Last episode I discussed the most important, foundational skill of incident response: Radio Communications. In that episode I alluded to another concept called the 1000 piece puzzle, which I discuss in this episode.

The gist of this concept is that every incident must be viewed as a puzzle, some easy and some complex, that needs to be put together. The easier the puzzle the less coordination the less need for separate oversight. As we get into more complex puzzles the need for oversight/command and team work grows. This is where having GOOD training in basic skillsets, experience through real world operations or through scenarios; and the ability to problem solve rather be robotic is so key.

A good team/teammate recognizes the type of puzzle they have, the pieces they have in front of them, the tools they have to put those pieces together, and is able to start plugging in their part of the puzzle without explicit direction. One of the fire department traditions that has begun to go by the wayside with the newer generation is initiating rookies. Today they call it hazing, but when it was prevalent it was initiation with a purpose.

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When a rookie or probationary firefighter came to a station the older firefighters would nitpick every little thing they did, and constantly gave them a hard time for work that wasn’t done around the station. Heaven forbid a rookie ever stand around or sit while there was work that needed to be done! While this appeared like hazing to outsiders, to the salty firefighters it served a purpose. They understood the concept of the incident puzzle and the fact that every emergency incident had 50 different tasks that needed completed by only 4 people. If you weren’t working on something to mitigate the incident you were wrong.

By giving rookie firefighters a hard time anytime there was work that needed to be done that wasn’t getting done it created a natural stress response that drove them to search for work and plug in anywhere they could. It was an indirect way of training them how to look for pieces of the puzzle that needed filling in, which defaulted into training them to be problem solvers. That mentality is what is needed of church safety team members!

Watch/listen to this episode and learn what the 1000 piece puzzle concept is and how you can apply it as a team member or ministry leader.

PROTECT HIS PEOPLE. GIVE HIM THE GLORY.

Mike

A little over a week ago, my team did some scenario training. I designed the scenarios with the goal of forcing the team to think on their feet and problem solve. They were extremely complex and difficult, with no clear cut solution. The stress level that resulted was tremendous, but the team managed to work through the situations. However, there was a key component that revealed itself as a glaring weakness: Communications.

Key Takeaways

Please listen to the episode in its entirety but the key lessons learned in the training, and that we will be working on are:

* Radio communication does not come naturally. It must be practiced.

* The importance of taking a step back and painting a radio picture for everyone to hear cannot be understated.

* When your radio discipline fails communication fails, and when communication fails key tasks don’t get done.

* Somebody needs to see and communicate the big picture; both on the radio AND to the people doing hands on tasks.

* Auditory exclusion is a very real thing when under stress. Recognize it and train for it.

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Conclusion

I can’t emphasize enough how important good radio discipline and communication is in an emergency incident. I have personally seen incidents succeed and fail miserably due purely to how the communication was handled. Take time with your team and practice this overlook skillset. If you ever have a true emergency you’ll be glad you did. I hope you enjoy this episode.

PROTECT HIS PEOPLE. GIVE HIM THE GLORY.

Mike

After trying on two separate occasions to remotely record a podcast episode with John Riley, and having technical difficulties on both, I was finally able to sit down with John in person to conduct this interview. John is the founder of Gentle Response, LLC, which specializes in teaching de-escalation with a ministry mindset. With decades of law enforcement experience, and years on his own church safety ministry John has developed a unique method of training folks who don’t necessarily have a first responder or military background experience into being more comfortable dealing with VERY uncomfortable situations.

In this episode John and I discuss the assault that occurred between a pastor and an agitator in New Orleans, LA, how the pastor could have handled it differently, and how a safety ministry and its team members can handle a similar situation. We also talk about the important ministry roles that safety team members play in taking the gospel to folks that most church congregation members would ignore or avoid because of how they look or are behaving.

This is a fantastic episode with some great information for anyone involved with church safety ministry. Tune in, and please comment and share.

For more information on getting training from John and his team, or to purchase either of his books click here.

PROTECT HIS PEOPLE. GIVE HIM THE GLORY.

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Recently, I did an impromptu survey on social media asking, “Why does a pastor require additional or individual security?” The overwhelming majority of replies that I got were along the lines that pastors do warrant individual security because they are the target or the focus of attacks on churches. When I pressed further, very few people who had that reply could provide any statistical evidence as to that being the case. In this episode I discuss the replies to the question, what the statistics show, and under what circumstances a pastor truly does warrant individual security.

PROTECT HIS PEOPLE. GIVE HIM THE GLORY.

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GiveSendGo:

We are still trying to raise money to buy force on force equipment to be able to make force on force scenario training available and affordable to church safety ministries. Please help us in this endeavor by visiting the link below and donating.

Zero 5 GiveSendGo Campaign

Church safety ministries are a in a very unique category. They are expected to train and respond like first responders, maintain and protect the ministry of the church as a whole, and do both as volunteers who get relatively little training and very little real world experience application of their skills. However, when an incident occurs at the church all eyes are on them because they literally are THE first responders. How the incident unfolds and whether it is successfully handled, or becomes a disaster depends on them. That is why skill development and training are so incredibly important. In this podcast episode I discuss the key skillsets that church safety ministries need to build and refine and the order in which they should do so.

Below is a quick list of those skillsets, but there’s a lot more detail and explanation in the podcast itself":

Most Important Skills In Order:

* Hearing and obeying the Holy Spirit; learned through daily prayer and time in God’s word.

* Threat Recognition and Reporting

* Radio Communications

* Medical Training (CPR, AED, First Aid, Stop the Bleed)

* Safe weapon handling and gunfighting

* Tactics, Movements, and CQB

* Handing over to first responders

* Scenarios

* Force-on-force scenarios and stress innoculation

Build, Train, Test, Refine, Repeat

It is imperative that safety ministry leaders and team members understand that skills are not developed through one-time classes; nor are they maintained by just retaking the same class annually or bi-annually. Skillsets are just the building blocks for an emergency response. You must put them together into realistic scenarios to test them.

When you test them take note of what went well and what did not. Take the lessons you learned from your training (or from the real events if you have them), refine your skills and approach to handling those situations, rebuild the skillsets, test them, and then repeat the whole process. Stagnation leads to complacency, and COMPLACENCY KILLS!!! I can’t stress that point enough, because I have seen it happen to professional responders, and I have seen the dire consequences of when responders get complacent.

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GiveSendGo Campaign Update

Unfortunately, we have not had a very strong show of support for our GiveSendGo campaign to raise money for force-on-force safety gear and training equipment. This gear is very expensive, and Zero 5 Safety Training is a very small operation. This is training our instructors all did in the military and can attest to its effectiveness in the real world.

Unfortunately, this type of training is very expensive and is not readily available to church safety ministries. Our goal at Zero 5 is to make it available and affordable for church safety ministries to get this training and to build it in a way that caters to how church teams should respond to active attacks. It’s not your run-of-the-mill CQB course with folks shooting back. It’s building gunfighting principles in the church environment. It’s learning how to understand what all needs to be considered and trained for if an attack happens at your church. It’s taking the “what-ifs” and actually testing them out.

We can’t do this without your help. Please donate to help us get this equipment. Please share the link at your church and get them to support this as well.

Zero 5 GiveSendGo Link

When you have been commissioned to respond to emergencies and to protect the lives of others you have been given a mission higher than almost any other. Accomplishing that mission takes preparation. In this episode I discuss how church safety team members should prepare for going on duty at church activities and how they should be relieved and go off duty.

Preparation for battle is a sacred ritual for warriors and one that should be taken very seriously. It’s much more than showing up, donning a radio, and standing in position. There must be mental and spiritual preparation. You need to ensure your gear is ready and set up how you’ve trained. You need to gather a baseline situational awareness for conditions at the church in general and your area of operations specifically.

Finally, when your shift is over you can’t just up and leave. You must be properly relieved by someone who has undergone the same level of preparation, and you must pass down any key bits of information to help them be ready to best protect the congregation.

Take a listen to the episode and let me know what your on-coming and off-going routine is in the comments. I’m genuinely interested in how others prepare to protect.

PROTECT HIS PEOPLE. GIVE HIM THE GLORY.

Mike

**We are still running our GiveSendGo campaign to raise money to make high level force on force training available and affordable for church safety ministries. We have the experience, training, and instructor certifications. All we need now is the equipment. We are a small operation and need your help to make this happen. Please help us out by donating at the link below.

Zero 5 GiveSendGo Fundraiser Link

After the last podcast about recruiting your safety team I was asked a really good question by one of our subscribers. He asked what do you do if you’re church leadership won’t fund or support training?

The Problem

This is actually a problem that many safety ministries face. Churches often see safety teams as an accessory group no different than an AA meeting or a prayer group. It’s a separate group of people that get together in the name of the church and do an activity that benefits the group. Very rarely will churches provide any significant funding or support for groups like this other than to provide a space for them to meet. In the case of church safety teams the church is allowing them to be armed and standing guard.

When the team approaches the church for funding for training or other necessities the request is often denied because the church leadership does not see a perceived benefit to the mission of the church, or there are other groups/ministries that they feel are more deserving of the limited funds that they have.

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How to Address This

This episode discusses in more detail common reasons why churches don’t fund or financially support their safety ministries and how safety ministry leaders can either change that, or find funding in other ways. The key is to be persistent in the fact that you are a MINISTRY, not just a team; and not just security. Also be prepared to get creative.

When there is a will there is a way, and if you truly feel that God has put it on your heart to protect his flock as your form of worship, service, and ministry then you must be prepared to push through adversity. Make sure any moves you make you approach prayerfully and with a heart to serve God and not yourself. This is an aspect that I don’t really address in this episode, but may talk about in another one soon.

PROTECT HIS PEOPLE. GIVE HIM THE GLORY.

Mike

Zero 5 Safety Training is still running its GiveSendGo campaign with the goal of being able to purchase force on force equipment to make this training available and affordable for church safety ministries. Please help us in this endeavor by donating here.

In this episode Mike discusses how to recruit the team for your safety ministry, what types of people your ministry is likely to attract, and how to discern who is a good fit to be a responder, and who is better as just eyes and ears.

To help with our GiveSendGo campaign to raise money for force on force equipment to train church safety ministries please donate at or share:

https://www.givesendgo.com/help-church-safety-teams-protect-congreg?utm_source=share

A recent study of 149 officer involved shootings yielded some shocking results. In this episode I discuss this study, its results, how the results justify the need for church safety ministries and training.

Please support Zero 5 Safety Training by becoming a paid subscriber.

If you'd like to donate to our GiveSendGo campaign to raise money for force on force training gear to make top level training used by police departments and military available and affordable to church safety ministries please click below.

https://www.givesendgo.com/help-church-safety-teams-protect-congreg?utm_source=share

Also, please share the link with anyone involved in church safety ministry!

In this episode, Mike outlines the first steps to take in starting a Safety Ministry from scratch, or moving from a safety team to a ministry.

Key Points:

1. Pray about it!

2. Make your key decisions how what kind of ministry you want.

3. Pick someone to lead your ministry.

4. Hire someone to do a risk and vulnerability assessment.

5. Develop your SOPs and SOGs/ERGs based on your risk and vulnerability assessment and the decisions you made on what kind of ministry you want.

Key Links:

Safety Ministry Standard Operating Procedures

SOP Template (paid subscription required)

SOG/ERG Writing

SOG/ERG Template (paid subscription required)

If you'd like to donate to Zero 5's GiveSendGo Campaign to raise funds for force on force training equipment:

Zero 5 Safety Training's GiveSendGo Campaign