Ministry of Defense – Mitigating Violence in a House of Worship

Faith-based organizations have long been the pillars of their respective communities. There existence has always been to reach out to those in need. Regardless of whether you are in a church, synagogue, cathedral or a mosque the message has always been the same we are our brother's keeper. That same spirt of trust, openness and service unfortunately throughout time has become a double edge sword, as those intent on doing harm often don’t respect the sanctity of the church as some of the practicing members.

Outbreaks of hostile behavior are as old as the religions we practice. Domestic violence, crime active shooter incidents, church bombings and other mass casualty incidents are reminders that the devil remains busy. While religious institutions may desire to place high value on protecting their congregations, Department of Justice statistics warn that an aging safety plan, coupled with lack of situational awareness training exposes the entire congregation to unnecessary risks. Often outdated faith-based security protocols fail to give realistic guidance to religious leadership and puts lives at higher risk.

Recognizing that we teach church leadership, observers and crisis managers how to recognize behavioral patterns among members, guest or intruders that can elicit threatening actions by an individual or group of individuals. We help faith-based organizations learn how to better avoid conflict and how to increase their control during dangerous disturbances. Situational awareness and recognition of a person in need is critical before it becomes a crisis. This is the most powerful protection tool participants leave our seminar with is the importance of understanding how do we get in front of the violence.

We also understand that sometimes despite an institutions best commitment to serve their communities, some situations will unfortunately still manifest themselves in violence outcomes. We teach those closest to the conflict how to recognize people in trouble and utilize their crisis managers to assist in minimizing the threat. Our primary objective is teaching key members how to maintain calm in the face of anxiety.

Some of the topics we will discuss are:

• The Impact of Apathy in Religious Institutions

• Responsibility of Duty of Care

• Active Shooters, Mass Casualty Incidents and Hybrid Target Violence

• Home Grown Violent Religious Extremist

• Hate Based Bias

• Understanding the Perpetrator

• Establishing A Sense of Urgency

• Developing a Crisis Prevention Team

• Target Assessment, Threat Assessment, Calculating Risk

• Risk Assessment

• Violence Triggers/Pre-Incident Indicators

• Understanding Aggression

• Maintaining Calm in the Face of Anxiety

• Mitigating Violent Behavior

• Managing at the Point of Crisis

• Protecting Your Worshiper of the Future

Requirements: Open Mind

Course length: 3 – 5 hours

‘Monsters always start out as gremlins, thus our focus has to be how do we get in front of the violence and understand the environment that likely spawned the monster.’