FORT WORTH — Travis Avenue Baptist Church in Fort Worth has employed personnel to patrol its campus, escort women to their cars after dark and ensure buildings are locked since before Russ Hibner became the church's facilities manager seven years ago.
But after a security guard stopped a gunman who entered a Colorado Springs church in December, leaders at Travis Avenue Baptist decided to take another look at how it provides security.
“We're in transition,” Hibner said.
In recent weeks, the church secured training for its courtesy patrol to enable them to become certified noncommissioned security officers. As noncommissioned security officers, they are trained in how to handle emergencies and to understand the scope of their authority, but they are not permitted to carry deadly weapons. For occasions when the church believes armed personnel are needed, it hires off-duty police officers, Hibner explained.
“We have to weigh a lot of factors and seek a balance,” he said. “We want to provide a service for our members and guests without going overboard and making it an armed camp.”
Just by their presence, the courtesy patrol probably has deterred some criminal acts, Hibner noted. Personnel routinely patrol parking lots in vehicles with flashing lights, and on more than one occasion, small groups have “dispersed quickly” when the vehicles came into sight, he said.
Although security officers will not carry guns, they do carry direct-connect radios that enable them to contact other staff or call 911 in case of an emergency that requires professional assistance.
Ambulance service and police have responded promptly when summoned, Hibner noted, and police cars often use the church's parking lot as a gathering spot at night.
“We've very happy about that, and we tell them they can use our parking lot any time they want to,” he said.
In addition to the security officers and off-duty police, a parking committee helps provide additional parking lot security during worship services, and the church also instructs ushers and deacons how to handle minor disturbances during worship services.
All churches should train ushers to recognize potential security problems, said Phill Martin from the National Association of Church Business Administration.
“They should be the first line of defense,” he said. “The day of ushers just handing out bulletins is long past. They need to be trained in what to watch for. They need to understand if something looks suspicious, it may be. A church should have procedures in place to help ushers know how to respond.”
Church staff members periodically should ask a series of “what if” questions to prepare for a variety of security-related issues, Martin suggested.
“We highly recommend church staffs do scenario planning” where they think through proper responses to various situations, he said.
At Green Acres Baptist Church in Tyler, armed off-duty police officers patrol the facility on Sundays and Wednes-days, but they aren't necessarily the only people carrying weapons, according to Senior Associate Pastor Ken Warren.
Paid uniformed officers work in the parking lot with both traffic flow and security, and they are present in the sanctuary when the offering is collected to escort the ushers from the worship center to the church's safe.
Their presence is augmented by a significant number of law enforcement officers who worship at the church and stand to respond in emergencies as members of Green Acres' security ministry team, Warren said.
“They are required to be armed even when they are off-duty,” he said. “So, they may be sitting up in the choir or in the congregation, but they are alert and prepared to respond as needed at a moment's notice.”