Now is the time to protect our entities from criminal activity. Whether it is protecting our offerings, our congregations, or our facilities, we all need the tools to do this.

Michigan Camp Meeting 2018: As a Witness, Matthew 24:14

<p>Now is the time to protect our entities from criminal activity. Whether it is protecting our offerings, our congregations, or our facilities, we all need the tools to do this.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Michelle Ancel

Protecting…the Funds, the People, the Property

Now, churches, much like schools, these are things that unfortunately we never thought we'd have to worry about.

You know, at least I didn't 20 years ago, 30, 40 years ago.

I mean, it's crazy that we've got to worry about people coming into schools, coming into churches to target these places.

And does anybody know where the largest act of terrorism at a school on US soil occurred?

Largest act of terrorism, you probably look like you really know it.

It was in the 40s, you're right, it was in the 40s, I think it was in the 40s.

We remember Columbine, we remember Virginia Tech, we remember all sorts of different things that have happened recently.

Actually, I think it was 1927, and there were 40 some individuals that died in this attack.

And what happened was a guy, he was actually on the school board, but he was a farmer on the school board and he was upset with the taxes being raised to fund the school.

So the night before he goes and he had some military background set up some bombs inside the school, waited for the kids to come in, set it off, and killed the entire middle school class in Bath, Michigan.

And then he had secondary devices set up so when the police and fire came, he lit those off and those took out some police and firefighters along with the superintendent and I think principal.

So a horrible thing happened right here in Bath, Michigan that not many people know about.

It's something that is somewhat new to us, if you will.

And now, unfortunately, we're having to think about different ways to keep our doors open at the churches and be inviting at the churches, yet somehow have some sense of security and safety when we're there.

Churches, it seemed like back in the day, I grew up in Lansing, that you could go at least to our Catholic churches that we were around, but you could get into those buildings 24-7 it seemed like.

And now you, I mean the Methodist church I go to now, I got to enter a keypad, I got to turn off the alarm if I want to get in after hours, if it's not 8 to 5 Monday through Friday type of thing.

And it's unfortunate but if we don't do that things will be stolen and they'll just be lots of other problems.

So deadly forest incidents at faith-based organizations from 1999 to 2017 so just short of 20 years there, but the totally deadly force incidents were 1, 617 and at about 28% of those we had a death.

So it's happening and we've got to take it seriously and we've got to understand that it's something we really need to look at.

Is it safety team leaders or security leaders?

So what's the draw from the financial end?

What are you guys, I mean is that are you related to the safety part?

All right, so hopefully you take back some of what you have here either to the pastor, to your safety team leaders, but you really think about ways to potentially implement some security.

And you might have some, And so part of this isn't just me talking to you, it's you telling the group what you're doing at your facilities.

Okay, so everybody looks like they're from Michigan.

What do you think the top 3 reasons are for deadly force at a, we're talking at a church?

Maybe even a little more specific, it's not bad.

We see a lot of domestic violence issues and that's where someone, you know, a Husband usually gets upset with the wife or the girlfriend.

They bring a weapon, they do something stupid.

Personal conflict, it could be just about anything.

So 3 things that we commonly see are more related in these dynamics.

This tells you which denomination has been the most targeted.

There's really no rhyme or reason per se.

I'm not too hung up on this, but non-denominational and Baptist, obviously in the 20%.

It's just where these shootings have occurred.

All right, we're not going to use the names of these individuals.

And I had to refresh my memory before I came in on each 1 of them.

But these next 3 slides are individuals that were involved in some church shootings as of recent.

This 1 was in Charleston, South Carolina.

I can't even read my own handwriting, but it was a church in South Carolina, and 9 people were killed.

This next 1 was Burnett Church of Christ in Tennessee.

This was First Baptist Church, which left 26 people dead in Texas.

So these individuals are out there for the various reasons of why they're coming, but these are not who we're focusing on today.

We're going to focus on these individuals who helped stop the assaults that were occurring.

Alright, so the first guy is Robert Engel.

Burnett, the individual from Tennessee, and had a little wrestling type match.

He wasn't armed, but was able to restrain him long enough to get law enforcement then arrived and was able to take care of business.

These 2 guys gave chase, I don't know if they were armed or not, to the individual in Texas, to the first Baptist guy in Texas.

So he does on his shooting spree, shoots, kills 26 people, injures some others, and these 2 guys are given chase to them.

Now this lady here, this is not related to the third picture up there, she was on her church's safety committee team out in Colorado, Colorado Springs, and she was armed.

They had, they brought in, you know, their church allowed weapons to be carried by their safety team members.

And so she shot and killed the individual.

Which then I guess brings me to my question to you, is should we have guns in churches?

I'm not here to tell you what the state police says or doesn't say, I'm just asking you, is that something that you would support in your church?

Some people shake their heads up and down.

Some are quite sure, you know, it's awkward, right?

I mean, having a gun in the church, I don't doesn't seem right, really.

But the difference between everyone knowing versus no 1 knows who has 1.

Some churches say, okay, maybe we have 10 people, we all know who it is, or we don't know anybody who has it.

Right, and so the pastor could, and we're gonna talk about the laws and what the pastor has the authority to do as it relates to concealed weapon.

But a concealed weapon is something that, you know, I put on my ankle, and I put my pant leg over it, so nobody knows I have it, It's concealed.

I have a gun on my hip, but I put something over it, it's concealed.

There's actually no law in Michigan that prohibits somebody from strapping a gun on their side, not having it concealed and walking down the street.

You go into cities, you go into villages, you go into townships, they might pass some city ordinances or things like that, but nothing stops somebody from taking a gun, putting it on their hip, and striding down the street.

Protecting…the Funds, the People, the Property

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