One of the first areas when we discuss crime prevention would be “break ins” to your church. Typically we do not alarm our buildings or churches, we have a lot of people in and out, so security of doors and windows is not very good. And you have electronics and other valuables which are great targets for thieves. So here is one area to look at for increasing our safety. Looking at facilities people who tend to be the last person out, task them with doing a perimeter check, checking doors and windows. Do you have janitorial people that work late, can you educate them a bit more in security principals and ask them to “patrol” the perimeter of the building once in a while.

Next…..money money money….and maybe this segment should be appropriately titled “don’t show me the money”. Money handling should be a big crime prevention focus we have in our churches. There is money that is missing, robbed or stolen much too often from our Ministries.

Do your ministry members take money home to count it and then deliver to the bank on Monday, or do you have multiple people that count the money on site at the church? Does that money sit in the office until Monday or Tuesday? Having one individual handle money or not looking at security risks for getting the money to the bank can spell disaster.

Next, lets talk about the parking lot during your services…….this can be a great place for people to make some quick work of stealing property. Stealing from parked vehicles in the parking lot should be a concern for all of us. It ruins the day of our members and I do believe it is preventable most of the time. Do you have a couple of ushers that you send out to the parking lot during services?

The last thing I want to talk about today is cash…..yes one more time more specifically one more area of problems. Another security risk can be keeping cash in the church office to provide to those strangers or transient people in need. Churches traditionally keep money on hand to give to people who stop by the office for assistance. If people get to know this and where you keep the money it could certainly pose a risk to those working with the money or working in the office. It could also simply pose a problem for someone to return after receiving some cash assistance to break in and get more.

I would recommend getting some basic gift certificates for lodging, meals or gas to keep on hand. Not as tempting as cash, as they have the appearance of being trackable. You can easily handout the certificate to be used for their purpose at local businesses. This also might help with misuse of the funds you are giving out if you are concerned about that, ie someone actually purchasing alcohol or cigarettes with “gas” money that you have given them.