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American Christians have been hearing fragments of the Nigeria story for years. A kidnapped schoolgirl. A burned church. A Christmas massacre. What most believers in this country do not have is a clear picture of what is actually happening, who is driving it, and where it is headed. This article is built to fill that gap.

Nigeria is currently the deadliest country in the world for Christians. Open Doors, in its 2026 World Watch List, reports that of the 4,849 Christians killed for their faith over the past reporting year, 3,490 of them were killed in Nigeria. That is more than seventy percent of the global total coming from a single country. The violence is not limited to one region or one group. It runs from the northeast, where Boko Haram first emerged, through the Middle Belt, where Fulani militia attacks have emptied entire villages, into the northwest, where ISIS-linked groups now move freely, and across the borders into Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, Cameroon, and the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

This is a long article. I wrote it that way on purpose. A pastor, a security team leader, or a congregant who wants to understand this situation should be able to come back to a single piece and have the picture in front of them.

The Scale of the Problem

Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa with roughly 220 million people, split about evenly between Muslims in the north and Christians in the south. The Middle Belt sits between the two halves and has become the fault line where most of the killing occurs. The country sits at the southern edge of the Sahel, the arid band that runs across Africa from Senegal in the west to Sudan in the east. Every major jihadist movement currently operating in Africa touches that band somewhere.

The Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa documented 79,323 people killed across Nigeria between October 2019 and September 2025, of whom 42,033 were civilians. Forty-four percent of the civilian killings were attributed to Fulani militias, compared to twelve percent for Boko Haram and ISWAP combined. In the states where attacks occur, Christians were killed at a rate approximately 4.4 times higher than Muslims relative to their share of the population. The count was 22,835 Christian civilians killed against 10,519 Muslims.

The numbers do not capture the displacement. Since 2019, more than 2.2 million Nigerians have been driven from their homes by the farmer-herder violence alone. That figure does not include the millions more displaced by Boko Haram, ISWAP, and the kidnapping gangs that now operate across large portions of the country. Entire Christian farming villages have been burned. Survivors are pushed into displacement camps with conditions that are hard for most Americans to picture.

The Nigerian federal government has refused for more than a decade to name what is happening. In December 2025, Abuja finally classified Fulani militias, bandits, and armed gangs as terrorists under a new counterterrorism doctrine. Most Nigerian Christians view the move as too late and too narrow.

Who the Fulani Are

To understand the Middle Belt, you have to understand who the Fulani are. The American press almost always reduces them to a single word, “herdsmen,” which leaves out everything that matters.

The Fulani, also called Fula, Fulbe, or Peul, are one of the largest ethnic groups on the African continent. Estimates place their population between 25 and 45 million, spread across at least twenty countries, with the largest concentrations in Nigeria, Mali, Guinea, Senegal, Niger, Cameroon, and Burkina Faso. About 17 million Fulani live in Nigeria. They are the largest nomadic pastoral community in the world. Roughly a third of them still live as traditional herders moving cattle across the Sahel. The rest are semi-settled farmers, traders, scholars, merchants, and in many countries, the ruling class.

The Fulani were among the earliest sub-Saharan African peoples to convert to Islam, centuries before most of their neighbors. That early conversion shaped their identity and gave them a sense of religious superiority over the surrounding peoples they regarded as pagans. From the 1700s into the 1800s, Fulani clerics led a series of holy wars across West Africa. The most significant was the jihad launched in 1804 by Usman dan Fodio, a Fulani preacher who declared the existing Hausa kings insufficiently Islamic and called the population to revolt. His jihad swept through what is now northern Nigeria and built the Sokoto Caliphate, one of the largest Islamic empires Africa has ever seen. That caliphate lasted until the British arrived in the early 1900s.

The Sokoto Caliphate is not history to the people in the region. The Sultan of Sokoto is still recognized as the traditional religious leader of Sunni Muslims across northern Nigeria. Many of Nigeria’s most powerful political figures have been Fulani or Hausa-Fulani, including former president Muhammadu Buhari. The Fulani are not a marginal people. They are historically the dominant political force in the north. Elements within the Fulani community view the Christian Middle Belt as territory that was not fully conquered during the original jihad, and there are factions now working to finish what Usman dan Fodio started.

The Fulani are overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim. Settled, urban Fulani tend to be more devout and more supportive of religious activism. Pastoral Fulani have historically been less rigorous in their practice. That pattern has shifted in the past decade.

How the Herder Conflict Became a Religious Campaign

For generations, Fulani cattle herders and settled farmers across West Africa clashed over grazing land, water, and crop damage. These disputes were local and seasonal, and they were usually resolved through traditional mediation. Something changed in the mid-2010s.

A few factors hit at the same time. Climate pressure pushed pastoral Fulani further south into the Middle Belt looking for water and grazing. The collapse of Libya in 2011 flooded the Sahel with military-grade weapons from Gaddafi’s armories. Boko Haram’s rise in the northeast made Islamist violence regionally normal. And the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, a Fulani herders’ organization, has been accused by Nigerian Christians, law enforcement sources, and international observers of financing weapons distribution and coordinating attacks on Christian villages. In February 2026, nine Fulani leaders linked to Miyetti Allah were arraigned in Abuja on 57 terrorism counts for the June 2025 Benue massacre.

Portions of the Fulani were radicalized inside that environment. Jihadist ideology teaches that Christians are infidels who must be subjugated, killed, or forced to convert. That ideology found receptive ground among some of the armed herders. Attackers began chanting “Allahu Akbar” as they raided Christian farming villages. In December 2023, Fulani militants attacked at least 25 Christian communities across three local government areas in Plateau State on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and killed nearly 200 men, women, and children. The Nigerian Red Cross counted 84 communities affected and 29,350 people displaced. In June 2025, an attack on Yelwata village in Benue State killed between 200 and 270 people. In the first two weeks of 2026, Fulani militants killed at least 12 Christians in Plateau, 13 in Benue, and 10 in Taraba State. On January 18, Fulani militants stormed three churches in Kaduna State during Sunday services and abducted 177 Christians. Kaduna State officials initially denied the attack had happened and only admitted it two days later. The captives were released on February 5 after a joint security operation.

The Nigerian government’s response to attacks like these has followed a consistent pattern. Denial. Reclassification as banditry. Arrests made, then released without charges. Very few prosecutions. Families in the Middle Belt no longer trust that anyone will ever answer for the slaughter of their children.

Boko Haram, ISWAP, and the Sahel

The Fulani militia violence did not develop in isolation. It grew up alongside two formally designated terror organizations that have made Nigeria one of the most dangerous countries in the world.

Boko Haram emerged in Borno State in the northeast around 2002. The name is usually translated as “Western education is forbidden.” By 2009 the group was in open armed rebellion against the Nigerian state, bombing churches, kidnapping schoolgirls, and massacring Christian villages. The 2014 kidnapping of 276 girls from Chibok drew brief international attention. Most of those girls never came home.

In 2015, Boko Haram pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. A faction formally rebranded as the Islamic State West Africa Province, known as ISWAP. ISWAP is now the more capable of the two groups. It has used drones against Nigerian military bases, seized weapons from government forces, and operates across the Lake Chad Basin where the borders of Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon meet. After Niger exited the Multinational Joint Task Force in March 2025 and Chad threatened withdrawal, ISWAP exploited the gap and increased attacks on Nigerian military installations in Borno and Yobe states.

A separate ISIS affiliate operates further west. It was originally called the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara and is now known as the Islamic State Sahel Province, or ISSP. ISSP operates mainly in the tri-border region where Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger meet. Since 2024, it has pushed south along the Niger-Nigeria border into Sokoto and Kebbi states in Nigeria’s northwest. That is the region where, on Christmas Day 2025, American forces conducted airstrikes under President Trump’s order. The group that was struck was Lakurawa, an ISIS-linked faction that had moved into the northwest from the Sahel.

The Sahel itself has become the global center of jihadist terrorism. The Global Terrorism Index reports that in 2024, more than half of the 7,555 terrorism deaths recorded worldwide occurred in the region. In 2025 the global total fell to 5,582, with the Sahel still accounting for nearly half. That is the third consecutive year the region has held that position.

The military juntas now ruling Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger have expelled French and American forces, turned to Russian mercenary groups for security support, and watched as jihadist groups expanded their control. Al-Qaeda’s Sahel affiliate, JNIM, launched its largest offensive in more than a decade in late April 2026, attacking security forces across Mali, killing the Malian defense minister, and capturing Kidal, the country’s northernmost regional capital. On January 30, 2026, ISSP militants attacked the international airport in Niger’s capital and the adjoining air base. JNIM struck the same airport again on June 18.

The DRC and the Spread Eastward

The same ISIS movement that drives the violence in West Africa has also taken root 2,000 miles to the east in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A group called the Allied Democratic Forces, originally a Ugandan insurgency, pledged allegiance to ISIS in 2018. It is now known as the Islamic State Central Africa Province, or ISCAP.

ISCAP operates in North Kivu and Ituri provinces in eastern Congo. It has massacred churchgoers during services, beheaded villagers who refused to convert, and imposed jizya, the Islamic tax historically demanded from Christians and Jews living under Islamic rule, on entire farming communities. In 2025 alone, the group killed at least 967 civilians, most or all of them Christian villagers. In February, fighters abducted 70 Christians from the village of Mayba, marched them to a Protestant church in Kasanga, and executed them with machetes. In July they killed 43 people at a church in Komanda. On September 8, they infiltrated a funeral wake in Ntoyo village in North Kivu and killed more than 60 mourners.

Along the Niger-Burkina Faso border, jihadists have announced publicly that every male 15 and older who refuses to convert must pay 50,000 CFA francs in jizya. Christians have been told they will live as slaves if they pay, and that those who refuse may leave the village with nothing but the clothes they are wearing. In Mali’s Mopti region, an armed group imposed a monthly payment of 25,000 CFA francs on every Christian over 18 in the village of Douna-Pen, which is more than half the monthly income of most families in one of the poorest countries on earth.

This is the same playbook ISIS ran in Iraq and Syria. It has been exported to Africa, and the African affiliates have proven harder to dislodge than the original.

Where This Is Going

A few trends will determine what happens next.

The first is the collapse of Western security support across the Sahel. The United States withdrew from Niger in 2024. France has been pushed out of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. Russian private military contractors have stepped into some of the space, but they have focused on protecting the juntas that hired them rather than rolling back jihadist control. Regional counter-terrorism cooperation has fragmented.

The second is the evolution of the United States response. In late 2025, the Trump administration redesignated Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern. On Christmas Day 2025, American forces struck ISIS targets in the country’s northwest. On January 22, 2026, AFRICOM Deputy Commander Lieutenant General John Brennan arrived in Abuja to launch a joint working group established in response to that designation. Whether any of this translates into protection for Middle Belt villages is a different question. Airstrikes work against fixed positions of formally designated terror groups. They do not work well against dispersed Fulani militia fighters who live among civilian populations.

The third is the junction forming between ISSP in the Sahel and ISWAP in the Lake Chad Basin. Analysts with the Soufan Center and other counter-terrorism organizations have been tracking the growing connections between these two ISIS provinces. If they succeed in linking operationally across the northern half of West Africa, the result will be a continuous jihadist corridor stretching from the Atlantic coast to Lake Chad.

The fourth is the ideological trajectory of the Fulani militias. What began as resource disputes has moved into identity-based violence with explicit religious framing. Attacks timed to Sunday services, coordinated assaults on Christmas, and the targeting of church leaders are not features of a grazing dispute. They are features of a religious war.

The fifth is demographic. Nigeria’s population is projected to pass 400 million by 2050. If current patterns continue, the Middle Belt Christian population will either be displaced, converted, or killed over the course of a generation. Some Nigerian bishops and African scholars are using the word genocide. Others dispute it. Arguments over terminology do not save lives.

A Biblical Lens

Scripture does not promise that the faithful will be spared.

Jesus told His followers plainly in John 15:18-19, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”

Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:12, “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” That verse is not a metaphor. It is a description of what following Christ has always cost.

The author of Hebrews describes those who came before us in Hebrews 11:37-38, “They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated, of whom the world was not worthy, wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.” Our brothers and sisters in Nigeria’s Middle Belt villages are standing in that line. They are part of the body of Christ.

Scripture also gives us the response. Paul commanded the church in Galatia in Galatians 6:2, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” That burden-bearing is not optional. It is what the law of Christ requires.

Conclusion

The persecution of Nigerian Christians is the deadliest ongoing attack on the body of Christ in the world today. It is driven by Fulani militia violence, Boko Haram, ISWAP, and the broader Sahel-wide expansion of ISIS-affiliated groups. It has roots going back to the Sokoto Caliphate of the 1800s. It has been shaped by the collapse of Libya, the radicalization of portions of the Fulani population, and the indifference or complicity of the Nigerian federal government. It is spreading, not contracting, and the entire arc of jihadist violence across Africa, from Senegal to the DRC, is part of the same network.

Pray for the Nigerian church by name. Support the organizations reaching Christians on the ground with aid and protection. Keep pressure on Washington to maintain the pressure on Abuja. Share this with your pastor and your team.

Leave a comment below and tell me what you have seen about Nigeria in your own church conversations. Then share this article with your pastor or team leader so they have it as a reference the next time the topic comes up.

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Words can’t do justice when trying to describe what Stephen Willeford did that day. I have become friends with Stephen since this interview and what I have found out about him is amazing. Come join me as we talk about how he interrupted the worst church shooting in modern American history.

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An insurance underwriter put it in writing this summer:

“It is a hard no, even if just in classroom. We do not intend to cover being told it is ok to use any weapon or how to use one.”

Not live fire. Not force on force. Not putting a gun in anyone’s hand. Being told. A church security instructor standing in a classroom, explaining when the law allows a man to defend his congregation, is conduct that carrier will not touch. That sentence came from RSUI’s underwriter, relayed to me in writing by my broker on July 10, after I asked whether the weapons exclusion on their quote could be amended. I have the email. I will show it to you in the video that goes with this article.

That quote is the end of the story. Here is the beginning.

Five clean years, then one honest answer

Graves and Associates has carried professional liability and general liability since July of 2021. Five years, zero claims, premiums paid on time. This spring the renewal quote came in at $3,621 and I did what I teach every one of you to do with any contract: I read the whole policy before signing. I found a terrorism exclusion that appeared to apply across every insuring clause, no cyber coverage at all, and a business activities description that did not clearly include the instructor training courses I plan to launch. So I asked six questions in writing before binding. Would a negligence claim be covered if a church I trained were attacked. What does the terrorism endorsement actually restore. Does the policy cover instructor certification.

The carrier’s answer was to pull the renewal entirely. Their stated reason, word for word: “Given the significant changes to the risk profile, including hands-on training, potential safety and evasion guidance, general security advisory services, and product sales, together with our review of the additional website, the account unfortunately now falls outside of our underwriting appetite.”

Safety and evasion guidance. Teaching people how to not die put me outside their appetite. They offered me an extension to August 1 for another $157 so I could go find somebody else.

Everybody said no

My broker marketed the account to the standard carriers: Liberty Mutual, The Hartford, Nationwide, Guard, Travelers. Every one declined. The nature of the business was outside their appetite. She went to the surplus lines markets, the specialty carriers that exist specifically for hard risks. Higher premiums, declines, or blocked submissions. A firearms industry program I applied to directly denied the application. By July 15 my broker told me plainly that she had reached the end of the companies she could approach. The one general liability quote she could secure came from RSUI, and it carried the weapons exclusion you read at the top of this article. When I asked if the exclusion could be removed for classroom instruction with inert training aids, laser trainers and blue plastic guns, nothing that fires anything, the answer was the hard no.

Some of you are thinking there must be more to it. A claim, a lawsuit, something in the file. There is not. Five years, zero losses, and the loss runs to prove it. What changed was that I told the truth on a renewal application about where this ministry is headed. Honesty is what triggered all of it, and I would do it again, because a policy bound on an incomplete application is worse than no policy at all. Buried in the conditions of that same policy was an application warranty stating that any misrepresentation or non-disclosure renders the policy null and void and relieves the carrier of all liability. Plenty of trainers in this industry are paying premiums right now on policies their carriers would void the day a claim arrived, because the application never mentioned what they actually teach.

The part that should make you angry

The insurance industry does not treat church violence as a fringe concern. Carriers that serve churches publish active shooter preparedness guidance. They distribute security checklists. They recommend congregations assess their vulnerabilities and train their people. The industry’s own risk materials tell churches to prepare for exactly the attack my courses address.

Then the trainer shows up to buy coverage and the same industry says no. They will insure the church that receives the training. They will publish the checklist telling the church to get it. They will not cover the man who provides it, and one of them will not even cover him for talking about it in a classroom. I spent almost thirty years in law enforcement and I have sat across the table from people doing things they knew were indefensible. They at least had the decency to look uncomfortable. This industry put its position on letterhead.

How it got solved, and the disclosure that goes with it

What cold submissions could not do, a relationship did. Most of you know I work with Right To Bear, and I will say plainly what I say every time: I am an affiliate, they sponsor this ministry, and there is a link below. Weigh that however you want. The facts are the facts either way. When I told them what was happening, their owner connected me with his brokerage, Moultrie Insurance, a firm that lives in the self defense world and was not scared of the words church security. Within weeks Moultrie placed what six months of shopping could not: general liability through Kinsale, an A rated carrier, and professional liability through Lloyd’s of London, written for a company whose application says in plain language that it teaches active shooter response and instructor courses. Classroom based, laser trainers and blue guns, no live fire, no simunition, all of it disclosed and all of it on the record.

The price of being insured honestly is about $9,000 a year, roughly two and a half times what the old policy cost. That is the market telling you what this work is worth to insure when the carrier actually knows what you do. I will take accurate and expensive over cheap and void every day of the week.

Two questions to send your broker this week

If you train church security teams, or you are the safety director who brings trainers in, do not assume your coverage works. Claims made policies plus application warranties mean the policy you are paying for is only as good as what your application disclosed. So send your broker two questions in writing and keep the answers.

Does my policy contain a weapons exclusion, and does it apply to instruction? Not range work, instruction. You now know at least one carrier reads that exclusion to bar being told how to use a weapon in a classroom.

Does my carrier know exactly what I teach? Active shooter response, defensive tactics, firearms content, all of it, in writing, on the application. If the answer is no, fix it before you teach another class, because you will not find out what that omission costs until the worst day of your career, and by then the answer is already written into Condition 4.

I got my answers the hard way so you can get yours with an email. Send it this week.

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Please watch the video. I am looking for info from followers on the shooting at a church in Kearns, UT today.

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In this video, I walk through what I carry to church and why I have chosen each piece of equipment. If you carry a firearm as part of a church safety team or simply as a concealed carrier attending church, I think you need to look seriously at whether your equipment matches the threat you believe you may have to face. I cover my normal handgun setup, a smaller concealed carry option, communications, less lethal options, body armor, medical gear, and the equipment I keep available if an incident requires me to move from a handgun to a rifle. You can carry capable equipment without walking into church looking like you are headed to a SWAT callout. The goal is to blend in during normal church activities while having the equipment, training, and options necessary to protect the congregation if something happens.

Gear Mentioned in the Video

Firearms and Firearm Equipment

* Glock 45, 9mm

* Glock 20, 10mm, my normal church carry handgun

* Glock 43X, discussed as a smaller concealed carry option

* .300 Blackout rifle/carbine

* Speer Gold Dot 9mm ammunition

* Trijicon SRO red dot optic

* Aimpoint COA red dot optic, on the Glock 43X

* Radian barrel and compensator

* Radian Magwell

* Streamlight TLR 1 HP X weapon light

* Palmetto State Armory Dagger magazines, 15 round magazines used with my Glock 43X

Holsters and Load Carrying Equipment

* T.REX Arms inside the waistband holster GET 15% off with code CWT

* T.REX Arms Bailout Bag / Active Shooter Bag GET 15% off with code CWT

T.REX Arms discount: Use code CWT for 15% off eligible equipment.

Body Armor

* Premier Body Armor GT plates

* Premier Body Armor soft body armor

* T.REX Arms concealable hard armor / covert plate carrier

* Security identification placards

Communications

* PocLink radio

Less Lethal

* POM MK 3 pepper spray

Medical and Support Equipment

* T Rex Arms Med Pouch (use code CWT for a 15% discount)

Clothing and Footwear

* Poncho button down shirt

* KÜHL hiking pants

* Altama shoes

The specific clothing is less important than the concept behind it. I want clothing that allows me to blend in with the congregation while still being able to move, run, access my firearm, and carry the equipment I need without advertising everything I have on me.

The video goes into considerably more detail about how these pieces work together and why I have different options available depending on what happens. My basic approach is simple: armor, bag, and carbine.

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This week’s Roll Call Briefing examines a planned hostage attack against a Florida church and the warning signs investigators uncovered before the suspect could act. We also cover the shooting of a family returning home from church, several developing terrorism concerns, violent incidents affecting churches, and how safety teams should respond when an armed suspect takes hostages.

* A Florida suspect who allegedly cased a church and planned to take hostages

* A family’s vehicle struck by gunfire while they were returning home from church

* ISIS claims involving the deaths of Christians in the Congo

* Pro ISIS requests for explosives, poison, and drone instructions

* Iranian cyberattacks against American water systems

* A bomb threat, suspicious death, and sex offender case involving churches

* Recognizing leakage and pre-attack reconnaissance

* Understanding hostage and barricaded incidents

* Psalm 144:1 and the responsibility to prepare

DOWNLOAD THE ROLL CALL BRIEFING HANDOUT 👇

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What Is In This Week’s Briefing

✅ Current threat level determination and the reasoning behind holding at Orange

✅ Alert posture for the week, including staffing and protocol guidance

✅ 3 intelligence items covering a mass shooting stopped by armed citizens, a foreign paid-attacker network now operating in North America, and juvenile self-radicalization targeting schools

✅ 4 church incidents from the past 3 weeks, each with the security lesson attached

✅ Training focus with 5 leader prompts you can read straight off the page at roll call

✅ Briefing intent with this week’s Scripture for your team

✅ Personnel assignment grid and the daily checklist

Why The Paywall Is Back

The Roll Call Briefing has always been a for those that are gracious enough to support CWT. If it weren’t for them, we could not do any of this. I opened it up in April because the threat picture at that time involved specific dangers I wanted in front of every church in the country, whether they paid or not. Those threats have passed. New ones have taken their place, but the picture is more settled, and the reason I opened the gate no longer applies. So the paywall returns.

Understand what you are and are not losing. The underlying information is still free. Every incident in this briefing appears in the Saturday Church Crime Newsletter at no cost to you. What the paid briefing gives you is the format: a finished, printable sheet you can put in your team leader’s hand before he steps in front of his people to brief a shift. That work takes hours every week, and it is what the subscription pays for. It helps pay for the analysis and personnel who help me put this all together.

The Training Stays Free

The free training at christianwarriortraining.com is not moving behind a paywall and never will. Every intelligence analysis we publish carries a training element you can take straight to your team, and every year we release a training matrix you can use to schedule your people out for the full year. If your budget is tight, use those. They are there for you.

If your church is getting value out of these briefings, forward this to your pastor or your team leader. Then drop a comment below and tell me what your team is working on this month.

DOWNLOAD THE ROLL CALL BRIEFING SHEET BELOW👇

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Download the Briefing Here ↓

This week, ISIS claims more than 100 people killed or wounded, including 80 Christians, while eight separate incidents were reported at American churches.

We also look at new attack material aimed at lone actors, four threats against U.S. churches, two shootings on or near church property, and how church safety teams can protect outdoor gatherings from vehicle attacks.

CWT publications and videos like this only happen because of paid subscribers. Without them, this all disappears.

You Are a Ministry First: Church Security Without Fear

Fear is a terrible commander. When fear leads, it distorts everything. It turns every stranger into a suspect. It slowly and quietly transforms the people of God into a team of threat assessors rather than ambassadors of the Gospel. And if we are not careful, fear can reframe the entire mission of the church away from what Christ called us to do and toward what we are terrified might happen.

This article is a pushback against that fear. Not a dismissal of it. Not an excuse to be careless. A pushback grounded in data, in Scripture, and in a story that happened just this week at one of our campuses that reminded me exactly why we do what we do.

What the Numbers Actually Say

There are approximately 350,000 to 370,000 churches in the United States. Every single week, millions of believers gather across those congregations for worship services, many of them holding multiple services on a single Sunday. If we assume each congregation meets at least once per week, that is a minimum of 19,656,000 church services every year in the United States.

Now let’s look at the threat against that backdrop.

Between 2000 and 2025, researchers tracking violence at religious institutions recorded 246 shooting events across churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples combined, with 402 victims total. From 2000 to 2024, a separate dataset recorded 379 incidents and 487 deaths at religious congregations, most of them involving a single victim.

Let that sink in. Nearly twenty million church gatherings every year, and across a quarter century, fewer than 500 deaths total across every type of religious institution in the country. When you narrow the lens to Christian churches specifically and compare the number of incidents against the number of services held, your odds of being in a church service where a shooting occurs are roughly 1 in 6,552,000.

That number is not designed to make you feel invincible. It is designed to put reality back in its proper place. One of the enemy’s most effective weapons is not a firearm. It is intimidation. It is making the threat feel so large and so inevitable that the church begins to operate out of dread instead of faith.

Prepared, Not Paralyzed

Hear this clearly, because this is not an argument against training. The odds are absolutely in your favor that your congregation will never face a serious threat. But if your congregation does face one, the odds will not matter much in that moment. That is why we train. That is why we build teams, run drills, study behavior, and take this work seriously. The people sitting in those pews trust us with their lives, and we owe them our very best preparation.

So yes, train hard. Be vigilant. Know your exits, know your sight lines, know your people. Build a team that can respond with speed and decisiveness if the moment ever demands it. But do not let the training become the mission. Do not let preparedness become paranoia. There is a critical difference between a church that is ready and a church that is afraid, and that difference shows up in how your team treats every person who walks through the door.

The Story That Started This Article

This past Sunday, something happened at one of our campuses that I have not been able to stop thinking about. A young man walked in and caught the attention of our security team. Something felt off about his demeanor and the way he was carrying himself. The team noticed and made contact. But instead of leading with suspicion, one of our guys looked at this young man and said simply: “You look like a man who needs a hug.”

That is church security done right. That single approach, calm and compassionate and confident, accomplished two things at once. It made contact with someone who had been flagged as a potential concern, and it opened a door.

It turns out this young man is not a threat at all. He is a young father with an infant at home and a marriage that is falling apart. He came to church because something drew him there, and I believe that something was the Holy Spirit. He did not know where else to go. Our team surrounded him with love and connected him with our men’s group. We welcomed him into the community.

That is not a security failure. That is a ministry success, and it only happened because our team understood that their job is bigger than threat response.

You Can Do Both

One of the lies that creeps into security culture is the idea that you have to choose between being a security team and being a ministry. Either you are watchful or you are welcoming. Either you protect the congregation or you love the stranger at the door. That is a false choice, and experienced teams know it.

The same awareness that allows a trained team member to identify a behavioral anomaly also allows them to recognize someone who is hurting. The same calm that keeps a person steady under pressure is the same calm that communicates safety to a broken young man who walked into your building desperate for help. Security team members are not bouncers. They are not law enforcement officers on loan to the church. They are members of the body of Christ carrying a responsibility that is both physical and spiritual. Sometimes that responsibility looks like stopping a threat. More often than we might expect, it looks like being the first person who made a desperate human being feel seen.

Your team needs to understand both, and your training program should reflect both.

What the Word Says

God anticipated our fear. He did not ignore it or dismiss it. He addressed it directly.

“Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” — Isaiah 41:10 (ESV)

That verse is not a promise that nothing bad will ever happen. It is a declaration about who holds us when it does. Our security ultimately rests not in a team, a protocol, or a statistic, but in the sovereignty of the God we serve. We prepare because we are stewards. We train because lives matter. But we do not live in fear, because a church that operates out of dread has already lost something essential before a single shot is ever fired.

The congregation is not a fortress to be defended. It is a place where broken people come looking for hope, and your security team is often the first face they see.

The Charge

Stay trained. Stay alert. Stay ready. But stay ministry-minded. Remember that the person walking through your door who looks different, acts nervous, or sets off your radar may not be a threat at all. They may be exactly who the church was built for.

You can protect your congregation and still be the hands and feet of Jesus. You can run a serious, capable security operation and still be the person who looks a struggling young father in the eyes and says, “You look like a man who needs a hug.” That is not weakness. That is the Gospel lived out in real time by people who took their calling seriously enough to show up, get trained, and stay ready for whatever walks through the door.

Train like a warrior. Love like a shepherd. Never let fear define what your church is supposed to be.

Did this article challenge the way you think about your role on your security team? Leave a comment below and share it with your pastor or team leader. This is a conversation the whole church needs to have.

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TERRORISM AND INTELLIGENCE

Islamic State Is Treating Churches as a Standing Target Set on Three Continents

Indago’s Islamic State assessment for the week ending July 20 identifies attacks on religious sites as a coordinated strategy running across Nigeria, Syria, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The assessment states that detained Islamic State members in Syria gave confessions outlining plans to bomb Christian churches and Shia shrines to deepen societal divisions, and that affiliates in West and Central Africa are systematically targeting Christian villages and burning homes alongside military assets. The report places churches on its priority target watchlist for Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Nigeria, and the DRC, citing demonstrated planning and execution capability against Christian places of worship. It also assesses that Islamic State in Syria has shifted away from targeting armed opposition factions and toward religious minority sites in order to maximize sectarian friction in the post-Assad security vacuum.

[Source: Indago Situation Report, Islamic State Weekly Update, 20 July 2026]

🛡️ My thoughts: this is something that I assessed long ago, but it’s nice to see another intelligence organization back it up. Many of you are running missions in these areas. You need to have a plan and you need to have safe houses that you can go to in the event of an emergency. I suggest that you get training in survival, evasion, resistance and escape before you go to one of these countries to help Christians.

ISIS-K Poster Names the US Capitol and Ties the Call to the World Cup

On July 14, the Islamic State Khorasan-linked al-Azaim Media Foundation released a poster depicting the United States Capitol and the Eiffel Tower as targets, carrying the message “Kill Them. Seize Them. Besiege Them” drawn from a Quranic verse. The release was timed to France’s Bastille Day and to the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Indago assesses the poster as direct incitement to attack soft targets in the United States and France during high-profile events, and notes Islamic State media has been calling for attacks on World Cup host cities and venues since June 18. The National Counterterrorism Center listed the same poster in its terrorist publications compendium for the week of July 16 through 22. Indago names lone-actor vehicle ramming, knife, and explosives attacks against crowd gatherings as the highest-probability threat vector.

[Source: NCTC Counterterrorism Digest, 16 to 22 July 2026, and Indago Islamic State Weekly Update, citing MEMRI JTTM]

🛡️ My thoughts: this message is inciting lone actors within the United States. We saw that in New York City this week when a man did exactly what ISIS asked them to do. He poured gasoline and used fireworks as an IED to attack a federal building there. What if he decided to go after a church instead of the federal building? Would you be prepared for that? Some church security trainers are saying that I am over stating these threats. Ezekiel 33 tells us to sound the trumpet when we see danger. I am doing that now, and I think those trainers need to change their attitude and do the same. The chances of an attack at your church are very minimal, but it’s not zero. We know it will happen to somebody, I pray that they are prepared.

Federal Data Shows Homegrown Islamic State Supporters Are Staying Home and Planning Here

The NCTC spotlight this week summarizes research from the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center on American Islamic State supporters. The United States has federally charged 272 people with Islamic State-related crimes since 2014. Defendants ranged in age from 17 to 56 with an average age of 27, 83 percent held United States citizenship or permanent legal resident status, and 91 percent were male. Cases per year have been climbing since 2023. Roughly 35 percent of defendants in the post-caliphate period attempted to travel overseas, and no traveler has successfully reached a destination since 2019. The spotlight highlights the January 2026 indictment of Christian Sturdivant, 18, arrested in December 2025 after authorities determined he allegedly planned to use knives and hammers in a New Year’s Eve attack on a grocery store and a fast-food restaurant in North Carolina.

[Source: NCTC Counterterrorism Digest, 16 to 22 July 2026, citing NCITE and the US Department of Justice]

🛡️ My thoughts: you should see a theme here. The danger to our church and synagogues is growing. Look at the information they put out and use that to help you in your threat assessments in your situational awareness while you’re working.

Seven Federal Agencies Updated a Warning That Iranian Cyber Actors Are Inside US Utility Controls

The FBI, CISA, NSA, EPA, Department of Energy, US Cyber Command, and Treasury updated a joint cybersecurity advisory on July 22 covering Iranian-affiliated cyber actors exploiting internet-connected programmable logic controllers across United States critical infrastructure. The advisory names Government Services and Facilities, including local municipalities, Water and Wastewater Systems, and Energy as affected sectors. Investigators found that after the actors extracted device project files, they modified and deleted program logic and manipulated the data shown on operator displays, and that the changes disabled shutdown and alarm logic so systems could enter unsafe conditions without alerting operators. The July 22 update expanded the manufacturer scope beyond Rockwell Automation to include Schneider Electric and Siemens controllers. The agencies state the targeting escalated in response to hostilities between Iran and the United States and Israel.

[Source: Joint Cybersecurity Advisory AA26-097A, updated 22 July 2026]

🛡️ My thoughts: you should be very concerned about this report. It is a signal that they can shut off our power and water. Are you prepared for this? What if your region suddenly has no electricity? Our societal contract will start breaking down. Food and water shortages will occur. Access to medicine and health will be declined. I suggest you have 90 days of food and water on hand in a team of people that know how to survive. The government has been warning us and we should be listening and not dismissing it. The Bible tells us this is coming. Be a good steward to your people.

Three European Cases This Month Involve Minors Building Devices and Selecting Religious Targets

Munich prosecutors charged a 15-year-old Islamic State sympathizer from Augsburg, Germany with plotting a terrorist attack on a synagogue and with illegal handling of explosives, and stated the teen had obtained a large quantity of explosive material. In October 2025 that same teen detonated a homemade device that blew off two of his fingers and injured an associate. In Italy, the Polizia di Stato announced on July 17 the arrest of a 17-year-old Italian girl in Pavia for participation in an association with the purpose of international terrorism, after a search of her home recovered detailed instructions for making an explosive belt along with conversations with presumed Islamic State associates. In the United Kingdom, Kingston Crown Court convicted 16-year-old Yusuf Shah on July 15 of collecting terrorist materials and providing instruction in the preparation of acts of terrorism, with authorities stating he had expressed support for al-Qa’ida and the Pakistani Taliban on social media beginning at age 13.

[Source: NCTC Counterterrorism Digest, 16 to 22 July 2026, citing the Munich Public Prosecutor’s Office, Polizia di Stato, and the UK Metropolitan Police]

Islamic State Fighters Hit a Girls’ School at 1:30 in the Morning With Inside Help

On July 19, Islamic State West Africa Province fighters attempted a mass abduction of students at the Federal Government Girls College in Monguno, Borno State, Nigeria. The assault came at roughly 1:30 a.m. against a facility being used as a hostel. Nigerian troops foiled the attack and rescued 46 students, though reporting states some were fatally struck during the firefight. Indago assesses the operation involved suspected collaborator assistance and signals intent to run complex, multi-element operations against soft civilian infrastructure. Nigerian forces separately arrested a suspected Moroccan Islamic State operative embedded with ISWAP on July 14 following a failed attack at Cross Kauwa, and Operation Hadin Kai troops arrested a woman at a Borno checkpoint on July 13 who had concealed 17 flashlights and 19 batteries inside her clothing intended for Boko Haram and ISWAP.

[Source: Indago Islamic State Weekly Update, citing Channels Television, and NCTC Counterterrorism Digest, citing The Sun Nigeria]

The Islamic State’s Own Weekly Ledger Counts Christians as Two Thirds of Its Victims

Issue 556 of the Islamic State’s Arabic weekly newspaper al-Naba, dated 2 Safar 1448 and covering roughly July 9 through July 15, opens with a full-page infographic tallying the group’s claimed results. It claims 21 operations and more than 34 killed and wounded for the week. It sorts those casualties into three categories of its own choosing: 23 it labels Crusaders, a term it applies both to Christians and to the armies of Christian-majority governments, 10 it labels infidels and apostates, and 1 it labels Shia. It also claims 3 officers killed, 12 vehicles burned or disabled, and 4 military positions burned. Operations break down as 13 in West Africa, 5 in Central Africa, 2 in Mozambique, and 1 in Iraq, with casualties concentrated at 19 in Central Africa and 13 in West Africa. By the organization’s own bookkeeping, Christians account for roughly two thirds of everyone it claims to have killed or wounded that week.

[Source: al-Naba issue 556, page 2 infographic, translated from Arabic]

Islamic State Named the Christian Villages It Raided and Described Cutting Captives’ Throats

Al-Naba 556 details raids on named Christian villages across two continents. In Borno State, Nigeria, fighters raided the village of Kautama on a Thursday, burned a vehicle and a number of homes, and took a motorcycle and other property. In Adamawa State they raided the village of Sura on a Monday, killed two Christians, and burned a vehicle, a motorcycle, and 10 homes. West Africa totals for the week include 3 Christians killed and 15 homes burned. The group separately states that on a Wednesday it shot and killed a member of a Christian organization after having captured him earlier on the road between Gubio and Kareto in Borno. In eastern Congo, fighters captured 5 Christians from around Beni village and killed them by cutting their throats, and the same day raided the Christian village of Mangina, killing at least 4 more and burning a home. That Mangina raid converts to July 14, the same date and the same village where Open Doors reported 6 killed including a church elder and a worship leader, covered in the International section below. Throughout, the publication calls these civilians “the fighting Christians,” which is the wording the organization uses to reclassify noncombatants as legitimate targets.

[Source: al-Naba issue 556, pages 4 and 5, translated from Arabic]

The Islamic State Published a Full Page on the Religious Merit of Standing Guard

The back page of al-Naba 556 is an infographic devoted to the virtue of sentry duty, assembled entirely from classical hadith and scholarly commentary. It compiles narrations holding that a night spent on watch outweighs a month of fasting and night prayer, that the eye which keeps watch will not be touched by fire, that a guard standing post in a land of fear is better than the Night of Decree, and that a man who guards other people in a place where the enemy is feared earns the standing of one stationed at the frontier. The page carries no operational content and makes no claims of attacks. It exists to make guard duty feel spiritually valuable to the people performing it.

[Source: al-Naba issue 556, page 8 infographic, translated from Arabic]

🛡️ My thoughts: That is dedication. Are you dedicated to protecting your church? We need to be more dedicated to our mission than the enemy.

VIOLENT CRIME

Five Shot Outside Detroit Church During Funeral — Detroit, Michigan

Five people were shot outside Greater Love Tabernacle Church on Plymouth Road on Detroit’s west side on Friday, July 17, 2026. Police Chief Todd Bettison said a physical fight broke out at about 5:48 p.m. during a funeral at the church, and one man involved in the fight produced a handgun and fired into the crowd. Officers were already posted in the area because Detroit police had received information about threats of violence tied to a separate visitation at the O.H. Pye III Funeral Home across the street. An officer who responded to the fight witnessed the shooting and returned fire, striking the shooter. Four victims and the suspected shooter were struck in the lower extremities, all were expected to survive, and the suspect was taken into custody.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: Watch the video above for my thoughts.

Gunfire Interrupts Funeral at Little Rock Church, Two Charged — Little Rock, Arkansas

Little Rock police responded to a shots fired call at Fellowship Christian Church, 8923 Sunset Lane, at about 2:10 p.m. on Saturday, July 18, 2026, during the funeral of 18-year-old Dillan Cheeter. Detectives already near the scene heard the gunshots and saw a vehicle leave northbound toward Baseline Road. Officers followed and stopped the vehicle, which carried 21-year-old Maddison Jackson and an unidentified minor. Jackson was charged with unlawful discharge of a firearm, unauthorized use of another person’s property, furnishing a handgun to a minor, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and the minor was charged with unlawful discharge of a firearm and possession of a handgun by a minor. No one inside the church was injured, though mourners jumped over pews and ran for the doors, and the building was held as a crime scene. Cheeter had been fatally shot on July 5 in the 5100 block of Asher Avenue.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: Are you seeing the potential threats that funerals can have at your church? What are you proactively doing to protect your church during funerals? You need to determine how the person died, do they have family conflicts? If the dead is a gang member or criminal, expect rivals to come to take out friends that will show up.

Man Found Dead Behind Frayser Church, Death Investigated as Homicide — Memphis, Tennessee

Memphis police responded to a call just after 4 p.m. on Monday, July 20, 2026, in the 3700 block of North Watkins Street in the Frayser neighborhood, near Pursuit of God Church. Officers found a man behind the church, and he was pronounced dead at the scene. Police said the call came in as a report of a suspicious person. Investigators have not said how the man died, and the department is working the case as a homicide. No suspect has been named, and anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 901-528-CASH.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: We don’t know how he died. What we do know: people that are fleeing danger often go to a church to seek refuge. We see this almost every week here. A 4k video system helps with security by having active monitoring AND it helps document crimes on the property and helps law enforcement find out what happened and who the perpetrators are.

Man in Crisis Detained Outside Catholic Church — Laredo, Texas

Laredo police responded to a call outside St. John Neumann Catholic Church at 102 West Hillside Road on Sunday, July 19, 2026. Officers said the call involved a man in crisis outside the church. Police detained the man and found no weapons. Authorities said the entire incident took place outside the building and that nothing occurred inside the church. The scene was cleared, and police have not released additional details.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: Not really a violent crime, but I’m putting it in here so you understand people in crisis come to the church for help. I see it at my church a couple of times a year. We need to help them. Sometimes we can’t and we need to call the police to help them. Just have a plan and keep this in your scenario line up.

Man Charged With Terror Threats Against Willow Creek Community Church — South Barrington, Illinois

Ryan Kang, 26, of Vernon Hills, Illinois, was charged with two counts of terrorism by false threat, a Class 1 felony, after police say he posted threats of violence on social media. The Vernon Hills Police Department opened the investigation after multiple people, including members of Kang’s own family, reported the posts. Deputy Police Chief Shannon Holubetz said the threats referenced school shootings, bombings, and acts of interpersonal violence, and were directed at Vernon Hills High School, Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, and several out-of-state residents. Police said Kang admitted to authoring the posts and that investigators determined he did not have the means or ability to carry out an attack. Kang was arrested on Saturday, July 18, 2026, and the department announced the charges on Tuesday, July 21. Willow Creek leadership said South Barrington police notified the church on Saturday and that there was no risk to Sunday services or other scheduled events.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: take these threats seriously! If somebody says that they’re going to do something to you, take it as a real threat. That means you have to respond to it in an appropriate way. Do not dismiss it and tell yourself that the person never really would do something. They absolutely would! That’s why they said it. If you dismiss that you are putting your people at risk.

SEX CRIMES

Church and School Leaders Charged in Pawleys Island Sex Offender Case — Pawleys Island, South Carolina

Georgetown County Sheriff Carter Weaver announced criminal charges on Monday, July 20, 2026, against former Pawleys Island Community Church pastor Don Williams, his wife and church guest services director Ginny Williams, and Pawleys Island Christian Academy director Jennifer “Niki” Howard, and re-arrested Warren Perry, the registered sex offender whose probation violation arrest opened the case. Don Williams and Howard are charged with obstruction of justice, unlawfully placing a child at risk, and criminal conspiracy, and Ginny Williams and Perry are charged with obstruction of justice and criminal conspiracy. Weaver said Perry had worked at the church since roughly 2020 and was serving as a custodian seven days a week at the academy, which enrolls children from six weeks old through kindergarten. Investigators obtained sworn statements, search warrants, and photographs placing Perry in close proximity to children, and Weaver played video at the press conference of Don Williams telling a deputy that Perry had never been around minors. All three church and school leaders resigned on July 17, Perry was denied bond on July 21, Howard was granted bonds totaling $75,000, and four lawsuits have since been filed against the church and the academy.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: I really need to do a more in-depth article and video on this incident. What this church leadership did is more common than you think. There’s nothing in the Bible that tells you to hide any crime. To do so is unconscionable. If you find out, there was a sexual assault involving your church, your first call is to 911. Do that before you notify anybody at the church. Will they be upset with you for calling before telling them? Sure! But you’re protecting everybody by not giving them a chance to cover up the crime.

Pastor Held on $17.5 Million Bail in Child Sexual Abuse Case — Monterey County, California

The Monterey County Sheriff’s Office arrested Emmanuel Marchica, 51, of Hollister, California, on Friday, July 10, 2026, and released details of the case publicly the following week. Deputies said the investigation began July 5 after a report of ongoing sexual abuse of a child, and detectives identified several additional victims through witness interviews before serving multiple search warrants. Marchica was booked on felony counts including lewd or lascivious acts with a child, sexual penetration of a child, oral copulation of a child, and annoying or molesting a child. The sheriff’s office said Marchica was serving as a pastor and holding regular religious services at a community gathering center in the Hidden Valley community of San Benito County, and that he previously owned bakeries in Prunedale and Monterey and gyms in Sand City, Seaside, and Prunedale where he offered physical therapy and massage therapy and worked as a jiu-jitsu instructor. Investigators said one victim was allegedly molested during one of those therapy sessions, that victim disclosures date back to 2012, and that they believe additional victims exist. Bail was set at $17.5 million.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: more than likely, there will be more victims. If this person served at your church, you should start searching for victims and help them get justice.

Christian Preschool Employee Charged With Soliciting a Minor — Easley, South Carolina

The Easley Police Department arrested Heather Nichole Hill on Friday, July 17, 2026, on one count of criminal solicitation of a minor and eight counts of disseminating obscene material to a person under 18. Police confirmed Hill was employed at Siloam Christian Preschool on Siloam Road in Easley, South Carolina. A judge set bond at $10,000 on each charge, and jail records show she was released Sunday on a surety bond. The preschool said in a statement that its leadership team and church officials met Sunday afternoon and terminated her employment, and that the preschool and church contacted the Easley Police Department and pledged full cooperation. Police said the investigation is active.

Source

Pastor’s Wife and Son Charged in Abuse of 14-Year-Old Living in Their Home — Poplarville, Mississippi

The Pearl River County Sheriff’s Office arrested Dawson James Brown, 27, and his mother Sabrina Brown, 54, on Friday, July 17, 2026. Investigators confirmed Sabrina Brown is the wife of a pastor at New Heights/College Heights Baptist Church in Poplarville, Mississippi, that Dawson Brown is their son, and that the victim was living with the Brown family at the time of the alleged offenses. The investigation began on or about June 30 after a referral from the Mississippi Department of Child Protection Services following an anonymous report that the girl was pregnant, and investigators estimate she became pregnant in October or November 2025, when she was 13. Dawson Brown is charged with one count of statutory rape, two counts of sexual battery, and one count of human trafficking, and Sabrina Brown is charged with conspiracy to commit tampering with evidence, attempted tampering with physical evidence, and felony child neglect. Court documents allege Sabrina Brown instructed the girl on fabricating and submitting a false DNA document to investigators. The girl’s mother, Kendrell Bowden, 32, was arrested Tuesday, July 21, and the sheriff’s office said the investigation remains active and additional arrests are possible.

Source

ARSON AND SUSPICIOUS FIRES

Dennysville Church Fire Ruled Arson — Dennysville, Maine

A fire at the Dennysville Edmunds Congregational Church at 17 King Street was reported shortly before 8 a.m. on Monday, July 20, 2026. The Maine Office of State Fire Marshal said the fire started outside near the rear of the building, and the Dennysville Fire Department knocked it down fast enough to hold the damage primarily to the exterior. A passerby saw the smoke and called 911. No one was inside the church at the time, and no injuries were reported. On Tuesday, July 21, the fire marshal’s office determined the fire was intentionally set and classified it as arson, and investigators have not publicly identified a suspect. Anyone who saw activity near King Street before 8 a.m. Monday is asked to call the fire marshal’s office at 207-973-3700.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts

INTERNATIONAL

Woman Stabbed During Rosary Before Mass, Man Charged — Tramore, Ireland

A woman in her 50s was stabbed inside Holy Cross Church in Summerhill, Tramore, County Waterford, at about 9:45 a.m. on Tuesday, July 21, 2026. Parish priest Fr Richard O’Halloran said the rosary was being recited ahead of 10 a.m. Mass with roughly 50 to 60 people present, and the woman was in the main body of the church when she was attacked. She received a single knife wound and was taken to University Hospital Waterford with serious but non-life-threatening injuries. Gardaí arrested a man at a nearby house and seized a knife for technical examination. Niall Cummins, 36, of the Willows, Clarinwood, Tramore, appeared at Waterford District Court on Wednesday, July 22, charged with Section 3 assault causing harm and with possession of a knife at the church, and the court heard he made no reply after arrest and caution. The Diocese of Waterford and Lismore commended the parishioners who assisted the victim.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts

Suspected Boko Haram Fighters Abduct Pastor’s Wife and Three Children — Borno State, Nigeria

Gunmen suspected to be Boko Haram or Islamic State West Africa Province fighters stopped a commercial vehicle near Kareto village in Mobbar Local Government Area, Borno State, at about noon on Saturday, July 18, 2026. Community sources said the attackers ordered the wife of Rev. Moses G. Guguma and her three children off the vehicle, allowed the driver and remaining passengers to continue, and moved into the bush with the captives. Guguma leads a Church of Christ in Nations congregation in Damasak, about 156 kilometers north of Maiduguri along the road the family was traveling. Sources said the pastor’s wife had recently been discharged from a hospital in Maiduguri after a prolonged illness before making the trip. Damasak has been repeatedly attacked and occupied by Boko Haram and ISWAP in recent years, security agencies had issued no official statement at the time of reporting, and the family’s whereabouts remain unknown.

Source

Plateau Pastor Reports Death Threat Letter — Plateau State, Nigeria

Rev. Ezekiel Dachomo, regional chairman of the Church of Christ in Nations for Barkin Ladi Local Government Area, said in a statement posted to his X account on Friday, July 17, 2026, that he and members of his church received a letter threatening to kill them. Dachomo said the letter was written in both Hausa and English, warned that he would soon be attacked and killed, and that copies had been handed to heads of security agencies in Plateau State. He tied the threat to the July 11 attack on the Kum and Wereng-Camp communities in Riyom Local Government Area, in which nine members of a single family, including a two-month-old infant, were killed. Punch reported that it could not independently verify Dachomo’s claim that those victims were his relatives. Dachomo has been a prominent public advocate for victims of attacks on Christian communities in Plateau State.

Source

Church Elder and Worship Leader Among 20 Killed in Three Attacks — Beni Territory, Democratic Republic of Congo

Open Doors reported that three attacks in Beni Territory, North Kivu Province, between July 12 and July 16, 2026, left more than 20 people dead. An Open Doors field contact confirmed an attack on the rural commune of Mangina on July 14 in which six people were killed, including a church elder and a worship leader, six more were injured, one person is missing, and two houses were burned. News outlets reported that Allied Democratic Forces fighters attacked an area west of the city of Beni on July 12, killing seven civilians and three Congolese Armed Forces soldiers, and that 10 more people died in a separate attack at Mangina on July 16. Open Doors said movement restrictions tied to an Ebola outbreak in eastern DRC are making information difficult to verify. The ADF is an Islamist group with ties to the Islamic State and has targeted Christian communities in North Kivu and Ituri with massacres, kidnappings, and the destruction of churches.

Source

Cross-reference: the Islamic State claimed the July 14 Mangina raid in al-Naba issue 556, describing the village as Christian and stating its fighters killed at least 4 there and burned a home. See the Terrorism and Intelligence section above.

Copyright © 2026 Keith Graves. All rights reserved.