Local church members train to prepare for possible attacks

In an era where gun violence is overwhelmingly prevalent, Lincoln area churches are looking to be prepared.

“Churches by and large are soft targets, they don’t have a lot of people watching, people paying attention and our backs are to the doors when people who want to do harm to us enter,” says Guy Beveridge, Director of Business Development with Strategos International.

Strategos, a safety and security training organization, teamed up with local churches to provide formalized, insurable ‘Church Protector’ training.

Beveridge says if someone wants to harm people in a church, “they would know where people are going to be on a certain day at a certain time at a certain location they would find a large group of people there.”

“I equate it to fire extinguishers and fire suppression in churches and everybody should have it because the people who are in the church are important and valuable and need to be protected,” says Scott Weldon, lead Deacon of security at Zion Church in Lincoln.

Weldon says they made the transition from unarmed to armed security about two years ago. He says the mass shootings that have occurred in recent years pushed his church to make the transition.

“I don’t remember which one it was but I remember at one point think that we had enough people who had a servants heart and a warriors mindset where if we got trained and trained together then we would be bringing something of value to the church and not increasing our risk.”

Weldon says he’s thankful to others who want to protect the congregation too.

“When you go to church on a Sunday, you would like to and relax and worship and be with your friends but because you have a responsibility its actually a learned skill that I haven’t quite mastered yet to figure out how to blend worship and security,” he says.

Strategos also teaches courses for schools, workplaces, personal protection and more, and not all courses involve firearms.

For more information on courses with Strategos International, you can visit their website here.