Our Safety Team
Deb Oskam
*This article was originally published in September 2018.*
Back in 2009, the leadership at Hillside realized the need for a Safety Team. They put together a team of people who were willing to walk around the church during the service, two people at a time, and make sure that everything was OK in both the building and the parking lot. As always, the main emphasis was and continues to be keeping our children safe. This was a little more difficult to do with our old building design, but our awesome Safety Team worked hard at keeping an eye on the nurseries and the Children’s programs, and we never had a problem!
When you go into a restaurant, and it looks like rain, you may decide to take an umbrella in with you. If you take the umbrella, it probably won’t rain, but if you decide to leave it in the car, it probably will rain! In many ways, we are preparing for the possibility that something could happen at church, but we pray weekly that our safety guys are bored. The chances of something happening are very slim – but we are ready.
Over the years, we realized the need to train and be ready for anything that may happen in our building, and not just watch over our children, which we still do! There are incidents all over the country that continue to remind us that we have to be watching and ready for anything.
Hillside joined the West Michigan Church Security Network over 10 years ago. This is a group of churches, mostly in the West Michigan area, that meet four times a year to help each other start safety programs, share information/policies, and talk about ways we can keep our churches safe. We also communicate when there is an unfortunate event at a church anywhere in the country. At the meetings, there are usually two or three Kent County police officers encouraging us and offering suggestions on ways we can better keep our churches safe. We ask many questions and get much-needed insight. The officers are thankful that the churches have come to work together.
We also decided about ten years ago that training our teams is very important. It’s one thing to talk about what to do if an active shooter or angry person comes into our building – it’s another thing to be able to respond appropriately because you have practiced doing just that. Our Safety Team used to meet 1-2 times a year to go over policies and talk about what needs to happen in certain situations… fire, tornado, active shooter, etc. But we really felt that it wasn’t enough. We are thrilled that Terry Bykerk, a member at our church and retired police officer, actually offers training all over the state for businesses and churches. His company is called 2 The Rescue, and he has come many times to train our Safety Team. Our safety guys have given up some Saturday mornings to learn what to do and how to react in many different situations. We have learned so much from Terry and his partner, and we feel better prepared to handle whatever may come. However, it is also scary to think about what they need to be ready to do. How I wish we didn’t need to think this way.
Members of our Safety Team continue to walk around the church in pairs while others in the sanctuary watch to make sure nothing unusual happens in there, and are ready to react if needed. They wear red shirts in order to be easily recognized. They also carry radios to share information with each other and the sound booth if needed. We have installed security T.V’s in a separate room so that we can see anywhere on the property at all times. They communicate with our children’s leaders every week, helping out where needed with children and safety.
This group of guys is truly a blessing to our church! They are giving of their time and talents to keep you safe. Because of the training, meetings, and commitment, they are ready and willing to keep our children and church family from harm. They are “Sheepdogs” always watching and ready to protect Hillside. Keep them in your prayers and thank them the next time you see them.
We are thankful for Jim Decker, who took over the head duties of the Safety Team a couple of years ago and is doing a great job!
But we prayed to our God and posted a guard day and night. - Nehemiah 4:9