| Matthew 5:9 |
| "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God." |
| 09/28/09 - Church Security - conference follow up |
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Last week I told you that some CSN Advisory Board Members and I would be spending most of the week in Anaheim California at the ASIS International conference. I went in with some pretty high expectations and I am happy to report that they were not only met but also exceeded! After being in this field for almost 30 years it is difficult to get "excited" about things in the industry; it always seems like you have "been there, done that". But over the last year, as I got more and more into new initiatives for the Christian community, that new sense of excitement has been revitalized. I mentioned that there were several things we were going to try to accomplish this year at the conference. The first was a daylong workshop for security professionals relating to security for Houses of Worship, not just Christian, but for all religions. We had representatives from the Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Mormon communities lecture on various subjects. Most of these instructors were also part of the new Faith Based Organization Security Committee that ASIS allowed us to form bringing all these religions together to share and learn from each other - and learn we did. In fact a week was definitely not long enough and I know I left with many more questions than answers, which I guess is a good thing. The FBO Committee met for hours discussing the needs of the various religious communities and the goals for the committee in coming years. We will begin to collect data (such as crime incident rates), review practices, and work at getting the word out about this inter-faith security group. We came together as professionals with similar interests in our own religions and left as friends who have a common goal. The one "take away" from these meetings and discussions, not only with the FBO Committee members, but from many other people we spoke with was the "infancy" that most religious organizations face in terms of security and emergency planning. I stated several times that when I first got into the security and law enforcement industry decades ago there was an ignorance about security shared by almost all organizations. Telling businesses that they needed to take security measures such as lighting, locks, alarms, and CCTV was all foreign to most of them and it took years to get to the point where these things would just be common components in any operation. Most places you walk into now it is not unusual to see guards, cameras, etc. - but it didn't happen overnight. We are facing that now with churches and ministries. Almost everyone we spoke with stated that their place of worship is vulnerable, doesn't take security or emergency planning measures, and have experienced some type of incident. The good news was that there was a sense of excitement about our initiatives and an almost "Its about time" attitude! The other component, which was a success was speaking with different companies that provide security and emergency products and services. Many saw the need in the Christian community and how their particular organization could benefit all churches and ministries. In upcoming weeks we will be having further discussions with these companies to see exactly how they would "fit" into the CSN business partner structure so that we may bring to you more resources that are dependable, affordable, and needed. My hope is that someday security and emergency planning will be so "normal" in the Christian community that those who do not have these measures in place will stand out as "unusual". We all have our work cut out for us! In Christ, Jeff Hawkins Executive Director |
