October 23, 2018 Show with Timothy J. Fancher and Larry Parham on “Lessons to be Learned to Protect Your Church As We Remember the Sutherland Springs, TX Massacre at First Baptist Church One Year Later”

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Proverbs 27, verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 23rd day of October 2018, and I'm delighted to have both a returning guest and a first -time guest on today together to discuss a very important subject.

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We have, first of all, Tim Fancher on with us today. He is founder of Psalm 144

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Church Protection Seminars and American Street Edge Self -Defense

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Systems. He's a fourth -degree black belt in American Kenpo Karate with over 30 years of martial arts experience, and he's a former police officer and a recognized expert in church security, personal protection, and children's abduction prevention.

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And it's my honor and privilege, first of all, to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Tim Fancher. Well, thank you,

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Chris. I'm delighted and honored to be here, and just, you know, may the Lord continue to bless you and your show and your listeners in that you're taking the time for such an important topic and, you know, for the second time in a year, jumping in to see what we can do to help people be safe.

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So thank you, sir. And we also have joining us for the first time, Larry Parham.

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He is a Psalm 144 Advisory Board member and a police officer at the

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Sedalia, Missouri Police Department, and they are both going to be addressing lessons to be learned to protect your church as we remember the

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Sutherland Springs, Texas, massacre at First Baptist Church in that city one year later.

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And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Larry Parham.

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Thanks for having me, Tim, or I'm sorry. I already screwed that up, huh?

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Well, you were on, as you were both telling me before the program launched,

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I know that, Larry, you met Tim when you were being interviewed by him on his own podcast years ago.

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Yeah, and I think that was his habit of talking to Tim on the radio. Yeah, I didn't mean to take over the show like that without even doing anything, but I had my own talk radio show in Columbia, Missouri back in 2009, and Larry was my guest two separate times.

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I gave that up when I came to Tulsa to Tim ORU, and, you know, while I was in Senators when I got involved with church security, so it's the way everything is kind of circling back around again, which is just fantastic, especially to have, you know, someone of Larry's caliber on the board to help out with such difficult topics.

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Great. And by the way, Larry, did I correctly pronounce... I can't even pronounce, pronounce.

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Did I correctly pronounce your name, Parham? That's Parham. Parham.

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Okay. Yep. I should have went with my gut instinct on that. Yeah, you did. It's spelled just like it's pronounced.

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Yeah, I think the further south you go, I think it'll start becoming Parham when you go further south. Okay. Well, first of all,

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Tim, I think it'd be wise for us to tell our audience once again, even though this is your second time on the program, there may be many people who are still unfamiliar with Psalm 144

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Church Protection Seminars, because we have, it seems, new people being added to our audience every single day from all over the world.

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So why don't you tell our listeners about Psalm 144 Church Protection Seminars? Sure, and I think one of the most important things is to write off the bat what 144 is, and it's,

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Blessed be the Lord my rock who prepares my hands for war and my fingers for battle. And I would say that was a clear directive from the

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Lord that, you know, we are to take action, that we are to do things to be vigilant, to be purposeful, and tactical.

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And I already mentioned ORU and seminary, but it was when I was in 2012. In 2012, rather, a really small church had a number of credible threats that came in against them due to a video they released that went viral.

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And there's a bit of a story behind that, but in short, you know, there's not a lot of fourth degree black belt former cops in seminary.

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I was friends with that family, and I got involved. And to help manage a threat, help them out.

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And that Wednesday night, I just showed up the front door and just positioned myself in the front door and said, you know, someone's going to get the threat for two teenage daughters.

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And I said, if they're going to go after them, they're going to have to go through me. And that night I gave a crash course in security to the church at large.

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And things that seemed really basic to me, they were really excited and scratching notes. And I started investigating church security, and I realized that there was a huge problem back then, and that most churches didn't have anything in place at all.

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And they gave some of the excuses I'll be addressing throughout this show. Or they went overboard, and there were all these, like, paramilitary -looking people running around, you know, just giving off not only a sense of fear, but also they seemed very foreboding for someone to visit that church for the first time.

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And I realized there was a true tension that exists between standard security practices, social psychology, theology, and criminology.

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And I set out to address that tension. And I made 144 my practicum. So I spent a semester designing a program.

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And the original idea I had in mind was just the sweet little pastor in the middle of nowhere,

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Oklahoma, who knows nothing about bad guys, nothing about predatory behavior, a church that had minimal budget.

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How could I help them to be safer without just promoting fear? And so I designed that.

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And since then, you know, it's evolved quite a bit in the six years since. And I've also now included active shooter training as part of that.

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So I give a weekend -long training session that is set out to be theologically balanced, to be able to build, create, and maintain a volunteer church protection team, again, to now include active shooter training.

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Larry Parham, tell our listeners about why you became a police officer to begin with and also how you became very interested in serving on the advisory board of Psalm 144.

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Good thing it's a two -hour show because why did I get into law enforcement? Well, for starters, my uncle was in law enforcement, so he had a big influence on my life.

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But it was, if you asked me 20 years ago, if you told me 20 years ago that I would be in law enforcement right now,

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I probably would have laughed at you. I never thought, this was never my direction as a kid, like in high school or anything like that.

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I truly believe that God got involved and kind of guided me in the right direction.

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Twenty years ago, I was moving furniture. I had just moved to Missouri. I grew up in northern

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Illinois, and I met my wife here in Missouri. We had our second child, and I was lugging furniture around.

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And then I started working for Missouri Department of Corrections, and the bug kind of got me after a while of talking with the inmates and being around the inmates and listening to their stories.

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It really kind of, like, wow, that could have very easily have been me. Then getting involved with the inmates more of their gang backgrounds and things like that, so I kind of got more into investigating gangs.

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And when I left the Department of Corrections and came to the State Police Department, I kind of became our local gang guy that knew about the local gangs and these rural areas that are migrating from.

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We're now east from Kansas City, so we get a lot of guys migrating from bigger cities to smaller towns, and that kind of became my thing.

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But I kind of fit that demographic of a lot of the inmates there.

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My mother had me at age 16. I had her own drug and alcohol problems.

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She never beat those problems. She passed away the first week of me in the police academy, and that was kind of my,

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I guess, my origin story of I wanted to go ahead and I figured if I couldn't save her,

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I wanted to try to save as many other people as I can. And that kind of was my fuel in law enforcement.

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Wow, well, praise God for that, because obviously the odds were against you as far as whether or not you would become someone involved in the street crime surrounding you, and God preserved you from that.

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And I'm very happy to hear that you are among those that risk their lives every day in law enforcement.

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And it's, I think, a tragedy that in the 21st century, so much of the media reveals the tension and even the hatred that many citizens throughout the country have for those in law enforcement, when they, especially in areas where they themselves depend upon it more than everybody else as far as remaining safe and so on.

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And then, like, for me, it's doubly, you know, being a black man and a police officer, it's pretty tough nowadays.

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But also when Tim came to me about him starting his church security idea,

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I was definitely behind that. I thought that was a great idea, and I wanted to support him, him running with that and trying to spread the word of keeping people safe.

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By the way, I just wanted to make sure our listeners have our e -mail address if you have questions of your own. Our e -mail address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA. And please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

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One thing before I forget to ask this later, before I go into more questions specifically about the organization,

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Psalm 144, Larry, there seems to be some schizophrenia involved amongst especially those who are politically on the left side of the spectrum in regard to the police.

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On the one hand, they're always complaining that the police are late in responding or ignoring the crime that exists among them, and they basically are constantly, it seems, complaining that law enforcement is not doing their job or law enforcement officers are not doing their job adequately, etc.,

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etc. And then, at the same time, they complain when it seems that there is even necessary violence used against criminals in their communities.

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And on top of everything, those on the left, especially those in political power, in spite of all this complaining that you hear from especially liberals and so on, you hear that we are supposed to, as American citizens, not be concerned about defending ourselves, but we are to rely upon the police.

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In other words, that's why there is a major push that everyone knows by those on the left in regard to gun control, and it seems oxymoronic, if you will.

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Do you understand what I'm saying? Definitely. And if you could just respond to what I said.

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It's to the point nowadays, I mean, it seems like almost daily we joke at the police department, you know, somebody will say, yep, should have been a fireman.

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You know, that's always... You know, it seems like you can't win.

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We're the referees of the community. You go on a call, two people aren't happy about something, and we try to make a call one way or another, and the other team isn't going to be happy with that call, whatever we make.

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So somebody is going to usually leave, or upset with us when that situation is over.

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We try to mediate as much as we can. I try to get everybody to talk and, like, hey, can we, like, problem -solve this, and can't you guys work this out?

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The police shouldn't have to be here. But we get called out there, and we have to respond to that, but then we're met with hostility of, why are you guys here?

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You guys are harassing people. We were called here. We weren't just driving around and finding people.

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Proactive law enforcement, at least. I can't speak for all areas, but it's really slowing down because of staffing.

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We can't really get people to be cops anymore. I teach at a police academy here in central

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Missouri that our numbers are down, and most police academy numbers are down. We've been short -staffed for a while, trying to get back to fully staffed.

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We're going call to call to call, and this is a town of 20 ,000 people. Wow. Well, let me go back to you,

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Tim. Tell us about some of the changes that you are aware of that have taken place in church security since the

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Sutherland Springs, Texas, massacre. In fact, why don't you remind us of the, basically give us a summary of that massacre that occurred a year ago and why we are remembering that today, a year later.

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Yes, and if you don't mind, I was just going to have a follow -up comment to what Larry said. Oh, sure. One of my hopes in having him on this show is, you know, he said

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Sedalia is 20 ,000 people. I mean, they have a lot of big box stores, a lot of things. You know, my mom used to live close to there.

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So it's not as small as it may seem, I think, that, you know, really big city people. But my point is that, think about it from Larry's point of view, that he goes out and he deals with people who are mad at him like this, and then he tries to go out with his wife to have dinner or, you know, to go catch a beer and watch a game, and that he can never really truly let his guard down.

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And that's what it's like for cops, because even in great big cities, they have their zones, so they still have to worry about that.

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So, you know, I get frustrated when people get so angry and nasty because they say a cop is really standoffish, they approach him at the quick trip or something.

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And I'm just saying, you know, Larry, I'm sure you remember this. It was last year when that big cop tried to sit down beside what appeared to be a homeless man and just talked to him, and the guy pulled out a gun and shot him in the head without a word.

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You know, I would just ask sometimes for people to understand that cops are people too.

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And I know that's a cliché, but I think if you stop and think to yourself, hey, if I wanted to go out and get a steak dinner, do

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I have to worry about whether or not that waiter's got a steak knife on him or not? Because I just dealt with him three nights ago.

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And that, you know, with the nature of this show, you know, I would ask people to remind them that from police officers to security to first responders, lift them up in prayer.

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Because there is, and I'll be addressing this, but there is a serious spiritual warfare component to this, and there's forces and reasons behind what's happening with this mania -factured sort of hatred and distrust of law enforcement.

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And that's something that people like Larry have to deal with every single day. Yeah, well, we have got to remember to keep those in law enforcement in our daily prayers.

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That's for certain. But if you could, give us a summary about the

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Sutherland Springs Massacre that occurred a year ago. Yeah, it was November 5th of last year, and a man went to the church, and he ultimately slaughtered 26 men, women, and children.

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In the time since I talked to you last, I've found out several things that weren't released to the media.

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There's one thing that I've said I will never, ever say to anybody in my life, and I wish the person that told me didn't say it to me.

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That's how bad it is. And it's one of those that if anyone ever said there's no such thing as true evil, you know, that would be probably my top argument.

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But what I'm saying is no matter how horrific and bad someone thinks it is, it was worse. And the thing is, when this person showed up, he was basically in tactical gear, you know, dressed in all black, and he parked across the street in a gas station, and he walked in broad daylight over to that church.

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And because they hadn't, you know, here's what's challenging, what I always say to people, it's never, ever, ever blaming the victim.

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And Larry can say this as a police academy instructor, that sometimes we have to go back and we look at where people were victimized, slaughtered, and so forth.

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But when we're learning from those mistakes, we're not blaming them. We're just doing that. We're learning from those mistakes. And so sometimes out of that ultimate darkness, the light that can come out of it is enhanced training.

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And, you know, all they had been taught was, you know, what it was for someone with active shooters was just hide, and that's what they did.

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They hid underneath the pews while he just went down there, bam, bam, bam. And, you know, speaking of the media and the left and things of that nature, it was barely reported on what really happened because it doesn't fit the media narrative.

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But a girl texted her grandfather, who lived nearby, who I meant to check.

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It was mid-'70s, I think he was 76, and said, you know, we're being shot at.

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And this man jumped up off the couch, grabbed a rifle. He was barefoot, running to the church, fired a shot, which made the shooter go outside.

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He sighted on him while running, while barefoot, identified he was wearing a bulletproof vest and knew there would be a gap above his waistline, and that's where he shot the guy, which ended the attack and which made him then take off.

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And then the other gentleman picked up the older man, and, you know, the pursuit ensued.

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But the thing is, he's an NRA -certified instructor, and so hardly anybody heard about that that's not in the field because that's the last thing that they wanted to get out.

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So there's so many things, you know, from that, from, you know, the proper training to if there was a security team in place, you know, what

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I've said to people before is if there was a security team in place, whether it was a team I trained or Sheepdog Seminars or any of the other elite groups out there, that guy wouldn't have set one foot on one blade of grass walking across the street like that with, you know, his assault weapon, his rifle in broad daylight.

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So that right there is what I was saying should have changed the narrative now and forever on church security.

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Well, when we come back, I want you to give us some examples of how changes in church security have changed or have occurred since the

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Sutherland Springs, Texas massacre. And we're going to go to our first break right now.

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If anybody would like to join us, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com. C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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Please give us your first name, at least your city and state of residence in your country of residence.

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If you live outside the USA, please only remain anonymous. If your question involves a personal and private matter and obviously a program like this with a theme like this,

21:47

I could see it being lended toward those with personal and private matters in regard to this very subject that they might want to bring up, especially if they've been victims of something like a church invasion or home invasion or business invasion or any other kind of a crime similar to what we were discussing.

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But if it's not a personal and private matter, please, we would ask you to give us your first name at least, your city and state and your country of residence.

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We are now back today with our guest Tim Fancher who is the founder of Psalm 144 and if you've been listening you know that Psalm 144 is a church protection organization that sets up seminars to help equip churches to defend themselves from attacks whether they be attacks of local madmen or foreign terrorists whoever that may be.

33:17

And in this day and age with the left getting more violent in our own streets here in America with the rise of Antifa and other nuts that are wandering the streets either threatening to physically harm those who disagree with them or actually doing it

33:39

Psalm 144 church protection seminars may prove to be very valuable to you and your congregation.

33:47

We also have Larry Parham on the program who is on the advisory board for Psalm 144 church protection seminars he's also a police officer at the

33:58

Saladia, Missouri Police Department and we are discussing lessons to be learned to protect your church as we remember

34:07

Sutherland Springs, Texas massacre at First Baptist Church one year later. And our email address is chrisorenson at gmail .com

34:16

chrisorenson at gmail .com at c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n gmail .com please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside the

34:24

USA. And Tim, right before the break I was asking you to give us a summary of changes that you are aware of involving church security since the

34:38

Sutherland Springs, Texas massacre. Yes, and you know one thing

34:43

I think is I'd like to just even back up just the times leading up to that in a sense and one of the main points with this narrative about a couple things

34:52

I'm about to talk about by no way, shape, or form am I saying oh woe is me for some of the continued difficulties.

34:58

The point and the things I'm talking about are presumably the people that are listening are also, you know, thinking this is a good thing and maybe wanting to talk to their churches and one thing that is very important is to paint a realistic view for people who are interested in church security of some of the difficulties that they may face some of which are so absurd they may not even believe them until they encounter them.

35:21

But, you know, I mentioned that I started this back in 2012 and several times people who were close to me were saying to me why do you keep doing this?

35:29

Because I wasn't, you know, really I wasn't making any money I was spending money doing it and, you know,

35:34

I was continuing to work and refine the seminars and contact people and I just kept saying because it's needed and because this is what

35:43

God has told me to do there's no question in my mind that, you know, all these things I've done my college degrees all my experience in martial arts it all led up to having a very unique background, training, and education to be able to do this.

35:55

But when Sublime Springs happened I had already been published by WFX Network Worship Facilities Magazine on church security

36:03

I think I'd had six articles published so already, you know, the credibility was getting there things were starting to fully turn around and people were a little more receptive but I was still running into some of the same old same old objections and then the day after the day of Sublime Springs or it might have been the day after you contacted me to have me come on the show and I don't know if you remember this but at that time

36:25

I actually was selling RVs and, you know, I was doing that to pay the bills and at night

36:31

I had some people I taught you know, street edge self -defense to and I was working on articles of 144 but after your show and then

36:38

Fox 23, the local affiliate interviewed me and covered a seminar that I gave a local church that had contacted me as a result of things and I had so much interest in churches

36:50

I actually had to put on my Facebook page that I apologize it's going to take me a day or two to respond to everybody and within a few days

36:57

I quit the RV job yeah, I quit the RV job and I found a location here in Broken Arrow which is adjacent to Tulsa where one side of it is 144 and the other side is street edge so I teach, you know, street edge self -defense to students and work on 144 and I will say

37:15

I thought, okay these objections and these problems I'm having surely they're over with when people look at what happened and, you know, again going back to the fact that the guy crossed the street in daylight in full tactical gear and then everybody hid you know, as he just went down the pews masquerading them and...

37:35

Tim, Tim are you there? Larry, are you there? Well, I'm hoping that both of my guests...

37:44

I'm frustrated we're back to the apathy of before I'm back to hearing a lot of the same old excuses and the same old reasons and that was one reason

37:53

I thought it was so important to come on the show and remind people that this evil exists and one thing that I just respect so much about you is you'll talk about what's happening with the left and with the

38:03

TIFA and all these other things that are happening and people are not understanding that what's really happening in the future of this that it just has to be there you need to have church security in place so...

38:17

By the way, I don't know if you're aware I don't know if you're aware of it Tim, I don't know if you're aware of it but you dropped off for about five seconds

38:23

Larry, are you still on the phone with us? Yes, sir Okay, I just wanted to make sure because there was dead silence on the other end for about five seconds so I don't know why that happened but I'm glad that I'm glad that...

38:35

Okay, I'm still here Yeah, great Well, I think we got most of what you said there, Tim We do have a listener

38:42

We have a listener in Cork, Ireland and I'm assuming this is especially meant for Larry perhaps but Larry, she said this is

38:56

Mary from Cork, Ireland Hi, Chris I have the greatest admiration for the police

39:01

My son, who is living in Carlisle, Pennsylvania now was in the Garda police reserves in Cork, Ireland for many years and has this poem framed and hanging on the wall because he understands the price a police officer has to pay and as a mother

39:18

I watched on and I'm going to read the poem that she shared with us Tears of a

39:24

Cop Author Unknown I have been where you fear to go

39:29

I have seen what you fear to see I have done what you fear to do

39:34

All these things I've done for you I am the one you lean upon The one you cast your scorn upon The one you bring your troubles to And all these people

39:45

I've been for you The one you ask to stand apart The one you feel should have no heart

39:52

The one you call the man in blue But I am human just like you

39:57

And through the years I've come to see That I'm not what you ask of me

40:02

So take this bade And take this gun I think she meant to say to write

40:09

Take this badge And take this gun Will you take it? Will anyone? And when you watch a person die

40:16

And hear a battered baby cry Then so you think That you can be

40:22

Those things you ask of me Very moving poem. Thank you,

40:28

Mary, in Cork, Ireland. Thank you, Matt. Shout out to the

40:33

Guard. I was lucky to be able to do a lot of training in Chicago. They have a big international gang conference there in Chicago that I would go to every year.

40:42

And they would have guys from Guard in Ireland, met guys from Australia, South Africa.

40:49

And, you know, the law dogs are trying to do the best we can all over the world. Praise God.

40:58

Well, what are some basic things that, Tim, that you want our listeners to have in mind in regard to this whole subject?

41:07

Yeah, one thing I was going to talk about, and I definitely will want to touch on, one of the biggest changes, of course, is the active shooter training and the absolute need for it and some of the key distinguishing features.

41:19

But one thing I just wanted to just get back to that still does happen.

41:24

And so, you know, you'll have the people who just are almost offended by the idea of church security.

41:31

And that's, you know, a different conversation. But a lot of times people are just overwhelmed. They feel like it's this big, giant monster.

41:38

And I use that term because it was two years ago I was talking to a pastor at a church in a pretty rough part of west of downtown

41:47

Tulsa, and they had a lot of problems. And we were talking for about 15 minutes, and I already, you know, said two or three little things that could be done.

41:56

And a woman, out of nowhere, he just reached over and swatted me on the knee and was like, Tim, you're answered prayer. And I mean, you know, when a pastor says that, it's cool and all, but, you know, it's kind of, you stay thinking, you keep talking.

42:06

And I started to do that. But he realized what I was doing. He goes, no, hang on. He said, I'm being literal.

42:12

He said, you're answered prayer. He said, for six months, we've been praying for an expert on church security to come in here because we wanted to put security in place.

42:21

And that's when he said, but it seemed like some big, giant monster, and we didn't even really know how to get started. And he said, in 15 minutes, he said, you've given me several things that we can do tomorrow and make the church safer.

42:32

And that really stuck with me because that is what's so important is understanding that there is a clear path to it.

42:40

You know, and that's why with what I do, it's an extremely intense weekend. I mean, most times, by the time

42:45

I'm coming back home on Sunday, I've lost my voice and I hurt all over. But in one weekend, it can be done.

42:52

But there's little things that can be done as well. And that's one thing that I really want to encourage people about, but it must be intentional, purposeful, and tactical.

43:00

One of the worst things that I hear, and Larry and I had a couple of messages before the show started about this from an article that I wrote called the top three most dangerous misconceptions about church security, is when people have that, what

43:14

I just call the paper tiger team, where they say, oh, we've got some guys watching the door. You know, that's one of those, the intent is good, but if you're not organized, if you don't have, you know, training, if you don't have proper things in place, it's almost worse, because then you have that false sense of security.

43:30

So just finally, just one really simple thing. It goes off what's called a broken window theory, which is a sociological study from the 70s where they parked a brand -new car in a really high -crime area,

43:44

I believe it was New York City, and nobody touched it. And then the next night, they broke out one small window, and by the morning, the car had been totally stripped.

43:51

And the idea is that once there starts to be some elements of disrepair and neglect, it actually attracts more crime.

44:00

And that's been proven over and over. I know Larry can speak to that, too. And so, you know, that's why I tell churches, if it's

44:07

July, and your sign out front still says, join us for Easter services, or you've got, you know, bushes that are overgrown, or, you know, just litter in the front, bad guys, if they are targeting a church, if they're looking for a church to cause mayhem, whether it's from breaking in to going in, you know, shooting people up, you know, trying for kidnapping, any sort of all the nightmare stuff that literally keeps me up at night, something like that can attract their attention because if they're not taking care of the little things, they're not taking care of the big things.

44:36

So they see a church that's got a sharp look to it, you know, the grounds are taken care of, they see the person out in front with the black blazer, the radio, and the name tag, and he's looking around, and he has that proper balance of command presence and visible deterrent, they're going to look at that church and be like, nope, not that church, they're taking care of business.

44:56

And sometimes it's just as simple as having that phrase of, we're taking care of business, to start putting things in place that end up having a phenomenal team in a much shorter time period than somebody may first realize.

45:10

Well, if you could, go through some major things that may sound even like minor things on the surface, but are actually major things in regard to keeping people safer in a church, things that your average pastor, elder, deacon board, or church member may overlook.

45:33

Well, one of the first things I say, and I always say go top -down with this, and it's what I started to specialize in, is minimizing church flow disruption.

45:42

What I mean by that is, when I was in seminary, I visited a lot of churches.

45:47

Even though I had my home church, I still visited a lot. And because of what I do, and I even have taught the three -edged self -defense system classes in churches.

45:57

So I've visited a number of churches. They all have their own way of doing things. They all have their own church flow.

46:02

Every church is different. And the thing is, the biggest problem in security, and really this is one of the ways that church security is like other security disciplines, is it's very easy to get an us -versus -them mentality.

46:16

And one of the quickest ways to get your whole church security team shut down before it starts is if someone goes in and they don't understand church, they don't understand just the way things are done, and they start putting a bunch of systems in place that unnecessarily interrupts the normal Sunday morning,

46:32

Wednesday night flow, you know, the way things are done, and there's no real reason for it, it's going to get shut down.

46:38

Because the moment you meet Grandma Smith who's been there for 50 years mad because you changed something and there was no real reason for it, you're going to lose the whole church.

46:46

So that's something to always be mindful of, and so that's where having the proper chain of command and communications in place is so important.

46:55

But, you know, as far as everything from, like I said, I have a suggested dress code, which is just what

47:01

I said earlier, a black blazer, you know, slacks. Radios are not that expensive.

47:06

And then a name badge that will say, you know, XYZ church, church protection team volunteer.

47:12

And that's the key in everything I'm saying here. What I teach is to build a team that's a volunteer team from the congregation, which is the absolute best thing that you can do.

47:21

But then whenever you have people that have assigned zones and they understand what those assignments are and they have radio discipline and then they know how to approach people without just looking like, you know, they're trying to intimidate or bully them, all those things lend itself to a professional team that's going to reassure the congregation without just scaring them.

47:41

And so, you know, the dress code is important. Having zone assignments is important and making sure that people understand what their roles are.

47:50

And, you know, just to give one minor example, that church, because they were having some active problems and I was looking for really short solutions, you know, perception is reality.

48:01

And I said, you know, you can go and you can get a corridor magnet made for $15 and get someone with a late model sedan or, you know, a big truck, which is definitely not an issue in Tulsa, but put on their

48:13

XYZ church protection team, slap that on that truck, and then park it by the main entrance.

48:19

When people walk in or drive in, they're going to see that. So even if they don't really truly have a team in place yet, that can be the beginning.

48:26

And with just that one simple thing, it's showing, hey, we're watching over our flock. You know, we're keeping an eye on things.

48:32

So, you know, those are some of the little things that can be done. But again, it comes down to having that proper team and making sure to be trained and understanding your roles.

48:42

Now, there may be people who just love the idea, I'm talking about church members, who love the idea of being looked upon by the congregation as somebody, as an authority figure, that they love the idea of wearing a jacket and a badge and maybe even having a decal on their truck or their car.

49:08

But we have to, I'm assuming, that we have to make sure that people who are volunteering for critical roles in church safety aren't just people who will be of no use whatsoever other than the fact that they're wearing a badge and they think that they look cool or look important.

49:26

Don't they have to need some kind of basic skills, or what do you think about that?

49:31

What are... Right, and so that's where, you know, that's the little bit of tension that exists between, quite frankly, when people just say, can you send me a bunch of free information?

49:44

And, you know, besides the fact that, well, this is how I'm making my living, but more importantly, you know, you can't just read articles or just even listen to a show and have things in place.

49:54

And that's where the physical training has to come into play. And that weekend training session, it's 12 to 16 hours worth of training.

50:02

I probably know less than 20 times say, if this guy is some kind of Rambo, you have to get rid of him.

50:07

So we talk about that constantly, that if you've got someone who's going to escalate the situation and, you know, things to be careful of, and one of the easiest things is telling people, you know, just be careful of the younger guys and that there should be, there needs to be an interview process once we've selected the director.

50:25

So it shouldn't be as easy as, hey, I want to be part of the church protection team and they get handed a radio.

50:31

That, you know, it should come down to, you know, intent. Like, why are you wanting to do this? But then, you know, beyond that, there needs to be the training and how to deal with the different scenarios.

50:41

And this ties in enough to give this part, because this is one of the most important things that I tell people, is whenever sometimes someone says to me, you know, what do you mean when you say there's no other discipline of security like church security?

50:56

And then they say, what does it mean to be theologically balanced? And this is what's so important. This is an example

51:01

I give, that say, you hired me to be in charge of security for ours and Enterprises, and it was a standard business or office complex, and Monday morning at 10 a .m.,

51:16

a middle -aged man who's all disheveled walks in, and he's in dress clothes, which are all wrinkly. He's all sweaty.

51:22

He's agitated. His eyes are darting everywhere. And this is a business environment, Monday morning at 10 a .m.

51:28

There's no question I should respond as Officer Fancher. In other words, my initial approach to him,

51:33

I need to have a high level of command presence showing, you know, I'm in charge. You clearly don't belong here.

51:39

And if I go up there, I have a professional demeanor that's commonly called command presence. No question about it.

51:45

Which, yes, is somewhat of an aggressive look. But what if 24 hours before, that same guy looked the exact same way, walked into a church, and someone walked up to him who was an untrained or poorly trained church security guy, and he walked up with that kind of aggressive demeanor to the person.

52:03

But the reason he'd walked into the church like that is he'd been drinking the last three days because he found that his wife was cheating on him with his boss.

52:11

She was leaving him. He was getting fired, and he was going to go down the bridge and jump off of it. But he decided the last second,

52:17

I'm going to pop in this neighborhood church and see if anyone has something to say to me. What's going to happen then if the untrained guy makes that kind of approach to him?

52:24

What I say is not only have we probably just lost a life, we probably lost a soul, because it's doubtful that he knows

52:30

Christ in that situation. I don't know. But my point is, you can't approach situations in a church the same way you would in a warehouse or a nightclub or a business office.

52:41

And those are the things that come with proper training. And that's the theologically balanced approach that is so critical in understanding the discipline of church security.

52:51

We have to go to our midway break right now. This is a longer than normal break because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

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FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us every day a longer break in the middle of our show because they have to localize

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Iron Trip and Zion Radio to Lake City, Florida by airing local commercials and public service announcements.

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So please be patient with us as we take this longer than normal break. Use this time wisely and write down the information provided by our advertisers so that you can more frequently and more successfully patronize them.

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Because we depend upon our advertisers to stick around and continue sponsoring this program because their financial support is required for us to remain in existence.

53:37

So the more you patronize our advertisers, the more likely they are going to continue advertising.

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So please write down the information that our advertisers provide, but also take this time to write down questions for our two guests today.

53:52

That would be Tim Fancher and Larry Parham as we continue our discussion on Lessons to be

53:57

Learned to Protect Your Church as we remember the Sutherland Springs, Texas massacre at First Baptist Church one year later.

54:04

Our email address to send in questions is chrisarnson at gmail .com

54:10

Please, as always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter. That's chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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Don't go away. We'll be right back right after these messages. Tired of box store Christianity?

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Their website is cvbbs .com. Browse the pages at ease, shop at your leisure, and purchase with confidence as Todd and Patty work in service to you, the

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01:07:12

We just have a few announcements to make in regard to special events that are coming up that we want you to attend before we return to our guests.

01:07:22

First of all, coming up very soon, November 9th and the 10th, the Quakertown Conference on Reformed Theology returns to the

01:07:31

Grace Bible Fellowship Church of Quakertown, Pennsylvania, and the theme is the Glory of the

01:07:36

Cross, and the speakers include David Garner, Ray Ortlund, Richard Phillips, Timothy Gibson, and Carlton Winn.

01:07:41

That's November 9th and the 10th at the Quakertown Conference on Reformed Theology being held at Grace Bible Fellowship Church, Quakertown, Pennsylvania.

01:07:52

If you want more information, go to the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals website, alliancenet .org

01:07:59

That's alliancenet .org Click on events and then scroll down to Quakertown Conference on Reformed Theology, then coming up in January from Thursday January 17th through Saturday January 19th, the

01:08:13

G3 Conference returns to the Georgia International Convention Center in College Park, Georgia, which is a suburb of Atlanta.

01:08:21

The theme this January is the Mission of God, a Biblical Understanding of Missions, and the speakers include

01:08:29

Dr. James R. White, John Piper, Stephen Lawson, Votie Baucom, Mark Dever, Conrad Mbewe, Tim Challies, Phil Johnson, Josh Bice, Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio, Stephen J.

01:08:44

Nichols, the president of Reformation Bible College, the college founded by R .C. Sproul and Ligonier Ministries, and many, many more are on that roster of speakers.

01:08:54

I would strongly recommend that if you have a church, a parachurch ministry, or a business that you want to promote at this conference, that you also register for an exhibitor's booth, just like the one

01:09:06

I will be manning for the third year in a row, because they're expecting between 4 ,000 and 5 ,000 people at the

01:09:13

G3 Conference. By the way, that stands for Gospel, Grace and Glory, if you're wondering. If you would like to attend this event and if you'd also like to register for an exhibitor's booth, which

01:09:23

I strongly recommend if you have a church, parachurch ministry, or business that you want to promote, then go to g3conference .com,

01:09:30

g3conference .com. Last but not least, oh yes, let me say one more thing about the G3 Conference. There is a

01:09:35

Spanish -speaking edition of the conference on Wednesday, January 16th. So if you have

01:09:41

Spanish -speaking and bilingual friends, you should let them know about that edition of the

01:09:46

G3 Conference entirely in Spanish, Wednesday, January 16th at the Georgia International Convention Center, College Park, Georgia.

01:09:54

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01:10:01

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01:11:30

If you'd like to advertise with us, we depend upon our advertisers to survive as well, so if you have a church, parachurch ministry, business, or special event that you want to advertise, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com

01:11:46

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01:12:04

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01:12:09

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01:12:18

and put advertising in the subject line. That's also the emailing address,

01:12:23

I should say. To send in a question to our guests, Tim Fancher and Larry Parham, if you have a question about protecting your church, as we remember the

01:12:34

Sutherland Springs, Texas massacre at First Baptist Church in that city one year later, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com

01:12:42

chrisarnson at gmail .com Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the good old

01:12:50

USA. And, if you could, Tim and, of course,

01:12:57

Larry, chime in whenever you'd like to by continuing giving us more very practical and helpful tips that might save lives either in our churches or even in, not only that, maybe perhaps our schools in our own homes as home invasions become more prevalent.

01:13:19

What are some of the things that are practical that every church can participate in?

01:13:27

Yes, and before the break we were talking about some of the changes, and without question, one thing

01:13:34

I definitely want to be able to explore and get Larry's thoughts on is active shooter training, but just to kind of somewhat finish up while I was saying that I'm admitting the frustration

01:13:46

I have with, it seems like, the pre -Tublin Springs apathy that's rolling back around, and that's just one thing that I'm just telling churches, and I know it's not politically correct to be as blunt, but it's irresponsible to have a church and not have some sort of security team in place.

01:14:02

It's nothing else, just thinking about the children, but what I was saying so long, the days of debate needs to be over, but when it comes to that,

01:14:11

I have about a 20 minute spiel where I give people an almost apologetic approach to why we need church security, but the very simple thing that I do now is if someone says, we don't need church security because nothing's ever happened to us,

01:14:26

I'll say, have you ever died in a car wreck? And I'll say, I understand what I just said, I said, then why do you wear a seatbelt?

01:14:32

You know, we do things every single day to keep us safe, and you know, the idea of a church saying we don't have security, my next question is, do you have fire extinguishers?

01:14:42

Do you have a fire plan? You know, here in Tornado Alley, do you have a tornado plan? Of course they do, but people want to deny violence.

01:14:48

They don't like the idea that there's evil people out there who wish to do them harm, and they're not recognizing what's happening right now with the media narrative, and with the divide in this country, their

01:14:58

Christians are increasingly being seen as viable targets, but you know, before I talk about that, just as far as active shooter training, that's one of the biggest changes.

01:15:08

I had not offered that up until it was actually July of last year,

01:15:14

I began researching active shooter training, and after a year and a half of work,

01:15:20

I formally launched it, you know, in spring of this year, Run, Fight, Survive active shooter training was part of it, but there's a saying, and I'm sure

01:15:28

Larry says it 20 times a day when he's teaching, you revert to your training in a crisis situation, and the idea that you can have active shooter training and just sit and watch a

01:15:37

DVD and then whenever you hear bam, bam, bam coming, that you're going to react is nonsense. You have to do physical drills, you have to be able to have the drills with the shooter coming in, in your church you know those hallways, you know how to I never say hide, what

01:15:54

I say is you barricade post up and fight. If you can't run then you don't say hide, because that's what happened there.

01:16:00

You barricade post up and fight, and then we go through, you know, the reality of what's going to happen when that shooter makes entry, if you can't get out of there.

01:16:07

So, those sort of things are what I put a tremendous amount of work in, but what I'm saying to churches, that has just got to be done.

01:16:14

You can't deny it, even if it's an unpleasant thing. Churches need to have that kind of training, and to do the physical training just one more time, sitting and watching a

01:16:25

DVD, and when you actually hear those gunshots, that's the only training you have is not going to do you any better good at all.

01:16:31

And I'm sure Larry has something to say about that. That's our training through the police department.

01:16:36

Most police departments now are doing active shooter trainings at least once a year on a grander scale.

01:16:42

But now, talking to school resource officers throughout the country, they're telling me about schools now having, so like, tornado drills.

01:16:52

They still have tornado drills, but they also have active shooter drills now. They're implementing that in other schools now.

01:17:01

I agree with Tim on, I don't like the whole hiding thing. My sons are grown up now, but when they were in school, that was one of the things

01:17:10

I stressed. If something like that was to happen, first off, if you can get out of the school, get out of there.

01:17:15

If you're stuck somewhere where you can't, you know, you're basically stuck in a classroom or something like that, like Tim said, post up somewhere, try to barricade the door, but if he comes in there, you've got to go into that fight mode of I want to go home.

01:17:32

If you've got to take your compass, your pencil, whatever else, and start sticking them with whatever you can, you've got to have that and try to get everybody else motivated into that mindset of we've got to win and get out of here and stop this threat.

01:17:49

When we do drills, the reason I call it run fight survive, it's just that, run. We have the difficult conversations up to including, if you can run away and you have someone who refuses and they curl up, man, you're just going to have to make that decision right there, because that definitely happens when you read the case study for these things, but the other thing is you're going to have to, and that's why you must have physical drills, because when

01:18:12

I've been a student in the training and then as the instructor, I've seen both sides of it where everybody, there's different things that I do to replicate the stress, including noise, things of that nature, and they get that heart rate up and they start to suffer some of the physiological and psychological effects of fear on the body.

01:18:31

If you don't understand that the first time it happens to you, you're not going to deal with it properly and you're probably going to die, so that's what

01:18:37

I talk to people about, that's why there's such high stress drills, but you'll have to have that, just like Larry said, you're going to have to have that conversation in the room.

01:18:45

Who's taking the shooter down? Who's filling the books? You've got this limb, you've got this limb, you've got the head, you're back here, and even looking at, you need to be dead silent in that room and if you've got somebody who's crying uncontrollably or screaming and they won't stop, the hard reality is you may have to knock them out, because if you look at the after studies, the shooter knows he's got 8 or 12 minutes and he knows the clock is ticking, so when there is a door that he can't make entry, there's no sound, there's no light, you can look back on it, they'll move to a different classroom, they'll move to a different part of the church, but if they've got someone there screaming, it's blood in the water.

01:19:25

So those are the reasons you have to have physical drills, because that sort of stuff doesn't just come up with DVDs, and that's all part of that, of the critical nature of having that type of training for churches.

01:19:36

We have a question for Officer Parham from Ronald in Eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, and he says,

01:19:45

I don't know if the laws are different from state to state, but when is it legal to open fire upon an intruder in a church who is armed, does he have to make some kind of vocal threat, or can he be merely be pointing the weapon, and so on, and there may be very tragic circumstances that arise when a church member may illegally harm or kill such an intruder.

01:20:15

Can you give us some advice? Yeah, and the laws are different in different areas, different states, but like here in Missouri, Missouri, you can open carry, and you can conceal carry without going to CCW classes.

01:20:31

So, Missouri, I mean, we've got a lot of people around town that just, you know, they have guns on. But, so a lot of times we'll get a phone call about, you know, hey, this guy's walking down the street with a gun in his holster, walking down by the highway.

01:20:46

Well, is he doing anything with it? No, he's just walking. Okay, well, that's not illegal. Now, the minute he pulls it out and starts pointing at somebody, now that's a threat.

01:20:54

I would take that as a threat. If somebody walks in the church, and he's got a gun holstered or something like that,

01:20:59

I don't know what the laws are in Long Island, but if he pointed at me,

01:21:05

I'm going to take that as a threat. So even if he carries a semi -automatic weapon, a large weapon like that, in his arms into a church building, that isn't enough, because if it's legal for him to do that, you cannot,

01:21:20

I'm assuming, shoot a person if it's legal. But if he makes some kind of announcement,

01:21:25

I'm going to kill everybody or Christians must die or something like that, is that...

01:21:30

I would take that as a threat. So then you could shoot a person when he says something like that. Like I said,

01:21:39

I would want to check with your local areas. Him carrying it, but making threats and everything, you start following that gray area,

01:21:50

I would at least be getting mine out if I had a gun with me. I'd be getting it out. It is a tricky situation to know what the law is.

01:22:01

I'll give you an example. It wasn't anything that dramatic, but years ago, my late wife was driving in her car in front of me,

01:22:13

I was following her, and a car got in between us that was being driven by a drunk driver.

01:22:22

My wife stopped at the stoplight, he slammed into the back of her vehicle, I got out of my vehicle, and the guy rolled down his window, and he was obviously drunk, and he was saying,

01:22:37

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please don't call the police, let's try to settle this right now between us.

01:22:45

And I called 911, and I said to the 911 operator, there's a drunk driver who just slammed into the rear end of my wife's car, we're at a traffic light, can

01:22:58

I hold on to him or pull him out of his car to make sure that he doesn't flee the scene?

01:23:04

And they told me no, I could not do that. Sure enough, he drove away. He backed up and turned around and drove away.

01:23:12

So, I don't even know if the operator was right on that, but it is a tricky situation to know what the law is ahead of time on certain circumstances like that.

01:23:24

You research it state to state, because some, you can make a citizen's arrest.

01:23:30

We always tell people to just be a good witness. Get as much information as you can, get the license plate numbers, as you're talking with 911, if he does leave, he's leaving this way down the road, get his license plate number and give that out, and we can track him down.

01:23:48

Because you don't know what's in the vehicle. Now a fight starts, now you start getting into the

01:23:56

Trayvon Martin, Greg Zimmerman scenario. He was told,

01:24:02

Zimmerman was told, just don't approach him, give us the information and we'll handle it.

01:24:09

And then he didn't and things went sideways. Yeah, just state to state.

01:24:15

Because I'd also be, I would be worried of, I don't want to let this guy go because now he's going to drive off and kill somebody down the road or something like that.

01:24:21

Yeah, well that was my thought. Yeah, and you know, that's the tricky part.

01:24:27

You don't want him to go and hurt somebody else. But also, we just want to try to keep everybody as safe as possible.

01:24:36

We can track him and I don't know how big an area your area is, how fast law enforcement can get there or not.

01:24:45

Those are just other variables. But as far as the main theme that we're addressing, church invasion, preventing a church massacre and so on, you see a guy walk in with, especially with a semi -automatic weapon or a large weapon, other than, you know, in an area where people are commonly wearing pistols and a holster, that's one thing.

01:25:15

You might have your own pastor who does that. But if somebody walks in and it's out of the ordinary, obviously, to see somebody carrying an automatic weapon, what are the folks to do?

01:25:24

Are the deacons or whoever you have in charge of security to surround that person immediately?

01:25:29

I mean, these are situations where a split second can mean the matter of life and death. Tim, we'll start with you and then

01:25:36

Larry, you can follow up. This ties into what at first can be the controversial part of the official 144 recommendation, but in addition to Larry and the other men that are listed on my site,

01:25:53

I have a high -ranking federal agent that I can't give his name, who's on the advisory board, and then

01:26:00

I've got an anti -terrorist military police officer who's on the advisory board. I talk with everybody with a 100 % consensus.

01:26:07

What we say is when I go into a church, my recommendation is that only church protection team members who have been adequately trained in active duty law enforcement and also if they want to church leaders should carry firearms on the premises and they should be concealed on top of that.

01:26:25

The other caveat is that the active shooter or the church protection team that's armed, that they go out and they have combat firearm instruction where it's not just shooting a stationary target, but they've got someone screaming in their ear, that sort of thing, and that's all part of that vetting and that training process.

01:26:42

But when you see a sign that says no firearms beyond this point to a criminal, that's just you know, that's like putting candy out there.

01:26:50

So I have a folder I leave behind after the weekend seminar and I got that out and I give a recommended wording on the post is only active duty law enforcement and trained and authorized church protection team members and approved staff are permitted to carry weapons beyond this point.

01:27:07

You make that as a small sign, you know, Grandma Smith won't notice that, but the bad guy will. But when people come back to me and they get mad, you can imagine

01:27:16

Oklahoma, Missouri, when I'm saying you can't, I don't recommend letting Brother Smith carry his firearm if he's not part of the team.

01:27:24

And when someone gets mad, I have yet to have anyone answer this question. I have a very simple question. What kind of ammunition are you carrying?

01:27:31

Do you know what kind of ammunition every single congregation member is wearing? Nobody's ever been able or carrying.

01:27:36

Nobody's ever been able to answer that. And then I say, well, what happens when Rambo perceives a threat, pulls out his gun and he misses, that bullet goes right through the drywall and blows up a baby in the nursery.

01:27:47

What then? So, you know, that's my answer on that, which is why I give that recommendation of only the church protection team members and authorized staff that has had proper training.

01:27:59

And then once that's put into place, the church needs to follow their own communication protocols to get that out to the entire congregation.

01:28:07

So that, I mean, that's going to keep 20 guys who may or may not have any training or may have, you know, crazy ammunition pull out and just start shooting up the church.

01:28:18

That way it's going to be a trained response. But the whole point in that spiel is how many times I use the word trained and training.

01:28:25

You know, that this isn't just, okay, you carry, you're on the team, you carry, you're on the team. But, you know, coming together and really getting this into place because there's that's one of the most important things.

01:28:34

It's the thing that's, you know, the most stressful in setting all this up for a new church. Well, what about the church that does not yet have the security team?

01:28:44

I'm assuming that you would believe that everybody that owns a firearm should be trained in it, that's trained in its safe use and so on.

01:28:55

Well, here, let me give two more things and then I kick it over to Larry. You know, again, it goes back to the ammunition side of it.

01:29:02

That is definitely a concern of mine slash what kind of training does this guy have. But, you know, the other thing is when

01:29:08

I talk about 144, it's theologically balanced. Larry mentioned Missouri now that they don't have to have

01:29:14

CCW training, concealed carry weapon training. So, people can go out, you know, buy a gun and just concealed or have it on their hip.

01:29:22

Well, my mom is, she had moved after she retired and she's about an hour outside St. Louis and last year, the first time

01:29:29

I went to visit her since that new law went in effect, I was at her church and I'd been there about three times before, really enjoyed it.

01:29:37

I think they have about 200 people in there, so it's a pretty good sized church, but they don't have a security team at all.

01:29:43

And what happened was we went in there and the back of my mind was that law was in effect. So I already knew that there could be a lot of people with zero training carrying a firearm in there.

01:29:53

But what happened was that the pastor said something that I liked and I was writing down a note and then they had everyone stand up for a song and I was finishing the sentence that I was writing out and so when

01:30:04

I looked up, my perception was just waist -wide. Everybody around me was standing up and I was still seated.

01:30:09

This was probably 10 minutes into the service and I looked around and I thought, how many guns are around me right now with people with no training?

01:30:17

And I was so uncomfortable the rest of the service, I didn't even really retain the message because I just kept thinking that and then

01:30:23

I just started thinking, if I move to this area, this would be on my mind and this feels very uninviting to me, not having any idea what the firearm policy is in this church, who's carrying what, and it's something

01:30:37

I would need to have a conversation with the pastor about and I wouldn't feel comfortable going there again. Now that's just me. With what

01:30:43

I do, I look at things differently, but I think a lot of people probably would worry about that when you've got those different congregations.

01:30:50

And just finally, when I was selling cars, I was a pastor and his wife and I told him about 144, this was a couple of years ago, and said, you know,

01:30:59

I'm still doing this part -time and hope to do it full -time, and I'll never forget, she turned around in her seat and she's like,

01:31:04

Honey, everyone in our church carries. If someone came in and they're causing trouble, we'd fill them full of holes so quick.

01:31:09

I was like, that's inviting. There needs to be a way. I mean, you know, look at the

01:31:17

Great Commission. I mean, it's pretty clear what we're supposed to be doing here and when you've got people scared to go in their shirt in your church and they sneeze too loud, you know, 57

01:31:25

Rambos are going to open up on them. But having said all that,

01:31:34

I'm assuming that you believe that every church should have someone who is trained and more than adequate in using a firearm to be carrying that firearm and even in plural form, those people should be in every church that are there to protect from an intruder, from a violent intruder.

01:32:00

And I have yet to go in a church where there wasn't at least one person with, you know, military or law enforcement or, you know, in our instructor, there's always something.

01:32:09

So what I tell them is this, and it's a big part of my program at the beginning, is I say, look, and one weekend

01:32:15

I can't possibly give you a perfect security plan and anybody that says they can is full of it.

01:32:21

You know, that's one of the things, two of the most important things about a proper team is that when they're volunteers, it's heart and intent.

01:32:28

You cannot train that with someone, the person who loves the church so much that they're going to take the time to be a part of that and this dress that can go along with church security.

01:32:38

A lot of people don't realize that, that haven't worked that. But my point is that what I say to them is in this weekend we can get everything set up.

01:32:46

I can get you thinking differently, I can teach you how to recognize predatory behavior, I can teach you body language, I can teach you how to make that approach, we can do the active shooter training, you know, we can do all these things in one weekend, but you're still not going to be ready.

01:32:59

But now you have the tools to come together, look at your church flow, and now your team can start coming together, you can start training.

01:33:05

Go out to the firearm range together. The local, I say, come get some street edge lessons from me, you know, but wherever you are, continue with that training, but then what

01:33:13

I say is, so right now, whoever that top shot is, I normally say, okay, it's now up to you to get those guys together, get those guys and ladies together as the case may be, and go out there and get training.

01:33:25

But my point is that it may be for a week or two, it's just one or two people who are caring, but those are the people who attended the seminar, who the pastors vetted, who said,

01:33:34

I want to do this, here's my training, and then from there, as director, just like they're supposed to do, they're in charge of training, and then they can get everything together, but the thing that's exciting to me is

01:33:45

I tell people, all of this can be done in two to six weeks, from the first phone call to that weekend of training, to the follow -up training, going out in the range,

01:33:54

I mean, even here locally, I have a 30 -year police officer with his own range that I send them out to Brent, so, you know, there's all those things in place, so it's not, it doesn't happen overnight, but it's also not a one -year, $100 ,000 process to get, you know, security in place, and the main thing is having educated conversations about it, getting a plan, being purposeful and intentional, and staying away from that scary

01:34:20

Rambo stuff. By the way, I'm from, originally from Long Island, New York, I would imagine that there are a lot of churches that don't have a single person armed, and places like that where gun laws are a lot stricter than other places.

01:34:37

Let me give you an example. After moving to Pennsylvania, where it seems everybody has a gun, the, it was, it was like an eye -opener to me,

01:34:50

I went to a convenience store, like a 7 -Eleven type place with my friend and his daughter, who is in her 20s, and she went up in front of me to purchase something, and when she leaned over, her shirt rose up a little bit in the back, and she had a gun stuck back there, and it startled me, because I'm from Long Island, New York, and if I saw that in a 7 -Eleven,

01:35:13

I would have immediately thought, oh, this person is going to hold up the 7 -Eleven. In Pennsylvania, it's like nearly everybody is carrying a gun.

01:35:21

So I just thought I'd add that, because you were saying that you don't know of any church that you've been in where there wasn't people carrying firearms.

01:35:31

I don't know if that would be the case in some of the more liberal cities across the country. I was going to qualify that, and go ahead and do that to the next part, because I know

01:35:42

I'm in flyover country, and everybody here has guns on every hip, and so yes, that's my experience, but the thing is, say it is someone with really strict gun laws, then what

01:35:53

I would tell them is, I'm not giving legal advice one way or shape or form, but find out if tasers are allowed, find out if pepper spray is allowed.

01:35:59

The odds are still in their favor that if there is a disruption, that it can be handled without firearms.

01:36:06

So we're talking about the worst of the worst, the active shooter sort of things, but that's one thing, and just get martial arts training that's specific for the street and for pain compliance and things of that nature.

01:36:19

So the point is, even if they don't have firearms, they've gone from a church with no security in place, in a place with strict gun laws, to at least then having a team of four or five dedicated people who are then receiving martial arts training and or pepper spray tasers allowed.

01:36:35

Just getting things in place, because again, the idea is, the difference between security and law enforcement is security in this setting, people call

01:36:46

Larry when there's stuff happening and after the fact. Proper security deters things from ever happening.

01:36:52

So by having that team in place and having that look of, we're taking care of business, and the things I talked about at the beginning of the show, it's going to minimize the chances of that church being selected if it is someone who's looking to do a targeted attack.

01:37:06

So that's why I would just tell people to take heart. Alright, we have to go to our final break right now.

01:37:11

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com chrisarnson at gmail .com

01:37:18

Please give us your first name, your city and state and your country of residence, if you live outside the USA and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter.

01:37:27

Don't go away, we'll be right back after these final messages. Gotta tell you, for my money Chris Arnson's radio program is just the best.

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It's a great conference. I love it. And Chris Arnson was there last year. He's been there, I think, every year.

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It's great to see him there. You and I actually did some recordings in the lobby at that place, which is a highlight for me.

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www .ncc .nyc www .ncc .nyc www .ncc .nyc the Sedalia Missouri Police Department.

01:47:28

We are addressing lessons to be learned to protect your church as we remember the Sutherland Springs Texas Massacre at First Baptist Church one year later.

01:47:37

Our email address if you'd like to join us on the air of the question is chrisarnson at gmail .com chrisarnson at gmail .com

01:47:43

and if you'd like to send in a question do so now because we're rapidly running out of time. We have

01:47:49

Bobby in Hartsdale New York who says the problem I see with the scenario of requesting if not insisting that all the members of their church not be armed during worship services except for those selected few who are involved in the security is that it may become known to criminals that there is a storage room where all of these firearms are being collected.

01:48:18

How do you respond to this possibly very dangerous situation where criminals may come to the church just because they know that there are a large number of firearms stored in some place in the church?

01:48:32

I absolutely in no way shape or form say that they should be stored in the church and if they were they would need to be in a dedicated safe so but I think that the probability of a criminal going in there basically knowing okay there's trained people with guns and there's angry people who don't have guns and now

01:48:49

I'm going to take them from them I just I don't see that I mean I very much appreciate the question that's what's so important is having conversations but I don't see that as you know a likely scenario but I definitely don't don't suggest the church take on the liability of being the one to store their firearms anyway.

01:49:07

Well I mean if you're if you're saying that though then obviously they're going to be a lot of unarmed people going to church they're going to be leaving their homes without carrying their constitutionally guaranteed right to bear arms they're going to be leaving their homes without that protection so I can understand and those people who always want to have that firearm with them that they that may result in something.

01:49:37

That's why I always say this is a suggestion that was agreed upon by the board but it's ultimately going to be up to the to the pastor but I just mean as far as you know that that's another thing that also shouldn't even be advertised as far as at that point are they saying keep them in your car they're saying keep them at home but the point is still that if if that sort of thing is made known public then it's also being made known public that they have an armed church protection team there so you know so that I think will help to offset some of that of that concern okay we have

01:50:09

BB in Cumberland County Pennsylvania who says I'm sorry if I missed something but what kind of signage would be best to use outside of your church to frighten criminals from even considering entering in your church with evil motives well the only time

01:50:32

I had mentioned was the one that the thing that you know concerns me is when someone says no firearms beyond this point because then it can suggest that there's you know nobody with any weapons of any kind so you know so I gave the wording that I recommend and that should be on a small fine because you know

01:50:49

I don't want to even think of writing I want to think of like I said before that taking care of business that they look and they see a sharp church sharp ground they see you know the visible deterrent but not someone who's looking like they're deliberately menacing which could not only project fear but like I said the theological standpoint preclude someone from visiting the church because that might in fact make them nervous you're talking about I'm sorry if I misunderstood something but are you saying a church should not in your opinion have a sign that says this church is guarded by armed security you're saying that that is not a good idea well

01:51:27

I don't think that I don't think that's fine like that's necessary if you've got you know you have someone who what

01:51:34

I refer to his own one the parking lot is their area so and and the term the court is visible deterrent so they should be able they should see that there's somebody out there you know in what's what it's not a security uniform but the traditional executive protection look right right

01:51:51

I know I think they're much more likely notice an individual than a little sign but I was just saying that if the church elects to have a sign letting people know what their firearm policy is

01:52:02

I had just suggested the wording not suggest that nobody has a firearm beyond this point because I never see that as a good idea okay and give us some of the deeper site sociological reasons behind the shootings to begin with it that occur in churches and schools and other places well you know my concern moving forward is just with some of the things that have been happening for and just to give someone

01:52:27

I know we're short on time but if you define mass shooting as a single outburst of violence in which four more people are shot there have been 361 so far this year and according to Carl Chen who's amazing and a mentor of mine the final numbers for 2017 there were a hundred and eighteen violent deaths homicides suicides and killed in action and one year in churches in America that is the worst violence ever seen concerning faith -based organizations so you look at those numbers but then you look at what's happening right now with the divide in this country and I just came across something yesterday that Breitbart has been tracking violence from the left as of yesterday there been 613 acts of media -approved violence and harassment against Trump supporters and then finally investors .com

01:53:15

reported that a leftist threatened to commit mass slaughter to make America great I've been at Trump's hotel in DC and he said on his

01:53:23

Twitter account I'm coming with a gun and I expect to get numerous blood -stained MAGA caps as trophies and in my presentation

01:53:31

I give about it I give about a 20 -minute presentation on how Christians are being portrayed in such a way that if you have someone who is looking at what scares me is the entitlement culture this culture of people coming out and they're angered that they don't have thousands of followers on Instagram or they're angered because they put it they make a song in their parents basement and it's not a number one hit and they're just furious and they feel like society owes them something and then

01:53:58

Christians are portrayed in this negative way as uneducated anti -science you know homophobic bigoted etc and then they know that one of the quickest ways to get their so famous because of how the media portrays the mass shooters is go out and shoot a bunch of people my concern is the way things are going and with this divide and the way that the so -called white and the

01:54:20

Christians are being portrayed somebody like that may not only think oh wow I can go out and get myself famous in one afternoon you know what

01:54:26

I'm gonna be a folk hero because these are the type of people who deserve it and then they're continuing to see this this narrative and that's what

01:54:33

I've been jumping up and down screaming to people about and why churches need to have a team in place and why active shooter training is necessary and just finally

01:54:41

I've seen November 5th and 6th as a volatile mix November 5th the media is going to be talking about Sutherland Springs but they're not going to be focusing on on the victims and on the heroes they're going to be talking about the shooter and then the very next day is election day and you know depending on what happens with that there might be a whole lot of people who are very upset with traditional conservative values and I think that with that kind of media coverage back -to -back you know

01:55:06

I've just been telling people in my circle just be a little bit more on guard than normal even at your churches especially going into you know holiday events and kind of you know the fact that Christian churches are more in the news during the holidays

01:55:20

CJ in Lindenhurst Long Island New York says I heard you say something about theologically balanced but I'm not sure how theology enters into this that's a good question if you didn't hear your whole program here one thing that I can immediately think of is that I think that there are many people who are either

01:55:40

Christian or professing Christians who aren't in reality Christians but there is a huge misconception about turning the other cheek people some people think that they in order to be faithful followers of Christ they need to be targets willing to just be shot and killed without any kind of defense of themselves or their their spouses and children which

01:56:07

I think is an unbiblical concept and a dangerous and heretical one actually I'll do

01:56:15

I mean it's not time so when you listen to the podcast where I gave the example of the men coming to the business office versus church that's the strongest example

01:56:27

I have but I also I wrote an article that was published by WSX that's called a biblical view of self -defense in a time of terror and I talk about that I give scripture and so forth and I'll just I'll just put a link to that article on the iron sharpens iron

01:56:41

Facebook page and I think that will hopefully help answer that gentleman's question yeah one thing that you got to remember there's there is even a very well -known person whose name

01:56:49

I'm not going to mention because I don't have his quote in front of me and I don't want to misquote him very famous people who

01:56:55

I highly regard and respect in other areas of his thinking and teaching and doctrine and theology but he basically said that he would never stop with deadly force an intruder in his home who was even brutally attacking his wife and children because if he killed these individuals they would certainly be in hell judging by their behavior my problem with that my serious problem with that is that not only is he not being a protector of his home the way he should be as the

01:57:25

I think the Bible would command him to be but he's also giving those killers or those criminals the opportunity to harm other people and send them to hell if they're not saved so it's just really ridiculous

01:57:39

I mean it well and then on top of that that's also saying that he knows exactly what's going to happen to them you know and in the moment of death

01:57:48

I mean that there's so many problems with that you know I recently had someone who was saying the same thing and it got back to me and and that this person said if someone came up with a gun and was shooting up the church you'd make no effort to stop it because it was

01:58:02

God's will and he'd be going into God's will if he if he took that person down and I said you know there are some things that are so stupid you just got to choose your battle in life and I'd rather spend my time helping someone you know else that that's mind -boggling for somebody to have that kind of thing especially qualifying it that that's going against God's will

01:58:23

I mean that it just doesn't even make sense I mean it at some point you know you just have to take it it's just a mile you know lieutenant

01:58:30

Carl Grossman I was recommended reading his books and you know he he dives really deep into the psychology of violence and there's just a lot of people who cannot process the idea that there are people out there who would just as soon kill them and stare and glance at them it's it's such a foreign concept and that's what's so dangerous you know and so it's very easy it's just like we talk about the game of Larry that you know these people who are they're so hateful towards cops and they tell these things it's really easy to criticize and go after the guys on the front lines when you don't know what that's like and one of the concepts in Street Edge I talk about all the time is circumstances and intent and when someone wants to get you know

01:59:08

I'd say these different things I just say to them what are the circumstances and intent behind what say what

01:59:13

I'm trying to do are the other people in church security we're trying to help people put people safe and we're trying to make sure that churches are a warm welcoming atmosphere that's the theologically balanced part of it that we're not running this like warehouse security and you know when you look at it like that and then start to you know train properly have proper conversations that's how we can keep people safe and the website is psalm 144 org psalm 144 org that's psalm 144 church protection seminars thank you so much

01:59:42

Tim Fancher and Larry Parham for being on the show thank you everybody for listening today especially those who sent in questions and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater