaster planning. At http://www.fema.gov/areyouready is a book that will help with the planning process. At the end of the book, the student will have a sample plan.
4. After the plan, build disaster supplies for the community as well as the family members.
5. THEN reach out to the community. Get training from your local emergency manager or American Red Cross to enable the establishment of “centers of help” during and immediately following disasters.
Tom Taylor at Pantano Christian Church has done this very thing.
Tom Taylor
Director of Operations and the Disaster Action Team
Pantano Christian Church
10355 E. 29th St.
Tucson, AZ 85748
The Christian Emergency Network was formed for the purpose of hardening congregations so they can minister during difficult times.
http://www.christianemergencynetwork.com/
Please let me know if you need assistance. Do you need help finding your local emergency management professional? Do you need help finding training? Do you need someone to review your plan?
Please feel free to contact me.
Lloyd Colston, KC5FM
Emergency Manager