Mega-Church Pastor's and Usher's carry side arms?!

[fbl9]

at least this is one thing we up in the great white north don’t have worry about no i don’t think it is right for anyone in a church to be armed with a dealy weapon…if an assembly of christians were to be attacked violently because they are christians the right to self defense i think is not appliciable…that said however if they were attacked because they were to be robbed,because they had money then self defense is justified…

something else came to mind…usually the pastors of these type of churches have very,very large bank accounts,a group could come in and try to kidnapp the pastor for ransom.how much would the people put up to get their beloved pastor back???would that be a reason for the armed body guards and the pastor to pack?

 

[CentralFLJames]

BTW, what is a “mega-demon” (see post 1) - a prince of demons ? It should be

LOL - Good catch. :clapping: What a great way to compliment me - reading my post that closely.

My dsylexic (sp ) prone keyboard is showing its retarded asymmetrical tendencies to randomly flush its 2nd syllable character queue in Last in First Out (LIFO) order rather than by First in First Out (FIFO) convention. Me thinks its an manufacturing artifact of globalization in trying to force adapt surplus reverse polish notation chip-sets to emulate the stochastic (name removed by moderator)ut streams produced from an infix oriented western culture prone to working under the distractions of simultaneous multi-modal communications noise; e.g. cell phone, TV, radio and email). It’s either that or the demons are enjoying the jelly donut bits that have fallen into the keypad works and are pushing my buttons again.

Errata Post 1:
Mega Non-Denom replaces Mega-Demon. 1 occurrence ]

:tiphat:

James

 

[CentralFLJames]

something else came to mind…usually the pastors of these type of churches have very,very large bank accounts,a group could come in and try to kidnapp the pastor for ransom.how much would the people put up to get their beloved pastor back???would that be a reason for the armed body guards and the pastor to pack?

This was actually what my friend and I were trying to speculate as for a legitimate reason for why they might be carrying firearms. He was willing to give the benefit of the doubt and was speculating that the pastor was taking in on average $10K per service in hard-cash and that might be too tempting for someone to just rush in, grab the collection basket and run.

James

 

[mercygate]

It’s not all that relevant to this OP but I meant that there is a certain subtle sword etiquette within the military services in relationship to places of worship. If I recall the etiquette the army could no unsheathe its sabres or swords in the church but the navy officers could. Marines, being an integrally attached unit to the navy probably follow the naval etiquette. The Catholic Church has its own unique eccleasial traditions as well. That’s all.

The idea I was expounding on is one of general extension of respect to the sanctity of the church, the congregational safety and wellfare and reverence to the holy sacrament present in the tabernacle. In Protestant churches of course there is no sacred sacrement present but the concept still shoud naturally extend to reverencing the presence of Christ in each person gathered in His name in ecclesial community prayer and the promotion of peaceful assembly.

James

In a mega-church with thousands of people in attendance, the likelihood of a dangerous and disruptive person coming in to threaten the pastor or congregation would be higher than in a smaller place. Perhaps the armed usher-security guards were there on the advice of the police department.

Your friend’s demonstration amply illustrated why one might feel the need for such protection.

I have been at significant events in both the Episcopal and Catholic Churches where armed security agents were salted throughout the congregation without anyone noticing. In one case the person who had received the death threats (a bishop) strongly objected to the guns but the FBI refused to give them up. That was in the days before you had to be frisked just to get in when a target figure (like the Pope) was showing up.

 

[BlestOne]

My dsylexic (sp ) prone keyboard is showing its retarded asymmetrical tendencies to randomly flush its 2nd syllable character queue in Last in First Out (LIFO) order rather than by First in First Out (FIFO) convention. Me thinks its an manufacturing artifact of globalization in trying to force adapt surplus reverse polish notation chip-sets to emulate the stochastic (name removed by moderator)ut streams produced from an infix oriented western culture prone to working under the distractions of simultaneous multi-modal communications noise; e.g. cell phone, TV, radio and email). It’s either that or the demons are enjoying the jelly donut bits that have fallen into the keypad works and are pushing my buttons again.

Errata Post 1:
Mega Non-Denom replaces Mega-Demon. 1 occurrence ]

:tiphat:

James

OMGosh… with all due respect… hahahha… you are such a computer geek!!! (reminds me of me) Worst part is that I totally understood…

 

[CentralFLJames]

OMGosh… with all due respect… hahahha… you are such a computer geek!!! (reminds me of me) Worst part is that I totally understood…

haha - my kind of lady.

Was a computer scientist a few careers ago in a galaxy far far away at a time when a FORTH programmer working with a simple stack oriented 4 bit micro-computer could write an entire air traffic control application in under 16 kilobytes of RAM memory. Now they need 10’s of megabytes of memory just to load the java interpreters on the PCs for the kiddie graphics that the hacks put up on the web pages to render pop-up adds.

If you can write machine microcode in octal or can recite the comparative nuances of shell sort vs. heap-sort algorithms or solve the traveling salesperson problem then as a liberated man I’d be open to an invitation to dinner under the contemporary conventions of “better sex/gender pays or cooks” [sup]1[/sup]

[sup]1[/sup]Standard assumed revocation of offers carelessly extended to married persons or persons not of legal age or of age too old to remember their age or otherwise disinclined to cooperate or predispoed to ill humor.



James

 

[jblake]

CentralFLJames;:

doubt and was speculating that the pastor was taking in on average $10K per service in hard-cash

Churches, especially the mega-churches, are switching to plastic. Some of them are at the point where they no longer pass the collection plate, relying on a “cash box” in the foyer, and putting the member’s tithe on their credit/debit card each month.

The economic justification of “tithing by plastic” is extremely persuasive. The theological justification, OTOH, is somewhat mixed, albeit with a slight tilt against accepting plastic.

that might be too tempting for someone to just rush in, grab the collection basket and run.

In the very early days of Calvary Chapel, the mantra during the offering was If you have, give. If you need, take.;

xan

jonathon

 

[mercygate]

In the very early days of Calvary Chapel, the mantra during the offering was If you have, give. If you need, take.

That’s cool! I’ll bet nobody “took” though.

 

[BlestOne]

haha - my kind of lady.

Was a computer scientist a few careers ago in a galaxy far far away at a time when a FORTH programmer working with a simple stack oriented 4 bit micro-computer could write an entire air traffic control application in under 16 kilobytes of RAM memory. Now they need 10’s of megabytes of memory just to load the java interpreters on the PCs for the kiddie graphics that the hacks put up on the web pages to render pop-up adds.

If you can write machine microcode in octal or can recite the comparative nuances of shell sort vs. heap-sort algorithms or solve the traveling salesperson problem then as a liberated man I’d be open to an invitation to dinner under the contemporary conventions of “better sex/gender pays or cooks” [sup]1[/sup]

[sup]1[/sup]Standard assumed revocation of offers carelessly extended to married persons or persons not of legal age or of age too old to remember their age or otherwise disinclined to cooperate or predispoed to ill humor.



James

OMGosh!!! Do you know my friend was one of the original writers of Forth??? Yep, in a far far distant life (my college years) I was friends with a man we called lefty (missing his right arm) and one day I was at his house helping to cook and I was looking at his book collection… all about programming (when I was a comp sci major)… anyway, Ron told me to look at the authors… it took me a minute because they were all written by a “Roland” with his last name… Then he said his real name was Roland… Ron was a nickname!!!

By the way… octal… learned it in 4th grade… programmed in it in college… Learned Candie from working at Burroughs(back when everybody had their own language)

But… you are off the hook… I am married!!!

Do you remember the old modems in a briefcase… top speed 300 bps with the acoustic coupler??? hahahaha… God I am older than dirt!!!

 

[CentralFLJames]

OMGosh!!! Do you know my friend was one of the original writers of Forth??? Yep, in a far far distant life (my college years) I was friends with a man we called lefty (missing his right arm) and one day I was at his house helping to cook and I was looking at his book collection… all about programming (when I was a comp sci major)… anyway, Ron told me to look at the authors… it took me a minute because they were all written by a “Roland” with his last name… Then he said his real name was Roland… Ron was a nickname!!!

By the way… octal… learned it in 4th grade… programmed in it in college… Learned Candie from working at Burroughs(back when everybody had their own language)

But… you are off the hook… I am married!!!

Do you remember the old modems in a briefcase… top speed 300 bps with the acoustic coupler??? hahahaha… God I am older than dirt!!!

I have rolands book still in my library. I am missing the other arm LOL. Kidding…

WE better take this pm or the natives will become restless that we are spamming the thread with personal stuff…

James

 

[O.S.Luke]

Many municipalities require off-duty officers to carry a concealed weapon at all times - with no exceptions. I am a pastor, and while I am not sanguine about such things going on, I know they are realities of a broken world.

It sounds like your friend went over the line - whether there is something shady going on or not at the church, I would be very concerned about someone acting that way in a public assembly. I live close to a high school that had a public shooting several years ago, and all of us these days pay more attention to aberrant behavior in a crowd. It’s just being safe.

 

[Mystic_Warrior]

CFJ,

You haven’t commented on my posts thus far. Is there a reason for that? Is it because I was critical of your friend? Just wondering.

Peace…

MW

 

[O.S.Luke]

This was actually what my friend and I were trying to speculate as for a legitimate reason for why they might be carrying firearms. He was willing to give the benefit of the doubt and was speculating that the pastor was taking in on average $10K per service in hard-cash and that might be too tempting for someone to just rush in, grab the collection basket and run.

James

10k is not that much money. Our church needs that to meet weekly budget, and we are just a medium-sized church.

 

[mercygate]

10k is not that much money. Our church needs that to meet weekly budget, and we are just a medium-sized church.

Agreed. $10K wouldn’t open our doors; our congregation averaged 800 on a weekend. A plant that supports a “mega” congregation of 5000 or so wouldn’t last a month with a weekly offering of $10K. The prosperous parish a couple of towns over – 4000 families – averages $23K. Nobody’s driving a Rolls Royce.

 

[CentralFLJames]

Agreed. $10K wouldn’t open our doors; our congregation averaged 800 on a weekend. A plant that supports a “mega” congregation of 5000 or so wouldn’t last a month with a weekly offering of $10K. The prosperous parish a couple of towns over – 4000 families – averages $23K. Nobody’s driving a Rolls Royce.

I think you all missed my “drift” on even mentioning the $10K. At any rate it was an average “take in” per session - not just Sunday. I mentioned this only in an attempt to show a legitimate motive for having armed security not to suggest it was a luxurious income for the good pastor. These days people are holding up and shooting convenience store clerks for $100 for cigarette and beer money. $10K would be quite compelling for a person who can’t even afford to fill their Chevy with mid-grade gasoline a the pay they get for flipping burgers at the local greasy-spoon diner…

James

 

[CentralFLJames]

CFJ,

You haven’t commented on my posts thus far. Is there a reason for that? Is it because I was critical of your friend? Just wondering.

Peace…

MW

No mystic - I was just wanting to let the thread run on its own natural momentum without trying to over dominate the discussion with my own perspective. Also, yeah, I am not too keen on responding to comments critical of my friend for 2 reasons - 1 - he is my friend and 2 - it moves the discussion more toward secondary drama not organic to the principal thing I want to get to. And that is - “Is it proper for these ushers to be carrying concealed weapons in church with families present and without giving people proper notice?”

Again, I find it repugnant that we seem to have lost our innocence and our culture in this country. Its a very sad state of affairs where people can no longer go to church and implicitly assume those around us are peaceful and not carrying “heat”. I find myself in an ironic position. I believe in the right to self defense and the right to bear arms in certain settings. But most states even restrict concealed weapons permits in a way that one is not permitted ot carry in a government building, a sports stadium, a place where liquor is served, a school, a court house or places where one might expect to be in a tense setting. I think it may be time to update the permitting standards to ban all concealed firearms in places of worship too. It’s been voluntary in the past and now I think some of these preachers are going over the top with the security and I suspect some feel “important” in having paid body guards around them.

Bottom Line:
It’s not fair to families to not be told that ushers are carrying concealed weapons. These churches won’t mention it simply because they know that many Christians will object to it and attendance would drop.

James

 

[O.S.Luke]

But most states even restrict concealed weapons permits in a way that one is not permitted ot carry in a government building, a sports stadium, a place where liquor is served, a school, a court house or places where one might expect to be in a tense setting.

A commissioned police office may carry a concealed weapon in most places other citizens cannot.

 

[mercygate]

I think you all missed my “drift” on even mentioning the $10K. At any rate it was an average “take in” per session - not just Sunday. I mentioned this only in an attempt to show a legitimate motive for having armed security not to suggest it was a luxurious income for the good pastor. These days people are holding up and shooting convenience store clerks for $100 for cigarette and beer money. $10K would be quite compelling for a person who can’t even afford to fill their Chevy with mid-grade gasoline a the pay they get for flipping burgers at the local greasy-spoon diner…

James

Good point.

 

[DaveBj]

Given the recent events in Colorado Springs, and the large sums of money collected every Sunday, I would have no problems with ushers packing, assuming they were properly licensed. Heck, at Mother Angelica’s Shrine the welcome desk is manned by a uniformed security guard carrying a Glock. Granted, this is not the same as civilians practicing concealed carry, but still…

For the record, I sometimes carry a concealed weapon at weekday Mass or when I go to the Shrine for confession.

DaveBj

 

[Pro_Domina]

It’s not all that relevant to this OP but I meant that there is a certain subtle sword etiquette within the military services in relationship to places of worship. If I recall the etiquette the army could no unsheathe its sabres or swords in the church but the navy officers could. Marines, being an integrally attached unit to the navy probably follow the naval etiquette. The Catholic Church has its own unique eccleasial traditions as well. That’s all.

The idea I was expounding on is one of general extension of respect to the sanctity of the church, the congregational safety and wellfare and reverence to the holy sacrament present in the tabernacle. In Protestant churches of course there is no sacred sacrement present but the concept still shoud naturally extend to reverencing the presence of Christ in each person gathered in His name in ecclesial community prayer and the promotion of peaceful assembly.

James

Do you think nobles entered unarmed in churches back then?

At least a dager.

Weapons are not an evil when used against evil.

You think the Swiss Guards are only for ceremonial use?