Various church security measures should be in place before you open your church.
Planting a church comes with numerous responsibilities that are not always obvious when you first set out on your journey. One responsibility that is of great importance, but not always thought of from the get-go, is making sure your church is a safe place for people to hear about God and grow in their faith. That is why you need to have various security measures in place before you open your church.
After all, according to FBI hate crime statistics, incidents in churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques have increased 34.8% between 2014 and 2018. Additionally, churches have a long history of child and sex abuse happening right inside their buildings or campuses. This is why having your portable church secure is crucial to its long-term success.
So, what can you do? What security measures can you put in place? Below are three points to consider before you launch your portable church.
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3 Security Measures for Every Portable Church
1. Make Sure You Run Background Checks on Volunteers
Most people who want to volunteer in churches are good people with good intentions. However, you should run a background check on every person who serves on one of the ministry teams, and your staff as well. When you do these background checks, it shows the church that you take the moral and professional integrity of your team seriously. When you can assure attendees, parents, and other volunteers that you require background checks, people will feel safer, and it will add a layer of trust and unity to your team.
2. Create Systems for Incident Reporting
The reality is that despite peoples’ best intentions, there are things that happen at church that are beyond your control. This is why it is important to have a form that can document all injuries, accidents, or mishaps that take place at any facility or property used by the church. This form will serve as an adequate tool for your church to capture the nature of the events at the time they happen and you will have sufficient information to back these incidents if they need to be dealt with further.
3. Have a Great Check-in Policy for your Children’s Ministry
In today’s world, it is important to make sure your Children’s Ministry area is secure. For starters, you need a check-in system that will help instill confidence and shows that your church takes the security of children very seriously. Among other things, these systems can generate random ID codes to match children with their parents so that no child goes home or is taken with the wrong person. Having a digital platform for this is best and most effective.
In addition to a secure check-in policy and procedure, you also need procedures in place to protect children, volunteers, and staff. Even with a background check, you need to protect the children and adults by having procedures in place that will ensure safety for the children and liability protection for the church and the adults. For example:
- Never have a child alone anywhere with just one adult.
- Always have 2 adults in a classroom.
- Protect the children and the adults at the same time with good policies.
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Securing your church facility doesn’t stop at a strong WIFI password. Make sure your kidsmin check-in system is ironclad. Also consider a team monitoring the grounds during service, equipped with radios or communication devices. Click To Tweet
More Security Suggestions
There are also a variety of other security measures your church can take. Here are a few:
- Have secure internet passwords. While it is acceptable to offer free WIFI for those in your church building, having a secure internet password for volunteers and staff to use is vital for security.
- Have a security team. It would be ideal to have at least 1 person whose sole job is to walk the area around your church to make sure the building is secure. In churches that worship in a large venue, it’s helpful for a couple of team members to have a way to communicate with each other and follow a plan for monitoring various areas.
- Invest in the right technology. In addition to having a digital check-in system, invest in portable cameras and radios that can help your team create an environment of safety at your church.
When people go to church, they want to feel safe and secure; this is extremely important for portable and new churches. Implementing proper church security measures is also vital to the long-term success of your church. If people do not feel they or their family are safe, they will not return. In addition, just one mistake or lapse in security can destroy all the work your church has done. Secure your church with systems and processes that will keep your church ministering to the community for a lifetime.
