If you follow me on Facebook, you probably already know that I am huge on scenario-based training. So this week, I want to do something a little different. I am going to give you five realistic scenarios that you can work through with your church safety team. I am not going to give you the answers, and you do not have to respond and tell me what you would do. I simply want to get the wheels turning.

As you read each scenario, put yourself in the situation and ask yourself what you would do. Better yet, take these five scenarios to your next safety team meeting, read them to your team, and talk through them together. You may be surprised at how many different answers you get from people who serve on the same team. That is part of the value of this kind of training because it exposes questions, assumptions, and gaps before you are dealing with the real thing.

During my years in law enforcement, and especially during my time as a SWAT commander, we trained constantly. We did PT, spent time on the range, practiced individual skills, and ran repetitions until certain movements and responses became second nature. All of that training mattered, but some of the training I enjoyed most was scenario-based training because it forced us to put those individual skills together and make decisions.

That is what makes scenario training different. It is one thing to perform a skill when you know exactly what is about to happen. It is something entirely different when you are placed into a situation with incomplete information, multiple people moving, emotions running high, and no obvious answer. You have to observe what is happening, communicate with the people around you, decide what matters, and determine what you are going to do next.

I believe that type of training is incredibly valuable for church safety teams because most of the situations we prepare for are not going to announce themselves ahead of time. Your next problem may not be an active shooter walking through the front doors. It could be an angry person disrupting the service, a husband and wife fighting in the parking lot, an unfamiliar person whose behavior just does not seem right, a concerning social media post, or a custody dispute involving a child.

Those situations rarely come with a flashing sign telling you exactly what to do. They require judgment, communication, situational awareness, and sometimes the discipline to slow down long enough to understand what is actually happening.

So, let’s train your brain.

Here are five scenarios you can take straight to your next church safety team training.

Scenario 1: The Disruptor

Sunday morning service is underway, and the pastor is about 15 minutes into his message when a man sitting several rows from the front suddenly stands up. At first, you cannot understand what he is saying, but his voice quickly gets louder. He begins shouting at the pastor, accusing him of lying and demanding that he stop preaching.

People throughout the sanctuary begin turning around to see what is happening. Parents pull their children closer, and an usher starts moving toward the man. Someone sitting nearby tells him to sit down, but that only seems to make him more agitated. The man has not displayed a weapon and has not physically assaulted anyone, but his behavior is escalating and the service has effectively stopped.

Your safety team is positioned throughout the sanctuary. What do you do?

Think beyond simply saying, “We remove him.” Who makes the initial approach? Do you send one team member or several? Where do the other team members position themselves? Who is watching the man’s hands while someone else is talking to him? Who is paying attention to the rest of the sanctuary? Does someone communicate with the pastor? At what point would you involve law enforcement, and what happens if the man refuses to leave?

Now add one more variable. Three well-meaning members of the congregation stand up and decide they are going to help your safety team remove him. Does that change your response?

Scenario 2: The Domestic Dispute

It is Sunday morning, about 20 minutes before service begins. One of your safety team members is working the parking lot when he hears yelling from several rows away. As he gets closer, he sees a man and woman standing beside a vehicle arguing loudly. There are two young children sitting inside the vehicle.

The woman is visibly upset. As your team member approaches, she tells the man, “Leave me alone.” The man sees your team member coming and immediately says, “This is between me and my wife. Stay out of it.” You have not witnessed an assault, you do not see a weapon, and neither person has asked your team for help.

What do you do?

This is where I want you to think beyond the obvious. Does one team member approach alone? Does another team member respond but remain at a distance? How close should you get? What are you watching for? At what point does this become a law enforcement issue? What are you doing about the children sitting in the vehicle?

Now change the scenario. During the conversation, the husband grabs his wife’s arm as she attempts to walk away. Does your response change? Of course it does, but exactly how does it change?

This is why scenarios are valuable. Real situations evolve. Your team has to recognize when the circumstances have changed and when those changes require a different response.

Scenario 3: The Nervous Pacer

It is 10 minutes before the service begins. An unfamiliar man enters the church by himself and walks into the lobby. He does not enter the sanctuary. Instead, he walks toward the sanctuary doors, stops, turns around, and walks back toward the main entrance.

A few minutes later, he does it again. He repeatedly checks his phone and looks through the sanctuary doors but still does not enter. When someone says hello to him, he gives a short response and continues pacing. He appears nervous, but he has not threatened anyone, violated any rules, or done anything that clearly requires intervention.

What does your team do?

This scenario is important because good church security is not about labeling everyone who acts differently as a threat. It is about recognizing behaviors that deserve attention, gathering information, and making reasonable decisions based on what you actually know.

Who makes contact with him? What does that team member say? Do you have another team member nearby? What are you observing during the conversation? Are you watching his hands, his clothing, his attention, his answers, or where he seems to be looking?

Then change one detail. During the conversation, the man asks, “What time does the pastor normally get here?”

Does that mean he is dangerous? Not necessarily. But does that new information affect how you assess the situation?

That is the conversation I want your team to have.

Scenario 4: The Social Media Threat

It is Saturday night, and your pastor receives a screenshot from a church member. Someone has posted a picture of your church on social media with the words, “Tomorrow they will finally listen.”

That is all you have. There is no picture of a weapon. No specific person is named. There is no explicit statement saying that someone is going to be harmed. Your pastor forwards the screenshot to you and asks a very reasonable question: “Do you think we need to worry about this?”

What do you do?

Do you know who made the post? Does anyone in the church recognize the name? Do you preserve the screenshot and account information? Who else needs to know about it? When does law enforcement become involved? Do you change anything about tomorrow morning’s service? Do you increase the number of safety team members? Does someone arrive early to monitor the parking lot and entrances?

There is another part of this scenario that is worth discussing. What if someone on your team immediately says, “It’s probably nothing”? On the other end of the spectrum, what if someone says, “We need to cancel church”?

Neither reaction replaces an assessment. Your job is to gather as much information as reasonably possible, communicate with the appropriate people, and make decisions based on the information available to you.

This is also where relationships established before an incident matter. Your first conversation with local law enforcement should not necessarily happen when you are staring at a potentially threatening social media post on Saturday night.

Scenario 5: The Child Custody Issue

Children’s ministry is underway when a man arrives at the children’s check-in area and asks to pick up his daughter. The volunteer checks the system and tells him that he is not listed as an authorized person for pickup.

The man immediately becomes frustrated. “I’m her father. Go get my daughter.”

He explains that he and the child’s mother are going through a divorce and insists that he has every legal right to take his child. His voice gets louder, other parents begin watching, and the volunteer realizes that she needs help. The mother is somewhere inside the church, but nobody at the check-in area knows exactly where she is.

What happens next?

Who deals with the father? Who protects access to the children’s area? Does someone attempt to locate the mother? What information or documentation does your church actually have regarding authorized pickup? Who on Sunday morning has the authority to make a decision if the situation becomes complicated?

Now suppose the father says he has paperwork in his vehicle proving that he has custody. What do you do with that information? What if he attempts to walk past the check-in area while your team is still trying to figure out what is happening?

Children’s ministry deserves particular attention in a church safety plan. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency specifically recommends that houses of worship focus on children’s safety and implement security measures around childcare, daycare, and school environments. CISA also notes that there is no single approach that works for every childcare environment, which makes planning around the needs and vulnerabilities of your particular facility important (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency).

A written policy is important, but the people responsible for carrying it out also need to know what to do when the situation becomes emotional and complicated.

Now Change the Scenario

Once your team has talked through these five situations, you can make the training considerably more valuable by changing one fact.

The disruptor reaches inside his jacket. The husband in the parking lot shoves his wife. The nervous person suddenly walks out when a safety team member approaches him. Law enforcement tells you they are familiar with the individual who made the social media post. The father at children’s check-in becomes calm and produces paperwork that appears legitimate.

Ask the question again: What do you do now?

Then change another variable.

The important thing is that every scenario should not end with someone pulling out a gun. If your team learns that every scenario eventually becomes an active shooter exercise, they may begin anticipating the ending instead of evaluating what is actually happening in front of them.

Scenario training should force people to observe and make decisions, not simply wait for the instructor’s predetermined “bad guy” to do something.

There is precedent for this kind of decision-focused training in law enforcement. For example, researchers James, Vila, and Daratha developed 60 realistic, high-definition deadly-force scenarios for experiments involving police officers, civilians, and military participants. Across three experiments, participants completed 1,812 responses to simulated situations designed to study judgment and decision-making (James, Vila, and Daratha). The context is different from church safety, but the underlying training principle is useful: realistic situations can force people to make decisions rather than simply demonstrate isolated skills.

For church safety teams, those decisions often have nothing to do with using force. Sometimes the right action may be making contact with someone. Sometimes it may be observing. Sometimes it may be creating distance, calling law enforcement, protecting children, communicating information, or simply recognizing that you do not yet know enough to make a conclusion.

Get Out of the Chairs

You do not need expensive simulation equipment to start doing scenario-based training. You do not need a massive training facility or an elaborate production. Start with your church, your team, and situations that could realistically happen on your property.

CISA’s guidance for houses of worship recommends emergency and incident response plans that are “well communicated and exercised with the Safety Team for complete understanding” (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency). That word exercised matters. A plan sitting in a binder is different from a team actually working through how that plan functions when people are under pressure.

Start around a table if that is where your team is today. Read these five scenarios and discuss them. Ask people what they noticed, what they would do, who would communicate, and what information they would need before making the next decision.

Then get out of the chairs.

Put someone in the sanctuary and have him become the disruptor. Put two people in the parking lot and let your team respond to the domestic dispute. Have someone pace through the lobby and see whether your team notices. Give the team leader the social media screenshot and make him decide who needs to be contacted. Put an angry father at children’s check-in and see whether everyone actually understands the church’s procedures.

When the scenario ends, debrief it. Ask what went well, what was missed, whether communication worked, whether everyone understood their role, and what your team would do differently next time.

Then run it again.

Train Your Brain Before You Need It

The first time your team seriously thinks about an angry disruptor should not be when someone stands up and starts screaming during Sunday’s sermon. The first time you discuss a domestic dispute should not be while a husband and wife are fighting in your parking lot. The first time you consider a custody problem should not be when an angry parent is standing outside your children’s ministry demanding access to a child.

That is the purpose of this exercise.

I did not give you five answers. I gave you five problems.

Take them to your team. Talk about them. Challenge each other’s assumptions. Change the variables. Identify the holes in your policies and communication. Then, when you are ready, stop talking about the scenarios and actually run them.

Train your brain before you need it.

Works Cited

Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Mitigating Attacks on Houses of Worship Security Guide. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, CISA.

James, Lois, Bryan Vila, and Kenn Daratha. “Results From Experimental Trials Testing Participant Responses to White, Hispanic and Black Suspects in High-Fidelity Deadly Force Judgment and Decision-Making Simulations.” Journal of Experimental Criminology, vol. 9, no. 2, June 2013, pp. 189-212. Office of Justice Programs.