We are very saddened by the shooting at the West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, Texas. I lived in Fort Worth for seventeen years and I am familiar with the White Settlement community. So, while this affects all Texans, all churches, all Americans and all humanity, it feels very close to me personally.
I will never forget the trauma of the Wedgwood Baptist Church shooting in Fort Worth twenty years ago (1999). At that time I served as pastor in that city and our youth were en route to a rally held at Wedgwood. Our youth group ran late and missed the awful tragedy by minutes.
Two years ago, another Baptist church in Texas suffered a horrible massacre. The First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, less than a four-hour drive from McAllen, experienced the horror of a gunman during their worship service. This kind of thing should never happen! Unfortunately places of worship are not sacred to people driven by evil!
Our Response
As Lead Pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, McAllen, I have three primary concerns at this time, and I urge our church to join me in these: (1) Pray and stand with the church in White Settlement, so that God will bring healing and redemption in the midst of such a tragedy. (2) Be informed and proactive about mental and emotional health (pray, identify, reach out, refer, provide counseling, etc.). (3) Be prepared to respond to a threat or assault on our congregation.
While we hope and pray a tragedy of this sort will never happen at Calvary, we are committed to be prepared to respond. We are committed to the safety and security of every single person on our campus including our children, our students, our adults, and our senior adults.
Our Measures
Over the course of several years we have put in place safety and security measures, which we are constantly evaluating and refining. Allow me to share some of those with you so that you can continue to both pray and be aware. I will also mention ways in which you can help keep our campus secure.
Safety and Security Team. A few years ago Pastor Susan and Pastor Paulo enlisted a Safety and Security Team for our church. (Pastor Susan and Pastor Paulo have attended several trainings in this regard, both in person and online).
The safety and security team has a large scope. They advise and lead in various areas that help keep our congregation and our campus safe including (1) child abuse prevention (2) medical emergencies and (3) prevention/response to assaults or active shooter events.
The team consists of the following people: Israel Pacheco, Melinda Rodriguez, Brent McBain, Mario Cesar Samaniego, Jeff Bridwell, Rudy Rios, Susan Sosebee and Paulo Gatan. In addition, we have invited others to our safety and security meetings, including Gilda Rios, Ruben Rojas, David Heflin, Sebastian Montes, Alex Rosario, Chad Gatlin, Wayne and Chelan Williams, Paul and Charlene Koch, Harry Raksoky, etc. (Several of these folks are law enforcement officers. Others have conceal carry licenses).
The security portion of the team has a real time chat group that they have often used during services to communicate with each other about suspicious activity, sometimes just to keep alert, other times to intervene as necessary.
First way you can help. If you'd like to join this team, please contact one of the staff pastors or team members listed above so you can be considered.
CBC's Firearm Policy. The Safety and Security Team has set a policy of "no open carry," which means individuals are not allowed to carry a fire arm visibly into the church campus unless he/she is a uniformed law enforcement officers. The team has also agreed to a "concealed carry" policy, which means individuals with a concealed carry license may bring their fire arm into the church campus.
We are aware of several law enforcement and private citizens who conceal carry their weapon on campus and during our worship services. In most instances we are aware of which service they attend and where they sit in the worship center.
Texas law allows for churches to have the above policies. The event at the West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement was over in a matter of seconds because the church had a similar policy to ours and their security team acted promptly. Read about it here.
A second way you can help. If you have a conceal carry license and you carry your weapon in church, we encourage you to share that with one our pastoral staff members or one of our safety and security team members. This will help the team in communication. It will also help the team know who are "the good people" vs. "the bad people" should an incident ensue.
Security Cameras. While we have always had security cameras in strategic places, recently we have increased the amount of cameras. Currently every children's classroom has a camera, every major hallway, and large gathering places such as the gym and the worship center. These cameras are monitored from two different locations on campus.
A third way you can help. We need more volunteers to help monitor security cameras. The more volunteers we have the less our volunteers would need to miss a worship service or a Bible study class. If we had 13 volunteers, they would only have to do it once a quarter. If we had 26 volunteers, they would only have to do it twice a year.
Off-duty Police Officer. For several years now we have hired an off-duty police officer to walk around our campus to deter evil-intended people and to intervene when necessary.
A fourth way you can help. While we encourage you to be friendly and cordial to the off-duty police officer, please refrain from having conversation with him/her. They're job is to be alert and they do not need distractions. Report any suspicious activity to the officer.
Children's Building Security. We have equipped our children's building with communications systems that allow them to know in real time what is occurring on our campus. Additionally, we have invested in hardware and electronic systems that allow us to do a lock down of the building in the case of an emergency.
While there are several other measures we have taken to keep our congregation and our campus secure, these are some of which we wanted you to be aware. We also want you to know that you can help. Here's a list of the ways in a summary form:
- Be alert and communicate
- Be cordial to all guests, acknowledge and interact with them
- Report concerns or suspicious activity to staff or security and safety team or off-duty police officer
- Join the safety and security team
- Inform the pastoral staff or safety and security team if you conceal carry
- Volunteer to monitor security cameras
While all of these are important, our biggest need currently is the sixth one (volunteer to monitor security cameras). Your actions can help prevent a tragedy and perhaps even the loss of life.
We live in a broken world where there are many mentally and emotionally ill people. The enemy seeks to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10a). We preach a gospel of redemption that offers hope to all people (John 10:10b). We will continue to preach and to live redemptively on this side of eternity (John 10:16). We long for the day when evil will be eliminated and we we live in peace with our Savior forever. Until that day, we will be alert, pray and be ready to protect God's flock. Jesus is our Good Shepherd (John 10:11-15).
THANK YOU for sharing these details, Pastor. One thing is missing, in my opinion. Congregational training, specifically training to drop and get low whether in a pew or on the worship stage, rather than the natural reaction to stand and run. While admittedly difficult to address and practice with the congregation, I believe that awareness of making oneself less of a target through these and perhaps other suggestions from law enforcement would help to decrease casualties should such an attack happen at Calvary (Praying always that it doesn't). This learned response could also give our carriers a clearer line of site to the shooter and lessen the risk of injuring a congregant, who through lack of training inadvertently put themselves between the attacker and the gun carrier.
ReplyDeleteI'd appreciate any feedback from our security team, gun carriers and law enforcement on this idea. Humbly and respectfully submitted,
Lea Price
Thank you Lea. This is a very good point. We will share it with the team and see how we might address this. Thanks again and blessings!
DeletePastor, it also occurs to me that our children, youth, Bible studies, ABF's etc. should likely be drilled in becoming less of a target should the worst occur. I leave this to the expertise of the security team and just stress that practice does reinforce whatever reaction we are wanting from the congregation, youth or children. Thank you.
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