Interview: Building a Church Security Team

Lew Gosnell is a Rangemaster at Gunsite Academy and 20-plus year police officer and firearms instructor in California. He served as a Tactical Team Supervisor in the Marine Corps Military Police and worked private security, in addition to being a champion shooter in IPSC, 3-Gun, and cowboy action — including the first-ever Single Action Shoot Society End of Trail competition.

[ Read SemperVerus articles on the topic of Church Security ]

GUNS Magazine podcast host Brent T. Wheat interviewed Lew about how he got his start at the renowned firearms training academy, what he teaches students in his single-action pistol and lever gun classes, and his advice for congregations starting their own church security teams, which begins at the 15:50 mark in the embedded audio player below.

[ Read the SemperVerus article, Church Shooting Analysis Reports ]

He says places of worship, by definition, want to be welcoming to people, so they have special training needs to ensure proper security practices at their facilities. He offers suggestions on how and who to select volunteers to serve on church safety teams, equipment needs, and draw development procedures.

[ Read the SemperVerus article, Self-Defense Training Directory ]


Learn about the Sheepdog Church Security certification program for your church safety team


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Worldviews and Emotional Assumptions in the Gun Civil Rights Debate

Heated debates about law-abiding responsible American gun ownership civil rights tend to start and end as emotional arguments stemming from dug-in presupposed assumptions and predetermined worldviews, rather than inquiring open-minded attitudes that lead to acceptance of convincing proof.

[ Read the SemperVerus article, Why Do You Carry a Gun for Self-Defense? ]

Unalienable human rights, such as the Second Amendment, are based on the steadfast recognition that there are certain nonnegotiable, self-evident givens in human nature, prior to the state’s involvement, which the state is obligated to respect. Natural human rights are meant to be inviolate; incapable of being reduced to merely legal rights or privileges.

[ Read the SemperVerus article, Brief Answers for People Who Are Against the 2nd Amendment ]

A myriad of statistical analyses are already available that support how the gun civil rights position is effective in crime control, such as

[ Read the SemperVerus article, Important Judicial Decisions Regarding Self-Defense Law ]

Because the facts are readily viewable online, the following chart is an attempt to help you recognize the underlying basic emotional premises from which each side approaches the subject. Once these perspectives are identified and acknowledged, perhaps feelings will subside to the facts, helping to deescalate emotional-only arguments.

Quality Self-Defense Training Builds Character

IDPA target to illustrate the importance of firearms trainingAn article in Psychology Today suggests that training seriously and responsibly for armed self-defense contributes to developing a sense of human empathy and strengthens human character.

[ Read the SemperVerus article, The Greatest Man… ]

The article’s author, David Yamane, professor of sociology at Wake Forest University, writes that those who are dedicated to improving their self-defense knowledge and skills “see that it is indeed appropriate at times to use our human capacity for violence pro-socially, in defense of self, loved ones, children, the weak and infirm, and other innocents. Gun Culture 2.0, to borrow an idea from sociologist Harel Shapira, sees defensive violence as ‘civilized’ rather than barbaric.”

SemperVerus and the Way of the Wise

The Way of the Wise illustrationThe pastors of Ada Bible Church, Grand Rapids, MI—senior pastor Jeff Manion and teaching pastor Aaron Buer—delved into the Bible book of Proverbs for their multi-Sunday sermon series, The Way of the Wise. This series unpacks Proverbs and explains how it presents a path toward a wise life by challenging us to make the right small (and large) decisions every day so that we eventually end up our lives at the right destination.

Contributing to our spiritual fitness, it’s exactly the message of SemperVerus to stay true to what is right with every decision we make throughout every day. We encourage you to carve out time to watch all the sermons in the series to benefit from the wise teachings of Proverbs.

As an example, here’s the video of sermon #10 in the series, “100 Steps in the Right Direction.”

[ Read the SemperVerus article, SemperVerus™ Brotherhood/Sisterhood Launches to Help People ‘Stay True’ ]


Invite SemperVerus to present its 5 life-changing success-generating components—prepare, aware, be, know, do—to your organization to inspire and motivate your members.

Join the SemperVerus Brotherhood™!