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Drone Warfare and the Threat to Your Church

I have been warning church safety teams about drones for roughly two years. Some people have listened. Others have told me to stay in my lane, that this is a problem for another country, or that their church has no reason to prepare for it.

I recently sat down with Matt, a former Air Force Joint Terminal Attack Controller who now works in drone training and production with Valdi Labs and Watchfire. He is also a Christian and serves on his church security team. He understands the military capabilities, and he understands the responsibility of protecting a congregation.

His warning was blunt. When I asked about people dismissing the threat, he said, “You’re going to get your people killed, flat out.”

That is a hard statement. But before you dismiss it, listen to the training experience behind it and ask yourself a question: If a suspicious drone appeared over your church this Sunday, would your team know what to do?

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A Cheap Drone Can Defeat an Experienced Team

One of the strongest moments in our conversation came when Matt described acting as an opposing drone pilot during military training. He explained that he could not pick up a rifle and expect to defeat the highly trained special operations personnel he was working against. With an inexpensive drone, however, he had been able to defeat entire SEAL teams in simulated engagements.

These were training scenarios. He was talking about simulated casualties, and he made that clear during the interview. The lesson was how quickly a threat from above could expose weaknesses in people who already had years of tactical experience.

Train Before Your First Encounter

According to Matt, the teams changed how they moved and responded as the training progressed. They learned to take the drones seriously, and they adapted. Their first exposure happened during training, where mistakes could be corrected.

That is what I want for our church safety teams. Learn now, while you have the opportunity. Your first discussion about a drone response should happen around a training table, not in the parking lot while families are arriving.

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The Attacker Does Not Have to Walk Through Your Doors

Most church security planning concentrates on threats at ground level. We watch the entrances, identify suspicious behavior, position people in the parking lot, and prepare to respond to an armed attacker. Those responsibilities remain essential.

A drone introduces a different problem. The person controlling it can be away from the church, outside the area your team is watching. Your people may see the aircraft without ever seeing the operator.

Matt also explained how operating through a screen or goggles can distance a person from the immediate human consequences of an attack. His assessment was that this changes the psychological barrier for someone willing to commit violence.

We do not need to predict exactly who will use that capability against a church to recognize the gap in our preparation. A plan built entirely around someone approaching on foot leaves a threat from above largely unaddressed.

Observation Can Come Before an Attack

Matt described three broad drone roles: intelligence gathering, direct attack, and dropping a payload. Church safety teams should understand those categories without assuming they can reliably identify a drone’s purpose from the ground.

A drone watching entrances, parking areas, or the movement of people could be gathering information. It could also have an innocent explanation. You need observation, documentation, and judgment to distinguish concerning activity from ordinary drone use.

Recognize and Report Suspicious Activity

Pay attention to behavior. Repeated appearances during services, persistent observation of particular areas, or activity that coincides with other suspicious conduct deserves attention. Record what you actually observed rather than turning your suspicions into facts.

An aircraft does not have to be visibly carrying something to warrant a report. At the same time, failing to see a payload does not establish that the aircraft is harmless. Your team needs a process for communicating uncertainty and escalating a credible concern.

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Glass and Open Spaces Create Vulnerabilities

Churches love glass. We have large lobby windows, bright entrances, and open gathering spaces. During the interview, Matt raised the possibility that an attack could exploit those features. Closed doors are useful, but the building’s construction and the location of your people also belong in the discussion.

He also emphasized cover, concealment, and the danger of people remaining exposed or gathering together during an attack. Those are lessons your team should consider when reviewing outdoor activities, arrival periods, and dismissal.

Plan Where People Will Move

Ask where people could move if a threat appeared above the parking lot. Look at the routes to protected areas, the amount of glass along those routes, and the needs of children, older members, and people with limited mobility. A direction that sounds simple in a meeting may become difficult when several hundred people try to follow it.

People may also stop to record an unfamiliar drone instead of moving away from danger. Your response plan needs clear instructions and people who can deliver them calmly. Watching a threat develop through a phone screen does nothing to protect a congregation.

Understand the Limits of Your Response

The interview included discussion of military counterdrone techniques and training. Churches need to distinguish those discussions from what they are authorized to do. The FAA states that shooting at an aircraft, including a drone, is illegal under federal law. A drone hovering near your property does not give your team permission to shoot it down. If its operation poses an immediate threat, contact local law enforcement.

Protecting people, communicating the threat, and coordinating with responders should be the foundation of your plan. Do not build it around a volunteer improvising a counterdrone response.

A Drone Can Also Help Protect the Church

We spent a substantial part of the interview discussing how churches can use drones for observation. I believe church safety teams should seriously consider a trained drone operator as part of their program.

At the property where we recorded, we were discussing approximately 35 acres. Three people in the parking lot cannot watch every part of that property at once. A drone can help an operator observe areas that would otherwise require someone to walk or drive out to investigate.

That can give your team information before it sends a person into an uncertain situation. It can also support the people already watching entrances and interacting with arriving families.

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Inspect Uncertain Areas Without Sending Someone Inside

I described the training we have available at courses.christianwarriortraining.com on using an Avata 2 drone to inspect a church interior. Being able to look into an area remotely can reduce unnecessary exposure. It does not mean a camera has established that every room, hiding place, or part of the building is safe.

A pastor should not be walking through a church alone to investigate a possible intruder. A drone may help gather information, but the goal remains making sound decisions and giving responding officers useful information.

Build a Trained and Accountable Drone Program

If your church develops a drone program, make it a real assignment with training, procedures, and coordination. The FAA explains that almost all flying for purposes other than recreation falls under Part 107. Using a drone for church security is a mission, even when the operator is a volunteer.

Plan for the applicable pilot certification, airspace, and operating requirements. Assign someone to manage the equipment, maintain proficiency, and make sure the operator can communicate effectively with the rest of the safety team.

Put This Into Your Next Training Meeting

You can begin preparing before buying equipment. Start by making drone awareness and response part of your existing safety program.

Your next meeting should address these questions:

* Who watches above the property? Assign responsibility instead of assuming somebody will notice.

* How is a sighting reported? Agree on the information to relay, including location, movement, time, and observed behavior.

* Who makes protective decisions? Identify the person who can redirect arrivals, move people, and coordinate with ministry leaders.

* Where will people go? Review protected areas and practical routes from parking lots, playgrounds, and outdoor gatherings.

* Who calls law enforcement? Establish how a credible threat will be reported without delaying the call while everyone discusses it.

* Could a church operated drone improve observation? Consider your property, personnel, training needs, and the requirements for a lawful program.

Practice a Sunday Morning Scenario

Then walk through a scenario. A team member reports a drone repeatedly hovering near the entrance while families arrive. What happens next? Who communicates with the children’s ministry? Who watches the aircraft? Who keeps the entrance from becoming a crowd of people staring upward?

Work through the uncertainty now. An unfamiliar drone is not automatically an attack, but your team should be capable of assessing and responding without confusion.

Christian Men Need to Take Responsibility

In the interview, I brought up Ezekiel 33 and the responsibility of the watchman to sound the warning. I also referred to Nehemiah 4, where the people continued their work while taking precautions against attack.

Those passages describe particular circumstances, but they give us something serious to consider. We should not treat awareness, preparation, and the protection of others as evidence that a Christian lacks faith.

Matt made another point that deserves attention. Christian warriors need judgment about when force is appropriate. Courage carries responsibility. A safety team must be able to recognize danger while remaining disciplined, welcoming, and accountable for its actions.

Turn the Warning Into Preparation

I hope the people who dismiss this threat are right about their own church never experiencing it. I would be thankful if none of us ever had to respond to a drone attack. But hope does not answer the questions your safety team needs to resolve.

Churches have adapted before. We added security teams, expanded our attention into parking lots, improved communications, and trained for threats that previous generations rarely discussed. Our responsibility is to keep learning as the capabilities available to violent people change.

Watch the interview and share it with your pastor and safety team leader. Then put a drone response discussion on your training schedule. Take the warning seriously enough to turn it into preparation.

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Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF)

Online supporters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) are calling for attacks on Christmas markets and Christian communities this season, and one user recommended vehicle ramming for attackers who cannot get guns or explosives. No church, city or date is named in the reporting, so churches should hold their Christmas events and put vehicle barriers and approach-route control in place before the first one.

Key Judgments

* Highly Likely: ISIS supporters will keep posting target lists and attack advice aimed at the holiday season through December.

* Likely: Churches will stay on those lists, and outdoor events with crowds near open streets or parking lots are the easiest targets for a vehicle attack.

* Possible: A lone offender will attempt a vehicle ramming or a shooting at a holiday gathering in the United States this season.

What the Reporting Says

A restricted government document circulated this week describes two online posts from 13 October. In the first, one pro-ISIS user posted a list of targets for mass-casualty attacks by lone offenders. The list emphasized US citizens and Jewish and Christian communities, and it named Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands as countries where such targets can be found. Target types included civilian and commercial infrastructure, religious landmarks, large crowds and government institutions. The user told readers to pick the targets they considered the highest priority in their own region or country.

In the second post, several pro-ISIS users in an online forum ranked targets from highest to lowest priority. One user listed schools, Christmas markets, gatherings of LGBTQIA+ people, sports stadiums and political events. One user advised that an attacker who cannot get weapons or explosives should drive a vehicle into a crowd, citing earlier truck attacks in Belgium, France and Spain during the winter holidays. The government analyst noted that the first post appeared a few hours after a similar one, and expects more of this incitement as the holidays approach, in Europe and in the United States. The same document says Salafi-jihadist messaging has broadly encouraged supporters to attack Jewish and Christian communities this winter with weapons, explosives or vehicles.

Neither post names a specific church, city or date in the United States. These are anonymous users on online forums, and the document describes their posts as incitement. Nobody has claimed a plan.

Vehicle Attacks on Holiday Events

On December 19, 2016, a truck was driven into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin and 13 people were killed. On December 20, 2024, a rental car was driven into a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany. At least five people were killed and more than 200 were injured. Police stopped the driver within three minutes, and in that time the car still injured more than 200 people. A barrier that goes up after the vehicle arrives does nothing, so everything that stops a vehicle has to be in place before the crowd gathers.

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Recent Attacks in the United States

Three attacks since the start of 2025 show how vehicles and rifles get used. On January 1, 2025, a man in a rented pickup truck drove around a police barricade onto Bourbon Street in New Orleans and into a crowd, killing at least 14 people. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) found an Islamic State flag on the truck and called it a terrorist attack. The truck traveled three blocks before a heavy lift vehicle in its path stopped it.

On September 28, 2025, a suspect drove a pickup into the front of a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints church in Grand Blanc Township, Michigan, during a service with hundreds of people inside. He then shot at worshipers and set the building on fire. Four church members were killed and eight were injured, and police shot the suspect in the parking lot within minutes. The FBI called it an act of targeted violence.

On March 12, 2026, an armed suspect drove a vehicle through the doors of Temple Israel, a synagogue in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan, and into a hallway, where the vehicle caught fire. Security officers at the synagogue shot him. One officer was struck and not seriously hurt, and no children or staff were injured. The building houses an early childhood center. Investigators were still working on a motive in the first reports.

Motives differ across these cases. In each one a vehicle was used to reach a crowd or break into a building. In New Orleans a barricade that left a route around it did not stop the truck, and at Temple Israel armed security stopped the suspect inside the doors.

Church Events at Risk

Churches hold outdoor events in December: live nativities, tree lightings, caroling, parking-lot markets, parades and any event that closes a street. Each one puts a crowd in the open, next to a road or a parking lot.

Shootings are the other concern. On 11 October, a 19-year-old was arrested in Illinois and charged with plotting a mass shooting at a Hindu temple near Aurora. Police recovered a rifle, loaded magazines, ammunition, a gas can and a tactical vest. A document on his devices referenced violence against South Asians and white supremacist ideology, which the government labels racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism (REMVE). Investigators have not confirmed the planned location. The government analyst’s comment on that case is that churches and other religious sites remain targets of opportunity around major holidays for violent extremists from across the ideological spectrum.

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Barrier Placement for Outdoor Events

You are setting up for the Sunday tree lighting. The crowd will stand on the grass between the sanctuary and the street, and the parking lot entrance is twenty yards to the left. A driver who wants to reach that crowd needs a straight path and enough room to build speed. Your job is to take both away.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recommends establishing clear standoff zones, which means distance between a crowd and any place a vehicle can travel, and evaluating vehicle barriers. CISA divides barriers into passive types such as fixed bollards, fences and jersey barriers, and active types such as retractable bollards. It also recommends looking at traffic patterns around the venue and reducing vehicle speed and access.

* Walk every approach route. Two weeks before the event, walk every road, driveway, alley and parking lot entrance that a vehicle could use to reach the crowd. Mark each one on a sketch of the site, including curb cuts and gaps in fences or landscaping.

* Move the crowd back. Set up the stage, seating and standing area as far from the nearest vehicle route as the site allows. Use the sketch to choose the spot before you set anything up.

* Block each route. Put a barrier across each marked approach. Ask city public works or the police department whether the city lends barricades for events, and request them in writing as soon as the event date is set. Heavy fixed objects such as concrete jersey barriers stop vehicles better than cones, sawhorses or plastic barricades.

* Leave one staffed gap. Fire and ambulance crews need a way in. Keep one opening, assign one team member to stand at it, and give that person a phone and the direct number for the police dispatcher. The team member’s job is to open the gap for emergency vehicles and call for help, not to stop a vehicle with their body.

* Slow the traffic. Ask the police department to close the street in front of the event, or at least to post an officer or signs that cut vehicle speed during the event.

* Get a second opinion. CISA has security advisors in every region who will review a site. Find yours through the CISA website, and ask the police department to look at the sketch.

* Check again the day of the event. Walk the routes before the crowd arrives to make sure nothing moved, nobody parked in the path, and the gap is staffed.

CISA also offers a Vehicle Ramming Action Guide and a Vehicle Ramming Self-Assessment Tool for evaluating a site.

Warning Indicators and Reporting

CISA’s guidance on vehicle ramming includes warning signs aimed mainly at vehicle rental agencies, such as a customer who has difficulty explaining why they need the vehicle. For a church team, the observable behaviors are different: someone photographing barrier positions or approach routes, a vehicle that circles the event area more than once, and a person asking when the barricades come down or when the street reopens. Any of these should reach the police department the same day. Report anything that looks like a threat to a specific church or city to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) at tips.fbi.gov or 1-800-CALL-FBI.

Threat Assessment

The overall threat level for church Christmas events is ORANGE (high). The government reporting contains no named church, city or date, and the posters are anonymous users who may never act. Those facts keep the level at high, below critical. One lone offender who reads one of these posts and acts can cause mass casualties, so the level stays above elevated.

Vehicle ramming at outdoor events is the primary concern. It needs no firearm or explosive, a rental or borrowed vehicle will do, and a crowd standing near an open road is a target a driver can reach in seconds. A shooting at a church service or event is the secondary concern. In the Illinois case, a coworker reported the suspect’s messages and police made the arrest before any attack.

The posture is to hold the events. A church that cancels its tree lighting because of anonymous forum posts has given the posters what they wanted, and it has also left its own people without the Christmas gatherings they came to enjoy. The exception is specific targeting. If the police, the FBI or your own reporting names your church or your city, church leadership should meet the same day, talk to the police, and decide whether to change or cancel the event. Until then, the work is barriers, approach routes and a briefed team.

Biblical Lens

Christmas has always carried a threat. When the angel announced the birth of Christ to the shepherds, the message came with an instruction about fear:

And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.” (Luke 2:10, ESV)

The shepherds heard the command not to fear and went to see the child. The wise men in Matthew 2:1-12 traveled to Bethlehem while Herod was looking for the child to kill him. They worshiped anyway, and when a dream warned them, they went home by another road. They did both: they worshiped and they listened to the warning. Joseph did the same when he took his family to Egypt in Matthew 2:13.

John 1:5 says the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. Psalm 27:1-3 asks whom the Lord’s people should fear when armies camp against them. Hebrews 10:24-25 tells believers not to neglect meeting together. A congregation that stays home out of fear gives the posters what they wanted.

Closing

Leave a comment if your church has already planned outdoor events this December, and share this brief with your pastor and your team leader. Paid subscribers get the Analyst’s Notes, a Leadership Memo for your pastor and elders, a Tabletop Scenario and an Outdoor Event Planning Packet below.

For Paid Subscribers

This brief includes the following for paid subscribers:

✅ Analyst’s Notes on how much weight to give the forum posts and what would change the assessment ✅ Leadership Memo for your pastor and elders (editable Word document) ✅ Tabletop Scenario for your team (PDF) ✅ Outdoor Event Planning Packet with letters to the city and the police and a pre-event briefing card (editable Word document)

Analyst’s Notes

The two posts are small pieces of evidence. They come from anonymous users in forums, and the government analyst records that one post followed another within hours. That pattern fits supporters repeating each other’s lists, and it does not by itself point to a plan. The Illinois case shows what a real plan looks like by comparison: a rifle, loaded magazines, a gas can, a vest and a written document, found because a coworker reported messages that worried them.

The important word in the vehicle post is “if.” The user told readers to use a vehicle when weapons and explosives are hard to get. In the United States, a pistol or rifle is easier to get than in Europe, and an attacker here might choose a gun first. I do not read the post as a prediction that vehicles will replace guns, and I would plan for both. A barrier plan covers the vehicle and a briefed team covers the gun.

Three things would change my read: a post or message that names a church, city or event in the United States, a report of someone photographing or probing a church’s outdoor setup, and a vehicle attack on a holiday event in the US or Canada before December. Any one of those moves the conversation from general planning to a decision about the specific event, and the pastor needs to hear it the same day from the team leader.

One point for team leaders on the legal side. Team members do not try to stop a vehicle. They report what they saw to the police, open the emergency gap, and move people away.

Leadership Memo (Download above)

An editable Word document for your pastor and elders is attached. It states the current threat in plain terms and recommends holding events unless a church or city is specifically named. It includes a table of recent attacks on churches, synagogues and holiday events in the United States and Europe, and a table of protective options with who does each one, what it costs and a box to approve it. It also covers city permits and fees for closing a street, and names who calls the police and who calls the team leader if specific targeting appears.

Tabletop Scenario (Download above)

A tabletop scenario for your team is attached as a PDF. It runs 20 to 30 minutes and starts with a vehicle approaching the crowd at an outdoor tree lighting. It has timed injects, discussion questions for the team leader, a facilitator key for each situation and a short debrief checklist.

Outdoor Event Planning Packet (Download above)

An editable Word document with four templates is attached: a request to the city for temporary barricades, a cover letter for a street-closure or special event permit, a notice to the police department with a request for an officer, and a one-page pre-event briefing card to print for each event. The packet explains when to send each one and what information to gather first.

Sources

* Internal restricted government document, weekly open-source reporting digest, October 2026

* CISA, Vehicle Ramming Action Guide and Vehicle Ramming Attack Mitigation resources, cisa.gov

* ABC News, “5 killed, including 9-year-old, in German Christmas market attack; more than 200 injured,” December 2024

* Associated Press, “At least 2 dead and 60 hurt after a car drives into a German Christmas market,” December 2024

* ABC News and ABC7 Chicago reporting on the Illinois arrest, October 2026

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Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF)

At about 11:13 p.m. on Friday, 16 October 2026, a gunman in a white sedan fired on a group leaving a building in the 4000 block of West 26th Street near Pulaski Road, in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood. Four men, ages 19 to 56, were shot in the arms, legs, hand and foot. All four were treated at Mount Sinai Hospital and are in good condition. The sedan fled south on Pulaski Road. National Broadcasting Company (NBC) Chicago reports the building is the New Life Center, a church, and that two of the wounded were church staff and one was a volunteer. The church runs a street outreach program that works with youth in gangs. Police have not released a motive or said who the target was.

What Happened

Chicago Police Department (CPD) officers were called to the 4000 block of West 26th Street at about 11:13 p.m. Friday. According to police, four men were leaving a building when a white sedan pulled up beside them and someone inside opened fire. The car then drove off southbound on Pulaski Road. The shooter never got out of the car.

The wounded were a 56-year-old man shot in the leg, a 26-year-old man shot in the foot, a 25-year-old man shot in the hand, and a 19-year-old man shot in the arm. The 19-year-old drove himself to the hospital. All four were treated at Mount Sinai Hospital, about two miles away, and police list all four in good condition. No arrests have been made, and Area Four detectives are investigating.

NBC Chicago is the only outlet so far that identifies the building as a church. According to NBC, volunteers from New Life Center had taken teenagers to Feed My Starving Children that evening to pack meals for families in other countries. When the group got back to the church, the shooting started. NBC reports that two church staff members and a volunteer were wounded, and that it was unclear whether the fourth man was part of the group or a bystander. Church leaders released a statement calling the violence “heartbreaking and unacceptable,” and said their staff and “Peacekeepers” work every day to mentor youth, interrupt violence and build relationships in the community.

Who New Life Centers Serves

New Life Centers of Chicagoland is the youth and community ministry of New Life Community Church, a multi-site Chicago church that started in 1986 with 18 members in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. The church founded New Life Centers in 2005, and the church describes it as a ministry that connects young people and their families with Christ and community through restorative justice, safe spaces and life-on-life relationships. The Friday trip was a New Life Centers youth outing, run by church staff and volunteers. The ministry runs youth programs, a food pantry, and a street outreach program in Little Village, Pilsen, Brighton Park, Humboldt Park and Midway, and it is part of the city-funded Communities Partnering 4 Peace (CP4P) network. A 2024 report in La Raza described the Little Village outreach program this way: most of the young people it works with already belong to gangs or have criminal records, and many are on probation. The same report said the organization has informal agreements with local gangs that allow its mentors to work with young people involved in violence, and that its Peacekeepers work Wednesday through Saturday from 4 p.m. into the early morning.

That is ministry work, and it is the kind of work the church is supposed to be doing. It also changes the threat picture for the building, the staff and anyone standing on the sidewalk outside it.

Police have not given a motive. I spent years working gangs in California, including time as a gang sergeant, and this shooting has the look of a gang shooting. A car pulls up at night, someone fires into a group on the sidewalk, and the car leaves on the main road. Little Village has long been split between rival street gangs, and Chicago police have tied past killings in the neighborhood to that conflict. Whether the target was someone in this group or someone standing near it, the people who got hit were church staff and volunteers who had spent the evening serving kids.

Lessons for Church Security Teams

Look Around Before the Kids Get Out

All problems begin in the parking lot, and this one began on the sidewalk outside the church at 11 o’clock at night. The group in Little Village had just come back from an evening trip with teenagers, which churches do every week. The adults already on the trip can cover a night return by keeping their heads up from the time the van turns onto the street.

Start watching before the van stops. As you drive up, the driver and the trip leader should be looking at the street and everything around the building for anything out of the norm. If something does not fit, keep driving and come back around. When you do stop, the trip leader or another adult gets out first and looks around for threats before the children come out. In a city like Chicago, many of those kids will meet their parents on the sidewalk or walk home on their own, so the adults keep watching the street the whole time the kids are outside.

I have been at a location when a drive-by was about to happen, and you can see it coming. Some people call it a sixth sense. I believe it is the Lord telling us that danger is approaching. When you see a slow-moving car with a couple of people in it and that warning comes, grab the kids and get them behind cover until the car is gone.

Know Where Your Cover Is

The shooter in Little Village never got out of the car. A white sedan pulled up beside the group, someone fired from inside, and it drove away. When you move children behind cover, you need to know ahead of time what will stop a bullet where your vans pull up.

A brick wall, a concrete planter and an engine block will stop handgun rounds. A hedge, a car door and a glass entry will not. Walk the spot where your vans unload with your team and point out the cover. Then teach your people to capture the description. Someone in Chicago gave police a white sedan headed south on Pulaski. Color, make, body style, number of people, any plate letters and the direction of travel go to 911 and to the team leader as soon as it is safe.

Outreach to Gang Members Brings Their Conflicts With Them

A church running gang outreach, reentry ministry or a violence intervention program has a different threat picture than a church that does not. The people you serve have enemies, and their enemies know your schedule. If a young man in a rival gang knows a target comes to your youth center every Friday night, he knows where to find him.

Keep the ministry going, and have your security team and your outreach staff sit down together and plan for it. Have outreach leaders tell the team leader, without giving out private details, when a client has an active conflict or has recently been shot at. Do not let groups gather on the sidewalk before or after programs. Ask your local police district for a briefing on current gang conflicts near your building, and ask what times and blocks are seeing shootings. Schedule program end times and pickups so people are not standing outside at the same hour every week.

Bleeding Control at the Door and in the Van

All four men in Little Village were shot in an arm, a leg, a hand or a foot. Those are extremity wounds, and extremity bleeding can be stopped with a tourniquet and direct pressure before the ambulance arrives. A person can bleed to death from an arm or leg wound in a few minutes, and I spent years as a SWAT medic. Tourniquets go in the kit before anything else.

Put a trauma kit at the main door and another one in every church van and bus. Four people were shot in Little Village, and any one of them could have been hit in more than one limb, so one or two tourniquets will not cover it. Stock each kit with enough tourniquets, chest seals and pressure bandages to treat at least five people. Train everyone who drives a youth trip on how to apply a tourniquet. Know where your nearest trauma center is. In this case Mount Sinai Hospital was about two miles away. One of the wounded drove himself there. In a lot of the country, the nearest trauma center is much farther, and your team will be holding pressure for a long time before help arrives.

Biblical Perspective

“But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” (Jeremiah 29:7, ESV)

Jeremiah wrote this to the exiles in Babylon, people living in a city that was not theirs, surrounded by people who did not share their faith. God told them to build houses, plant gardens, and work for the good of the city they had been sent to. The people of New Life Center were doing the same thing on Friday night. They took teenagers from one of the most violent parts of Chicago to pack meals for children in other countries, and they came home to the neighborhood they have chosen to serve.

“The prudent sees danger and hides himself, but the simple go on and suffer for it.” (Proverbs 27:12, ESV)

Proverbs puts the other half of the job in front of us. Seeking the welfare of the city does not excuse us from seeing the danger in it. The prudent person in this proverb sees what is coming, takes cover in time, and keeps going. For a church security team, that means doing the ministry and planning for the threat that comes with it. When your church goes into hard places, your team goes with it, watches the street when the kids come home, and carries the trauma kit.

Final Assessment

Four church staff and volunteers were shot outside a church in Chicago on Friday night after spending the evening serving children. All four survived, and the shooter is still out there. Police have not said who the target was.

The danger was on the sidewalk, at night, as a youth group came home to a church whose ministry puts it close to gang conflict. Every church that runs youth trips can start this week by having an adult get out and look around before the kids come out. Every church that ministers to gang members needs a plan for the conflicts its people bring with them. Before your next trip leaves, put a trauma kit in the van with enough tourniquets, chest seals and pressure bandages for at least five people.

Final Thoughts

Does your church run a youth trip, a mission trip or any program that brings people home after dark? Who on your team is standing outside when the van pulls in? Leave a comment and tell us how your team handles it, and share this article with your pastor and your youth leader.

Sources

* NBC Chicago, “Little Village shooting victims were targeted outside church after packing meals,” 17 October 2026

* FOX 32 Chicago, “4 hurt in Little Village drive-by mass shooting, police say,” 17 October 2026

* ABC7 Chicago, “4 injured in drive-by shooting near West 26th Street and South Pulaski Road, CPD says,” 17 October 2026

* CBS News Chicago, “4 injured in drive-by mass shooting in Little Village,” 17 October 2026

* WGN-TV, “4 injured in overnight drive-by shooting in Little Village,” 17 October 2026

* New Life Centers of Chicagoland, organization website, newlifecenters.org

* New Life Centers of Chicagoland, “Our Story,” newlifecenters.org

* New Life Community Church, “New Life Centers,” newlifecommunity.church

* La Raza, “Peace in the Streets and Options for Youth: The Work of New Life Centers,” 21 March 2024

* Obama Foundation, My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, “New Life Centers of Chicagoland” program profile

* FOX 32 Chicago, “Melissa Ortega murder: Police ‘saturating’ area to target ‘gang conflict that led to her death’”

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Status as of Friday, October 16, 2026. Information is preliminary. Bend Police scheduled another press conference for this afternoon and said more information about the community member who stopped the suspect would likely be released today.

Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF)

On Thursday, October 15, a man sitting in a pickup in the Silver Rail Elementary School parking lot saw the suspect carrying a long gun toward the building and confronted him. The suspect fired multiple rounds into the truck, went over the school fence, and shot through the locked doors of the school’s secure entry vestibule. Witnesses place him in the special education area of the building. He killed three children and a teacher and critically wounded a child and a second teacher. An armed parent, reported to hold a valid concealed handgun license, saw him enter, followed him inside, and shot and killed him. Bend-La Pine Schools bans concealed handgun license holders from carrying on its school grounds, and Oregon law makes carrying there a crime. The only legal way to have a gun on that campus was unloaded and locked in a vehicle, and a parent who went to the car, loaded the gun, and came back inside to stop the suspect would still have broken the law. Bend Police officers arrived about three minutes after the first 911 call and found the suspect already dead. An armed parent carrying his firearm against Oregon law stopped this attack before police arrived.

What Happened

Silver Rail Elementary is a kindergarten through fifth grade school at 61530 SE Stone Creek Lane in southeast Bend with about 450 students and 40 staff. Shortly before 1:00 p.m. Pacific time, a man was sitting in his red Toyota Tacoma idling in the school parking lot when he saw the suspect carrying a long gun toward the building. The man confronted him. The suspect fired multiple rounds into the truck, putting at least five holes in the passenger side door and bed and shattering the rear passenger window. Reporting citing The Oregonian says the suspect then threw the gun over the school fence, climbed over after it, and moved toward the building. The driver called 911 at 12:59 p.m. and reported being shot at multiple times by a person with a long gun.

Bend-La Pine Schools equips its buildings with secure entry vestibules. A visitor enters a locked outer area, signs in with photo identification, and is buzzed through a second electronic door. Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said the suspect forced his way in by shooting at the locked doors, and The Oregonian reports he shot the locks out of the vestibule. Within the next minute, dispatchers received dozens of 911 calls that a shooter was inside, and at 1:00 p.m. dispatch sounded an alert tone to all law enforcement.

A fifth-grade teacher, Kathy Sheil Smith, told KPTV she saw the gunman approaching the grounds with a long gun, called the school’s main office to report it, and moved her students into a corner of the room, where they stayed quiet. The school was directed into lockdown at 1:01 p.m. By that point the suspect was already inside. Witnesses told the Bend Source the gunman went into the special education area of the school, where at least three more shots were heard.

The first Bend Police officers arrived at 1:02 p.m. Moments later an officer reported that the suspect had been shot by a community member who had seen him enter the school, pursued him inside, and engaged him. The initial emergency medical services radio dispatch said the shooter appeared to have been neutralized, possibly by a father at the school. Officers entered, confirmed the suspect was dead, cleared the building for other threats, rendered aid, and evacuated the school room by room.

Three children, ages 5, 8 and 11, and one teacher were killed. A 7-year-old child and a 54-year-old teacher were taken to St. Charles Medical Center in Bend with critical injuries. Police said all victim families have been notified. No victim names have been released.

Bend Police sent a public alert at 1:17 p.m. telling people to avoid the area, and about 10 minutes later announced that families should report to Journey Church, 61303 S Highway 97. All students and staff were transported to the church, and reunification ran until about 5:45 p.m. Nearby Caldera High School and Jewell Elementary also went into lockdown. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Portland field office is assisting, agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) were reported en route, and federal officials told NBC News the Oregon State Police may become the lead investigating agency. Chief Krantz said investigators will remain at the school for several days. All Bend-La Pine Schools are closed today.

Suspect Information

Police have identified the suspect only as a 16-year-old male. He was killed at the scene. Police have not released his name, a motive, whether he attended Silver Rail, or whether he knew anyone there. Chief Krantz declined to name the weapon or the number of rounds fired, citing the investigation.

The Associated Press, citing a law enforcement official briefed on the case, reported the weapon was a pump-action shotgun purchased by the suspect’s mother. Multiple law enforcement sources told CBS News the weapon was a shotgun. Bend Police have not confirmed either report.

Who Stopped the Shooter

A community member stopped the suspect before police arrived. Bend Police describe the person as a community member who saw the suspect enter the school, pursued him into the building, and engaged him. The Spokesman-Review, carrying reporting from The Oregonian, reports the community member is the parent of a student or students at the school, and the first emergency medical services dispatch described the person as possibly a father at the school. Fox News reported he holds a concealed carry permit. Police have not yet released his identity, permit status, weapon, carry method, or the number of rounds fired. Oregon Governor Tina Kotek publicly thanked the community member for intervening and acknowledged the emotional burden that person now carries.

What Oregon Law and the School Policy Say

Oregon Revised Statutes (ORS) 166.370(1)(a) makes it a Class C felony to intentionally possess a loaded or unloaded firearm in or on a public building, and Oregon’s definition of a public building includes schools. ORS 166.370(3)(g) gives concealed handgun license holders an affirmative defense to that charge. Senate Bill 554 (2021), now codified at ORS 166.377, lets a district school board adopt a policy that the license holder defense “does not apply to the possession of firearms on the grounds of the schools controlled by the board.” A board that adopts one must post a clearly visible sign at all normal points of entry to its school grounds and list the covered grounds on its website.

When a license holder carries on school grounds covered by such a policy, Oregon law treats it as a Class A misdemeanor instead of a felony. Newsweek reported the penalty as up to one year in jail. The exact maximum for a Class A misdemeanor in Oregon is 364 days in jail under ORS 161.615 and a $6,250 fine under ORS 161.635. ORS 166.370(3)(j) still allows a firearm on school property that is unloaded and locked in a motor vehicle.

Bend-La Pine Schools adopted Board Policy KGBB, “Firearms Prohibited,” in December 2021. It reads in part:

“No person on grounds of the schools controlled by the Board of Directors for Bend-La Pine Schools Board (including in school buildings), will possess any firearm, except when said firearm is possessed by a person who is not otherwise prohibited from possessing the firearm, and is unloaded and locked in a motor vehicle. The exception provided in Oregon Revised Statute (ORS) 166.370(3)(g) for concealed carry licensees (see ORS 166.291 and 166.292) does not apply to the possession of firearms on grounds of the schools controlled by the Board.”

The policy also states that anyone violating it “may be issued a trespass citation, ejected from the premises and referred to law enforcement officials.” Firearms under the control of law enforcement are permitted.

Under that policy and state law, a license holder who carried a loaded handgun onto Silver Rail’s grounds and into the building committed a Class A misdemeanor. Whether a prosecutor would charge a parent who used that gun to stop a school shooting, and whether Oregon’s choice of evils defense under ORS 161.200 would apply, is a separate question that has not been addressed.

The vehicle exception does not help. The policy allows a gun on school grounds only while it stays unloaded and locked in the car. A licensed parent who obeyed that rule, then went to the car, loaded the gun, and carried it into the building to stop the suspect would have committed the same Class A misdemeanor. Under Oregon law and this policy, no legal way existed for an armed adult on that campus to stop the attack.

Idaho handles this differently. Idaho Code 18-3302D also makes it a misdemeanor to possess a firearm on school property, but subsection (4)(d) exempts a person complying with Idaho Code 19-202A, the state law protecting people who defend themselves or others. A parent in Idaho who stopped an attack like Silver Rail would have an exemption written into the school gun law itself. Oregon’s school gun law contains no exemption of that kind.

The district also runs a school resource officer program with Bend Police and the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office, with officers shared across several schools. A 2024 district safety review after a loaded gun was found at Pilot Butte Middle School recommended more dedicated school resource officers and decided against metal detectors and wireless panic alarms. It has not been reported whether a school resource officer was at Silver Rail on Thursday.

Online Radicalization of Children

Police have not released a motive, and nothing has connected this suspect to any group. Organized online networks are radicalizing children right now on the same gaming and chat platforms kids use every day, and some of them openly encourage attacks like this one.

The best known is 764. Federal prosecutors say Bradley Cadenhead created it on Discord when he was 15. The FBI describes 764 as a Nihilistic Violent Extremist (NVE) network, and it targets children through Roblox, Minecraft, Discord, Telegram, Instagram, and X. Members groom and extort children, then coerce them into harming themselves, harming animals, and harming other children, and some push victims toward suicide. The network splinters and renames itself constantly, and the FBI Dallas field office reported this year that the FBI is investigating more than 450 subjects tied to 764 and similar networks. The wider cluster of these groups is often called “the Com.”

Nihilistic Violent Extremism is the FBI’s category for people who want to cause chaos and tear down society without any particular political or religious cause. FBI Director Kash Patel reported a 300 percent increase in NVE cases between September 2024 and September 2025.

The True Crime Community (TCC) is an online subculture on Roblox, Discord, and TikTok that glorifies mass shooters, trades fan art of school shooters, and encourages violence and self-harm. Extremism researchers classify it as a subculture of nihilistic violent extremism. Investigators have looked at possible links between members of these networks and real school attacks, including the January 2025 shooting at Antioch High School in Nashville.

The involuntary celibate (incel) movement is an online subculture of young men who blame women and society for their lack of relationships. Several mass attackers have written incel grievances into their manifestos, including the 2014 Isla Vista attacker in California.

For church teams and youth ministries, the warning signs are concrete. A child carving “764” or a username into their skin, drawings of school shooters, sudden secrecy about a Discord or Roblox account, and talk of admiring past attackers all warrant a conversation with the parents and, where there is a threat, a report to police. Your youth ministry leaders should know these names.

Lessons for Church Security Teams

Always be carrying, on the body

The parent saw the suspect go into the building and followed him in. The gun was on him at the moment he made the decision. Compare that to the In-N-Out shooting in Twin Falls, Idaho, on August 1. A woman running from the restaurant took cover behind the attacker’s car and found the handgun he had dropped there. She picked it up, found it jammed, could not clear it, threw it down, and ran. She normally carries, and that day her own gun was in her car. I break that moment down in my In-N-Out video, and every team member who leaves a gun in a purse or a glove box should watch it.

Idaho allows permitless carry, and at Twin Falls four people acted in the first minutes. An Idaho State Police officer inside the restaurant protected the employees. AJ Scott, a former officer, moved toward the gunfire and was shot. Another armed citizen fired at the attacker and pulled his attention away from the cars in the drive-thru. The woman tried the dropped pistol. In Bend, one armed parent ended the attack. In both cases, ordinary people with guns were the response while police were still minutes away.

A gun in a purse, a glove box, or a console does not get you through a door behind a shooter. Oregon law steered every permit holder at Bend-La Pine schools toward leaving the gun unloaded and locked in the car. Nobody in this attack had three minutes to go get it, and a parent who did go get it would still have broken the law by bringing it inside. Carry in an inside the waistband or outside the waistband holster, worn on your beltline at the 12 to 3 o’clock position or the 9 to 12 o’clock position.

Bend-La Pine Schools does not allow concealed carry permit holders to carry inside its buildings. I carry in denied areas. That includes schools. Idaho law prohibits carrying on school property, and I carry there anyway because a school is exactly where I worry an active shooter will show up. We are not telling anyone to break the law. I often go to high-risk venues where the chance of an active shooter is real, and when I do, I carry concealed in a way that nobody can see I am armed while I can still get to the gun. If you are caught carrying in a place where the law prohibits it, you can be fined or jailed, and you need to understand that risk before you make the choice. I personally accept that risk and will deal with it if it comes up, and I have no doubt this article would be brought up at a trial if it ever came to that. In a denied area you are going to be a hero or a zero: a hero if you save the children, and a zero if you have a negligent discharge because you were doing something stupid while carrying concealed where you were not supposed to be. If you carry in deep concealment, run your draw from that exact setup in dry practice until you can get the gun out cleanly under time pressure.

Respond with what you have, right now

Officers arrived at 1:02 p.m., three minutes after the first call. That is an excellent response time for any agency, and the suspect had still breached the building and killed four people. Your team will be on scene first. The parent moved toward the suspect with what was available, without waiting for police. The first armed response at your church will come from whoever is closest, and that person will be working alone for the first several minutes. Assign each armed team member a sector of the building and parking lot so each one knows they are expected to respond first in that area.

Act on the first sighting of a gun

This attack gave two warnings before the suspect reached the door. A man in the parking lot saw him walking toward the building with a long gun, and a fifth-grade teacher saw the same thing from her classroom and called the office. The lockdown order came at 1:01 p.m., after the suspect was inside. At your church, a report of a person carrying a long gun toward the building starts the response. Train your parking lot team and greeters to put it on the radio immediately in plain language, with location and direction of travel, and give the person at the door authority to lock the doors and call 911 without waiting for anyone’s approval. Shots fired in the parking lot get the same response. A resident near Silver Rail who heard the shots was not sure at first whether it was gunfire or construction noise. Train your team to treat any sound like gunfire as gunfire.

A shotgun will open your door

I have been monitoring active shooter events for decades. I have found very few where an attacker shot his way through a school’s doors, and the ones I have found involved glass. Silver Rail is one of the very few where an attacker used a shotgun to breach locked doors. I have training in shotgun breaching, I have trained others in it, and I have done it on real operations. Breaching a door with a shotgun is simple and easy. A breacher shoots the lock and latch area or the hinges, and a standard commercial door with one latch point gives way in a few rounds.

Our churches are open and welcoming so people can come to Christ, and the sanctuary doors are not going to be locked on Sunday morning. Church schools, preschools, children’s wings, and offices are different, and many of them are locked during the day. Walk your church and your church school this week and look at every locked exterior door the way a breacher would. There are hardware changes that make a shotgun breach slower and harder:

* Multiple locking points. A door held by a mortise lock plus a deadbolt, or by top and bottom rods, takes more rounds and more time than a single latch.

* Lock reinforcement. A steel wrap plate around the lock and a reinforced strike plate fastened with long screws into the framing keep the door in the frame after the lock is damaged.

* Hinge security. Security hinge studs on the hinge side of the door, non-removable hinge pins, or a continuous steel hinge keep the door in place even if the hinges are shot.

* Steel doors and frames. A solid steel door in a steel frame anchored to the wall holds up far longer than a hollow or wood door.

* Glass. Keep locks away from glass panels an attacker can shoot out and reach through. Security film anchored to the frame holds broken glass in place for a time, and ballistic-rated glazing in a church school vestibule stops rounds outright.

* Interior doors. Classroom and nursery doors that lock from the inside give people a second barrier after the exterior door fails. Talk to your fire marshal before installing any barricade device so it meets fire code.

None of this stops a determined attacker. Every one of these changes buys time for your team to respond and for people inside to lock down.

Train for this exact scenario

We have built a downloadable training scenario from this incident, with the scenario briefing you read to your team and the expected outcomes. It starts with a report of a person carrying a long gun across your parking lot, moves to shots fired at a car, then a breach at a locked door into your children’s wing. Before you run it, call your local law enforcement agency and tell them you are running a drill, search everybody for weapons, and use only blue guns or laser trainers. Run it with your parking lot post, your door post, your sanctuary post, and your children’s wing post. Practice moving toward the sound of gunfire, communicating your location by radio, and identifying yourself to arriving police with your hands visible and your gun holstered. A citizen who has just shot a suspect is a person with a gun when police come through the door.

Be ready to serve as a reunification site

Journey Church became the reunification site for Silver Rail. Police announced it about 25 minutes after the first call, every student and staff member was transported there, and it stayed open until about 5:45 p.m.

When I was running complex operations, I liked picking churches. They had the space inside, parking outside, and the amenities inside, including a kitchen and bathrooms. Most importantly, they had welcoming people who loved their community and worshiped Christ. Churches were the best places for any big operation, whether it was a reunification, meeting up before a search warrant, or planning a complex operation where I needed everybody in one place. Your church should be ready for any of that.

Start with an area survey. Map every school within two miles of your church, then call the school district’s safety office and your police department and ask whether your church is named as a reunification site in their plans. If it is, or if your building fits the description, start planning now so you can stand it up on a moment’s notice.

Your plan needs a way to call in your safety team. We are all volunteers, and on a weekday afternoon nobody will be on duty. Build a call list so your team can come in, open the building, clear it, and secure it within 30 minutes. The police are going to be very busy, and your team can help them and help the church carry out the reunification. Police will see your team as trustworthy people they can hand minor tasks to. The plan should also name the staff member who authorizes opening the building and list who holds keys and alarm codes on a weekday. Lay out the parking lot with a lane kept open for buses and emergency vehicles. Designate one controlled entrance where police and district staff check identification before releasing a child to a parent. Assign separate rooms for students, for parents waiting, and for families being notified of a death. Stock water, chairs, and tissues, and keep media and onlookers outside the building.

A reunification site puts hundreds of frightened parents and children in one place. In complex terror attacks, we know terrorists plan to hit the places where survivors and responders gather, including reunification sites. Silver Rail was not a terror attack, and that was clear quickly. Your plan still needs to account for a second attack. Post armed team members at the entrance and in the parking lot, and check in with the police supervisor on scene so officers know who your team members are and what they are wearing. Planning for that is taking care of the body of Christ.

Biblical Perspective

Proverbs 24:11–12 (ESV) Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work?

Solomon gives no exemption for the person who saw the danger and chose not to act. In Bend, the suspect was confronted in the parking lot by a man who took fire for it, and an armed parent followed him through the school door. For a church safety team, this passage removes the option of claiming you did not know. You know the threat exists and you have seen the timelines. God weighs what we did with what we knew.

That obligation does not end if you are unarmed. Be prepared to take on the suspect with your hands. Attackers who are confronted, even by unarmed people, often stop, retreat, or kill themselves. The FBI’s study of 160 active shooter incidents from 2000 to 2013 found that 21 of them ended when unarmed citizens restrained the shooter, and 11 of those were at schools, where principals, teachers, staff, and students did it. You might get shot. Most people who are shot survive, and trauma care keeps getting better. We also all know where we are going if we pass. Our priority is those children.

2 Samuel 23:20 (ESV) And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was a valiant man of Kabzeel, a doer of great deeds. He struck down two ariels of Moab. He also went down and struck down a lion in a pit on a day when snow had fallen.

Benaiah went down into the pit with the lion, on a bad day, in bad conditions, with what he had. Scripture records it among the deeds of David’s mighty men because he went toward the danger. Remember your ABCs. In this case that means Always Be Carrying. If you have time, also remember the other ABCs: armor, bag, carbine.

Final Assessment

The suspect was seen carrying a long gun toward an elementary school, fired into a truck, went over a fence, shot through a secure vestibule, and killed four people in roughly three minutes. Bend Police arrived fast, and the attack was already over. A parent who saw the suspect, followed him inside, and shot him ended it.

For church teams, the takeaways are to carry on the body and to prepare to respond alone before police arrive. A sighting of a long gun in your parking lot starts your response, and a shotgun will open a locked door in seconds. Churches near schools should also start reunification planning now. The four people killed at Silver Rail were killed before anyone could reach them, and the armed parent likely kept that number from going higher.

Download the scenario and run it with your team. Leave a comment and tell us how your team would handle a breach at a locked door, and share this briefing with your pastor and your team leader.

Sources: Bend Police Department press conference, October 15, 2026; Bend Police public alerts; Oregon Revised Statutes 161.200, 161.615, 161.635, 166.370, and 166.377; Bend-La Pine Schools Board Policy KGBB, Firearms Prohibited; reporting by ABC News, CBS News, CNN, NBC News, NPR, the Associated Press, The Oregonian as carried by the Spokesman-Review and the Daily Mail, KPTV, KTVZ, KATU, The Bulletin, the Bend Source, Newsweek, OPB, and TIME; FBI public statements on 764 and Nihilistic Violent Extremism; FBI, A Study of Active Shooter Incidents in the United States Between 2000 and 2013.

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Foreword

This incident happened at a political protest, and I am asking you to set the politics aside. Whether you support or oppose the No Kings movement has no bearing on what happened in that street. We are reviewing it because the people on that safety team operated a lot like church safety teams do. They were volunteers. Some carried guns and some did not. They worked in pairs, talked on radios, and were responsible for thousands of people who had no idea who they were or what training they had. When one of them fired, he did it in a crowd, on partial information, under the same pressure armed church volunteers train for. We are looking at the mechanics of what happened and what church safety teams can learn from them.

What Happened

On the evening of June 14, 2025, a No Kings march in downtown Salt Lake City drew between 10,000 and 18,000 people, depending on the report. The organizers fielded a volunteer safety team in yellow vests that, according to charging documents, handled medical care, crowd management and de-escalation. At least two of those volunteers were armed, and one of them was Matthew Scott Alder. Richard Whitney, who organized the team, testified that he paired Alder, who was armed, with Nathan Bergstrom, who was not.

Shortly before 8 p.m., the team’s radio carried a report of a “gun, AR-15” and a person in all black with a Confederate flag. Both descriptions referred to Arturo Gamboa, 24, who was openly carrying an AR-15-style rifle, which is legal in Utah. Bergstrom testified that Gamboa was “fishing in a bag” in an alley and acting “more than suspicious.” He said, “I thought it was somebody that was about to commit a mass shooting.” A second volunteer, Aaron Ferdig, drew his own handgun. The radio then carried “gun, gun, gun,” and Alder fired three rounds. Alder later told investigators he saw a man “ducked down as he was loading his rifle” and believed a mass shooting was about to happen.

One round hit Gamboa and another hit his rifle. Arthur “Afa” Folasa Ah Loo, 39, was walking into the march about 160 feet from Alder, according to prosecutors. A police officer testified that cell phone video shows Ah Loo falling after the third shot, and he died at the hospital. Gamboa never fired his rifle. Police booked him on suspicion of murder and later released him, and Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill declined to charge him, saying Gamboa was lawfully allowed to carry the rifle and broke no law.

Accounts of what Gamboa did with the rifle still conflict. Police first said witnesses saw him raise it and run toward the crowd. Video later published by Fox 13, and a friend who watched a balcony video, show the rifle pointed at the ground until the shots started. At the October 13, 2026 preliminary hearing, Third District Judge Derek Williams found enough evidence that Alder acted recklessly and ordered him to trial. The judge noted that three or four people stood between Alder and the man he was shooting at. Alder has pleaded not guilty. His attorney, Neal Hamilton, argues the third round struck a gate box and ricocheted into Ah Loo, while the prosecution’s firearms expert testified that the recovered bullet was “nearly pristine,” which makes a ricochet less likely. A pretrial conference is set for December 11.

Lessons for Church Security Teams

Reading a Gun in Context

Whether a visible gun signals a threat depends heavily on where you are. In Utah, a man walking down a public street with a rifle on his back is breaking no law, and Gill said exactly that when he declined to charge Gamboa. Texas allows open carry of long guns, and Florida’s open carry rules changed after a 2025 appeals court ruling. In most of California and New York, a man pulling an AR-15 out in public is so far outside the norm that it draws an immediate police response. Your team needs to know your state’s carry laws and what is normal in your community before deciding what a rifle in the parking lot means. Even where open carry is common, deadly force is justified by behavior: the person has the ability to kill, the opportunity to do it, and is acting in a way that shows they are about to. Bergstrom read “fishing in a bag” as the start of a mass shooting. That called for a radio report and closer observation. Train your team members to name the specific act that moved a person from suspicious to an imminent threat before they draw.

Backstop

At the hearing, Deputy Salt Lake County Attorney Josh Graves, who is no relation to me, argued that a backstop is of “vital importance” when shooting into a large crowd and that each shot should be a conscious decision. Every police firearms instructor in the country teaches the same thing. At 160 feet, a change of one degree in muzzle angle moves the point of impact almost three feet. That is my own arithmetic, offered as an illustration and not a figure from the testimony. Most church volunteers qualify with a handgun at seven to fifteen yards on a static range, if they qualify at all (you absolutely need to qualify; my qualification video is on courses.christianwarriortraining.com). In a sanctuary, the area behind an attacker holds pews, families and the hallway to the nursery. Walk your room with your team and identify the angles where a shot has no safe backstop. Then rehearse what each team member does from those spots, whether that means moving for a clean line, closing distance or holding fire.

Radio Reports

Whitney described the radio traffic in order: “gun, AR-15,” a man in all black with a Confederate flag, then “gun, gun, gun,” then gunfire. By the time Alder had eyes on Gamboa, three transmissions had already told him what he was looking at, and two volunteers had drawn their weapons. Once one person calls out a gun, the transmissions that follow tend to repeat and build on it. Teach your team to report what they observe in plain terms and leave the interpretation to the team leader. “Male, black hoodie, rifle on his back, walking east past the north doors” gives the next person facts to act on. “Active shooter” gives them a conclusion before they have seen anything. Have your team practice observation reports on the radio during regular Sunday services and review them in the debrief afterward.

Written Policy for Armed Volunteers

Sarah Parker, a national coordinator for the 50501 Movement, told the Associated Press that organizers asked all attendees, including safety volunteers, not to bring weapons. Police said the event permit did not provide for armed security. The organizer of the safety team still knew Alder was armed and paired him with an unarmed partner. Ah Loo’s widow has since sued the rally organizers, calling Alder an “untrained volunteer.” If your church allows armed team members, put that decision in writing. Have it approved by your elders, checked against your state’s law and your insurance carrier, and tied to a training and qualification standard you can produce on paper. Then make sure your team follows that policy on Sunday morning, because a written policy the team ignores gives no legal protection to the volunteer or the pastor who signed it.

Legal Defense Coverage

Alder is facing a criminal trial, and the organizers are facing a civil lawsuit. Anyone who carries on a church safety team could end up in the same position, whether the charge comes from a genuine mistake or from political pressure on a prosecutor. Keep serving. The church needs you on that post. Understand that a legal defense can be very expensive, and plan for it now. Right To Bear is the legal defense coverage I recommend for church security teams and concealed carriers. If you sign up through the Christian Warrior Training partner link, you get 10 percent off the Security Plan for the life of your membership, and the plan includes the Multi-State add-on covering all 50 states and the Bail Bond add-on. Keep the code CWT at checkout, where it is applied automatically.

Biblical Perspective

Proverbs speaks directly to the difference between weighing what you see and reacting to what you hear.

Proverbs 14:15 (ESV) “The simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps.”

Solomon describes two people receiving the same information. The simple one accepts whatever reaches them and acts on it. The prudent one stops long enough to ask whether it is true and what the next step will cost. On June 14, the safety team in Salt Lake City heard “gun, AR-15,” a description of a man in black with a Confederate flag, and “gun, gun, gun.” Some of that was accurate, and some of it pointed toward a conclusion no one had confirmed. The prosecution made the same point at the hearing when it said each shot should be a conscious decision. A church safety volunteer who has been trained to test a radio report against what they can see is practicing what this verse describes.

Proverbs 19:2 (ESV) “Desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way.”

The desire to protect people is the reason every one of you volunteers. Solomon warns that desire without knowledge goes wrong and that the person who hurries misses the way. Alder wanted to stop a mass shooting. If the prosecution is right, he acted on partial knowledge and in haste, with three or four people between him and his target and a crowd beyond. One of his rounds struck Ah Loo. Sound judgment under pressure comes from training done ahead of time, from a written policy the team knows, and from prayer before the doors open. Those give a volunteer the time and discipline to confirm what they are looking at before they act.

Final Assessment

A safety volunteer saw a man with a rifle in a crowd of thousands, heard “gun, gun, gun” on the radio and fired three times. One of those rounds killed Afa Ah Loo, who had no part in what was unfolding. The man with the rifle was never charged, and the volunteer will stand trial for manslaughter. A jury will decide whether his conduct was reckless or negligent.

Church safety teams work under many of the same conditions that safety team did: crowds, carry laws that differ from state to state, armed volunteers with uneven training, and radio traffic that can run ahead of the facts. Put in writing who may carry and the qualification standard they must meet. Teach the difference between a suspicious person and an imminent threat as it applies in your state. Walk your sanctuary and mark where no shot is safe. Train your team to report what they see on the radio, and get legal defense coverage in place before you need it.

Join the Conversation

If your team has worked through policy for armed volunteers or drilled backstops in your sanctuary, tell us how you did it in the comments. Share this with your pastor and your safety team leader before your next team meeting.

Copyright © 2026 Keith Graves. All rights reserved.

AJ was armed when he came face to face with the active shooter at the Twin Falls In-N-Out. He was shot, his arm was shattered, and when he tried to return fire, his gun went click. There was no round in the chamber.

In this interview, the former police officer walks me through the attack, the actions his wife and friend took to keep him alive, and his ongoing recovery. We examine what went right, what went wrong, and the lessons every concealed carrier and church safety team should hear.

0:00 Coming Up

0:49 Back at the Twin Falls In-N-Out

1:57 The Interview

7:11 The Day of the Shooting

19:20 The Click: No Round in the Chamber

25:13 Saving AJ: The Tourniquet and the Drive to the Hospital

34:37 Lessons: What Went Right, What Went Wrong

45:48 Remembering Lt. Stephen Williams

53:39 The Road Back

57:00 A Call From In-N-Out

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One Year After Grand Blanc, Is Your Church Ready?

On September 28, 2025, four people went to church in Grand Blanc Township, Michigan, and never came home. Their names were Craig Hayden, John Bond, Thelma Armstrong, and William “Pat” Howard. A man drove a truck into their meetinghouse, opened fire, and deliberately set the building ablaze.

An armed member confronted him before police arrived. The police chief credited that member with buying time for others to escape. Yet one year later, the LDS Church continues to prohibit ordinary members from carrying firearms on church property.

That deserves direct criticism. Leadership has revised its security guidance, but the weapons restriction remains. Families attending an ordinary Sunday service are still denied an option that leadership recognizes as appropriate for meetings involving an increased threat.

I believe that response is inadequate. When four people have been murdered in your building, every part of your protection model should be examined, including policies leadership would prefer to leave alone.

Whether your church is Baptist, Catholic, or nondenominational, you need to study this incident. You may have different policies, but you have the same responsibility to take the protection of your congregation seriously.

A fast police response still left people dead

Thomas Jacob Sanford attacked the Grand Blanc congregation with a vehicle, gunfire, and fire. The FBI later described the attack as targeted violence believed to be motivated by hatred toward the Mormon religious community. This was a deliberate attack on people gathered for worship.

The police response was fast. According to the timeline released by authorities, the first 911 call came from someone who had been shot in the stomach. Police were notified 16 seconds later. A conservation officer arrived in less than two minutes after dispatch, followed by a township officer. They confronted and killed Sanford.

I spent 29 years in law enforcement. I understand what responding officers can accomplish, and I understand the limits imposed by travel time. Officers cannot protect someone inside your sanctuary while they are still driving toward your church.

Call police immediately when an emergency develops. But your church also needs people prepared to act before officers arrive. Grand Blanc demonstrated how much damage an attacker can inflict during even a fast response.

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An armed member bought time

Greg Mikat, a hearings investigator with the Michigan Department of Corrections, was carrying a handgun that morning. After the truck struck the building, he went outside and encountered Sanford approaching with a rifle.

Mikat fired five rounds. According to the police investigation, none struck Sanford. Sanford shot Mikat three times in the chest.

Mikat survived. On the anniversary Sunday, he stood before his congregation and conducted the music. Grand Blanc Township Police Chief William “Bill” Renye described him as a hero and credited him with buying time for most of the congregation to escape through the back. The Deseret News anniversary report documents his actions and the chief’s assessment.

Some people will focus on the misses and conclude that his handgun accomplished nothing. That ignores what the police chief said. Mikat confronted a man who was murdering people, and the chief believes that confrontation gave others time to get away.

His courage deserves recognition. His misses also require an honest discussion about training. We can respect what he did while examining what every armed church security volunteer should learn from it.

A carry permit does not establish your ability to stop an attacker. Neither does owning a good handgun or being the person everyone at church considers knowledgeable about firearms. You need to measure your performance.

If you carry, train honestly

I have recommended the Bill Drill for years because it gives you a measurable way to work on your draw, recoil control, and accuracy at speed.

From the holster, draw and fire six rounds into the A zone, the center scoring area of a standard practical shooting target, at seven yards. The performance goal I recommend working toward is under two seconds, with all six rounds in that scoring area.

All six hits count. A fast time with misses does not meet the standard. Build toward that goal at a pace you can safely control, and record both your times and your hits.

The drill does not recreate Grand Blanc or establish that someone is prepared for every emergency. You still need judgment, communication, medical training, and practice with the people who will respond beside you.

But if you carry a handgun to protect a congregation, avoiding meaningful evaluation of your shooting ability is unacceptable. People are depending on you. They deserve demonstrated competence and continued training.

Be honest about what you can do today. Then put in the work to improve it.

The policy needs to be challenged

After Grand Blanc, the church security department sent a letter to leaders of more than 31,000 congregations, asking them to review security and emergency preparations.

The church’s security guidelines updated March 16, 2026 include two greeters at entrances, paired patrols inside and outside, and emergency training that includes Run, Hide, Fight. Those measures have value.

The same guidance calls for four to six current law enforcement officers at high profile meetings or during an increased threat environment. Meanwhile, General Handbook section 35.5.7.2 continues to prohibit firearms and other lethal weapons on church property, including concealed weapons, with an exception for current law enforcement officers.

Leadership recognizes a role for armed protection. It recommends officers under certain circumstances while prohibiting ordinary members from carrying.

Grand Blanc was a Sunday worship meeting. The attacker did not wait for a prominent visitor or a special event. He attacked families gathered for worship.

Leadership should explain why those families cannot have trained, organized armed protection provided by qualified members where applicable law allows it. An ordinary Sunday deserves a serious protection plan.

Hiring police can be part of that plan, but officers are not always available. Leadership still needs an answer for a service when none are present. Who is prepared to protect the congregation during the minutes before responding officers arrive?

My recommendation is to change the policy to permit lawful armed protection by qualified members and establish trained, supported teams at the local level. Set standards, appoint accountable leaders, and provide the resources those teams need.

After Grand Blanc, a letter and revised procedures should not end the discussion. The weapons restriction deserves direct examination.

More fatal shootings followed

On January 7, 2026, a shooting outside a funeral at an LDS meetinghouse in Salt Lake City killed two people and injured six others. Police described a dispute among people attending the funeral. Federal prosecutors later charged two alleged Tongan Crip gang members with firearms offenses related to the investigation. The initial reporting and Justice Department announcement describe those circumstances.

On August 17, a funeral at an LDS meetinghouse in Kearns, Utah, ended with one man dead and two others critically injured. Attendees had warned police that trouble might develop. According to KSL’s reporting, officers were already at the location when they heard gunfire.

Those two shootings and Grand Blanc left seven people dead in less than 11 months. The circumstances differed. The funeral shootings should not be presented as the same kind of targeted religious attack as Grand Blanc, but they demonstrate other threats that can reach church property.

Your team needs to prepare for conflicts brought into funerals, threats against the congregation, and an attacker arriving during worship. Known disputes or gang connections belong in the security assessment before the service begins.

Informal arrangements leave unanswered questions

I have heard from LDS members who tell me they carry despite the policy. Others say they have formed informal teams. That tells me members are concerned enough to act without institutional support, and it raises questions leadership should resolve.

Who knows who is armed? Who has been trained? Who is coordinating the response? Have those people ever trained together?

A church should answer those questions through an organized program. Leaving members to private arrangements creates uncertainty during the emergency when clear responsibilities are essential.

Give the team defined leadership and train together at least monthly. Brief other lawful carriers on expectations so they understand how to avoid interfering with the team or confusing responding officers.

The church’s guidance includes fighting as a last resort. Leadership should examine what its weapons restriction leaves a member facing someone with a rifle. A folding chair may be what is available, but telling someone to improvise does not settle the question of whether qualified armed protection should have been permitted.

Preparation starts outside

Grand Blanc began with a vehicle reaching an occupied building. Every church should examine where a vehicle could drive directly into its sanctuary, classrooms, or gathering areas. Bring those vulnerabilities to leadership and discuss appropriate barriers with qualified professionals.

I teach threat recognition through atmospherics. Know what normal looks like on your property so you can identify behavior that needs attention.

Reckless driving, repeated circling, unusual parking, or an approach that does not fit normal activity should prompt observation and communication. Those behaviors do not automatically establish that someone is an attacker, but your team cannot assess what nobody is watching.

Put a team member outside during services with a radio and a defined responsibility. Make sure that person can communicate a concern to someone with the authority to act.

A vehicle striking a building may be an accident. It may also be the beginning of an attack. Your team needs to assess the situation, move people away from the impact area, and watch for additional danger.

Your congregation needs a plan too

Eyewitness reporting from Grand Blanc describes members helping people evacuate after the crash and facing gunfire as they escaped. The attacker also used gasoline to set the building ablaze.

Your congregation should understand emergency procedures before something happens. Decide who can order an evacuation from the pulpit. Teach classroom leaders their exits and alternatives. Establish a rally point and a system for accounting for children.

Work with your fire department on fire and smoke emergencies. A room used to shelter from gunfire can become dangerous when smoke enters or fire cuts off the exit. Your plan has to account for changing conditions.

A security team cannot personally guide every family and every classroom at once. Members need enough preparation to make informed decisions when they are separated from the team.

Review what your church publishes online as well. Post assignments, patrol schedules, camera locations, and detailed response procedures can expose information useful to someone planning violence. Teach members how to report concerns and respond to emergencies while keeping sensitive deployment details controlled.

Faith does not excuse inaction

In 2 Chronicles 32, Hezekiah learned that an enemy was approaching. He consulted his leaders, repaired defenses, prepared weapons and shields, and appointed commanders. He also encouraged the people to trust the Lord.

Trusting God did not relieve him of the responsibility to repair a broken wall. He took practical steps to prepare the people under his care.

Jeremiah 6:14 rebukes leaders who offered assurances of peace while treating a serious wound lightly. Jeremiah was addressing Judah in a particular historical setting, but that warning should cause us to examine our own leadership.

Are we addressing demonstrated vulnerabilities? Are we taking responsibility for correcting them, or reassuring people while the same weaknesses remain?

Four people were murdered at Grand Blanc. An armed member confronted the attacker, members helped one another escape, and responding officers stopped the killer. One year later, the weapons restriction remains.

I believe leadership should reconsider it and establish trained, supported protection at the congregation level. The families attending an ordinary Sunday service deserve a plan that takes the demonstrated threats seriously.

If you lead a church, bring this discussion to your leadership. If you lead a security team, examine your preparation. If you carry, be honest about your ability to deliver accurate hits and your willingness to train.

Tell me in the comments whether your church has an organized team and whether leadership supports it. Keep operational details private, but share how your church is addressing these responsibilities.

Pray for the families of Craig Hayden, John Bond, Thelma Armstrong, and William Howard. Pray for Greg Mikat and everyone still recovering from that morning. Pray also that people harboring hatred will turn to Christ before they hurt anyone.

Remember the instruction in 1 Corinthians 16:13, ESV: “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.” And remember your ABCs. Always Be Carrying.

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Seats Open for Our Free Michigan and Illinois Classes, and Applications Open for Active Shooter Instructor

We still have seats in both of our free in-person church safety classes next month. The first is Thursday, October 8, from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time at CrossPointe Community Church, 36125 Glenwood Road, Wayne, Michigan. The second is Saturday, October 10, from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Central Time at Immanuel Lutheran Church, 300 Pathway Court, Crystal Lake, Illinois.

Both classes run the same material: recognizing warning signs before a situation escalates, de-escalation, building a team, access control, legal considerations, emergency action plans, working with local police, and keeping a church welcoming while it stays secure. Pastors, church leaders, safety team members, ushers, greeters and volunteers are all welcome, and so are the police officers who work with your church. There is no livestream or online option. Registration is through Eventbrite. Enter the promo code CWT at checkout and the class is free.

* Register for the October 8 class in Wayne, Michigan

* Register for the October 10 class in Crystal Lake, Illinois

The Church Active Shooter Instructor Course (CASIC)

CASIC is a three-day train-the-trainer certification course for church security team members. This is the first time we are running it. You spend three days learning to plan, teach and run active shooter response training, and you go home qualified to train your own team. Students write operations orders and lesson plans during the course, and the scenario days use blank-firing weapons.

Dates: Wednesday, October 28, through Friday, October 30, 2026

Hours: 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Mountain Time each day

Location: Eagle, Idaho

Tuition: $249 for all three days. The normal price of this course is $1,000. We set it at $249 because the mission of Christian Warrior Training is to keep training free or close to free for church security teams.

Class size: 15 students

This first class is aimed at churches in our region. Applicants from Idaho, eastern Oregon and eastern Washington get priority for the open seats. If seats remain after that, we will open them to applicants from anywhere. We plan to run CASIC in other parts of the country in 2027, so if you are farther away and do not get a seat this time, there will be more chances next year.

NO REGISTRATIONS AT THE DOOR. DO NOT COME UNLESS YOU HAVE BEEN AUTHORIZED TO ATTEND.

CASIC prerequisites

CASIC is an instructor course for people who already know active shooter response, basic church security and safe firearms handling. Over three days it teaches you how to train your own team in that material. Every student has to meet the requirements below. A student who cannot document them is not admitted.

We also recommend, but do not require, the following. They are not disqualifying if you do not have them.

* Experience as an instructor in any setting: military, law enforcement, coaching or anything else

* A Stop the Bleed, Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC) or equivalent trauma care course

* Defensive handgun training beyond a basic safety class

* Knowing your state’s use-of-force law as it applies to armed church security

What to send with your application

Email the following to [email protected]:

* Your church letter. Anyone in your chain of command can sign it, including your pastor, an elder, your safety director or your team leader. It needs to state that your church supports you attending CASIC, that you hold an active role on the security team or have authority to start one, and that you have passed a background check through your church.

* Your training certificate from a church security or active shooter response course.

* A copy of your concealed carry permit, or your law enforcement or military credential.

* Your answer to this question, at least two paragraphs long: Describe your current active shooter training background, your role on your church security team, and what you intend to do with this certification at your church.

Include your full name, your church, and your city and state in the email. The signed statement on felony and domestic violence convictions and the enrollment application are completed before the first day of class. If your training background falls short, we will tell you which course to take first so you can apply for a later CASIC class.What to bring

* A laptop. You will write operations orders and lesson plans during the course.

* A full-face mask for the blank-firing scenarios.

* Your church load-out, including your radio, if you want to train in the gear you wear on Sunday.

* A blue gun or a laser trainer such as a TitanX or SIRT pistol, if you have one.

Do not bring firearms, ammunition, knives, pepper spray or any other weapon. None are allowed on site at any point during the course. The blue gun or laser trainer takes the place of your carry gun for every drill.

If your church sits in Idaho, eastern Oregon or eastern Washington, get your letter written this week and send it to [email protected].

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10 Ways to Protect Your Church, in the Right Order

If I walked into your church this Sunday, I might find three men carrying concealed firearms. If I walked around the building, I might also find a back door propped open, a children’s wing anybody can enter, and an alarm nobody has tested.

Those men may be committed, trained, and willing to protect the congregation. But they cannot cover every unsecured entrance, screen every volunteer, or replace a medical response plan. There are other things your church needs to get working, and the order deserves some attention.

Here are ten things you can do to protect your church. This is a way to set priorities, not a complete security plan for every building. Take it to your pastor and safety team, look honestly at what you have, and start with the first item that is unfinished.

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1. A Working Burglar and Fire Alarm

Your building probably sits empty more hours than it is occupied. You need a monitored alarm that covers intrusion and fire, and somebody needs to know that it actually works. Test it regularly and keep the contact list current.

Think about who gets called at two in the morning. I do not want the pastor walking into a building to find out whether a burglar is still inside. Have an appropriate response procedure, and put people on the list who will actually answer the phone. An alarm nobody acts on gives you very little protection.

2. A Useful Video System

I want footage somebody can use after an incident. A well placed camera with a clear view of an entrance is more useful than a pile of cameras that show a blurry figure walking away. Resolution, placement, lighting, and distance all affect whether you can identify a person.

Cover your entrances, children’s areas, offices, sanctuary, and parking lot. Aim for at least 30 days of storage if your system and budget allow it. Then have somebody on your team find a recording and export it. You do not want to discover after an incident that nobody knows how to retrieve the video.

3. Volunteer Screening and Written Safety Policies

Some of the people who can harm a church are people the congregation already knows. That is why child protection and financial safeguards belong near the top of this list. Use appropriate background checks for each position, repeat them on a schedule, and use references, supervision, and a waiting period before a new attender serves with children. A background check will not catch everything.

Put your rules in writing. Who can work with a child? Can someone be alone with a child? Who counts the money? Who receives a report when somebody raises a concern? If your staff and volunteers give different answers, you have work to do. We have free policy examples available at Christian Warrior Training to help you get started.

4. Control Your Doors

Walk your building during a Sunday service and count the doors that are propped open, unlocked, or out of sight. Know which entrances people are supposed to use, and assign somebody to pay attention to them. That side door by the fellowship hall should not let somebody walk through the building unnoticed.

Keep track of keys and access codes, and update access when somebody leaves a position. Every required exit still needs to work immediately from the inside. Have your fire marshal or the appropriate local authority review proposed door changes so controlling entry does not interfere with people getting out.

5. Exterior Lighting

Go to your property after dark. Look at the parking lot, entrances, walkways, and corners around the building. Can someone leaving Wednesday night Bible study see where they are going? Can your cameras record a face, or do you get a black screen with two headlights in it?

Good lighting helps people move safely and helps your team see what is happening. You can spot many of the first problems by taking a walk at night. Write them down and give somebody responsibility for getting them corrected.

6. Children’s Check In and Check Out

Have a clear process for who drops a child off and who is authorized to pick that child up. Use matching tags or another reliable system. Decide ahead of time what happens when a tag is lost, adults dispute a pickup, or a custody restriction applies.

Do not create an exception because the adult is well known and everybody feels uncomfortable saying no. Control access to the children’s area and assign someone to watch it while keeping emergency exits usable. Practice those awkward conversations before you have a parent standing at the door. The free scenario resources under the Training tab at Christian Warrior Training can help your team prepare.

7. A Trained Unarmed Safety Team

Most church safety work happens long before anybody reaches for a weapon. Somebody greets people, watches the parking lot, and notices the person entering the children’s hallway who does not belong there. Somebody needs to speak calmly with a person in crisis and recognize when help is needed.

Train your people to observe behavior, communicate, deescalate, and get the right help. Give each person a clear assignment. A safety team shirt does not tell a volunteer what to do, and good intentions do not replace training.

8. Medical Response

People fall, have trouble breathing, and suffer medical emergencies during services. Your team needs to be ready to help. Put an AED where someone can get to it quickly, train people in CPR and AED use, and make trauma supplies accessible to trained responders. Send your team to Stop the Bleed training.

Assign the jobs before the call happens. Who calls 911? Who brings the equipment? Who meets the ambulance and guides responders to the patient? Practice those assignments so your team can get moving when someone needs help.

9. Team Communications

If a team member sees a problem in the parking lot, how does the person in the children’s wing find out? If the answer is that somebody will try to make a phone call, you need to test whether that is a dependable plan. Give your team radios or another reliable way to communicate throughout the property.

Test communications in the rooms and hallways where signals tend to fail. Use plain language and practice the calls your team may actually make: a missing child, a medical emergency, a concerning person, or an entrance that needs attention. Having radios and knowing how to use them are two separate things.

10. Armed Team Members

I believe armed response can be an important part of church safety. I have made that clear over the years. It is number ten because a firearm cannot secure an open door, screen a children’s volunteer, perform CPR, or tell the rest of the team what is happening.

If your church authorizes armed team members, take that responsibility seriously. Establish written standards for selection, qualification, and ongoing training. Address use of force, communications, identification, insurance, and legal review. Make sure your pastor understands the program he is approving. A concealed carry permit by itself does not prepare someone for every responsibility of serving on a church safety team.

Preparation and Humility

Second Chronicles 26 describes Uzziah fortifying Jerusalem, building towers, securing water, and organizing his men. It also describes the weapons and equipment he provided. There is a lesson there about preparing several parts of a defense and getting people organized.

But keep reading. Verse 16 tells us that when Uzziah became strong, he grew proud, and that pride led to his downfall. He stepped into a role God had not given him. That warning applies to me and to every person serving on a church safety team.

If we begin enjoying the authority or the gear more than we care about the congregation, we need to examine ourselves. We serve the church under its leadership. The people God has placed in front of us are the reason we do this work.

What to Do at Your Next Meeting

Bring these ten items to your next safety team meeting. Mark which ones are actually working, then identify the first unfinished item. Maybe it is the alarm. Maybe it is the children’s checkout procedure. Maybe everybody has a radio, but nobody has tested it in the back hallway.

Make that your next project and keep moving down the list. Tell me in the comments which number your church needs to work on and what is making it difficult. Your answers help me develop training that is useful to your team.

Keep praying for the people who might threaten our churches. Pray that they turn away from violence and come to know Jesus Christ. Keep caring for the congregation, and remember your ABCs: Always Be Carrying.

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Christian creators should not have to fight a faceless system simply to warn churches about crime, but that is exactly what Christian Warrior Training is dealing with right now.

Do social media companies discriminate against Christian creators and Christian channels?

I will let you decide. I can only tell you what Christian Warrior Training is dealing with right now and show you the example Facebook gave me when I finally reached a real person.

This is not a complaint about one post failing to perform well. It is about a platform restricting our ability to reach people, refusing to explain the original violation, and then labeling a basic church security warning as politically divisive.

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How Facebook Helped Us Reach Thousands

Facebook and Instagram have never produced much direct income for Christian Warrior Training. Together, they might bring in a couple hundred dollars in a month. Their real value was distribution.

When Facebook shared our content with people who did not already follow us, those people could watch it, decide whether it was useful, and follow the page if they wanted more. That allowed us to reach Christians, church safety volunteers, pastors, Jewish followers, and others who wanted practical information about protecting their churches and families.

When my daughter Caitlyn took over our Facebook work, the page grew from roughly 1,000 followers to 60,000 in about three months. The growth happened because Facebook was recommending our content. People saw the information, found value in it, and chose to follow us.

Then, in April, everything changed.

Restricted Without an Explanation

Facebook demonetized the page and stopped recommending our content. The notice said we had violated community standards, but it did not tell me what we had posted that supposedly violated those standards.

That leaves a creator trying to correct a problem that Facebook will not identify. You cannot remove the offending post, change your approach, or even make a meaningful appeal when no one will tell you what you allegedly did wrong.

More recently, I received another notice telling me that I had 30 days to appeal or Facebook might take further action against the account. The notice did not clearly explain what that action would be. It could have meant another restriction, or it could have placed the entire Facebook and Instagram presence at risk.

I clicked the appeal button. Nothing happened.

That is a common problem for creators dealing with large social media companies. There is often no obvious phone number, no accessible customer service department, and no person who can explain why an account has been restricted.

Paying for Access to Customer Service

I belong to a Signal group with some of the largest firearms creators online. Several of them told me that purchasing Meta Verified could provide access to customer service. I paid $12.95, worked through the support process, and finally reached someone.

The support representative called to confirm my identity. Communication was difficult at times, but we worked through it. I asked him to open the Christian Warrior Training page and show me the type of post Facebook considered a problem.

The example he selected was a warning about thieves stripping copper, scrap metal, and air conditioning equipment from more than 30 churches in St. Louis.

The post explained that police were seeing a renewed crime wave rather than a few isolated incidents. It warned church leaders about the repeated thefts and offered practical steps they could take to protect buildings that may sit empty for much of the week.

Facebook classified that church crime warning as politically divisive.

Read that again. A post warning churches about theft and helping them protect their property was presented as an example of politically divisive content.

There was no political candidate in the post. There was no political party. There was no election argument. It was a church security warning based on reported criminal activity.

I asked the representative a simple question: If someone is warning people about crime and giving them ways to protect themselves, should that not be the kind of useful information a social media company wants on its platform?

He agreed.

The Appeal Was Rejected While Support Was Helping Me

Facebook then required me to upload identification. I provided a government issued ID while the representative was still helping me by phone.

The system rejected it almost immediately.

The representative was there with me, walking through the process, and the automated system still refused the identification. I spent about an hour on the phone trying to resolve a problem that should never have required this much effort.

As I write this, I am still waiting to learn whether Facebook will accept my identification and restore the page’s ability to reach people.

Why I Am Telling You This

I am sharing this because most viewers never see what happens behind the screen. You may follow a page and assume you will continue to see its posts. That is no longer a safe assumption.

A social media company can stop recommending a creator overnight. It can reduce the audience without clearly identifying the reason. It can threaten further action while providing an appeal button that does not work. The creator may have no meaningful way to reach a person unless he pays for a verification service.

Firearms creators have dealt with these restrictions for years. Content related to the Second Amendment is routinely limited, demonetized, or removed. Christian creators face many of the same problems when they discuss faith, evil, crime, self defense, and the responsibility to protect innocent people.

In this case, Facebook’s own example was not inflammatory or partisan. It was a factual warning intended to help churches prevent theft.

I believe this is censorship. Whatever label Facebook places on it, the practical result is the same: fewer people receive information that can help them protect their church and family, and fewer people hear the message of Jesus Christ.

Do Not Let an Algorithm Decide Whether We Stay Connected

If you follow Christian Warrior Training on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or another platform, please like the page, subscribe, and turn on alerts. Those actions may help, but none of them guarantees that the platform will continue showing you our work.

The best way to stay connected is to subscribe at ChristianWarriorTraining.com.

I send only a few emails each week. I do not spam you, and I do not share your information. If a social media company removes Christian Warrior Training, the email list gives us a way to reconnect somewhere else with as little interruption as possible.

If you can afford a paid subscription, it directly supports this work and helps us continue providing church security information, training, and intelligence. If you cannot afford one, stay on the free list. Take care of your family and tithe to your church first. The people who can support this ministry help keep the information available for those who cannot.

Please pray for Christian Warrior Training. Pray that we can continue reaching the people who need this information. Pray also for the people making these decisions, that they will come to know Christ and understand the effect these restrictions have on others.