What you will learn with this Book

The Challenges of Safety for Churches

John 15: 12-13

“This is my commandment, that you love one another just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”

Who in your church will lay down their life for those in the church family? This is a challenge from our Savior for church leaders, teachers, and His servants. An INTENTIONAL safety plan begins with those who are willing to help others and a desire to do this effectively. INTENTIONAL safety takes a holistic approach to examining safety and how we can prevent or deal with accidents and incidents in or near the church.

How do we prevent tragedies? Can better planning and training people who step up to think about these challenges to prevent a tragedy? We may not be able to stop all incidents, but preventing them is a worthwhile goal for believers.

Church safety is accomplished through teams of people who love Jesus and obey Him to serve the needs of others. The requirements are belief in Jesus, LOVE, and a life dedicated to serving the church family.

Define What Safety Means for Your Church

Safety is about everyone going home in the same physical condition in which they arrived. The challenges to safety include subjects from sanitation, to hazards on the playground and in classrooms, electrical issues, access concerns, first aid, physical limitations, traffic in the parking lots, fires, arson, emergency evacuations, serious weather events, unlawful entry, theft, intimidation of violence, violent attacks, abductions, breaches of protective orders, and mass murders. Added to the desire for safety is the mission of the church to demonstrate the love of Jesus. 

Beginning Church Safety Organizations

The first requirement for a new safety organization is to define what it is intended to do. There is a difference between the safety needs of a church that meets only once or twice a week on Sunday, and one that has services multiple days a week, runs a school during the week, has an internal coffee shop, and offers daycare every day. This is why Intentional Church Safety by Bevan Collins is labeled as a practical guide. The scope of what is practical is dependent on the individual church.

Getting started on this path is sometimes the hardest part. A dedicated group from the congregation should be gathered to look at these ideas and then develop the framework of what a safety organization should look like. This may be a few people, or organized teams led by members and staffed by either members or hired professionals.

The focus must be on what is practical and reliable for your church and membership.

 

How Will Your Church Respond?

During a safety incident, people normally do what they are trained to do. If there is no training, then people do whatever seems natural at the time. Unfortunately, this is often the wrong response. Even a limited amount of training often produces a better result.

How will your church respond to a major safety incident?

Who will lead them?

Establishing an organization of Safety Teams is often what is chosen AFTER a major incident. It is not hard because the needs can be understood. It takes some time, communication, and thought because there are some good ideas about best choices. This book provides a practical guide for churches to work through these questions.

Calm Your Church’s Anxiety

This book provides a calm and intentional approach to working through safety needs and practices.

Some topics such as children’s safety and security can be divisive. This book is a practical guide to understanding these concerns and calmly working through them. The only fixed points are those required by law for all organizations. Outside those requirements, there are many choices. Each congregation or safety focus group should make their own choices to have policies, procedures, and practices that make sense to them.

The Cross is About Hope

Churches should be refuges away from the hatred, crime, indifference, and hopelessness of the world. Christian churches are to be Light to our world.

How can a church be a place of Light if the members do not love each other enough to care for and protect the members and children in the church?

Excerpts

A few selected snippets from the book:

It was about four years ago a question was raised about our church security.  The question was raised in response to some high-profile attacks on churches.  Church security?  We hadn’t given much thought to it.  Sure, there was a general sense that we must be aware of what is going on around us.  We have folks from time to time who come seeking assistance.  We had policies in place for the secretary’s safety during the week but there was no plan for what might happen during a worship service.  That question led to further discussion and eventually to the formation of a team to give guidance to this issue.  Enter Bevan Collins.  Bevan serves as one of our deacons.  Given Bevan’s background in business and his experience putting together systems and writing procedures, he was the natural choice.  What you hold in your hands is the fruit of his labor over the last four years.

It is thorough, well thought out and extremely practical.  He will guide you to ask and answer the right questions.  He will help you determine what is best for your church, given your circumstance and your needs.  Each church is unique, and budgets vary.  With his help any church of any size can be better equipped to respond to crisis.  The time to prepare is before anything ever happens.  Bevan will help you ask the questions you need to ask.  His practical advice will guide you in finding answers appropriate to your context.  What began as a question, “What would we do if something like that happened here?” has expanded into a comprehensive plan of responding to intruder threats to weather to fire and medical emergencies.  Most importantly, Bevan guides us without ever losing sight of the fact we are the Church of the Lord Jesus.  Yes, we want folks to know they are safe, that we have a plan in place, but first and foremost we are here to welcome people into the presence of God.  Our great desire is to lead people to faith in Christ.

This is a thorough, practical, and balanced approach to church safety.  I encourage you to read it, study it and implement it in your church.  Further I recommend the author to you as a worthy guide.  This good and godly man is a blessing to me and to our church family.  I cannot recommend him highly enough.

Rod Harris

Pastor, Trinity Baptist Church, Tulsa, OK.

About the Author

Bevan Collins

Author/Writer

Bevan Collins is a Christian, Baptist deacon, church Safety Coordinator, teacher, and a senior petroleum industry consultant with numerous years as an executive, engineer, inventor, author, business owner/operator, farmer, and rancher. His experience includes managing businesses and an engineering division, research and development of chemical processes and products, environmental engineering, and project engineering consulting for public and private companies. Industrial clients he has worked with range from small companies to global corporations in 29 countries. Bevan has attended church for over 66 years.

After experiencing multiple violent and non-violent crimes from a victim’s perspective, industrial and vehicle accidents, and fighting industrial and rural fires, Bevan understands and values safety, security, education, planning, training, and discretion. He draws heavily on the 100+ industrial safety courses he has completed in addition to personal experience and numerous church safety courses. As a Safety Coordinator and Safety Team member, Bevan has seen numerous safety incidents and challenges from the perspective of protecting and serving the congregation.

As a Christian, Bevan believes in the absolute need to witness of the Gospel to sinners and build love and trust in the church family. While this may make the church appear as a “soft” target for criminals, church leadership must have the wisdom and willingness to protect the church family from preventable harm. The purpose of this book is to encourage churches to establish a Safety Committee and Safety Teams within Scriptural guidelines.

Bevan Collins currently serves in Trinity Baptist Church in west Tulsa, Oklahoma. He is willing to assist other churches with consultation and mentoring as they work through the processes of creating, training, or improving their Safety Committees and Teams.

If a church or others would like to consult with Bevan Collins, his contact information is:

Bevan Collins

Bevan.C.Collins@gmail.com

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