The same is true of our church in Frisco, plus our pastor and his wife have plainclothes escorts with them at all times. Rumor has it that the pulpit is lined on the inside with a bulletproof material so that the pastor can hide behind it in the event of a shooting.Keith B wrote:And, we have uniformed officers on site directing traffic and in the building during services, but they can't be everywhere at once.
This reminds me of a conversation I had with one of our associate pastors one morning. I serve as an usher, and he and I were chatting in the foyer one morning before the service. A woman came up to him and handed him a set of what appeared to putty (or some kind of arts-and-crafts) knives, then asked him to give them to his wife. (It was obvious they knew each other and that he was expecting the knives.) Anyway, the associate pastor made a joke about being in trouble since he had knives at church and the ushers (referring to me) knew about it. I just laughed and thought to myself, "I've got a lot more than a knife under this jacket!" He then told us a story about how a few years back one of the ushers who had CHL was carrying during the church service. He said they had to pull him aside, have the police check him out, verify his license, ask why he had a gun, etc. The way the pastor told the story, he just seemed so incredulous that a civilian would carry at church, and emphasized that fact the the usher was "not just in the foyer, but actually in the sanctuary!" I was at the same time amused and very anxious. I was amused because little did he know that I carry every week. I was anxious because I was afraid he was going to add something like, "We had to explain to the usher that we don't allow guns in the sanctuary" or, "After that, the church adopted a rule to prohibit guns from our buildings." I was looking for any chance to change the subject or excuse myself from the conversation lest he should accidentally give me oral notice!