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Sure do. I was on the team until I left for Iraq. We observed and reported via two-way radio on any interesting characters who showed up. This helped establish our presence as something other than usher or greeter. Our church serves a free lunch and also buses in people from the local shelters - some of who's main interest is just the meal. Some of them are still processing Saturday's alcohol you see so they have the potential for unpredictable behavior. We also receive sex offender profiles from the police on a regular basis and help to watch for those and yes, we've had one or two grace us with their presence. We also patrol the parking lot and made our presence known to any loitering youth groups who happen to be in the school playground across the street. We also did regular sweeps of the building to ensure things were in order and no kids were ditching their Sunday school class. The ushers also report any unusual behavior amongst the congregation. There have been several occasions where we had to pull people out. At offering time we escort the funds to the business office and post outside the locked door until the money is locked in the safe. We also post up in the sanctuary whenever the congregation may be out of their seats, such as going forward for prayer, communion, and any other time unknowns have access to the pastor. When we first instituted a “security” team, many people thought it was over the top, me included until I decided to find out for myself what the deal was. My eyes were opened in a big way to all the issues and potential problems that the team helps keep from general knowledge.

Sounds like a good plan. It make seem “over the top” until it’s needed. Better to have it and not need it...

I condemn Illinois, because a citizen isn’t allowed to carry a gun - only criminals.

But in this case I don’t know what better security could have done - he started squeezing off shots and the gun jammed. You’d be in condition yellow, see this guy going up, go to condition orange, then when he started shooting you’d be lucky if you could draw, rush and take a bead before it was over.