Can background checks increase your church security? Churches have recognized recently the need to protect their church from external threats. We've seen this through the increased use of security cameras, churches purchasing, children's church and software and the increased usage of church security teams. In fact, online there are nearly 12,000 searches every month for the term church security.

So this is something that churches are recognizing their need for and often times, they go through very expensive procedures in order to try to instill a sense of security within their church, but often times that they ignore some very simple steps to markedly increase their church security.

The easiest place to begin to increase your security is with a church background check. The reason for this is because they're affordable. Often time, people think that a background would be really expensive, but the truth is that they can often be done for under ten dollars and what this can do for you for each person that you want to have checked is to make it very quick.

You see churches need to recognize that many threats maybe internal. This is from people who are already in the community and maybe committing crimes against not only the church, but the people within the church and church background checks are quick to do and find immediate problems. What this means is that, people who have committed crimes before can be detected with a simple church background check.

In this series, we will look at some common sense areas to begin using background checks to your church. Children's church security-well, this is an area that most churches recognize as being very important to parents. Parents have high expectations for children's security today. Daycare services provide background checks for teachers and parents also recognize that there is threat against children with the many new stories regarding the Catholic Church scandal and other high profile news stories where children have been abused in church settings.

Children's church staff and volunteers can easily be screened using a service like protect my ministry. It's no secret that child predators make attempts to work with children and what better place for them to attempt to move into a church. The reason for this is because many church people are very trusting and very forgiving. Often times, when a child predator is detected, a church doesn't always report this to the police, so the person is freed to move on to the next church so that they can begin abusing children there.

Although this is something that is definitely changing with the church community and the Catholic Church scandal has brought this particular problem to light because it has caused a huge liability for the Catholic Church and many Protestant denominations are recognizing that this is something that happens there to. So children's church staff and volunteers should be screened. This has the highest potential for damage to not only your ministry and your church's reputation, but more importantly, it is something that has a potential to do severe damage to the hearts of a child, to the emotional liability and the emotional health of children. So this is something that most churches want to definitely protect themselves from and the easiest, simplest step to begin with is to screen your church's staff and volunteers and those people who have access to children.

Secondly, those who are driving children in church vans and that is including not only the little kids, but also the teenage ministry and the college ministry, you want to make sure that those people have a background check done on their driving records. This reduces the risk of children and teens by making sure that drivers of church vehicles have good driving records and it manages risk and reduces the church liability by doing the work before a problem begins.

Church financial security-the financial ministry volunteers should be screened and have complete background checks done on them. This is for those people who are counting the offering on Sundays and Wednesdays. It's for those who are on the financial oversight board or the church financial officer-anyone who has access to the checkbook, to the bank accounts or to the ATM or credit cards within the church. They should have a background check done on them beforehand to make sure that there is no potential problem or previous problems. Also, the janitorial staff-this is something I think that a lot of churches overlook when they're doing background checks and screening their staff and volunteers.

If you think about it, janitorial staff usually have keys to every area of the church, they have access to sensitive areas of the church and they have access to the physical property of the church and this is the physical property like instruments and audio-visual and media technology, but also the property of those who are going to the church, whether it be purses left out in the vestibule area or property left in common areas within the church.

As mentioned, janitorial staff usually has keys to all the offices in the church and they have access to church after hours. Recently, just on June 22, 2010, a female church employee was attacked by a church handyman. Someone who was hired on a part time basis has a criminal history that could've easily been found with a background check and this particular female employee at the church or female member was sexually attacked by this particular handyman and this is something that could've been avoided with something as simple as a background check. That could've alerted the pastor as well as the oversight board that there is a potential problem with this person and they could've been detected and not hired or fired if done afterward.

One question often asked is should a background check be done on pastors and this is actually a very good idea because not only does a pastor agreeing to have a background check done on him provide good leadership and sets an example for all the other staff and volunteers, but it can also reveal that the pastor may have been accused or charged with serious crimes.

As you can see from this simple Google search on pastors who have been charged with a crime, pastors who have been charged with a crime, we see a complete list from over the last six months of several pastors who have been charged with sexual crimes with embezzlement and this is something that a pastor commits a crime at the very least, a church can say that they did do-diligence and it provided a background check on this particular pastors before a problem reveals itself.

Who else should be screened? Well the church secretary often controls a lot of what goes on inside the church and church secretaries have access to sensitive areas of the church just like pastor or a janitor might. They have access to financial reports, money and sensitive data related to your church membership and I'd simply typed in church secretary charged and I came up with many, many instances where church secretaries have been charged with frauds, with stealing, embezzlement and this is a simple step that a church can take in order to get a church secretary screened and get the background revealed before they actually hire someone, so this is a good pre-employment hiring practice and a very simple step to take for your church.

And one thing I think that many churches might overlook is having your church security team, having their background done because these are people who are overseeing all of the security for the church facility. They have access to the money, they have access to often times, when they do a money drop at the bank, they provide sensitive services for church staff and church members and think of how embarrassing it might be to your church if you didn't even do a background check on your church security team.

Often times, church security teams have access to many areas that you want to protect, so it's a good idea before you put someone on to your church security team just to do a simple background check.

Now, often, people ask the question of where do I begin? I recognize that a church background check is important and I want to get started, but it seems like it's something that might take a lot of time away or it might become a real hassle or even they might think that it might be too expensive to do and a great resource for churches is Ministry Mobilizer. It is a paperless risk management solution offered by ProtectMyMinistry.com and Protect My Ministry is now offering a 90-day free trial.

Now, what this offers you is a paperless online background check solution. It's no hassle and it allows your church to keep track easily of all volunteers. If you're interested in learning more about this valuable program, you can go to www.ProtectMyMinistry.com or call them at 800-319-5581.