Articles with situational awareness

Church Security: Detect Threats With the “Power of Hello”

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)’s “Power of Hello” is a security initiative and training program applicable to church security teams and church ushers and greeters that teaches individuals to prevent disruptive incidents by observing suspicious behavior and initiating friendly engagement.

[ Read the SemperVerus article, Church Greeters and Ushers: Eyes and Ears for Security ]

Used effectively, the right words can be a powerful tool. Simply saying “Hello” can prompt a casual conversation with unknown individuals and help you determine why they are there.

Prepare for Teams of Terrorists, Says Gabe Suarez

Gabe Suarez is a no-holds-barred, full-throated, say-what-he-thinks, blunt, honest, speaking-to-the-point firearms and self-defense expert with decades of experience in martial arts and law enforcement, including being a SWAT sniper and assaulter. He was awarded the Police Medal of Valor for a gunfight against three armed robbery-homicide suspects and he’s the founder and trainer of Suarez Tactics, a training and consulting organization focused solely on developing the art of tactics and gunfighting. His YouTube channel is @suareztactics.

On his Patreon site, he’s written the forceful article, You and the Terrorist(s). With his permission, and because it has application for church security teams, we have summarized the article below (but you’ll want to subscribe to his Patreon site, read the full article there, and learn from all the site’s insightful self-defense content). As Gabe Suarez says, “We teach good guys how to prevail against the bad guys. Whether facing a common robber or a terrorist bent on mass murder, we teach you the skills to defeat them, and as well to live a life of excellence.”

[ Bookmark the SemperVerus CHURCH SECURITY INTELLIGENCE CLIPBOARD ]

He begins by pointing to John Lott’s research paper, Do Armed Civilians Stop Active Shooters More Effectively Than Uniformed Police?, in accepting the fact that private citizens defeat active shooters to a greater degree and with better results—collectively—than law enforcement.

[ Read the SemperVerus article, A List of Active Killer Incidents at Houses of Worship and Religious Schools ]

Mr. Suarez stresses that, in today’s anarchistic world requiring the need of heightened self-defense, “we are not looking for a lone wolf terrorist, nor a drugged up psychiatric patient, but rather—as Sarah Adams notes—a well trained and dedicated terrorist known as a ‘Fedayeen’ (Arabic: ‘those who sacrifice themselves’).” He compares this combatant to the Kamikaze of WW2. He says, “Their goal is to kill as many Americans as possible and to die ‘gloriously’ in the process.”

The Ministry of Protection: Why Church Safety Teams Matter and How Serving in the Ministry of Protection Brings Clarity to the Calling

[The following is a guest article by Trevor DeGroote, a safety and protection professional with a background spanning law enforcement, private-sector operations, and consulting services. He’s the author of Serving in the Ministry of Protection: Fulfilling the Call to Faithful Readiness in the House of God, which SemperVerus highly recommends every church security volunteer should read.]

In recent years, conversations around church safety have shifted dramatically. What was once considered a distant “what if” has become a practical, deeply necessary part of ministry life. Across the Midwest and beyond, churches are recognizing that the responsibility to create a safe environment for worship is not merely logistical; it’s pastoral. It’s spiritual. It’s an act of service and love.

[ Bookmark the SemperVerus CHURCH SECURITY INTELLIGENCE CLIPBOARD ]

That’s what makes the concept of a church safety team so vital. These groups of volunteers, men and women from within the congregation, stand quietly at the intersection of faith and readiness. Their job is not to control, but to care; not to intimidate, but to ensure peace. When done the right way, a church safety ministry doesn’t make a church feel guarded. It makes it feel secure enough to worship freely.

USCIRF 2026 Annual Report: Key Nations Continue Religious Persecution

China arrests underground church members, mob violence is on the rise in India and Pakistan leading to attacks on religious minorities and the destruction of their homes, Burma’s military bombs houses of worship, and Tajikistan denies parents the right to teach their children about faith, according to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom‘s (USCIRF) 2026 Annual Report.

[ Read the SemperVerus article, US Agency 2025 Report: 35 Countries Continue to Repress Religious Freedom ]

“As USCIRF’s Annual Report shows, far too many people in key nations are denied religious freedom through unjust laws, discrimination, harassment, violence, and even crimes against humanity,” says USCIRF Chair Vicky Hartzler.

CIA: Studies in AI and Human Intelligence

Among the articles in the unclassified version of the CIA’s journal, Studies in Intelligence (Vol. 70, No. 1, March 2026) is one titled, “Espionage in Our AI Future: Why Human Intelligence Still Matters.”

[ Read SemperVerus articles on the topic of THREAT ANALYSIS ]

In it, the author, a former CIA case officer (CO) in Latin America, says, “While AI [artificial intelligence] will transform HUMINT [human intelligence] (along with most everything else), this, our oldest form of intelligence collection, will in fact grow in importance. For one thing, as AI makes high-quality technical collection cheaper and more accessible, it thereby boosts HUMINT’s value on the margin. AI will supercharge disinformation and fabrication—and that makes HUMINT’s ability to build and test source reliability over time, and corroborate technical collection, more important than ever. And as AI undermines the security of electronic communications, tradecraft techniques which COs have used for millennia—such as dead drops and brush passes—will find new relevance…”