Amid Growing Violence, More Churches Turn to Faith-Based Security Groups

Carl Chinn, 65, is a man of deep faith who thought church was a place to go to find peace—until he locked eyes with an angry gunman 28 years ago.

On May 2, 1996, a man carrying a rifle, a handgun, and claiming to have explosives walked into the Focus on the Family ministry in Colorado Springs and took four hostages.

Chinn was one of those hostages, and his experience changed his outlook on the vulnerability of churches from that day forward.

Before then, "security wasn't even in the back of my mind," he said.

The suspect, a construction worker, carried out the attack four years after he injured himself while building the ministry's new 256,000-square-foot facility.

He filed for disability at the time, but his insurance ruled the injury was due to "horseplay" and substantially cut his benefits.

It took four years for the man's anger to reach critical mass—four years to come back to "exact his form of justice," Chinn told The Epoch Times.

"He wanted to go out suicide by cop."

During the hostage situation, the man shot into a wall before police were able to arrest him.

"That was my wake-up call," Chinn said. "That incident changed the trajectory of my life."

It also wasn't the only time he encountered an armed intruder in church.

In 2007, Matthew John Murray, 24, killed two people and wounded two others as he opened fire at a church youth training center in Arvada, Colorado.

Murray evaded law enforcement and later that afternoon he shot and killed two more people and wounded three others at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs before he was fatally shot by a security team member.

Chinn was there on the day of the shooting. He knew one thing about the gunman: "He hated Christians."

The former building engineer said after the first incident in which he was held hostage, he started reading up on the degree to which attacks were happening in churches across the United States.

Chinn looked at law enforcement databases and found violent attacks were a leading cause of death in churches: Around 1,050 people died out of 2,361 total incidents between 1999 and 2020.

The second-leading cause of fatal force encounters was domestic violence, accounting for nearly 15 percent of all cases.

Five percent of the deadly force incidents were motivated by hatred against houses of worship, Chinn said. Recent incidents show that anti-religious bias is not going away.

On May 5, a man walked up to the pulpit and pointed a gun at Glenn Germany, pastor of the Jesus' Dwelling Place Church in Braddock, Pennsylvania, while he was preaching.

The man tried to pull the trigger but the gun jammed, according to news reports. Another church member quickly wrestled the gun from him.

In another incident, a man was wounded in the leg after a woman with a history of mental illness began shooting an AK-47 inside the Lakewood Church in Texas on Feb. 11.

Genese Moreno, 36, was killed by police after she opened fire. In a hail of bullets, her 7-year-old son also died.

Chinn, president of the Faith Based Security Network (FBSN) founded in 2017, said that deadly attacks at houses of worship are becoming more commonplace.

He said it's a sign of the times and an ominous indicator of a society in rapid moral decline.

"We absolutely are seeing more animosity towards faith-based organizations by those who espouse what I would call anti-moral opinions," Chinn said.

"I believe we are going to continue seeing attacks."

The FBSN now boasts 800 members from Christian congregations, as well as Jewish synagogues and other religious groups across the nation.

Chinn, who has witnessed a dramatic hardening of public buildings against acts of violence, said attacks against houses of prayer is a growing issue.

"You can hardly walk into a school without being stopped," Chinn said. "It's getting harder to do an attack at a school. It's getting hard to perform an attack on any municipality or government building."

He said that historically, churches have been the last to shore up their facilities against deadly violence and other potential disruptions.

Raising awareness of potential threats, creating security teams and protocols, building security, and using deadly force and non-lethal means are some of the things the FBSN teaches.

"I believe it is an absolute requirement for the coming age," Chinn said. "I think we're in for tough times in this country. The divisions are very sharp."

Chinn found that 118 people had died in 2017 and 88 people died in 2018, according to law enforcement databases. Each year, there were 261 reported incidents.

In 2019, there were 216 total violent incidents and 74 deaths. During the pandemic, there were 178 incidents and 71 deaths.

"I absolutely believe there is a slip in moral character in our country which has lessened the degree of respect for sanctuary-type places," Chinn said.

The 1,652 violent incidents resulted in 155 deaths and 742 injuries over the time period. On average there were 97 incidents per year causing nine deaths and 44 injuries.

"Extrapolating to the whole U.S. population, we estimated that there are actually about 480 incidents of serious violence at places of worship in the U.S. each year," according to the Dolan Consulting Group.

"These incidents produce about 46 deaths and 218 serious injuries annually. This is a serious problem. As the vast majority of places of worship in the U.S. are Christian churches, it is not surprising that 94 percent of the incidents occurred at Christian churches."

In 2019, the FBI said that hate crimes motivated by religious bias accounted for 1,650 incidents reported by law enforcement.

Around 60 percent of these incidents were against Jews, 13.3 percent were against Muslims, 4 percent were against Catholics, and 3.6 percent were against other Christians.

Chinn said his organization does not monitor hate crimes, focusing instead on lethal encounters.

"We only track deadly force incidents. When you're tracking the worst of the worst, the data set changes," he said.

The Arizona Church Security Network is a group that helps around 300 churches in Arizona with resources and training.

The group's founder and executive director Chris Taylor said the organization has adopted a three-pronged approach that includes threat assessment, emergency planning, and information sharing with other houses of worship.

"What we wanted to do is, from a biblical worldview, share with congregations what steps they could take in order to protect themselves from all different threats," Taylor told The Epoch Times.

"We really want to network the faith community so that as certain things arise we're able to share that information with houses of worship."

Taylor agreed that anti-religious violence is on the rise, although many other cases involve medical emergencies, trespassing, disorderly conduct, domestic arguments, and interpersonal conflict.

"We're not geared just towards violence," he said, "but we get all sorts of calls with concerns about what we see in the active shooter world, active attackers."

Taylor said the problem is societal, stemming from a growing lack of empathy, rooted in an "increase in world turmoil."

"Once, houses of worship were really a sanctuary from criminal activity," he said. "Unfortunately, we know they're not necessarily that anymore."

Full Armor Church is another faith-based security group based in Florida that believes that forearmed is forewarned.

Dwayne Harris, an ordained bishop and the group's president, is concerned about the steady increase in violent attacks against houses of worship.

"Now, ministries are seeing these things themselves. It's not just what they're seeing on TV," Harris said.

"Small emergencies can become big emergencies and kind of reveal your preparedness."

Harris developed the group's program, which focuses on prevention, preparation, rapid response, and recovery from security threats and other emergencies.

"What ministries are looking for is some level of preparedness. Having the ability to navigate a basic emergency," Harris said.

"In a real-world experience, armed safety members can also create equal hazards. You've got people walking around and law enforcement coming in," he said.

"Active threat situations move fast. Time is of the essence. We always ask ministries what they're going to do in the first five minutes" of an active violent attack.

Harris said people want to feel they can worship in safety.

"People want to see there are safety components just like when you go into a grocery store, and there are cameras and lights," he said.

"Ministries are the same."

Some ministries, however, don't have walls and are just as vulnerable.

On Nov. 15, 2023, Hans Schmidt of Victory Chapel First Phoenix was shot in the head while he was preaching at the corner of 51st and Peoria Avenues in Glendale, Arizona.

The married father of two survived and is still recovering.

Schmidt declined an interview with The Epoch Times. However, a church member said that the shooting highlights the importance of keeping churches and their representatives safe.

"I think it's needed, for sure. It's too bad it's come to this, but it's needed," the church member said. "The times we live in—we have to protect our congregations. It's a sign of the times."

"The situation with Hans was it was away from our church. We don't know what happened. We don't know who it was."

The church member said the congregation has decided to move on with faith and without fear, and to stay vigilant.

"We preach forgiveness," he said. "We haven't missed a beat. It's made us more on fire for God. I can say that Hans is doing good. He's back in the church, playing drums. We just have to keep our eyes on the prize—which is saving souls."