Once in a long while, you hear a very disturbing news story that involves a church….

A madman has entered a church on Sunday morning brandishing a weapon, injuring and killing innocent victims…

A separated parent, desperate to see their children, is manipulated for more support money by the other parent by “holding back visitation rights” to see the children. The separated parent, in their frustration, goes to the new church on Sunday morning where the estranged spouse now fellowships at and identifies themselves as the parent of the children to a church volunteer worker. Moments later, the kids scream out “mommy” or “daddy” and opens their arms out for hugs and kisses while running towards the parent. The volunteer worker, seeing how obvious the children and adult knows each other, releases the children to the parent never knowing the situation behind the scenes…

A widowed woman walking alone in the dimly lit church parking lot leaving the service one evening is suddenly attacked by a mugger who assaults her and steals her pocketbook …

A child reports to their parents that a church childcare worker touches them inappropriately to later discover that the church childcare worker is actually a convicted sex offender who served their prison time in another state who moved to your state and did not register with the local authorities as a registered sex offender…

In the midst of how sickening and tragic these stories are, I bet you that very few of the people who are reading this article has never heard the following story below:

A Christian that does not contact other Christian ministries by nature suddenly sees a drastic increase of canned automated phone calls from Christian organizations on their answering machine (wanting them to participate in a survey), an increase in “covert” junk mail from unheard of Christian organizations (that do not have the bravado to put their name and address on the envelope), and “e-mail alerts” from Christian organizations and e-mailing lists they never signed up for (when the e-mail address is only known to close friends, family, and the church).

It is discovered that a zealous church member (or overzealous church staff associate); desperately wanting the see the theo-political climate in America change in the name of Christian Reconstructionalism; decides “in God’s name for God’s glory” to covertly get access to the church’s membership database file, the visitors database file, and make photocopies of the church directory in order to sell the contact information gleaned from these sources to Christian organizations with “theo-political” motivations that send you harassing spam e-mail, junk mail, and phone calls to “alert” you with “information and analysis” in order for you to pester your local Congressmen.

Later on, you soon discover from reading “secret blogs” of “ex employees” of those ministries that did phone, mail, and spam you e-mail box that their ex employer in turn, gave and/or sold your personal contact information to other “like-minded partner ministries” that started another barrage of spam e-mail, junk mail, and phone calls. Some ministries did this in the name of ‘promoting the cause’ while some ministries did this solely to gain a little ‘extra income’ to cover for a drop in donations or to exchange mailing lists to expand their reaches to people unknown to them before.

You may think that the last story above is either “crazy-talk” or is “conspiracy theory”. However, I earnestly believe that this story has a huge potential (especially in this political climate and the christian medias repeating the same condemning and condescending tones last heard during the Clinton administration) of actually happening one day and being discussed in heated fervor on the cable news channels.

In the stories described above, what is the one common thread that can be detected? Very simple, the common thread that can be shown is the breach of security and the need to implement a corrective / preventive action of security to prevent those instances from happening again.

If you were to type into Google the term “church security”, you will see many parachurch ministries and organizations whose sole focus is to provide products, consultation services and training to churches in order to beef up security. These parachurch ministries can sell you published books on the need for church security and advise you (along with the church’s insurance company) concerning the legal liability of being negligent in reference to providing a safe and secure church environment. These same parachurch ministries can also train ushers how to deal with an armed gunman, train children’s ministers in policies to only allow one individual to pick up the children from children’s church, and train ushers on the aspects of parking lot security. Many can also recommend burglar alarms, security systems, cameras, building fire exit strategies, training of ushers, and lighting schemes to make a parking lot safer at night. These ministries can instruct the elders of a church on how to get a criminal background check for all staff members especially any person who would have to deal directly with children.

But how many of these “church security” parachurch ministries have ever delved in to the area of security involving information safeguarding, privacy policies, and identity theft protection from either the overzealous church member (or employee) desperate for extreme changes in our “DEMONcrat” controlled government to the teenage closet experimental Satanist petty thief who broke into the church one night and got the information and procured property by false pretenses or did physical harm to a family just because they are Christian (but the government will not classify as being a ‘hate crime’)?

When I clicked on the links provided within the first two pages of Google results and doing a quick overview via the main pages of these sites yielded a net result of “Zero” sites that addressed any security issues concerning information safeguarding, privacy policies, and identity theft protection.

(on a side note, If you work for one of these church security parachurch ministries that are offering security services in the area of information safeguarding, privacy policies, and identity theft protection, leave a link and a comment. Maybe I did miss something here…)

I hate to make church policies more “corporate” than it already is when lawyers, insurance companies, and business men seem to dictate church policy more than the Scriptures. However, in this age of information where personal contact information is considered a valued commodity to desperate salesmen needing one more sale to get a performance bonus, mailing list clearinghouses, and common thief alike, I now feel that the time is now right to start asking a valid question.

Does a church need privacy policy measures in place for the purpose of information safeguarding?

I now thoroughly believe that the answer us and resounding

Yes!

The church should have privacy policy measures to protect church members from overzealous church elders, church staff associates, and even devious church members who out of a

“gung-ho pragmatic attempt of desperation”

over a certain issue in their own life decide to obtain and sell personal information to national ministries in the name of “doing their part for ‘God’s will’ to be done”. Usually, the concern over a certain issue has crossed over from a concerned interest into an obsession where

Their “issue” must also be your “issue”
Their “causes” must also be your “causes”
Their “agendas” must also be your “agendas”

or you are not ’spiritual’ and ‘holy’ enough to join them in (their version of) heaven one day when you die…..

Another factor used to influence the decision to wrongfully sell / give out personal contact information is the wrongful motivation by the use of manipulative scare tactics and fearmongering done to convince them that failure to act will result in either God’s wrath upon us and/or the death of “Americanity” and “Sola Americana”.

Therefore, in this age of information where personal contact information is now easier and cheaper to be organized and shared; personal information is considered to be a valued commodity from mailing list houses to common thief. It is my subjective and personal opinion that the issues of church security now need to go beyond just training ushers and enacting safeguards to protect the congregation and little children. The entire concept of church security needs to start expanding their focus and scope into policies and actions addressing information safeguarding, privacy policies, and identity theft.

In part two of this article, I will be exploring the topic of composing a privacy policy and information safeguarding procedures in relation to church security.

Tags: church policy, church safety, church security, church security plan, church security policy, church security training, corporate partners, data privacy, data protection, identity theft, information safeguarding, information sharing, junk mail, mailing lists, National Do Not Call Registry, personal information, pretexting, privacy policy, risk assessments, spam e-mail, telemarketers, telephone solicitors, third parties