Unfortunately the incidents against Christian churches and ministries continue into the new year, not that I thought they were going to stop, it is just disheartening to start to count them again and see them add up.

In the first week we have seen a homicide in California, a church arson in Texas, a young child molested in a church in Baltimore, and two internal thefts totaling more than $60,000 from churches.

And again, if you look at these incidents, they may have been prevented.

I don't like to play "Monday morning quarterback" in any incidents, but as we have said, every incident should be reviewed as a learning lesson.

It appears that the child that was fondled in a church, was molested by a staff member who was a convicted sex offender. Now you have to ask yourself didn't someone do a background check on this person? But then, when I go into churches and do risk assessments or talk to people from different churches across the country, I realize how many do not. What is it going to take to get churches to conduct background checks on ALL staff and volunteers?

In the internal thefts they both seem to be more examples of lack of internal controls, as most of them have been in the past.

And burglaries and thefts through unprotected and unlocked churches just continue at an alarming pace.

Again, if we can't stop the common criminal, what will ever happen if the threat terrorism ever starts to target one of the softest and most important cultural targets in our society - the church?

We have seen an increase in the incidents of plots and "home-grown" terrorists here on American soil. There is intelligence to suggest that Hezbollah, the most dangerous terrorist group in the world, has made alliance with the drug cartels in Mexico to obtain the ability to smuggle sleeper cells, and who knows what kind of weapons, across our mostly unprotected boarder into the U.S.

We heard the same message again from the doctor turned terrorist, Al-Balawi, who killed CIA personnel when he walked into a military compound wearing explosives in Afghanistan on December 30th. In his recently released pre-attack video he stated in part "This jihadi attack will be the first revenge operation against the Americans and their drone teams outside the Pakistan border...we will always demand revenge...inside America and outside."

And since the Christmas holidays we have witnessed over half a dozen attacks on Christian churches in Malaysia, including drive-by shootings, arson, and firebombs by Muslim extremists.

The Christian community must shift the paradigm that protection of our houses of worship must become as important as protecting our own homes.

Would we leave our doors wide open? Would we turn our kids over to complete strangers in our absence? What measures would we take if the neighbor down the block kept stating in public they were going to kill us?

Would we stand idly by and wait?

In Christ,
Jeff Hawkins
Executive Director


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COMMENTS FROM LAST WEEK:

"Amen brother! Thanks for taking a strong stance for better security (in all it's forms) in the Christian community. Thanks for taking a no-nonsense approach to your ministry. Keep up the great work, all of you are in my prayers!!" K.A. from Idaho

"Here is when we need to hold up good old Nehemiah 4:9. We prayed and then we hired security guards 24/7 to face the threat." K.F. from Maryland

"I have just read the article about the harm, harrassment [sic], that has come to the churches in the last year. It occured [sic] to me that this same outcry was familiar and then I remembered the Hate Crimes Bill that was designed to address this situation. And that the religous [sic] organizations opposed that bill because it gave special rights to gay people and other minorities. Would appear that you are now one of those minorities. Should I assume that you now want special treatment? It is not so much fun being on the receiving end is it? And just so you know, I think this type of activity is horrible and should be attacked whether it is in a church or a gay bar!" B.H. from Tennessee