by Peter Blue
In a previous article we discussed the importance of understanding potential failure points in your emergency and communications systems. By outlining important questions you should be asking yourself, you can take a closer look at the equipment your ministry relies on to thrive and divert shut-downs, or critical failures when least expected.
In part two, we’ll look at some practical solutions, but first let me share what I mean from a personal experience that happened not too long ago.
Mitigating Danger that Walks Through the Door
I haven’t shared this story with too many people, but I think it’s important to the concerns I am bringing up to you today. It is one that I hope you’ll extract some take-aways for your own ministry that will help you be more vigilant and see the strong need to equip your ministry for greater communications and emergency backups.
A while back, God gave me the opportunity to be a part of a small-town church while I was doing some contract work in the area.
While at this church one morning a very precarious individual walked in the door. No I’m not talking about the pastor’s kid that is amped up off of red Kool-Aid after the last hours Sunday school class, or a visitor off the street. With my training and experience it was obvious there was more than this person not being mentally off, but rather was likely a sexual predator based on their behavior around women, and even worse the children in the auditorium.
He made his way over to some smaller children in the back row as most of the men and women were still trying to figure it out what was going on and were standing by. While this church sat on a major inter-state corridor, the church had never taken the time to equip their volunteers, greeters at the door, nor staff, with understanding of how to handle a situation like this, let alone what to look for. This is something EVERY church needs to invest in the training for and to be doing in our day an age, no matter the size of church or area in which you live.
I saw people frozen in shock while this person moved closer to this group of innocent little children. The children, obviously frightened by this stranger approaching them, didn’t know what to do either. I quickly, yet politely moved in between the person and the children without touching the person. I engaged them with, “Good morning! Let’s go ahead and worship over here,” as I motioned to direct them to the other side of the auditorium.
While I led this person away from the children, moms around the children were mouthing “thank you,” as tears were flowing down some of their cheeks.
This person that I deflected away from the children then got in my face and tried to incite me to physically engage them. Once they saw it was futile, they said, “I’m going elsewhere to church!” I simply smiled and nodded as they huffed and went stomping out the entrance to the parking lot. They got into their vehicle and sped out of the parking lot. I jotted down their license plate for future reference and noted the details of the vehicle. I remained out in the parking lot watching, should this person come back, but also using the opportunity to pray quietly over the church for God’s protection.
Once the person left, there were several that came out from the church to the parking lot to share their shock and find out more about how I learned to act so quickly.
God HAS provided for you and your ministry already. He’s given YOU and your team the ability with the grey matter between your two ears. It is up to YOU to steward, guide your team, and equip your people with backups where needed.
After the Service
After the service, I asked the pastor if I could speak with him for a few minutes in his office. I shared the concern for the signs with the body language that I noticed that led me in believing that this person was a sexual predator. I asked the pastor if he had a network of churches that he could communicate immediately with in the town, regardless of denomination, to make sure they were alerted – just in case this person showed up on their property.
He looked at me with a deer in headlights look and said, “That’s a great idea!” They didn’t have a network in that town. He did know the police chief and asked him to check the car plates. However, there was no sort of communications strategy between churches for an incident like this.
The Reality of Our Day and Age
I wish I could say that I just made that story up, but that condensed story I experienced in real-time. The unfortunate thing is that while the person that I prevented from getting close to those children never came back, the warning and lessons from that experience never gave cause for that church to become more vigilant. The church still sits vulnerable by not taking the time to equip their staff and volunteers with a better plan for avoiding problems in the future.
I have had many conversations with ministry leaders about similar concerns. The one thing that I bring up to them is this: the enemy doesn’t engage mediocrity, but rather those who are pushing back on the darkness in our present world.
If your church is fighting the good fight in any way, you are naive to think that something won’t ever happen to you and to just “trust God to provide.” That goes for something as little as a technical failure in your worship service that could have been avoided, to avoiding a serious security concern for your church.
Friend, God HAS provided for you and your ministry already. He’s given YOU and your team the ability with the grey matter between your two ears. It is up to YOU to steward, guide your team, and equip your people with backups where needed. It may be as simple as coming up with a plan if you do not have the resources for additional technology. But not having a plan and continuing on expecting nothing to ever happen is not stewarding what God has given you wisely.
Have a plan and strategy to engage your people, technology, and communications BEFORE you need it.
Creating Technology and Communications Backup Between Churches
I would propose that regardless of the size of your city or town, all can do what I am about to suggest. While some may have financial budgets to spend on equipment or infrastructure needed to scale this even more, others may be financially strapped. Even if you are on a shoe-string budget at your ministry, you CAN do something!
Here are a few things that I would suggest you can do to forward invest in your churches needs in an emergency. This will also help you as well with the greater church/ministry community in your area.
1/ Start a church tech & security team community for the ministries in your area.
- Even if you only start with ONE other ministry, you’ve made a win.
- Do NOT get disheartened if others do not want to initially participate. Pray for them, while consistently setting the example and keeping the lines of communications open to others.
- Come up with effective technologies that all churches can use, and monitor, every service effectively (chat/instant message service, GMRS licensed radios on a specific channel, etc.)
- Develop protocols for how to communicate and when BEFORE they’re needed
- Create frequent meetings (monthly, quarterly), where teams from your ministry network can come together, share concerns, or “ah-ha” moments with each other that can help the greater ministry community
- Support each other for large events, community outreaches, etc., that can help further God’s kingdom, regardless of church differences.
2/ Start a routine of creating 15-30 minute debrief meetings after services for your different departments (tech, security, children’s, welcome, worship center, parking, etc.).
- Keep the meetings prompt and punctual to respect everyone’s additional time to meet
- Be attentive to both staff and volunteer concerns, frustrations, and issues
- Ask for suggestions for back-up plans, strategies and who is responsible for calling the backup plans (i.e. for streaming, fail-overs for ISPs, parking lot direction, etc.)
- Even if you only have 2 or 3 people in a department, listening to your people will help them understand they value you, while providing you perspective you may not have thought about.
3/ Think about effective ways to use existing technology to support other ministries.
- Do you have a notification system on the screens to notify parents to come pick up their kids when they turn into demons during Sunday School? Consider creating a “global number” or message that can be shown on that system that discreetly activates trained volunteers in the service who may not be “on-duty” at that time for critical needs, or security concerns.
- Do you have a limited amount of channels on your radios? Consider sharing with similar departments, but train everyone on using codes (i.e. security/traffic – use “traffic north,” or “security worship”) or preambles to declare who the traffic is intended for.
- Consider spare lines for different departments in audio, video, and lighting. What would it take to make those lines available for one department to the others if they were needed, or there was a break in their lines?
Final Thoughts
I hope that you’ll take what I’ve mentioned here as a springboard. Each ministry, region, and community has different needs and concerns.
The point though is having a plan and strategy to engage your people, technology, and communications BEFORE you need it.
In I Peter 5:8, Peter warns us to, “Be sober, be vigilant because your adversary the devil, as a devil, walks around, seeking whom he may devour.”
Peter’s warning in one that is a cautious warning for us as Christians, but also one that is the formula for mitigating fear, and paralysis when it surprisingly attacks. That attack can be as simple as a communications failure that takes down what we rely on to stream our services or could be as bad as someone that has ulterior motives that have nothing to do with coming to worship with our church communities.
I hope that this will give you and your team some things to consider. More importantly you’ll be keenly aware to take the time when you see news items that affect our technology to stop and think. While it may not affect you now, how would you and your technology team mitigate something like that happening on a Sunday morning? Are you prepared to do so? Does your church value equipping its staff and volunteers with training and communications to protect against, and mitigate problems?
While you can never anticipate everything, you can prepare for what God brings to mind, and what you do know historically has happened to others and can happen to you.
Take the time to re-evaluate your communications and emergency backups before you need them. In doing so you’ll be able to be as confident as the Proverbs 31 women who was so prepared that it states she could LAUGH at the things to come (verse 25).
What has your team done to consider mitigating failure points? Have you come up with a strategy to equip your teams for success when you need a Plan “B?”
I would love to hear your thoughts and comments – you can contact me via my company’s website, or at info@evidentproductions.com
Peter Blue is the owner of Evident Productions. His professional life provides him the opportunity to develop innovative, global-scale productions. As a devout Christ-follower, his heart though is still where he started – with the church.
Find out more about Peter Blue by going to https://evidentproductions.com/about-peter-blue/
