 What if you were to open your local newspaper and the headline read “Churches in the Tampa Bay Area will not celebrate Easter after ISIS attacks”? What would your first reaction be? I know mine would be one of disbelief; one of anger because someone had scared churches so much that they wouldn’t open the doors on the second most holy day of Christianity. I know that I would be calling friends together and celebrating Easter no matter what the paper said. I hope there would others that would join as we show the world that no one cancels our worship of Easter. We will celebrate Easter till Christ comes back to take us home. You’re thinking - this couldn’t happen. Really? Are you following world events? I just saw the headlines across the Internet “Churches in southern Egypt will not celebrate Easter after ISIS attacks”. It has happened; churches in southern Egypt are closing on one of the churches most attended day of the year except Christmas. Your response might be - but it can’t happen here. I hope it never does, however it almost did. Ask Andy Willis of Bellevue Baptist Church about Easter 2016 “Man brings handgun, assault rifle into church”. If were not for Andy and the training he has done with his church we would still be talking about the lone wolf that went into their church and did the unthinkable. Other lone wolves would only continue the cause for their 15 minutes of fame that the world would read about over and over again. Charleston is still reeling from their church shooting and that was back in June of 2015. We would be able to move on but the scars are permanent. Over the recent months in our own church we have had multiple anomalies that have caused us concern; a person with a large backpack that seemed to be surveying the church and when one of our small group leaders went to talk to him, he did a proxemic push on him and refused to have a conversation with him (and for those of you that don’t know what a proxemic push is, invite me to your church for our “Threat Profiling” training). We are going to attach his picture to this email in the event someone knows him. Then over the past several months we have had a female come into our church, get very close to the pastor only to be combative with one of our female church leaders. She has changed her appearance on us and now is waiting till our part-time deputies leave the church property before she comes into the church. She moves to the seat behind the pastor in the worship center. After service starts, she starts to sob, looking for someone to come over to her. Her statements to the volunteers are vague and confusing and this last weekend she didn’t want to leave church until we ushered her out. She was later caught taking pictures of the church. I will attach her picture to this email in the event one of you has had dealing with her and knows her name. Over the last few months we have been doing some new training that we want to get out to everybody. The training comes from the Marine Corps “Profiling and Tactical Tracking” using “Combat Profiling”. We have successfully done it over the past few months and it is a powerful tool. If you've missed this training, contact us, invite your community churches and we'll bring this training to you. He paid the price for our sins and now we have been guaranteed a life with Him that we can’t even begin to imagine. Do not miss the opportunity to rejoice and celebrate His wonderful gift but be on alert, cause 14. After I looked things over, I stood up and said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, “Don’t be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes.” 15. When our enemies heard that we were aware of their plot and that God had frustrated it, we all returned to the wall, each to their own work. Nehemiah 4:14-15 We cannot take the risk of letting something like what happened in Egypt happen in our churches so we must be diligent during this Easter Season and on watch at all times. He has Risen!!!!!!!!!!
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AuthorJim has many years of law enforcement experience and has run the safety team at his church for several years. TSA was formed after he realized God's calling when multiple churches reached out and asked him to present at their church. Archives
February 2025
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