The Necessity of Church Safety

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That's MightyMuscadine.com and use that promo code T-O-D-A-Y. Elizabeth, my darling bride, what would you say is the most beneficial thing you could do for yourself in the morning? Probably drink an entire pot of coffee when sitting.

I'd say that's a close second. Now, the best thing you can do for yourself is to start every morning with a daily devotional. Only be one to talk about.

Well, as it turns out, we have two. Right now, you can unlock the power of daily inspiration, wisdom, and spiritual growth in our devotional series, 30 Days Through a Crisis and 30 Days to a New Beginning. Written by our pastor, Dr. Abaddon Shah, and his wife, Nicole, the 30 Days devotional series is designed to reveal new biblical truths every single day. That's right, and every day is a new revelation to guide you on your Christian journey toward a more meaningful and purposeful life. You can pick up your copy today from our website, that's ClearviewBC.org, or you can grab both books on Amazon, Apple Books, and Audible.

That's 30 Days Through a Crisis and 30 Days to a New Beginning by Abaddon and Nicole Shah. And don't forget, these are only the first two in an expanding devotional series, so keep your eyes peeled for future installments. Thanks for listening. Now let's get back to the show. You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abaddon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hill.

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We're going to leave a couple of links in the description so you can help us do just that. Today we are here in the Clearview Today studio with Dr. Abaddon Shah, who is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism. Dr. Shah, it's good to see you today. I like your cowboy bebop you got going on. I like the cowboy shirt. It's one of my favorites. I love the Old West, so I found this shirt, I think, in South Dakota.

I believe in South Dakota. We went through some city, some little small town, and it had all these shops, and walked into this boutique, and three or four ladies were like, hello, how are you? I said, oh, this is a, I guess, a ladies' boutique.

She's like, no, we have men's shirts. And they took me in the side in the corner, and they had a nice selection. I looked through it.

Some of them were like really Western-looking shirts and stuff, and I found this one. I was like, oh, yeah. It's nothing but cowboy. He's on his horse.

He's by the campfire. I'm like, this is so me. Yeah, I like it. It looks good. I love it. Well, in today's episode, we're going to take a break from our kind of regular setup for episodes. We want to respond to something that's currently happening in the world, and many people have seen that video that's trending online right now of a pastor who has a gun pulled on him in the middle of service.

If you haven't seen it, we'll link it in the description. It's a very short video, but it shows a very real threat that's out there. I don't know that this ever used to be the case. I can say clearly it's not.

I've not seen stuff like this. And the pastor's okay. The gun misfires, and he's not harmed, but it raises the attention to church security, something that people may not have even considered at one point. But it's a world that we live in now, and we have to think about how to keep ourselves safe while we're worshiping.

Yeah, this problem has been coming over the past few decades, really. I won't say it has gotten worse, but it has really impacted church life, the sense of security we had in a church, feeling like this is God's house. This is a place of worship. This is not the place for violence. This is not a place where you go hurt people. These are innocent people. We have lost that sense of security.

That's what happened. I won't say that we have more shootings today than ever. I mean, okay, maybe, but that's not the main concern. The concern is this was a sacred place, and now it's no longer sacred. That's what I was thinking as well, is that I think there's a lot of our listeners who are in the older age that remember a time when there were places like schools and churches, primarily, that were off limits. Violence happens, and you're never going to get rid of it.

But these places, there's sort of this unspoken cultural understanding that they're off limits. And over the last couple of decades, we've seen that sort of not be the case anymore. I'm sure that there were more before this, but the first real kind of major act of public violence I remember is Columbine. Exactly.

That's really the first one in my memory. And of course, there have been some since then. But was there this brazen public violence before that, or was that really sort of a shift?

Yeah. I mean, you go back in the history of just America. I mean, there have been many times that people have walked into a public place or a mall or things like that, and they did this. But most of the time, there was some kind of a cause or something that was mentally wrong with that person. I think about our presidents who were killed or assassinated. You start with Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield. Then it was William McKinley and then John F. Kennedy. I mean, these were ones who died because of some person who wanted to take their lives because of some cause or had some mental illness. Then there were some attempted attacks against our president.

I mean, going all the way back to Andrew Jackson. That's when that happened, and Andrew Jackson just picked up his stick, and he beat the daylights out of that person. His gun misfired, and he was not going to take that stuff now. I did not hear that. I did not know that story. Yeah. He was like, wack, wack, wack.

He was like, not going to do that. I mean, that's a president who was not happy with that happening. But anyways, those kind of things have happened for some cause, and then in public places, things have happened. But lately, it's almost like for attention purposes far more than ever before. Yeah, we've made a spectacle out of them, and I remember vaguely Columbine.

It was 99, so I was only like seven, eight years old when that happened. So you've got to think, after that, it starts happening more and more and more. You sort of grow up in a world where it's not okay, but it's definitely normal. It's something that I would say like, well, yeah, people do evil stuff like that. Yeah, the mindset almost shifts to it's a shame that that happened again.

Yes, yes, but then it's like I look at people like Dr. Shaw and then even people who are older who are still horrified. It's like this is not normal. This is over that boundary. And I think for guys like us who grew up seeing it a little bit more often, it's like the boundary, it's not that it's okay, like I said, but the boundary isn't as clear. You know what I'm saying?

Like that's crossing a line. And so also with church, you almost have to, it's crazy to say, you almost have to convince people that this is not normal. I don't know if that makes sense, what I'm trying to say. I can remember there was a meeting or an informative talk that we went to that just talked about church safety and how to be informed and how to keep an eye out for things and what to do in certain scenarios. And I was like, there was a moment where I just kind of took a step back and I was like, man, it's really horrible that we have to think about this.

But we really have to think about this. We've really got to make sure that our policies and procedures are up to date and everything is accounted for and every scenario is planned for because people's lives are on the line, people's safety is at stake. I remember the shooting in Charleston where this guy walked into a church, it was a historic black church, and they were very nice, welcomed him, sat there, and then next thing you know, he is taking innocent lives. I know exactly what that church is.

I rode past it almost every day. Was that 2015 that happened? Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

Terrible. And then we know about the shooting in the church in Texas. That was the big one that sticks out in my mind. And this was, I believe, in 2017, was it? Yeah, I think it's 2017.

I think you're right. This was Sutherland Springs. And we actually met the pastor of that church. Yes, we did.

We went to a sheepdog seminar and had a chance to hear from him and his wife. And this happened in 2017, November the 5th, and I think we met them. Was it 2018, right?

I believe so. I would say 2018 is when we met. That was when we went to the conference, the safety conference.

So that was like maybe half a year later we met them. Yeah, they had him there. I think he was speaking. Yeah.

Horrible, horrible tragedy. And thank goodness there was somebody who stepped up and went after the guy and stopped him. That's right. But not before he had killed 26 people and wounded about 20 others. That's insane.

Even the pastor's own adopted daughter, I think, also died in the shooting. Yeah. Yeah. And then there was the one at Lakewood as well. I think that was this year.

That's right. It's a weird thing because we're starting to see patterns emerge and we're starting to see this as a very real threat. And yet I feel like at the same time there's still a willful ignorance.

Does that make sense? Like a denial that, well... It couldn't happen here. But the one in Charleston, that was not like a large megachurch. No. And it wasn't even during a service. It was during like a weekday Bible study.

Yeah. Very, very sad. So how do we move forward? What do we do as churches, as pastors, as church leaders? We have to reject the spirit of fear. I want to encourage you right now, don't fall into the spirit of fear because that comes from the enemy.

That's what the enemy wants and he has been using that tactic again and again. Be scared. Be scared of a disease. Be scared of violence. Be scared of being... what's the word I'm looking for on the internet? Of being canceled.

You're going to get canceled and you're going to get blackballed. Don't fall into the spirit of fear. But you can be discerning, you can be wise, you can be strategic and taking steps to prevent the bad guy, a person with some mental problem from causing trouble in God's house. And I say God's house and don't think I don't understand that we are the church and this church is not a building.

I get all of that. But I still am using that because I want to bring a sense of sacredness to the place as well. That's right.

That's right. It's a mindset I think that Christians have where, like you said, nothing's ever going to happen here until it does. But then there's also this weird like... I don't know how to really explain it. It's almost like an ingrained selfishness where it's like, I know with me I'm going to get myself to safety. I'm not going to be the one to actually step up and do anything. Or you've got the people who are way too eager to be that hero figure but they don't know what they're doing.

And so what I love about Clearview is that there's not really either one. We have very specially trained people who are equipped to handle situations like this. And it's something that they do readily. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah. And it has to be planned out with prayer. So I encourage pastors, church leaders, get together.

Don't wait until next week or next month or after summer vacation. Sit down with your church leaders today, tonight, and say hey. Or get on the phone and say, hey guys, I think this may be something we need to take seriously.

At least get some kind of a plan together. And you may have somebody in your church congregation who is law enforcement or veteran or somebody who has some experience with combat and talk to them about being part of a safety team. But if you don't call it security, it gets into a lot of insurance issues and all that. The safety team. It means they're not just there to prevent the bad guys from doing damage but also to help keep things safe. Tell people where the exits are. If there's a fire, God forbid some hurricane or something comes through unannounced, you can jump in and do something. People in the hallways.

Yeah, tornadoes is what I meant. I love the balance that we've taken here at Clearview because you wouldn't blink an eye going to a major convention or a speaker event or something like that. And for there to be safety present at the event. Security is there, yeah.

Obviously that's going to happen. But at church, people are like, why do you have that? But I love the approach that we've taken because it's not sitting back and saying, well, God's going to protect us and God's going to... Yes, God will protect his people. But could it be that God is blessing this planning and strategizing and putting a team in place that's equipped to handle these things? And neither is it like a 1984 Orwellian armed guards patrolling the hall like terrifying people with their guns out.

It's people who you know and already love. They're church members who are trained and who do have that background in law enforcement. But they're in the service watching and keeping an eye out. Yeah, after Sutherland Springs, everybody was carrying in charge who had a gun. And I actually felt worse at that point because I'm thinking, I am not feeling safe with all of you walking around with guns. Because if there is something happens, it'll be like shoot out at the O.K.

Corral. Right, yeah. Everybody's taking out each other. We're overcorrecting here.

And the bad guy's just crawling through the pews and leaving. Right? We are taking each other out, you know? Not a good thing. We didn't care.

And then there were people who were overeager, ready to like, I got it right here. And I'm like, please stop. Put that away. Yeah, put that away. You don't need to be walking around with that.

That's not what we need from you. So that's a good place for us to camp for a little bit. What makes a good member of the safety team? What are some criteria to look at? If somebody's listening and they're thinking about establishing this at their church, what are some things to look for for men to serve on that team? Well, I have designated David to be kind of a liaison between us and the men in our church who are part of the safety team. Men and women can be part of that as well. And some of the things we look for are mature men, which means they're not trigger happy. They're not the showboats. We don't care one bit about them showing off and walking around with a gun, you know, purposely have their shirt up so we can see the guns sticking out.

No, we want mature people. It means people who know how to just be there, watchful, and know the real reason, which is so that people can just have a quiet, peaceful worship experience. One of the things I really respect about the guys on our safety team is that there is that element of sacrifice. Like you were saying, they're sacrificing their worship experience for that week to make sure everyone else has it. They're patrolling.

That gets boring when it's week after week after week after week, and of course they're on a rotation. But the fact that they're willing to sacrifice that, you know what I mean? If they're not even willing to sacrifice that, then they're not going to get up and potentially sacrifice their life or their safety. That's right. That's some of the basic things we look for.

Yeah. And also, we want people who are wise, who are discerning. They're not going to have to be told, hey, this is what you do in this situation. They should spring to it. Now, of course, we have training time, and we have done training with law enforcement professionals, so there is training done. But at the same time, we expect them to have some wisdom, some maturity, some discernment.

One of the things that we saw was, earlier in everything, before all this stuff started popping off, we would have men who were kind of designated to get up. If someone's coughing, take them some water. If someone's clearly trying to find a seat, it's like, hey, it's your responsibility to get up and do it.

But they'd be frozen, you know what I mean? Just scared to move. When I look at them, they look right back at me, and I'm like... It's like, there's someone trying to find a seat, please. Yeah, because I'm looking at them, and they're like... And I'm like, that is a huge pet peeve of mine. When I'm looking at you, it's for a reason, which means get up.

Go do something. And if I'm looking somewhere else, I'm looking on purpose, which means it's over there. So don't just look at me like, I'm not getting up, but I'll stare right back at you. That's not the purpose. Read the room.

Obviously, it's for a reason. Passers gonna blink first. Now, this is free for all of our church people who are listening to our radio show, like, tuck that away. If Dr. Shaw looks at you in the middle of service, get up and do something about it. I think if any pastor is trying to communicate with you non-verbally, I think it says a lot about, especially a man, a woman too, but especially if you're a man in church, just be the one to get up and move first. For me, it's like, if I see someone... If I notice that something's going down and someone else gets up first, I'm a little bit embarrassed. It's like, I should be the one to...

There's a lot of times where we'll move, and I don't even know what the problem is, but my feet are already moving. And I'll figure it out at some point. Yeah, you'll figure it out as you move forward. So we definitely look for maturity, for wisdom, for discernment. Of course, they need to have some kind of an experience. Now, we have guys on the safety team who may not have that experience, but they have that mindset of ready to fight, ready to do things, if need be, ready to engage, lay down their life if they have to.

So that goes on. And then we let them take leadership in the process. Yeah, a lot of the safety team is lay-led. There's actually a lot of leaders that I go to because they have experience in the real world. Far more than we do.

Far more than I could ever dream of having. Just real-world jobs that involve that, whether it be military or law enforcement of some type. So they're able to guide the team, and I'm able to, as a staff liaison, kind of hear the church's values, here's what Dr. Shah wants, here's the way that we think it should run, and then vet that through them. And they can be like, okay, that's a good idea because of this, but then in the real world it might not do this because we've had this happen. And they can kind of give you those experiences and tell you.

So it's good to have that because they're very invested and it makes the team operate in a much more well-oiled fashion, if that makes sense. They're not muscle for hire, they're people who are there in the church whose wives and kids are there in the next room. That's why I think spiritual maturity is also important. And I know that may be hard in some churches to find those kind of men who are ready to fight, ready to take care of business, have that background, and also spiritually wise, pray for that.

Pray that God will help them grow or God will send more men, and maybe even women who have that experience but also have a relationship with Jesus Christ. They should have a heart for Christ. One of the things that one of our lay leaders in this safety team often says, and I didn't coach him to say that, he says it on his own, you know, Pastor Shaw, people are here to just have a time of worship. We cannot be over there over-analyzing every person who's walking and making them feel uncomfortable.

We don't want to do that. We don't want to stand there and purposely intimidate people. But we want to be there, engage them, but do it in a way that is friendly until given any inclination, any evidence that something is not right here. Like even that man in Pennsylvania who did what he did, the pastor said later on in the interview or whatever that this man kept walking and making eye contact. And at that point, you know, his red flag should have gone off. Yeah, and the men around him, their red flag should have gone off even before the pastor. You know, if people are in and out of the service, it stands to reason.

And maybe it's just obvious because I feel like our safety is pretty excellent, but maybe it's just obvious to us. But it should be obvious like this guy's in and out a lot. That's not normal.

He's not going to the bathroom. Yeah, this is abnormal behavior. So to be on high alert.

But I don't know, it's just one of those weird things that you have to, you said it this way one time, and it really helped me out a great deal. You said that people in the church should be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. We've got harmless as doves down pat.

Yeah, that's easy for us. Yeah, church people wouldn't hurt a fly because they're not able to. And ultimately, it's not me who said that. Who said it? That's Jesus who said it. Jesus said it.

I send you as lamb among wolves, be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. And I've got that last part down because not only would I not hurt nobody, I can't. I'm not capable.

I'm not able to do it. We had a gentleman at one time who wanted to sit there with a rifle and a scope. Yeah, that's true.

That sounds like an exaggeration. He sounds like he's joking, but he's not. He wasn't joking. He came for a while with the rifle scope ready. And I'm like, what are we doing? You cannot be sitting there scoping people as they're walking to their services because if somebody sees that, that's going to scare them to death.

So how can you do the same thing but do it with more stealth? Yeah, exactly. I think our guys do a good job of that. And that's something that we've learned is that if you have guys who are serving in that capacity, just engaging with people, going up and interacting with them, not letting people just kind of walk in and unengaged, but having that conversation because you can tell very quickly if a person has ulterior motives.

Yeah. Don't just sit back and say somebody else will take care of that. Get up. Be a man. Be a man and engage. You have to. And I know I may make some people upset when I say that, but be a man.

Don't just sit back and just be like walking around, just hanging behind your wife and just kind of just there and just waiting to go back home and or go stop by your favorite restaurant and line up and get your steak or whatever. No, God has called you to a task. Part of your gender role as a man is to be that sacrificial. And so if that means that you've got to die, hey, you've got to die. That's right. But you will have died for the kingdom of Christ and you would have died with meaning. That's right. That's when you hear, well done, good and faithful servant. That's right.

Because what's the alternative? Is after the fact, oh, I wish I had? No. I mean, at that point, you haven't protected your church family. You haven't protected your biological family, the people that you're responsible for. My pastor is dead. My kids are hurt. My wife has a gunshot wound in the leg.

I made it out because I went and hid in the bathroom. Now I've got to live with that for the rest of my 60, 70 years. And maybe there are some who are willing to and you need to come to Jesus. That's right. Yeah. But here's something I want to add to this conversation.

Our brothers and sisters, Christians, have been living with this kind of persecution all over the world for a long, long time. That's true. Very good point. It's easy to overlook in the West.

That's right. What we're facing in the West now is what we grew up with. Like in India, when I was growing up, my dad had a nice fence around the church. And the fence was a hedge. But inside the hedge, there was metal wire and posts and everything kind of nice and tight. So you cannot just climb in. You cannot just jump over that hedge.

If you did, you'd get caught in the wire. Right. And we made sure all these things were done. And there was one time I remember a couple of boys.

When I say boys, I'm talking about maybe in their 19, 20 years of age. And they decided to jump over the hedge somehow. They climbed over and came in. And I remember my dad, because our parsonage was right next to the church. And our dogs started barking. I mean, I was a little boy. I was maybe six, seven years of age, maybe eight, nine. And I remember my dad looking out the window and saying, what is that?

Who are those boys walking around our church? And I remember my brother jumping off the dining table, I mean, running. And he ran to our church grounds. And those guys quickly jumped over that fence. I don't know to this day how my brother pulled that off. But he jumped over the hedge.

Wow. It's a pretty tall hedge. He ran so fast. Just vaulted right over it. He jumped over it.

And he caught one of them. And my dad at that same moment walked out our front gate, walked around, and came up to the same. And they called the young man. And again, that young man was about the same height and built as my brother. So my brother got him. But my dad came and got him. And they took him to the police station. And it was not good, by the way. Yeah, I can imagine.

Oh, yeah. This is where they gave you whooping. And they did.

It was so bad that my dad had to finally tell the counselors. He was like, hey, just tell them not to do that again. Because they were like, why did you go there, son? And he's like, well, because, I mean, he didn't get to finish his statement. They laid him out?

Two or three of them just let him have him. Because that's how the respect was for a sacred place. I think India is in a different place today.

But back then, and these were not Christian police officers. Really? No.

Wow. Because that's a sacred place. You shouldn't do that over there.

I mean, they jumped on him like crazy. So anyways, I think in America we have to be like this now. True.

And I think that's a great story that kind of illustrates our point is that once you do have a formidable, maybe not formidable, but once you have a solid infrastructure in place, word does travel. I think people know for sure what churches you can get away with and what churches that's like, hey, don't try that over there. It's going to be risky. I wouldn't go over there and try that.

Because you can't get away with it. And pray, pray, pray. Pray for our churches. Pray for our leaders. Pray for this demonic spirit. It's demonic, what's happening. But reject that spirit and pray for God's protection upon us. That's right.

That's right. That's so important for us. If you're listening to this and you would like tips or guidance on how to set up a safety team at your church, write in and let us know how we can help you.

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Be a part of what God is doing through the Clear View Today show and impacting the nations with the gospel of Jesus. Lots of great stuff coming your way. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clear View Today. We'll see you next time. We'll see you next time.