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– Contributed photo
SHELBY — Approximately 65 people representing about 25 different Oceana County churches and several local police officers attended the Oceana County Church Safety Network kick-off meeting at Shelby Road Baptist Church, March 9.
The meeting opened with a video outlining why it is necessary for rural churches to take necessary steps to ensure congregant safety, said Oceana County Undersheriff Ryan Schiller.
“The kick-off meeting was hosted by Shelby Road Baptist Church, where churches from all four corners of Oceana County met to discuss church safety and security,” said the undersheriff.
“Our country has seen a number of tragic events in the last year. We believe that the citizens and visitors of Oceana County should be able to safely attend worship and religious services and are a vital part of our existence.
“We believe that the safety and security of our faith community is important. As a sheriff’s office, we want to do more to help ensure the safety and security of our places of worship. The sheriff’s office is actively involved with another group called the school safety committee. We see this as being very similar. We recognize that churches and houses of worship are a soft target, much like schools, and we want to do what we can to help protect and prepare as best as possible.
“At the meeting, we discussed some best practice security topics that churches can start doing immediately. We had numerous sheriff’s office and local law enforcement officers there to answer questions and support our churches in this area. We were able to connect and get much needed contact information from many of the churches, which will be helpful moving forward,” said the undersheriff.
“The response from people who attended the kick-off meeting was extremely positive. We were very much encouraged that this is something that is needed and that we will continue to invest in. We are very thankful for the turnout and willingness to discuss a topic that unfortunately is necessary.”
Grace Adventures President Ben Vander Kodde led an icebreaker to allow everyone the opportunity to get to know one another.
The church safety network plans to host a church safety conference in September. The format will likely be a half-day class with hands-on training for several different topics.
Undersheriff Schiller shared a list of reasons why the Oceana County Church Safety Network was developed:
- The sheriff’s office would like to be able to share applicable safety and security information to churches in a timely manner.
- We would like to share and offer training that may interest churches in attending.
- We would like to offer training in areas like active assailants, stop the bleed, citizens’ response to active shooters, ALICE Active Shooter Response Training, and concealed pistol laws as they apply to churches, etc.
- In the event of any type of critical incident at a church, we would like to be able to inform other churches in an effort to curb any rumors or copycat types of incidents — in real time.
“Letters were mailed out to all of the churches and houses of worship that we could locate. If there were any churches that we somehow overlooked and would like to be a part of this group, please send an email to: churchsafetynetwork@oceanasheriff.net. We would very much like to be able to connect with all of our houses of worship.”
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