What Makes Churches Soft Targets?
- Vaughn Baker
- Dec 31, 2017
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 25
And what can be done about it? Fortunately, plenty.
Churches have been in the news lately. And unfortunately, not for the reasons we might like. They’ve been increasingly targeted by violent intruders and active shooters. What makes a church a soft target? And what can be done about it? Strategos International instructor Barry Young explains the question and the answer to a live audience.
The very things that make a church welcoming make it vulnerable
A soft target is a place that is open, accessible, and not heavily defended. By that definition, most churches qualify, and not by accident. A church is designed to welcome strangers, to leave its doors open, to gather people on a known schedule in a known place. Those are the qualities that make a congregation a community. They are also the qualities an attacker looks for.
The specific vulnerabilities
Churches tend to share a predictable set of weak points. Services run on a published schedule, in the same space, with people seated and facing one direction. Doors are unlocked, visitors are encouraged, and questioning a stranger feels unkind. Many congregations are reluctant to look like a fortress, so the security conversation never starts. Children's areas, elderly members, and large gatherings concentrate the people hardest to move quickly. And when something happens, the people already in the building are the only ones positioned to act, yet most have had no training.
Hardening without losing hospitality
The goal is not to turn the sanctuary into a checkpoint. It is to add a layer of awareness and preparation that visitors never notice. That usually means a trained safety team drawn from the congregation, a simple plan for how to respond and how to get the injured help, awareness of who is coming and going, and leadership that treats safety as part of caring for people rather than a contradiction of it.
Security and hospitality are not opposites. A congregation that knows it is protected can be more welcoming, not less, because the burden of worry is carried by a prepared few instead of haunting everyone. The churches that do this well stay open-hearted and become genuinely harder to harm.
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