Morning Wire - How To Defend Your Church

Episode Date: August 29, 2026

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When we look at a location, we look at it from the eyes of the wolf. If you can target the children's ministry, if you can harm the most precious asset that you have and the ones that are the most defenseless, that's where someone's going to want to hurt you. Church security has become a hot topic after several high-profile attacks in recent years. A retired Nashville police officer is making it his mission to fortify local churches with security lessons any organization can implement. In this episode, we sit down with the founder of Agape Tactical to discuss how individuals and organizations can stop most violence before it even happens. I'm Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe. This is a weekend episode of Morning Wire. Also, if you want to see Georgia learn some self-defense tricks, stick around for the end.

Joining us now is founder of Agape Tactical Ken Alexander. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for having me. So we've looked a lot at the issue of school shootings and now a lot of attacks on churches. They're being targeted in all kinds of ways. And this is your expertise. This is what you consult on. And so we wanted to ask you some questions about how things have changed in some things that you've practically learned in terms of how to improve situations, particularly with churches, which is something we haven't talked as much about.

So first of all, give us a little background, if you would, on your experience. So I went to the University of Tennessee from 87 and 91, and when I graduated, I entered the Nashville-Metraltarleton Police Department, ended up being an academy instructor there where I taught hand-to-hand combat and firearms for police department, anywhere from 12 to 1,400 officers. From there, I got selected to participate in the FBI's Violent Crimes Task Force, where I got to work on cases involving bank rob, child molesters, famous people who are being blackmail, things like that. So all in this region in Tennessee? Yes, yeah, the FBI was the middle district of Tennessee, yes. And then when that assignment ended, I finished my last 11 years as a training officer.

Being a police officer is one of the greatest joys because there's no other occupation where you can actually help make a difference to somebody's life every single day. Even if you're arresting somebody, and if you're taking, bad out of that, out of that household and at least giving them some peace until they make bail and come back and get released. But man, I'd love to changing tires on the side of the road, just helping people and trying to let kids especially view us in a positive light. So how did you get into church security specifically? I mean, I think back to my childhood, I don't think churches needed security, or at least they weren't as like hardened targets like they are now. What changed and Was there an event that made you passionate about that?

So it was an accident. I'd been attending Thompson Station Church for 20-plus years, not 26 years. And in 2009, the pastor asked, even before the need for church security, he was just a forethinker. And he said, hey, why don't you set up some type of safety ministry here? We would just feel better. We're growing to be a large church. We've got just a large children's population. And he felt better.

He knew my background. So he said, you were suited and equipped to do this. And so I did. And so I started that ministry in 2009. Well, he happened to be also the president of the Southern Baptist Convention at the time. So he's standing in. So how he tells him, he was standing in front of 2,800 pastors giving a speech. And somebody asked him the question, hey, what are you doing for safety at your church?

And then he gave my name out. And what started out is just an offering that I was doing for my church, turned into a part-time gig, which eventually forced me to choose one or the other because I couldn't continue to do both. What is the sort of process when you first begin working with a church? So we start with an assessment. You know, you always want to do a security vulnerability assessment because that enables you to identify what's broken, because you can't fix. If you don't know it's broken, you can't fix it. You need an outside, unbiased third party to take a look at it, and then really divulge where the problems are.

See, when we look at a location, we look at it from the eyes of the wolf. All I want to do is how can I hurt you? And then when we give our recommendations, we close up all those holes where I can hurt you, then you win. And where will you do the most damage? If you can target the children's ministry,

if you can harm the most precious asset that you have and the ones that are the most defenseless, that's where someone's going to want to hurt you. So we focus on that area and then all of the other recommendations just spill out and protect everyone else. But don't ever lose sight. Your focus is on those that cannot defend themselves,

and that's the children. They don't have a choice. They can only do what we tell them to do. So that's why we want to make sure that your processes are in place to keep them safe. There are certain phone calls that somehow stay on the to-do list.

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83848 to make twice the impact for freedom today. That's join adf.com slash wire or text wire to 83848. Now you said the pastor was forward thinking before the threats against churches was really prominent that has shifted since then. How have you seen that change over the time? And has that led to just more demand for your types of services? So yes, it's led to more demand. There are some churches that are on the cutting edge. They're just, they realize if something catastrophic happens on their facility, people may not come back. I mean, it changes lives forever. So what are the steps that you take with churches to actually fortify them? Are you training up individuals to be posted in certain places? How does it work? So our process is real simple.

We use the deterred, detect, and deny methodology. So deterrence is the psychological defeat before they even try. For example, 75% of all incidences on faith-based properties occur in the parking lot. So how do you set up deterrence and the psychological defeat before they even try? We know from bad actors who have been arrested and taken alive that they have scoped out locations and they realized, man, I'm not going to be successful there. So they'll go somewhere else. You have to understand how does a bad guy think?

A true terrorist is not afraid of a man with a gun. They're afraid of failure. They know death is inevitable. But they want to take as many people and cause as much devastation as they can in that process for them to be successful. They have done pre-attack surveillance. So when they do that, they look and they say,

I can't get out of my vehicle without being stopped or being seen. They'll go somewhere else to where they can get out of their vehicle without being seen. The rub that I continue to have and the conversations that I continue to have between pastors and deacons or elder boards and safety teams is they don't want to make it unwelcoming. So we have come up with a formula that not only eliminates the not welcoming, we make it overly welcoming. Here's the example. Set up in my church, we have five opportunities to see bad and for bad to see us before they ever get to any door in our building. Five opportunities.

First, there's no better to turn than a uniformed police officer and a police car directing traffic. So that's one. They see uniformed officers. Two, we have 104 people in our, we call it the First Impressions Ministry, which is parking lot, greeters, just people welcoming you every Sunday morning. As soon as you pull into the parking lot, you will see at a minimum of four men and women in yellow vests directing traffic with signs that say, if you're a visitor, turn your hazards on, because we're going to give you the best parking. Right. So just as soon as you turn in, there's four people waving at you, greeting you, welcoming you, but they're also trained in the powers of observation. If something doesn't look right, they also know, because even though these people do not carry guns, they're not armed, they may if they want to, but they're not part of the safety ministry.

But everyone has a radio. That's the key. You have to be able to communicate. And do you see the radio? Is that something you want to feature prominently? Oh, it's in their hand. They may be using it to wave or maybe clip to the vest. Listen, I want those people. It's a strategy, the deterrence. I want them to be able to be seen from NASA. I want them to glow. I want every one of our church members and guests who are there legitimately to feel like they're here for an experience. You never get a second chance to make a first impression. So after we get past the yellow vested parking people, because we have so much acreage and so many parking lots, we have seven golf carts that are driving around picking people up. So that's a third opportunity. So you have police parking people.

Now golf carts picking people up. And then in front of each of our main entrances, we've got tents that say welcome to, TSC. How can I help you? That's four. And then on the outside of our doors, and we have one entrance in each building, we have the greeters. And if at any time someone radios in, bad is approaching, the doors are pre-locked, they just step inside, shut the doors. Now, everybody inside is safe. So, so five opportunities to welcome people, but at the same time, bad sees, man, I won't even get out of my car without being spotted or get my handshake or getting loved on. I'm going somewhere else because they want anonymity.

What about cameras and then you mention the doors, limited access points? You cannot control safety or security in any location if you do not have access control. It's impossible. You can't stop what you can't see. When I deal with a new client and they may have 40 doors and 31 of them are open by 7 in the morning. Church doesn't start till 9. They realize they don't have 31 people to watch those doors. So our goal is to get them down to one or two main access points because those can be controlled.

And cameras are a wonderful thing, especially if you have a good camera operator and someone who knows what to look like and can pay attention. Because we train the camera people, the ushers, the greeters, the safety ministry, we all communicate with the same language. So the most important aspect of any mission, of any operation is communication. But the number one failure in any operation is communication. A lot of times the camera guy is not speaking the same language as the team guy, and they have no idea how to lead them. So when you have these camera views, it's important that we name them a universal language, you know, stairwell one or the lobby, you know,

and make sure the team knows what you're calling things so they can respond as quickly as you give them details. When you do have an emergency. response. What is a standard procedure? I mean, what usually triggers? What happens? In a case, we had five weeks ago at our church, two people get out of a car. They're carrying thigh rigs, thigh holsters on their side, and they're walking down. Now, we also know who they are because they've hit three of three of my clients in Middle Tennessee, and they're just YouTubers. They're wanting to see what reaction people have to them open carrying, like, they were. Well, it worked perfectly because as soon as they got out of the car, the parking

lot people radioed down says, hey, this is what we got. We were waiting for them in the parking lot before they ever got close. And then we were able to discuss, say, hey, we're, we have no problem with people conceal carrying, but we don't allow open carry here. So we said, if you want to come worship, you're welcome to disarm, and you're welcome to come in, but we don't allow how you, how you're carrying right now. So you encountered them, what, within a matter of Seconds. Seconds. Yeah.

As soon as they got out of the car. And then as soon as the parking lot, people saw it, the radio guy. So we had photographs and we had real-time video. And just we followed them all the way to the end point. And then eventually they decided it wasn't, they weren't going to get anywhere. They turned around and left. Now, what about training up, like, armed security? Is that the final step for this?

Or do you not always include that? So depending on the denomination, some denominations do not believe in guns in church, period. it. So we have to be very creative because really the only thing that can stop a bad actor with a weapon is a good actor with a weapon, okay, unless you can deter them before they get to that denial. So deterred detect deny is, of course, deterrence is the psychological defeat. Detection is you can't stop what you can't see. And then denial is, what have we trained to do to stop them from hurting our people? There's two words in the English language that cannot go together in the same sentence and the sentence make any sense. That's safety and convenience.

You cannot be both. Now, we can set you up safely, and you look like you're warm and welcoming, just like I've described to you. But you're not going to be convenient because we're only having one main access control point. If they have an arm response, you know, we, because of my law enforcement background,

we have what's called a force continuum. And we want to train the entire force continuum. So the first is your presence, command presence. You standing there can be a deterrent to people as we've already described. Second is your ability to de-escalate verbally, right? How do you speak? We teach that.

The next is soft empty-hand control. What if you have to escort or prevent somebody? How do we do that with one out without assaulting them and without hurting them? So then we teach hard empty hand. What if somebody's physically assaulting you? How do you defend yourself? And then deadly force and then, of course, medical response. You know, we want to make sure if you're training to

potentially take a life, you've got to be able to save a life at the same time. So, because it may be yours life that you're saving or your partner's life. So we train that entire gambit through stress inoculated training. You will learn absolutely nothing on a YouTube video from a perspective of emergency technique. Something happens, but you've watched a video a bunch of times. No man or woman will rise to the occasion under stress. You'll sink to the highest level of mastery in your training. and you're not going to master training by watching a video.

You have to physically do it. And then not only do you physically do it, but you need to do it when your heart rate is up, and you do it over and over again. So you have some people, some churches will say, we want some of these folks trained up fully. Is that process? I imagine this is a shock for a lot of people

that have not gone through this kind of thing before, and is that a fun process for you to oversee these trainings? It's an incredible process because when you, let's say you've gone through the program and you've trained, and it's not you go to church, flip the light switch on and your tactical TED, but when church is over, you flip the light switch off and you're Johnny Sack of Donuts again. Everywhere you go now, you understand situational awareness. Everywhere you go now, you have gotten a skill that makes you a better husband, a better father, a better citizen, a better wife, a better mother. Because now everyone around you is safer.

Safety is contagious. And you don't turn it on and turn it off. You understand living in yellow, which is relaxed but aware. It's everywhere you go. And now you see things that you normally otherwise wouldn't have seen. So what's great is what you're learning for the protection of others in church really transcends for your personal life. How could you not want to be a part of that?

You mentioned the color coding. We talked about this before we actually started recording. Can you walk through that for us? Quick, sure. So there's five color codes, white, yellow, orange, red, and black. White is how 90% of Americans live their lives. It's relaxed and completely unaware of who's around them, right? I've interviewed rapists in prison to, and so I could study and understand what do bad guys look for in a victim.

And whether you're like it or not, they're watching us. And they say their favorite place to attack is a place of transition. Like you go from a building of safety into the unknown, a parking lot or parking garage. and they say the easiest way for for someone not to be considered a victim is when they walk out of those doors if they will scan the parking lot scan their surroundings before they walk out without their phone in their face their heads up and they're actually looking they say i i can't sneak up on that person i can't push them down from behind because they'll see me coming i can't be they don't see they're the sick lame and lazy but they don't they want they don't want to be caught they don't

be identified. Look, I run a company on my cell phone. It is an incredible device. But unfortunately, our phones have caused our country to go into an acute case of anal cranial insertion. We walk around and we're too busy wondering what the Kardashians are doing, then worried about getting to my vehicle safely. And it's getting our country victimized. It is true. It's amazing how much you just see people looking down, and I include myself. I am less aware of my surroundings than ever in my life at this point. Why is it a dangerous place to be? Yellow is just simply relaxed but aware.

It is not a state of paranoia. It is a state of preparedness. I teach when I do women's self-defense seminars. I say the easiest way to start getting in a habit of living in yellow. They start backing your car into a parking space. I back everywhere I go only because I'm generally facing the location that I'm trying to go to. And it's really hard to sneak up on me when I'm looking at you. So orange is your intuition.

We talk about the color codes. And that's just listen to your intuition. right? Then red as I'm in the fight, what have I trained to do? We already talked about, you'll always do what you've done the most. And if you've not trained, you're going to go into the fetal position. And then black as I'm frozen in fear, neuroepinephrine under that endorphin release will do one of two things to you depending on who you are. One, if you're trained, it slows down time. It makes everything move in slow motion to allow you to react quicker. And the other thing is if you're untrained, you become like you have concrete

shoes on. But you can train, so you're saying training can really affect that. It's not like this is, this is just this person's natural response and it's always going to be like that. You can train into responsiveness. 100%. You train for an event, but you've truly trained, not just watched YouTube videos. You'll be amazed at how you perform and you didn't even know you did it. People think just because they bought a gun, it makes them a gunfighter. And the exact opposite, you're a danger to people unless you've trained. So we just want to help people fulfill their goal of keeping themselves and their family and other safe, but doing it without hurting anybody else.

And you can't do that without range time. And the whole force continuum, you are 10 times more likely to put hands on somebody than you're ever going to have to draw your firearm. If you do, then you're doing something wrong. There's something wrong in your process where now the gun comes out. We didn't see it in time. So, you know, don't just train gun, gun, gun, gun. We want to make sure we train awareness.

We want to train de-escalation. We want to train hand-to-hand because if you overreact, you may have just committed aggravated assault. Right? So there's a training process involved in everything we do. Well, like we said at the start, you know, I mean, this is on people's mind more than ever that go to church. Schools, obviously, a major focus for us. So we loved having you come on and talk about this is very helpful, practically, for all of us.

And hopefully, I want to check it with my church. What do they do exactly? Thank you so much for what you do. Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Thanks for coming on. That was Agape Tactical founder, Ken Alexander. and this has been a weekend edition of Morning Wire.

Time can be done on your arm. Okay? I want your thumb in the upper position because your elbow will bend this way and if you turn this way, it goes against the arm. So just like this, grow up my shoulder. All I want you to do is, just standing only, do not allow me to bend your arm, okay?

I'm gonna add slow, steady pressure, one pound to tie. Try to go. No, don't do that, that pressure on that joint. Just leave, just like it is. Okay. And I want to go slow, steady pressure. Are you ready? Yeah.

Okay, good. Yeah, you go. Good, good, good, good, excellent, excellent, good. Now, as soon as I got, now open and splay your hand. Now when I say splay, flex your hand. Yeah, flex it, you open a hand up. Do not let me bend your arm. Are you ready?

Yeah. What? How did that work? I'll explain the science behind just a minute. Two, do 90 degrees make fist, put it against my chest. Now this is where we're gonna square your shoulders off to me. You put my hand in the shoulders. You face that way, I'll face this way so we'll kiss.

You have to stop me from putting your arm back into your bottom. Okay. Are you ready part? Yeah. Okay. Do some nice slow pressure. It's impossible to stop.

Okay. Open your hand. Open and splay, but I want you to go one degree outside 90 degrees. And because the only thing that will be touching me is this bony part, it's gonna hurt me. I'm gonna angle your arm. So you go across here, okay?

Keep, maintain that. Are you recorded? Yeah. Okay. So, so it's called muscle recruitment. Make a fist. You only use two muscles. Bicep, four.

Open its play. Bicep. tricep, I'm sorry, forearm, bicep, deltraping, and lat, using six muscle groups to do this, only two to do this. So when we, so for example, when we teach our hand to hand, our fighting stance is this. I'm doing that outside 90 fingers play,

which makes me stronger, but it also looks what to the people? Figure. Well, no, it also, but if you were a bystander and- Oh, it looks like you're saying, yeah, but this is my fighting stains. Does that make sense? So, so I'm strengthening. you in that in that in that but you're prepared for a conflict now here's the

greatest one I know you've never you've never been to a bar before but if you would and you do this trick they'll be buying your drinks all night put your hands just like this okay um toes towards me good do not let me let your thumbs touch I'm gonna put pressure but you're gonna keep me from from letting your thumb touch are you ready yeah you're gonna resist right out okay here we go awesome doesn't matter which foot rotate one foot out past 30 degrees just one there you go just one of it there you go do not let me touch me your thumbs maybe you're part yeah okay here we go oh crazy so so like this yeah and

hand no so so one foot sliding behind the other oh one okay but but but feet facing forward the biomechanics behind this our spine all of our strength comes from our core and when our spy is the perfect spinal alignment those muscles they push off of each other to give you stability as soon as you open the foot about past 30 degrees the coxics bone the muscles that wrap on the coxswole pull it in the direction you open that foot separating contact from the last vertebrae so it has nothing to push off and you fold like a tent. Like this? So my stance, we call it non-aggressive posture. Just like this, hands out, hey, please don't hurt me or I don't want any trouble.

But this is also my prepared stance, whether it's my draw stroke or whether I have to fight. That was very cool.