• Latest
  • Trending
Texas Church Security

Meet the Church Security Business Training Worshippers to Fight Back in Mass Shootings

January 22, 2020
jesus statue Christ the Redeemer

Why Is There Christianity If Jesus Was Jewish?

September 21, 2023
JoAnne Epps

Temple University Acting President JoAnne Epps Dies Suddenly on Campus

September 20, 2023
UMC Bishop Minerva Carcano in a 2008 file photo

UMC Bishop Minerva G. Carcaño Suspended, Faces Church Trial

September 20, 2023
doctors

Just 2 Percent of US Doctors Are Latina. These Women Want That to Change.

September 20, 2023
COGIC Presiding Bishop J. Drew Sheard

Head of Major Black Christian Group Backtracks on Mormon Partnership, Apologizes for Causing ‘Discontent’

September 18, 2023
Slavery memorial at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Christian Seminary Founded by Enslavers Thankful for Forced, Unpaid Labor

September 18, 2023
Kirk Franklin and Richard Hubbard

Kirk Franklin Finally Finds His Birth Father After 53 Years

September 18, 2023
Pastor Kevin Smith

Pastor Kevin Smith Is First Black Man in SBC Org’s History to Serve as Chairperson

September 18, 2023
vehicle car

Here’s How to Donate a Car to Charity and Write It Off as a Tax Deduction

September 13, 2023
Tony Evans and Carla Crummie engaged to be married

Dr. Tony Evans Engaged to Former Pastor’s Wife and Widow Four Years After Lois Evans’ Death

September 12, 2023
Haiti

Christians Plea for Prayer, Help Amid Haiti’s Surging Gang Violence

September 12, 2023
Coco Gauff prayer

Coco Gauff Talks Faith After US Open Win: I Don’t Pray for Results; I Pray for Strength.

September 12, 2023
Faithfully Magazine
Cart / $0.00

No products in the cart.

  • About
    • Advertise
    • Submit Content
    • Give Via PayPal
  • Q&As
  • Specials
  • Subscribe
  • Shop
  • Events
    • Community Events
    • FM Live Q&As
  • Black Christian Content
  • Log In
Donate
No Result
View All Result
  • About
    • Advertise
    • Submit Content
    • Give Via PayPal
  • Q&As
  • Specials
  • Subscribe
  • Shop
  • Events
    • Community Events
    • FM Live Q&As
  • Black Christian Content
  • Log In
No Result
View All Result
Faithfully Magazine
Home Features

Meet the Church Security Business Training Worshippers to Fight Back in Mass Shootings

FM Editors by FM Editors
January 22, 2020
in Features
Reading Time: 6 mins read
0
Texas Church Security

A member of a church security team fires at a target at a shooting range in Krugerville, Texas. Various church security teams are training for active shooter situations with the National Organization of Church Security and Safety Management. (Photo: Leslie Boorhem-Stephenson for The Texas Tribune)

ShareTweetPin It

By Stacy Fernández, The Texas Tribune, Jan. 21, 2020

KRUGERVILLE — Liberty Hill resident T.J. Wagner yelled commands at his friend James Johnson in an empty classroom at a building in North Texas earlier this month: “Face the wall! Feet apart! Hands behind your back!”

Within seconds, Wagner handcuffed Johnson, leading him out of the room with one hand gripping the metal cuffs and the other squeezing his right bicep to guide him out. Then, the two switched places and it was Johnson’s turn to detain his buddy.

The pair were among a group of several men from across the state who enrolled in a training program this month where they practiced combat moves, learned how to apprehend suspects and shot firearms.

But they weren’t training for law enforcement. They’re just men who are worried about their churches.

They’re preparing for the worst-case scenario, one where their congregations are the target of a mass shooting — something that was almost unthinkable a few years ago but has happened twice in Texas in the past three years.

In November 2017, a gunman opened fire inside First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, killing 26 people and injuring 20 more. And last month, days after Christmas, a shooter attacked the West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, killing two people and injuring one before being fatally shot by Jack Wilson, an Army veteran and head of the church’s volunteer security team.

A few days before he left for the training seminar, Wagner said a few friends asked him, “Do you think you need security at church?”

A couple days later, the shooting at White Settlement church happened, and one of those friends later told him he was right to attend.

“We’re seeing lots of other churches that had not thought about this are putting together security teams,” said Wagner, a member of Life Church in Leander, an interdenominational house of worship. “It’s a terrible thing that we have to do that, that you have to think about it, but it’s been proven over and over again, that it’s possible it could happen. So be proactive.”

Security training

Chuck Chadwick, the founder and president of the National Organization for Church Security and Safety Management, has been in the church security business for about 18 years, encouraging parishioners and worshippers to take their safety into their own hands. He’s experienced a spike in interest in recent weeks, following the White Settlement shooting, that mirrors the same interest his business got after Sutherland Springs.

In a one-story building in Krugerville, a city about an hour and a half north of Dallas, located next to a State Farm office and gun shop, attendees go through the same state-certification training as private security guards. Except at the end, instead of being paid to protect an office building, the participants will be volunteers protecting their flocks.

Members of church security teams from across Texas gathered in Krugerville, near Denton, to get certified in church security and trained for an active shooter situation by the National Organization of Church Security and Safety Management Jan. 11, 2020.
Members of church security teams from across Texas practice by shooting at targets in Krugerville. The security teams are training for active shooter situations with the National Organization of Church Security and Safety Management. Leslie Borham-Stephenson for The Texas Tribune

Churches pay about $800 to fully certify and train each person through Chadwick’s school. The Chadwicks’ full program costs $620 and state licensing runs about $180.

In the classroom, Will Chadwick, Chuck’s son and the class instructor, described attack scenarios to a group of participants who attended in early January. He gave advice on what to do — but also, legally, what not to do.

Draw the assailant away from where children might be, he said.

Use words as your first line of defense.

Don’t handcuff an attacker to something and just walk away.

Throughout the training, Will Chadwick peppered the men with verbal pop quizzes to prepare them for the 100-question state exam that would come at the end of the program.

The second half of the training was more hands on. Will Chadwick, who typically spoke in a calm voice, barked his commands at the men.

He demonstrated hand-to-hand combat techniques and the proper way to strike a police baton.

Participants also shot a variety of handguns and shotguns as part of their certification at the company’s outdoor gun range.The Chadwicks’ training prepares participants for violent attacks, but they said it would also come in handy for more common situations, like church parking lot thefts.

Many of the participants in the January class had enrolled before the shooting at White Settlement.

“It’s surreal that you’re coming in here and you’re training for what you hope never happens. And then the very next day, it happens,” said Jimmy Bills, a former Marine who lives in East Texas and attends Oasis Church of Round Rock. Bills was dressed in all black with a “Don’t tread on me” hat.

The average participant who attended the training was a man with former military or law enforcement experience.

“I’d rather have me doing it than somebody I don’t know,” said Larry Graves, a 65-year-old father of eight kids and Army veteran who traveled from Arlington.

A new calling

Chuck Chadwick, 65, got his start in private security, working about 20 years at a high-end auction house based in Dallas, protecting fine art, gold coins and luxury goods.

But after the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York, he felt a calling.

In 2002, he went on to develop a security program for two megachurches in Texas and became their director of security.

Four years later, he started the National Organization for Church Security and Safety Management which has turned into a family business. Chuck Chadwick serves as president; his wife Marian is vice president and over logistics; and his son Will is the primary instructor and trainer.

“I saw there was a real need for a low-cost alternative to private security for churches,” Chuck Chadwick said.

His organization is one of a handful of Texas-based organizations that do security training specifically for churches. The Chadwick family business only works with “Judeo-Christian” organizations, Chuck Chadwick said.

At the time Chuck Chadwick started his church security business, there had been at least two mass shootings of churches in Texas. In 1980, a gunman killed five people at The First Baptist Church in Daingerfield. In 1999, a gunman killed eight people, including himself, at the Wedgwood Baptist Church in Forth Worth.

Chuck Chadwick estimates that his business has certified about 500 licensed church security guards at almost 100 churches, mostly in Texas.

Though inquiries about the training program surge following news of mass shootings, only a fraction of people actually follow through, Chuck Chadwick said.

“We call it emotional inertia. Everybody gets all excited about it, you know, ‘We gotta do something, we gotta do something,” Chadwick said, “but then nothing happens at their church and they figure, ‘I guess we’re okay.'”

This time could be different, Chadwick said. Because there was video of the shooting, the visual may stick with them much longer, he said.

State law

A video of the shooting in White Settlement shows a number of congregants drew their gun at the shooter, but it was Wilson, head of the church’s volunteer security team, who killed the shooter with one shot. Regarded as a hero by many, Wilson was awarded the first Governor’s Medal of Courage last week.

Had Wilson not intervened, the shooting “could have been so much worse,” said Frank Pomeroy, the pastor of the Sutherland Springs church and a state Senate candidate.

Pomeroy’s 14-year-old daughter was killed during the 2017 shooting, but the pastor stands firmly against increasing gun restrictions.

“We are God’s protectors, and to do so we need to be trained and we need to be armed with the capability to protect our sheep,” Pomeroy said.

Gyl Switzer, executive director of Texas Gun Sense, said people celebrating Wilson were diminishing a tragedy where lives were lost.

“The system has failed when we’ve got guns and churches and when some people are celebrating [there were only] three dead people,” Switzer said. “How is three dead people not a failure?”

For years, Texas churches were hindered from organizing volunteer security. They either had to pay for private security guards, or seek special permission from the state, an exemption that came with a $400 price tag.

That changed when a new law went in effect in September 2017.

Former state Rep. Matt Rinaldi, R-Irving, said he was inspired to introduce the legislation after discovering that though existing law had allowed congregants with licenses to carry firearms into churches, they weren’t allowed to organize into a volunteer security teams without paying the state.

Rinaldi’s bill went into effect a month before the mass shooting of the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs.

“There’s no doubt that what the law did was legalize what was done at White Settlement Church in forming a security team. Without the bill that passed in 2017, those individuals would not have been able to form a security team and then who knows what could have happened,” Rinaldi said.

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune.


Share This Post

Share via

Share This Post

  • Digg
  • Tumblr
  • Flipboard
  • SMS
More
  • Report

RelatedArticles

man reading book in front of LED cross

Black Churches Fight Florida’s Whitewashing of US History in Sunday School, Sermons and Bible Study

September 9, 2023
gray concrete church

Christian and Atheist Nonprofits Vie Over NJ Law Banning Public Funding of Churches

August 19, 2023
Advertisement
Ancestry US
ShareTweetPin It
FM Editors

FM Editors

Faithfully Magazine is a fresh, bold and exciting news and culture publication that covers issues, conversations and events impacting Christian communities of color.

More Features

doctors
Wellness

Just 2 Percent of US Doctors Are Latina. These Women Want That to Change.

September 20, 2023
Tulsa massacre survivor Viola Fletcher shares her story in the memoir Don't Let Them Bury My Story
Features

Tulsa Massacre Survivor, 109, Is Oldest Woman in the World to Release a Memoir

August 19, 2023
install solar panels
New Jersey

What New Jersey’s Community Solar Program Means for Renters and Low-Income Residents

July 31, 2023

Discussion about this post

Most Shared Articles

  • Can Money-Making Microgrids Empower Black Churches to Close the Clean Energy Gap?...
  • Kirk Franklin Finally Finds His Birth Father After 53 Years...
  • Dr. Tony Evans Engaged to Former Pastor’s Wife and Widow Four Years After Lois Evans’ Death...
  • Coco Gauff Talks Faith After US Open Win: I Don’t Pray for Results; I Pray for Strength....
  • Newark Pastor Timothy Huff Left in Critical Condition After Being Shot in Home...
  • Churches Asked to Ring Bells in Remembrance of Little Girls Killed in Birmingham Church Bombing...

From The Archive

Clippings

‘Suck It Up, Like Jesus,’ Centre for Public Christianity’s Tim Costello Tells Assuie Believers

by FM Editors
July 18, 2019
Chibok girl
Uncategorized

Dozens of Chibok Schoolgirls ‘Freed’ From Boko Haram, Officials Say

by FM Editors
May 7, 2017
Would the Rev. Patrick Healy, Who Passed for White, Want to Be Celebrated as a Black Hero?
Features

Would the Rev. Patrick Healy, Who Passed for White, Want to Be Celebrated as a Black Hero?

by Alexandria Griffin
October 13, 2020
Andrew Draper, Mary McClintock Fulkerson and J. Kameron Carter on Christianity and race
Web Exclusives

Three Videos on Christianity and Race You Really Need to Watch

by FM Editors
June 28, 2017
Kanye West
Clippings

Kanye West’s Sunday Service Sparks Walkouts at Black Megachurch in NYC

by FM Editors
October 2, 2019
Facebook Twitter Youtube Instagram
Faithfully Magazine

Faithfully Magazine is a news and culture publication centered on Christian communities of color.

Recent News

  • Why Is There Christianity If Jesus Was Jewish?

Category

© 2023 Faithfully Media, LLC (Owner and Operator)

  • News
  • Opinion & Analysis
  • Inspiration
  • Web Exclusives
  • Specials
  • Shop
  • Events
    • FM Live Events
    • Community Events
  • Black Christian Content Links
  • About Us
    • Advertise With Us
    • Submit Content
    • Give Via PayPal
  • Log In to Your Faithfully Magazine Partner Account
No Result
View All Result

© 2023 Faithfully Media, LLC (Owner and Operator)

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms bellow to register

*By registering on our website, you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.
All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
Share via

Share This Post

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • Email
  • WhatsApp
  • Copy Link
  • Tumblr
  • Digg
  • Flipboard
  • SMS

Add New Playlist

Log In

Sign In

Login with Facebook
Login with Twitter
Forgot password?

Don't have an account? Register

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Back to Login

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Accept

Add to Collection

  • Public collection title

  • Private collection title

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.
Are you sure want to unlock this post?
Unlock left : 0
Are you sure want to cancel subscription?
Send this to a friend