So I always want to start out these type of discussions reminding us about balance. We have to have balance between a safe and secure environment for our people, families and ministry staff and a friendly and welcoming environment. So you may have a ministry leader that talks about being “low key” on security or a leader who talks about scaring off people with too much of a security presence. I want to say that even though I am very big on the idea of needing some security for our ministries, I am a definite supporter of balance. When I train church security personnel in seminars I always mention that fact that I think for most churches, security should be a plain clothes team that is not detected, trained as much as they can, with a solid plan of operation. Having a solid operation is key in my mind. What I mean by that is that I challenge myself and my team often enough that when something happens I handle it or we handle it. If someone stands up and interrupts the ministry service, you or your team get up from your positions, walk forward, ask the person in a solid voice and speech rate to go with you outside, and you then escort them out. It happens and it happens right now and the process flows just like you practiced in your mind or in your team meeting. And while you are going through this process to restore order, you do it with the least amount of distraction as possible, remembering that there are families and children watching you. That is a solid operation.

As an usher or greeter you are very valuable to the security plan in a ministry. You tend to know what is going on. You especially know who generally attends church and how do most people conduct themselves. So you can spot a suspicious person or a suspicious circumstance very quickly, in fact quicker than most everyone else including ministry leaders.

The next issue is what is your plan or what would the rest of the ministry team like you to do if you do spot something suspicious or someone who is acting suspicious? So within the ministry are you just eyes and ears, so are you going to notify someone or are you now going to begin to deal with this issue? If it is a suspicious person, are you going to intentionally meet and greet them and begin to ask them questions? I would certainly recommend that if you are asked to handle something like a suspicious person, that we do go up and speak to them like anyone else. We are friendly, maybe we offer them coffee or water, if that is what we do for others, then ask them if this is their first time….and so on with the questions. Get to know them a bit and determine if your thinking they are suspicious is correct by how they respond to your normal questions, or if they are just fine. If they are suspicious, and you continue to be concerned about them entering the service, then how are you going to deal with that. Ask them to sit to the side of the lobby and you are going to get someone to speak with them? Or what else might you do or your ministry leaders want you to do?

That idea of what are you going to do as an usher or greeter if you see someone suspicious is an important question to answer ahead of time. If you are the leader of the usher team or greeter team, it is important that you give direction when it comes to security direction. What do you want them to do in many different circumstances. As a member or a leader of the team, challenge them with recent articles or stories about what has happened in churches and how the ushers reacted. For instance if I was in charge of the ushers or greeters or I was filling one of those rolls, I would want to challenge us with discussion of a recent event. On the church security facebook page on May 20, 2014 we listed a news story about a man who robbed the church offering from a couple of ushers as they walked the money bags to the office. They eventually chased the guy down and got the money back….. This would be a great discussion to have with the ushers and or greeters. First, how might we handle the offering differently ? Do we have 2 or 3 ushers walk the money to the office? Then we challenge everyone on the team and as the leader we give them direction on how we want the money handled and then what we want them to do if someone tries to rob them. Certainly giving them your thoughts on if the person has a gun or is unarmed, what do you want them to do. And I hope your discussion talks about letting the money go in either case, but especially in the case of someone having a weapon. This thinking ahead of time or talking to your team is invaluable should this situation actually happen.

So realistically the primary role of an usher or greeter should be to observe, make an assessment of the situation you see and then get assistance or take action. To do this we need to be aware, alert and ready to get someone to handle this or help us deal with the situation.

Next there is another area that Ushers and Greeters can help with and that is what we might call intel or information. You might be more in touch with the members or congregation than other in the ministry. So part of that intel or information gathering might be knowing or hearing about family conflict, spouses that are having turmoil outside of church. You might also know about complaints former members or current members have about the church or people within the church. You may also know about people who have been kicked out of the church. You might also be aware of recent divorces or separations or child custody battles between spouse and/or church members. You might also become aware of people having stalkers, or people having health issues that may make them violent at times.

When you become aware of this information you might share this with the rest of your team, or if you see these people that are going through difficulties arriving to the church or ministry location you might alert the rest of the team. If your ministry has a security team, alert them of the issue with this person or persons and their arrival.

It would not hurt also to speak as a team of how you might operate as a team. Who or when might it be a good time to walk through the parking lots. If a problem happens in church who will warn people, who will call 911 and who will lock doors to keep the bad person out or escort people to safety? All of these thing are topics I believe we should be discussing on a monthly basis at a minimum.

The last thing I want to talk about is where do we position people. If you have 3 or 4 ushers or greeters, obviously we are going to have them near the ministry entrance. But then what do we do with them. Do a few of them go to sit with their familes? Then do we ask a couple of them to be observers and greet late people? If we do have them stay, what are good locations for them to be at. Where they can see people entering the church and maybe see what is going on inside the church or outside in the parking lot. What are your anticipated issues that day or that month?

Remember this security concept is really based on preplanning, thinking about things ahead of time and defining roles. It is most important if you are a leader of the ushers or greeters that you tell them What you would like them to do in the event of these different emergencies or issues and then discuss them every so often to refresh in everyones minds what we should do. Remember when something happens as in a crisis or emergency, most of the time our brains are going to freeze for a moment and then begin to react. So it is important to discuss options and preplan so that when our brain comes out of the shock or freeze, we can begin to react quickly and do what we were trained to do or talked about doing.