Pastor's Blog: The Price of Security
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This Sunday is the Memorial Day weekend. It’s a time when the summer season unofficially begins and families take the opportunity to enjoy the long weekend before everyone sets off on his or her summer plans. That’s to be expected. Family times are important for creating healthy bonds of love and support.
But I would hope that at the same time, we might pause and reflect on the significance of the Memorial Day weekend, which represents the sacrifice of those brave men and women who offered their lives in military service to our nation so that we might live freely and securely. We will certainly be honoring their sacrifice in our worship this Sunday.
Thinking about the importance of security leads me to mention a word about some changes that will be implemented in the coming weeks regarding security measures in our church. As all of us are aware, churches are no longer safe havens in an increasingly violent world. Our church recognized this new reality when we proactively employed off-duty police officers to be a security presence on Sunday mornings. That decision has gone well and our officers have become important parts of our MBBC family.
Now comes the next step in making our campus more secure, especially for our children. We have partnered with our Early Learning Center to make it possible for us to lock down our children and preschool areas during emergency situations. While we pray we never have to go to such measures, we can no longer presume such a day would never come. To that end, in the coming week, we will implement a plan to secure the second floor of our church facility so that no one will be able to enter into that area without good reason between the hours of 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Sunday mornings. Obviously, parents will receive a fob key so that they can have access to their children, but no longer will our children and preschool areas be exposed during that time frame as they presently are.
Only the Sunday Morning Bible Study classes that meet on the second floor under the sanctuary will be affected (Hope, Torchbearers, and Love classes) by this change, and they have had someone go to their classes to explain the new protocols. The choir will also be affected, and they too have been briefed on what new measures to take. But at the end of the day, if anyone is confused by these arrangements or feels constrained by what we have done, we will give that person a fob key so that they can move about unhindered. We only intend to make those areas inaccessible to any who might pose a threat to our young ones.
For the first couple of weeks, Sharon Howard will have people stationed at the doors that will secure the areas to let people through until folk have enough time to adjust to the new measures. Vince Blackerby and she will also work to make available fobs to anyone who requests them. If you have questions about these new arrangements, please feel free to ask Sharon and Vince for a more detailed explanation.
We owe a word of thanks to our Security Committee who has worked so hard over the last year to balance security and accessibility. I wish we didn’t have to resort to such measures, but then we all can remember a day when we didn’t lock our doors at home, which is certainly no longer the case. While these new measures will undoubtedly create a bit of confusion for a short period of time, as all change does, the assurance it will give our young families will be more than worth the effort to adjust.
Thank you now for your understanding and cooperation. Making these adjustments reflects our efforts to live with grace and generosity in a day when both, unfortunately, are in far too short a supply.
“Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked” (Psalm 82:4).