Intel Monitor/Report Suspicious Activity

Hello Christian Warriors. Here is your weekly Roll Call Briefing. It is meant to be read, or to be delivered verbally as a team, before you start your shift protecting the Body of Christ. Here is what we cover today:

1. 0:00 Intro — on the road: Detroit tonight, Chicago Saturday

2. 0:29 Alert Posture — still at Orange

3. 0:41 Christ First — 1 Timothy 5:22

4. 1:56 Suspicious Activity Reports — Fort Wayne and the Florida Panhandle

5. 3:06 Intelligence Updates — nine items, including an interrupted IRGC plot to use Chlorine gas to attack a house of worship.

6. 9:12 Sex Crime Surge — eight cases in one week

7. 10:02 Violence Against Churches — five incidents including a shootout with police near a church.

8. 13:15 Training — when a registered sex offender attends your church

9. 14:08 Assignments & Close — 1 Corinthians 16:13

   

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Intel Monitor/Report Suspicious Activity

One Year After Grand Blanc, Is Your Church Ready?

On September 28, 2025, four people went to church in Grand Blanc Township, Michigan, and never came home. Their names were Craig Hayden, John Bond, Thelma Armstrong, and William “Pat” Howard. A man drove a truck into their meetinghouse, opened fire, and deliberately set the building ablaze.

An armed member confronted him before police arrived. The police chief credited that member with buying time for others to escape. Yet one year later, the LDS Church continues to prohibit ordinary members from carrying firearms on church property.

That deserves direct criticism. Leadership has revised its security guidance, but the weapons restriction remains. Families attending an ordinary Sunday service are still denied an option that leadership recognizes as appropriate for meetings involving an increased threat.

I believe that response is inadequate. When four people have been murdered in your building, every part of your protection model should be examined, including policies leadership would prefer to leave alone.

Whether your church is Baptist, Catholic, or nondenominational, you need to study this incident. You may have different policies, but you have the same responsibility to take the protection of your congregation seriously.

A fast police response still left people dead

Thomas Jacob Sanford attacked the Grand Blanc congregation with a vehicle, gunfire, and fire. The FBI later described the attack as targeted violence believed to be motivated by hatred toward the Mormon religious community. This was a deliberate attack on people gathered for worship.

The police response was fast. According to the timeline released by authorities, the first 911 call came from someone who had been shot in the stomach. Police were notified 16 seconds later. A conservation officer arrived in less than two minutes after dispatch, followed by a township officer. They confronted and killed Sanford.

I spent 29 years in law enforcement. I understand what responding officers can accomplish, and I understand the limits imposed by travel time. Officers cannot protect someone inside your sanctuary while they are still driving toward your church.

Call police immediately when an emergency develops. But your church also needs people prepared to act before officers arrive. Grand Blanc demonstrated how much damage an attacker can inflict during even a fast response.

• Register for the October 8 class in Wayne, Michigan

• Register for the October 10 class in Crystal Lake, Illinois

An armed member bought time

Greg Mikat, a hearings investigator with the Michigan Department of Corrections, was carrying a handgun that morning. After the truck struck the building, he went outside and encountered Sanford approaching with a rifle.

Mikat fired five rounds. According to the police investigation, none struck Sanford. Sanford shot Mikat three times in the chest.

Mikat survived. On the anniversary Sunday, he stood before his congregation and conducted the music. Grand Blanc Township Police Chief William “Bill” Renye described him as a hero and credited him with buying time for most of the congregation to escape through the back. The Deseret News anniversary report documents his actions and the chief’s assessment.

Some people will focus on the misses and conclude that his handgun accomplished nothing. That ignores what the police chief said. Mikat confronted a man who was murdering people, and the chief believes that confrontation gave others time to get away.

His courage deserves recognition. His misses also require an honest discussion about training. We can respect what he did while examining what every armed church security volunteer should learn from it.

A carry permit does not establish your ability to stop an attacker. Neither does owning a good handgun or being the person everyone at church considers knowledgeable about firearms. You need to measure your performance.

If you carry, train honestly

I have recommended the Bill Drill for years because it gives you a measurable way to work on your draw, recoil control, and accuracy at speed.

From the holster, draw and fire six rounds into the A zone, the center scoring area of a standard practical shooting target, at seven yards. The performance goal I recommend working toward is under two seconds, with all six rounds in that scoring area.

All six hits count. A fast time with misses does not meet the standard. Build toward that goal at a pace you can safely control, and record both your times and your hits.

The drill does not recreate Grand Blanc or establish that someone is prepared for every emergency. You still need judgment, communication, medical training, and practice with the people who will respond beside you.

But if you carry a handgun to protect a congregation, avoiding meaningful evaluation of your shooting ability is unacceptable. People are depending on you. They deserve demonstrated competence and continued training.

Be honest about what you can do today. Then put in the work to improve it.

The policy needs to be challenged

After Grand Blanc, the church security department sent a letter to leaders of more than 31,000 congregations, asking them to review security and emergency preparations.

The church’s security guidelines updated March 16, 2026 include two greeters at entrances, paired patrols inside and outside, and emergency training that includes Run, Hide, Fight. Those measures have value.

The same guidance calls for four to six current law enforcement officers at high profile meetings or during an increased threat environment. Meanwhile, General Handbook section 35.5.7.2 continues to prohibit firearms and other lethal weapons on church property, including concealed weapons, with an exception for current law enforcement officers.

Leadership recognizes a role for armed protection. It recommends officers under certain circumstances while prohibiting ordinary members from carrying.

Grand Blanc was a Sunday worship meeting. The attacker did not wait for a prominent visitor or a special event. He attacked families gathered for worship.

Leadership should explain why those families cannot have trained, organized armed protection provided by qualified members where applicable law allows it. An ordinary Sunday deserves a serious protection plan.

Hiring police can be part of that plan, but officers are not always available. Leadership still needs an answer for a service when none are present. Who is prepared to protect the congregation during the minutes before responding officers arrive?

My recommendation is to change the policy to permit lawful armed protection by qualified members and establish trained, supported teams at the local level. Set standards, appoint accountable leaders, and provide the resources those teams need.

After Grand Blanc, a letter and revised procedures should not end the discussion. The weapons restriction deserves direct examination.

More fatal shootings followed

On January 7, 2026, a shooting outside a funeral at an LDS meetinghouse in Salt Lake City killed two people and injured six others. Police described a dispute among people attending the funeral. Federal prosecutors later charged two alleged Tongan Crip gang members with firearms offenses related to the investigation. The initial reporting and Justice Department announcement describe those circumstances.

On August 17, a funeral at an LDS meetinghouse in Kearns, Utah, ended with one man dead and two others critically injured. Attendees had warned police that trouble might develop. According to KSL’s reporting, officers were already at the location when they heard gunfire.

Those two shootings and Grand Blanc left seven people dead in less than 11 months. The circumstances differed. The funeral shootings should not be presented as the same kind of targeted religious attack as Grand Blanc, but they demonstrate other threats that can reach church property.

Your team needs to prepare for conflicts brought into funerals, threats against the congregation, and an attacker arriving during worship. Known disputes or gang connections belong in the security assessment before the service begins.

Informal arrangements leave unanswered questions

I have heard from LDS members who tell me they carry despite the policy. Others say they have formed informal teams. That tells me members are concerned enough to act without institutional support, and it raises questions leadership should resolve.

Who knows who is armed? Who has been trained? Who is coordinating the response? Have those people ever trained together?

A church should answer those questions through an organized program. Leaving members to private arrangements creates uncertainty during the emergency when clear responsibilities are essential.

Give the team defined leadership and train together at least monthly. Brief other lawful carriers on expectations so they understand how to avoid interfering with the team or confusing responding officers.

The church’s guidance includes fighting as a last resort. Leadership should examine what its weapons restriction leaves a member facing someone with a rifle. A folding chair may be what is available, but telling someone to improvise does not settle the question of whether qualified armed protection should have been permitted.

Preparation starts outside

Grand Blanc began with a vehicle reaching an occupied building. Every church should examine where a vehicle could drive directly into its sanctuary, classrooms, or gathering areas. Bring those vulnerabilities to leadership and discuss appropriate barriers with qualified professionals.

I teach threat recognition through atmospherics. Know what normal looks like on your property so you can identify behavior that needs attention.

Reckless driving, repeated circling, unusual parking, or an approach that does not fit normal activity should prompt observation and communication. Those behaviors do not automatically establish that someone is an attacker, but your team cannot assess what nobody is watching.

Put a team member outside during services with a radio and a defined responsibility. Make sure that person can communicate a concern to someone with the authority to act.

A vehicle striking a building may be an accident. It may also be the beginning of an attack. Your team needs to assess the situation, move people away from the impact area, and watch for additional danger.

Your congregation needs a plan too

Eyewitness reporting from Grand Blanc describes members helping people evacuate after the crash and facing gunfire as they escaped. The attacker also used gasoline to set the building ablaze.

Your congregation should understand emergency procedures before something happens. Decide who can order an evacuation from the pulpit. Teach classroom leaders their exits and alternatives. Establish a rally point and a system for accounting for children.

Work with your fire department on fire and smoke emergencies. A room used to shelter from gunfire can become dangerous when smoke enters or fire cuts off the exit. Your plan has to account for changing conditions.

A security team cannot personally guide every family and every classroom at once. Members need enough preparation to make informed decisions when they are separated from the team.

Review what your church publishes online as well. Post assignments, patrol schedules, camera locations, and detailed response procedures can expose information useful to someone planning violence. Teach members how to report concerns and respond to emergencies while keeping sensitive deployment details controlled.

Faith does not excuse inaction

In 2 Chronicles 32, Hezekiah learned that an enemy was approaching. He consulted his leaders, repaired defenses, prepared weapons and shields, and appointed commanders. He also encouraged the people to trust the Lord.

Trusting God did not relieve him of the responsibility to repair a broken wall. He took practical steps to prepare the people under his care.

Jeremiah 6:14 rebukes leaders who offered assurances of peace while treating a serious wound lightly. Jeremiah was addressing Judah in a particular historical setting, but that warning should cause us to examine our own leadership.

Are we addressing demonstrated vulnerabilities? Are we taking responsibility for correcting them, or reassuring people while the same weaknesses remain?

Four people were murdered at Grand Blanc. An armed member confronted the attacker, members helped one another escape, and responding officers stopped the killer. One year later, the weapons restriction remains.

I believe leadership should reconsider it and establish trained, supported protection at the congregation level. The families attending an ordinary Sunday service deserve a plan that takes the demonstrated threats seriously.

If you lead a church, bring this discussion to your leadership. If you lead a security team, examine your preparation. If you carry, be honest about your ability to deliver accurate hits and your willingness to train.

Tell me in the comments whether your church has an organized team and whether leadership supports it. Keep operational details private, but share how your church is addressing these responsibilities.

Pray for the families of Craig Hayden, John Bond, Thelma Armstrong, and William Howard. Pray for Greg Mikat and everyone still recovering from that morning. Pray also that people harboring hatred will turn to Christ before they hurt anyone.

Remember the instruction in 1 Corinthians 16:13, ESV: “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.” And remember your ABCs. Always Be Carrying.

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Intel Monitor/Report Suspicious Activity

Coming up in this week’s briefing:

• Terrorism and intelligence: An alleged chemical weapon plot in Canada, target surveillance in Poland, and attacks on Jewish institutions in Belgium.

• October dates to watch: Religious observances and attack anniversaries for your safety team’s calendar.

• Reports from church safety teams: Threats during Bible study, unusual behavior during worship, and a man watching women after service.

• Violence involving churches and clergy: A church shooting from an electric scooter, a worship minister killed, and attempted entry at a synagogue preschool.

• Child protection: Five sex crime cases involving Christian schools, youth ministries, mission trips, and a church volunteer.

• Fire and vehicle hazards: A crucifix set on fire inside a Wisconsin church, an adjacent arson fire damaging another church, and three vehicle collisions at church properties.

• International threats: A priest killed inside a Polish abbey, more Christians killed in Nigeria, and church leaders detained in China.

  

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BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT

A Ukrainian man killed a priest with a kitchen knife he found inside a Benedictine abbey in Poland, a man photographed a Philadelphia synagogue and then pulled on the preschool doors while children were inside, and a man walked into a Wisconsin church on a Friday morning and set the crucifix on fire while the organist watched him do it. A suspected gang member is charged with shooting up a church in Oakley, California from an electric scooter, and a 66-year-old rabbi was beaten on the steps of his own home in Brooklyn. Three vehicles hit church buildings in three states in six days, five more ministry and Christian school sex crime cases moved through court, counter-terror services in Poland, Canada and Belgium all worked congregation-related cases, and the Islamic State spent its weekly newsletter claiming it burned seventy Christian homes in Congo and executed seven Christians in Mozambique. Three safety teams filed reports on people who walked into their buildings and behaved like they were working a problem. The October dates are below the terror update, and the high holidays run through this weekend.

TERRORISM AND INTELLIGENCE

Teenager Charged Over Neo-Nazi Plot Against a Mosque and a School, Including Target Surveillance — Katowice Area, Poland

Poland’s Internal Security Agency detained a 17-year-old Polish citizen identified as Paweł G. on Friday, September 18, and prosecutors charged him on Tuesday, September 22. He faces three counts: preparing a terrorist attack intended to kill many people, membership in a criminal group promoting Nazi ideology and inciting religious and ethnic hatred, and publicly inciting hatred online. Investigators say device analysis showed correspondence planning large-scale attacks on a mosque and a school, reconnaissance of both targets, and efforts to obtain firearms, grenades, and Molotov cocktails. He was allegedly tied to a group calling itself Atomwaffen Polska and operated on Telegram and Discord. Two 16-year-olds, named as Kacper K. and Wiktor Ś., were referred to juvenile courts after investigators found Nazi materials, and a court ordered three months of pre-trial detention for Paweł G.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: this is yet another example of a lone wolf actor being stopped. This is still a church's greatest threat.

• Register for the October 8 class in Wayne, Michigan

• Register for the October 10 class in Crystal Lake, Illinois

Man Charged Over ISIS-Inspired Plot to Build a Chemical Weapon — Quebec City, Canada

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police announced on Thursday, September 24, that Louay Angoud, 24, of Quebec City had been charged with four terrorism-related offenses. Police allege he communicated online with members of the Islamic State and gathered information to build a chemical weapon capable of poisoning Canadians, and that he intended to carry out at least one attack on the group’s behalf. The counts are using or possessing property for terrorist purposes, commission of an offense for a terrorist group, participating in the activity of a terrorist group, and possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose. The investigation opened in April 2026 and was run by the RCMP’s Integrated National Security Enforcement Team for the Eastern Region. The Crown opposed release and he was held pending a bail hearing the following week.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: These attacks are getting more complex. You need to think beyond just an active shooter and start thinking about complex attacks involving multiple methods of killing, including chemical attacks.

Belgian Threat Analysis Chief Says Iran Directed a Synagogue Bombing and an Arson — Liège and Antwerp, Belgium

Gert Vercauteren, who heads Belgium’s Coordination Unit for Threat Analysis, told the public broadcaster RTBF on Thursday, September 24, that the people behind two attacks on Jewish targets in Belgium in March “certainly followed Iran’s call to strike Jewish and Israeli interests everywhere in the world.” An explosive device detonated outside the Grande Synagogue de Liège on Rue Léon Frédéricq shortly before 4 a.m. on Monday, March 9, shattering windows and damaging the main door, and a car was set on fire in Antwerp’s Jewish quarter the same week. Neither attack caused casualties. Several people were detained over the Liège bombing and two teenagers were arrested over the Antwerp arson. Vercauteren said the attacks were a coordinated campaign and not isolated incidents, and that Belgian services recorded no further attacks after a main suspect in the network was arrested in Turkey.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: The IRGC has been stepping up attacks against Jews across Europe. One has been stopped here in the US. If you are a congregation that supports Israel openly, expect that you can be a target. Please take this threat seriously. The writing is on the wall and attempts have already been made here in the homeland.

Drone and Rifle Attack on Police Station Caught Churchgoers Leaving Mass — El Carmen, Colombia

Attackers dropped nine grenades from multiple drones onto the police station in El Carmen, Norte de Santander, and fired rifles at it at roughly 8 p.m. on Sunday, September 20. One police officer was wounded by shrapnel and there were no deaths. The attack began as the community was leaving Catholic Mass at a church about two blocks away, which forced people to take cover; no reporting indicates the church or the parishioners were targets. Interior Minister Rodrigo Lara attributed the attack to the National Liberation Army and framed it as retaliation for state operations in the region. A police substation in nearby Guamalito was destroyed in a separate attack on September 10.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: I included this so that you can see the drone threat is real. I will be filming an interview on Monday with a drone expert to talk about what it will look like to attack a church with a drone. It is very easy to weaponize a domestically available drone. All you need is a 3D printer, a drone, gun powder and ball bearings. It is a low level of entry.

Islamic State Devotes Its Weekly Newsletter to Claimed Killings of Christians in Congo and Mozambique

Issue 566 of the Islamic State’s weekly al-Naba newsletter, dated Thursday, September 24, claims a week of attacks on Christians in two African theaters. In Ituri province in eastern Congo the group claims it burned roughly 70 homes it calls “homes of the warring Christians” along with commercial shops, looted property, and killed nine Congolese soldiers across attacks near the villages of Bomzika and Makotanio on September 16 and 19. In Cabo Delgado, Mozambique the group claims it seized and then executed seven Christians between September 14 and 21, four shot and three beheaded, and raided two villages it names as Christian, Chai in Macomia district and Minguelewa in Muidumbe district, simultaneously on the evening of Monday, September 21. The group’s West Africa claims in the same issue, covering Borno State in Nigeria and the Diffa region of Niger, are framed entirely as attacks on soldiers and militias with no religious language. No church, chapel, or worship service is named anywhere in the issue, no Western target appears, and the editorial contains no call to attack Christians outside the group’s existing theaters. All figures are the group’s own and this group routinely inflates its casualty claims.

🛡️ My thoughts: Watch your enemy. They telegraph each week what they do. We should take that information and go on the offensive and kill this satan worshipers.

DATES OF SIGNIFICANCE: OCTOBER 2026

Religious observances and attack anniversaries worth putting on the safety team calendar. Historical entries are open-source and are listed because hostile actors have used anniversaries as timing cues, most recently when a man was arrested in Alabama in 2025 over threats to synagogues on the anniversary of the Tree of Life attack.

This weekend and the coming week:

• Through October 2: Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles. October 1 and 2 is Hoshanah Rabbah.

• October 2 to 4: Shemini Atzeret. October 3 and 4: Simchat Torah. Jewish institutions in your area are in their highest-attendance stretch of the year right now, and it ends this weekend.

• October 2: First anniversary of the 2025 vehicle ramming and stabbing attack outside Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in Manchester, England, on Yom Kippur, in which two people were killed and three were injured. Also the anniversary of the 2006 hostage taking and shooting at the Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, in which six people were killed.

• October 4: Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi, observed at many Catholic and Episcopal parishes with a Blessing of the Animals. Outdoor, high-foot-traffic, animals on site.

• October 7: Third anniversary of the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. Expect elevated tension and protest activity near Jewish institutions.

Rest of the month:

• October 9: Anniversary of the 2019 attack on the synagogue in Halle, Germany, in which a gunman attempted to breach a door with roughly 70 people inside observing Yom Kippur, then killed two people nearby and livestreamed it. The door held. Also Karwa Chauth and Guru Ram Das Birthday.

• October 11: Anniversary of the 2025 arrests of two people over a plot to attack the Chabad of South Orlando in Florida, in which the pair conducted advance surveillance of the location. Also National Coming Out Day.

• October 11 to 19: Navaratri. October 20: Dussehra.

• October 18: Feast of Saint Luke.

• October 24: Anniversary of the 2018 Kroger shooting in Jeffersontown, Kentucky, in which a man killed two people after first failing to get into a predominantly Black church.

• October 27: Anniversary of the 2018 Tree of Life Synagogue attack in Pittsburgh, in which 11 people were killed and six were wounded. This is the single most referenced date on this list in extremist messaging.

• October 31: Halloween, which is also Reformation Day and is observed by some occult groups. Anniversary of the 2021 attempt to set fire to the front doors of Congregation Beth Israel in Austin, Texas.

🛡️ My thoughts: October 7th is the date to watch this month. Why? Because the enemy Is constantly telling us that they want to attack us and some have said it should be this date. Does that mean it will happen? You never know and should be ready regardless.

SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY REPORTS

Reader-submitted suspicious activity at U.S. churches, from reports approved this week.

Exmore, Virginia — Woman Filmed Bible Study on Facebook Live, Then Threatened the Security Team A woman arrived late to a Bible study at a church in Exmore around 10 a.m. on Wednesday, September 23, was let in by a security team member, seated herself at the rear of the hall, and began streaming the study on Facebook Live. A team member approached when she appeared agitated and she told him to give her space; as her behavior escalated two members approached and she began cursing and threatening them. She was escorted out, served a no trespass order, and arrested by responding police on a probation violation, and the team confirmed the sequence against both her own Facebook reel and internal security footage. CWT case [Report ID needed]

Murfreesboro, Tennessee — Safety Team Surrounded a Subject, Then a Deacon Sat Down Next to Him A man entered the auditorium of a church in Murfreesboro around 10 a.m. on Sunday, September 27, and began behaving in a way the congregation found unusual. The safety team positioned itself discreetly in the pews around him and a police officer came into the auditorium; once the team was in place, a deacon sat down beside the man, welcomed him, and helped him find a cited passage in his Bible. A team member photographed him discreetly, and he is described as about 5 feet 10 inches, Caucasian, bald, in clean jeans and a clean white shirt. CWT case [Report ID needed]

Iowa — Man Stayed After Service to Watch a Group of Women A man remained seated at the rear of the sanctuary of a church in Iowa around 11 a.m. on Sunday, September 27, well after the service ended, watching a group of women who were talking. When members of the church safety team entered he turned his back toward them to obscure his face and left the building almost immediately. He is described as a thin male in his early 30s with a Hispanic or Mediterranean appearance, glasses, and dark hair worn a little long on top. CWT case [Report ID needed]

Report what happened at your church this week. Every report above came from a reader who took a couple of minutes to file one, and that is the only reason the rest of us get to see it. File yours at alert.christianwarriortraining.com, where you can also read these reports in full and the ones that did not make this issue.

🛡️ My thoughts: Please continue to log your Suspicious activity at intel.christianwarriortraining.com. We have stopped bad actors from the information you have given us.

VIOLENT CRIME

Suspected Gang Member Charged With Shooting a Church From an Electric Scooter — Oakley, California

Pablo Adin, 18, of Oakley is charged with one count of attempted murder and two counts of shooting at an occupied dwelling after a round struck St. Anthony’s Church with roughly 300 people inside. Police say Adin, a suspected member of a local Norteño gang subset, encountered the man he was targeting near O’Hara Avenue and West Cypress Road around noon on Sunday, August 30, fired at him, missed, and fled on an electric scooter. At least one bullet hit the church and nobody inside was injured. Investigators raided Adin’s Oakley home the following day and report recovering a similar electric scooter, gang indicia, and suspected gang graffiti sprayed in the backyard, and they say he has a suspected gang tattoo on his face. He is being held in lieu of $950,000 bail, has pleaded not guilty, and his preliminary hearing is set for October 15.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: I lived 2 miles from the scene. I have been to this church and I have friends that attend here. This happened because of CA’s pro criminal policies and the DA’s refusal to hold hard core criminals accountable. I was a gang sergeant near here that dealt with these criminals. It makes me sad that I had to leave my home state so I could live in the United States again. If you are in CA, OR, or WA, you are more at risk to crime like this because of your state law makers.

Minister of Worship Shot and Killed in Mistaken-Identity Shooting — West Palm Beach, Florida

Akeem Moore, 31, minister of worship at Mount Calvary Baptist Church of West Palm Beach, was shot just after midnight on Sunday, September 27, in the 500 block of Ontario Place. West Palm Beach police responded to a ShotSpotter alert and later arrested Hugh Earp Milner Jr., 38, who police describe as homeless, with help from the Broward County Sheriff’s Office and Flock license plate readers. Milner is charged with first-degree murder with a firearm, attempted first-degree murder with a firearm, and shooting into an occupied vehicle. Police Chief Tony Araujo said the passenger in Moore’s vehicle recognized Milner and believed Milner had mistaken them for someone else. Moore, already shot, drove his passenger to a nearby fire station before being transported to a hospital, where he died; the passenger was not injured and the shooting happened on a residential street away from church property.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: If you are shot, leave the scene immediately and then stop the bleed. Carry a tourniquet in your driver’s area (center counsel is best or map pocket) and be prepared to tourniquet yourself. Make sure you have a IFAK that has a chest seal and Israeli bandage as well.

Man Photographed Synagogue, Then Pulled on School and Sanctuary Doors — Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Angel Viera, 34, of Philadelphia was arrested around 10 a.m. on Thursday, September 24, at the Germantown Jewish Centre in the West Mount Airy neighborhood. Police say he stood across the street photographing the property, then crossed onto the lawn and pulled on doors in an attempt to enter both the synagogue and the school building while children were attending the preschool. He is alleged to have said “F*** the Jews” and to have challenged the on-site security guard over working at a Jewish institution. He then sat down on the curb of the property driveway and refused to leave until Philadelphia police arrived. Viera is charged with ethnic intimidation, defiant trespass, and disorderly conduct, with bail set Friday at $25,000 unsecured, and the Centre has previously received two bomb threats.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: This could be nothing, or he could have been planning an attack. Treat it accordingly like this place did.

Man Shot Elsewhere Walked Into a Church Looking for Help — St. Louis, Missouri

A man with several gunshot wounds went to a church in the North City neighborhood of St. Louis on Sunday, September 27, seeking help, according to police. The shooting itself happened elsewhere and the church was where he turned up afterward. Police have not released the man’s name or identified a suspect, and no charges were announced in the initial reporting. The church’s role was as the place a wounded man chose to go.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: It’s almost once a week now where someone is shot and runs to a church, or is fleeing a murderer and is killed at a church. People that are fleeing danger will go to a church for sanctuary. Plan accordingly.

Federal Defendant Filmed Memorial Candles Inside a Church and Sent the Video to Debtors as a Threat — Schererville, Indiana

Federal prosecutors say James Gerodemos, 63, of Schererville, the alleged ringleader of an illegal sports betting operation, filmed lit memorial candles inside a church and sent the footage to people who owed him money. A voice on the video says he lit candles for the recipient’s family and that he wants them to die. Gerodemos is charged in the Northern District of Indiana with running an illegal sports betting operation, money laundering, extortion, and witness intimidation, as part of a federal case charging 22 people; his daughter is among the co-defendants. Prosecutors cite threats in March 2025 and October 2025 and describe an indictment period running from January 2021 to April 2026. The church is not named in the charging documents, was not a target, and suffered no damage.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: Are you keeping an eye on your congregation? We have all sorts of sinners attending church, including drug dealers, mobsters and other criminals. Keep and eye on their behavior and look for anything that is out of line with normal. If it’s out of line with what is normal, go have a chat and find out what is going on.

Rabbi, 66, Beaten on the Steps of His Own Home in Unprovoked Attack — Brooklyn, New York

Eric Avrutov, 31, of Brighton Beach is accused of beating a 66-year-old rabbi outside 375 Dahill Road on the Borough Park and Kensington border at about 9:20 p.m. on Wednesday, September 23. Police say Avrutov put the rabbi in a headlock and beat him on the steps of his home, leaving him with a bloodied face, a fractured shoulder, and back pain; he was treated at Maimonides Medical Center and released, and his family asked that his name be withheld. About five minutes earlier Avrutov allegedly punched a 60-year-old man in the face at a Shell station on Cortelyou Road, and he faces assault and harassment charges in that incident as well. In the attack on the rabbi he is charged with two counts of assault, criminal obstruction of breathing or blood circulation, and harassment. Police have characterized the attack as random and no hate crime charges have been filed; the two men were strangers and Avrutov was given supervised release over a prosecution request for bail. The attack happened on a residential street and not at or near a synagogue.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: All Jews and those that openly support Israel should never lose their situational awareness. People are actively trying to kill you. Act accordingly.

SEX CRIMES

Christian School Teacher and Athletic Director Charged With 13 Felonies — St. Paul Park, Minnesota

Derrick Lee Pfeffer, 42, of Baldwin, Wisconsin was arrested Thursday, September 24, and charged the following day in Washington County District Court. Pfeffer was a teacher and the athletic director at Hope Christian Academy in St. Paul Park from the fall of 2022 through December 2024, and the charges name two minor students from that school. He faces one count of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, two counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct by a person in a position of authority, one count of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct, one count of soliciting a child to engage in sexual conduct, and nine counts of possessing child sexual abuse material. Investigators allege contact with the first student began in January 2024 when she was 14 and continued to January 2026, and that contact with the second student began in August 2026, with explicit images exchanged over Instagram. The Cottage Grove Police Department investigated, and some of the alleged contact occurred on school grounds.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: Look how many sexual assaults follow, vs how many shootings we’ve had this week. You are far more likely to have a child sexually assaulted by staff than you are to have an active shooter. Train and deploy your people accordingly.

Youth Minister Charged Over Contact With a 17-Year-Old From His Own Ministry — Burnsville and Shakopee, Minnesota

David Boamah Danso, 35, of Shakopee was charged in Scott County in late September with one count of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a 16- or 17-year-old by a person in a position of authority. Danso served as a youth minister at Pentecost Fire Assembly of God in Burnsville, and the complaint says he repeatedly pressured a 17-year-old girl from his youth ministry to send nude photographs beginning in May 2024. Investigators allege that on February 7, 2026, Danso picked the girl up at her Shakopee home and touched her thigh and breast in his vehicle while driving to a barbershop in Savage. The Shakopee and Burnsville police departments both worked the case and it was transferred to Shakopee on jurisdiction. A first court appearance is scheduled for November 20, and the offenses are not alleged to have occurred inside the church.

Source

Federal Charges Over Abuse of Minors During Haiti Mission Trips — Mansfield, Louisiana

Maylon Foshee, 23, of Mansfield was charged by federal criminal complaint on Tuesday, September 22, with engaging in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place with minors. Prosecutors say Foshee traveled repeatedly to Gonaïves, Haiti between 2023 and 2026 while working with a ministry organization there, which the charging documents do not name. The complaint alleges he abused several minor victims who were under his care, including children who lived with him and children who received financial support from him. FBI agents interviewed three minor victims in August 2026, and the case is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Louisiana. The charge carries a maximum of 30 years in federal prison.

Source

Former Youth Minister Pleads Not Guilty to Seven Federal Counts, FBI Seeking More Victims — Falls Church, Virginia and Milford, Ohio

Jeffrey Turner Taylor, 66, who now lives in Milford, Ohio, pleaded not guilty on Thursday, September 24, in the Eastern District of Virginia. A federal grand jury indicted Taylor on September 10 and he was arrested on Monday, September 14. Taylor was Director of Youth Ministries at The Falls Church in Falls Church, Virginia from May 1990 to August 1999 and Director of Adult Discipleship there until February 2002, and he later served at two Atlanta churches. The indictment charges three counts of coercion and enticement of a minor and four counts of travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct, covering conduct alleged between 1990 and 2008, with a maximum exposure of 105 years. Prosecutors allege Taylor used spiritual guidance as the pretext for grooming boys in his ministry and transported them across state lines and internationally on ministry trips, and FBI Cincinnati is publicly asking additional victims to come forward.

Source

Church Volunteer Accused of Giving a Girl Alcohol, Then Sexually Assaulting Her — Pea Ridge, Arkansas

A church volunteer in Pea Ridge, in Benton County, is accused of sexually assaulting a girl after giving her alcohol, according to reporting published Tuesday, September 29. Multiple northwest Arkansas outlets carried the case, and the furnishing of alcohol before the alleged assault appears in the charging allegations. Keith: every Arkansas outlet carrying this is blocked to automated reading, so the suspect’s name, his age, the church, his volunteer role, the arrest date, the itemized charges, the bond, and the victim’s age are all unconfirmed. I am deliberately running it without a name. There are at least two other similar Pea Ridge cases from the same period, so name confusion is a live risk; pull the Benton County arrest record or open one of the articles before this publishes.

Source

ARSON AND SUSPICIOUS FIRES

Man Set Fire to Crucifix Inside the Church With an Organist in the Room — West Bend, Wisconsin

West Bend police responded to Pilgrim Lutheran Church at 462 Meadowbrook Drive at 10:20 a.m. on Friday, September 25, after a report of a man inside the church trying to set an object on fire. The organist, Ben Grosskreuz, was practicing in the building and watched the man try to light the crucifix several times with a lighter before church staff confronted him. The man left before police arrived and officers located and detained him nearby without incident, taking him to the Washington County Jail; Washington County Insider identifies him as Heng F. Lin, 50, of West Bend, and is the only outlet that has named him. He was booked on arson and recklessly endangering safety, and the charges actually filed on Monday, September 28, are arson to property other than a building, criminal damage to property, and disorderly conduct, on a $25,000 signature bond, with the next hearing set for October 20. Fire damage was limited to blackening on the base of the crucifix, nobody was hurt, and the pastor told WISN this was “the fourth or fifth time that we’ve had issues” at the church.

Source · Charges and suspect name

🛡️ My thoughts: This is your weekly reminder that you need a fire alarm, a burglar alarm and a 4k video system.

House Fire Set Next Door Causes More Than $10,000 Damage to a Church — Charleston, West Virginia

Dakota Harper, 21, and Felicity Eatmon, 22, are charged with first-degree arson and conspiracy after a fire at an abandoned home in the 400 block of Maryland Avenue on Charleston’s West Side at 11:15 p.m. on Sunday, September 27. The house had no active utilities, and the fire spread to the adjacent Canaan United Methodist Church, which sustained more than $10,000 in estimated damage. According to the criminal complaint, surveillance video shows Eatmon handing Harper a piece of paper, Harper lighting it and placing it inside the home, and both partially entering the structure as the flames grew before leaving. The pair were arraigned on Tuesday in Kanawha County with bond set at $10,000 each. The church was not the target of the fire.

Source

VEHICLE COLLISIONS

Three Vehicles Struck Church Buildings in Six Days — Tennessee, Michigan, and Connecticut

A vehicle crashed through a brick wall and a window beside the front sanctuary door at Trinity Presbyterian Church, 1020 N. Rutherford Blvd. in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, shortly after 2 p.m. on Saturday, September 26, and the driver was taken to a hospital with injuries described as non-life-threatening while Murfreesboro Police and Fire-Rescue worked the scene; no cause has been released, nobody else was hurt, and WGNS described the vehicle as an SUV while a church member who filed a report on the CWT Intelligence Platform described it as a black four-door sedan. Four days earlier, around 9 p.m. on Wednesday, September 23, a 96-year-old woman driving a black Mercedes SUV struck a storage area attached to Bethlehem Lutheran Church near the base of Old Mission Peninsula in Grand Traverse County, Michigan, damaging that section inside and out and leaving the sanctuary untouched. Traverse City Police said she was not injured and that drugs, alcohol, and speed were not factors, officers submitted a signed request for a driver evaluation, and the pastor held weekend services as scheduled. Then at about 4:40 a.m. on Monday, September 28, a tractor-trailer left Route 34 at Main Street in Derby, Connecticut and struck the wall at the front of St. Michael’s Church, and crews from Derby, Ansonia, and Shelton spent roughly 45 minutes extricating the driver, identified by the Valley Independent Sentinel as Hensel A. Fogo, 36, of New Britain, who was taken to Yale New Haven Hospital with serious injuries and listed in good condition by Tuesday. Derby Police Chief Brian Grogan said the driver may have fallen asleep and Fogo was ticketed for failure to stay in the proper lane; the church building itself was not reported damaged, and Route 34 west and the Route 8 ramps were closed for hours, delaying Derby school buses.

Murfreesboro · Grand Traverse County · Derby

🛡️ My thoughts: Vehicle collisions into churches, both deliberate and accidental, are increasing. What have you done to protect pedestrians at your church? You should have bollards at appropriate locations and you need to have marked lanes for your people to walk in.

INTERNATIONAL

Priest Killed and Four Wounded in Knife Attack at Benedictine Abbey — Jarosław, Poland

A 31-year-old Ukrainian man identified by Polish authorities as Ihor M. attacked five people at the 17th-century Benedictine Sisters’ abbey in Jarosław at about 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, September 24. He arrived unarmed, took a knife from the abbey kitchen, and stabbed Father Stanisław Zbójniewicz, 67, who died. Father Marek Pieńkowski left the confessional where he had been hearing confessions and tried to intervene; he was stabbed and hospitalized in serious but stable condition, and Father Adrian Mantykiewicz and two laypeople were also wounded. The attacker was detained at the scene and charged with murder, attempted murder, and causing grievous bodily harm, and prosecutors ordered him held three months in a secure hospital ward after psychiatric experts found acute psychotic symptoms; a second assessment was ordered on September 30. Mantykiewicz returned to the altar on Saturday, September 26, and told his congregation, “As a disciple of Jesus Christ, in my own name, in Father Marek’s name and in Father Stanisław’s name, I want to say very clearly that we forgive.”

Source · Follow-up

🛡️ My thoughts: This one slipped by me this week. I will follow up on this and do a debrief. this is serious and something that has happened in the US in the past. I am sure there are some great teaching points in here.

At Least Fifteen More Christians Killed in Follow-On Attacks — Barkin Ladi, Plateau State, Nigeria

Morning Star News reports at least fifteen more Christians killed between Monday, September 21 and Friday, September 25 in Barkin Ladi County, Plateau State, in the same area struck by the September 20 attacks this newsletter covered last week. Henry Elisha, 22, of Rakwok village was killed on September 21 and buried the following day. One Christian was killed near Bethany Christian Academy on Wednesday, September 23, two were killed in Barkin Ladi town, three were killed in the Gassa community on Friday, September 25, and five commuters were killed in a vehicle ambush near Rakwok. The villages of Chit, Gassa, Bet, Rakwok, Razat, and Rakung were all hit during the week. Solomon Mwantiri, a lawyer and community leader in Barkin Ladi, attributes the attacks to Fulani terrorists, and no arrests have been reported.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: Please keep track of what is happening in Nigeria. We need to do everything we can to support them.

Pastor and Orphanage Evacuated at Midnight Over Kidnapping Threat, Still Displaced — Idofian, Kwara State, Nigeria

Rev. Isaac Omolehin, founder and general overseer of Word Assembly Ministries, told Punch in late September that he and more than 100 residents of his church camp at Idofian remain displaced four months after police ordered them out. Police arrived at the camp just before midnight on May 30 and told everyone to run because kidnappers were coming to attack him. The evacuation emptied an orphanage on the property, some of whose children had been placed there by the government. Three days later Omolehin’s home town in Kogi State was attacked, with deaths reported. He told the paper, “I have a house I can’t enter. I have a car I can’t ride,” and police, the DSS, and the Kwara State Ministry of Social Welfare have not confirmed that it is safe to return.

Source

More Than 100 Police Surround Church Anniversary Setup, Pastor Detained — Beijing, China

About 50 members of Jiaquan Church were setting up a hotel conference room for the church’s 20th anniversary in Beijing on Friday, September 4, when more than 100 police, some in plain clothes, surrounded the venue. Officers collected identification information from every person present before releasing them. Pastor Zhou Zixun and seven church members were detained, and the charge being used is fraud, tied to the church’s unregistered status and its financial practices. As of late September, eight people remain in criminal detention after two were released and two additional leaders were taken; families say detainees are being held at undisclosed locations and that some have gone without medication for chronic conditions. Zhou’s wife and the church’s co-founder, Cui Jinyoung, is a South Korean national.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: China has been stepping up their persecution of Christians lately. This is something to keep your eye on.

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BLUF

The third anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel falls on Wednesday, October 7. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its proxies have spent the past two years paying local recruits to attack Jewish targets in Europe, Australia, and Canada, and Jews remain their primary target. Churches that show outward support for Israel, through flags and memorials on the property or through a pastor or prominent congregant who speaks publicly for Israel, should run increased security from October 4 through October 8.

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Key Judgments

• Highly Likely: The IRGC and its proxies will continue using paid local recruits and online contacts to attack Jewish targets in Europe and North America.

• Highly Likely: Churches displaying Israeli flags or October 7 memorials will see more theft, vandalism, and harassment through October 8 than in an ordinary week.

• Likely: Foreign terrorist organizations and Iranian-aligned networks will use the anniversary in online messaging calling for lone attackers in the United States.

• Likely: Pro-Palestinian demonstrations will take place in most major U.S. cities on or around October 7.

• Possible: A lone attacker will target a Jewish or pro-Israel site in the United States during the anniversary window, including a church or a pastor known for supporting Israel.

• Possible: Protesters will show up at a church that has publicly advertised an October 7 vigil or Israel-themed service.

• Unlikely: Iran or one of its proxies will task an attack against a U.S. church during the anniversary window. Their tasking to date has gone after Jewish and Israeli targets.

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The Anchorage Flag Theft

Members of Mountain City Church in Anchorage, Alaska, placed 1,200 small Israeli flags on the church lawn by about 11 a.m. on Thursday, October 1. Each flag represented one person killed in the October 7, 2023, attack. At about 1 a.m. Friday, October 2, every flag was taken. Security video provided to The Alaska Story and Alaska’s News Source shows a truck drop off four people in front of the church, drive into a nearby neighborhood while they pulled flags, and come back to load them. The group was gone in about fifteen minutes.

Church staff told Alaska’s News Source the people on the video appeared to be about high school age and hid behind trees and rocks when cars passed. Staff called it vandalism and theft by younger people and reported it to police. The flags had been placed ahead of a Sunday sermon on what the church believes the Bible says about Israel, and staff planned to replace them before that service. Police have not identified the people or the truck.

Whatever their age, they planned it. They used a driver who dropped them off and returned, they hid from passing traffic, and they worked the lawn for fifteen minutes at 1 a.m. with nobody interrupting them. Someone with worse intentions would have had the same access for the same fifteen minutes.

Anchorage is at least the second church in two years to lose a full set of 1,200 memorial flags. In October 2025, Church International in Warrior, Alabama, had more than 1,200 Israeli flags honoring October 7 victims taken overnight on a Friday and thrown into two dumpsters. The garbage service emptied one dumpster before the church found it, and the church recovered about 300 flags. Christian Fellowship Church Sandy Cross in Nash County, North Carolina, has had its Israeli flag cut up in one incident and pulled down in another since October 2023.

Iran’s Campaign Against Jewish Targets Abroad

The IRGC has attacked Jewish targets outside the Middle East through hired locals and proxy militias for at least two years. In August 2025, Australia expelled Iran’s ambassador after the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation concluded the IRGC directed the October 2024 firebombing of a kosher deli in Sydney and the December 2024 arson that destroyed much of the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne. The agency’s director-general, Mike Burgess, said the IRGC passed the tasking through overseas facilitators and coordinators until it reached Australians who carried out the attacks. In October 2025, Israel’s foreign intelligence service, the Mossad, said an IRGC Quds Force network was behind plots and attacks on Jewish and Israeli sites in Greece, Germany, and Australia, including arson and surveillance.

The campaign expanded after the United States and Israel went to war with Iran on February 28, 2026. A federal criminal complaint unsealed in Manhattan on May 15 charges Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi, a commander in the Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah, with organizing at least 18 attacks in Europe and two in Canada since late February. Kataib Hezbollah operates as a proxy for the IRGC, and prosecutors say it claimed the European attacks under a front name, Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya (HAYI). The attacks named in the complaint include synagogues in Liège, Belgium, and Rotterdam, Netherlands, an explosive attack on a Jewish school in Amsterdam, and the stabbing of two Jews in London. In March alone, The Times of Israel counted at least 14 attacks, incidents, or alleged plots against Jewish institutions in Europe, Canada, and the United States, and London has had a series of arson attacks on synagogues and Jewish buildings since late March.

The same complaint shows how this reaches into the United States. Prosecutors say Al-Saadi offered online contacts $10,000 to bomb a prominent New York City synagogue, required that the attack be recorded on video, and named Jewish centers in Los Angeles and Scottsdale, Arizona, as additional targets. He sent a $3,000 cryptocurrency down payment to a person who turned out to be an undercover agent and told him the European attacks were working and he wanted more help in the United States and Canada. The people carrying out attacks under this model often have no training and no direct contact with Iran. They are local people recruited online and paid per attack, and they look like lone actors until investigators trace the money and messages back. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) called the March 12 vehicle and gun attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan, a Hezbollah-inspired act of terrorism purposely targeting the Jewish community.

The flydubai Flight 1073 Attack

On September 30, flydubai Flight 1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv was carrying about 174 people, most of them Israelis. The Omani copilot attacked the captain in the cockpit and put the aircraft into a steep dive before off-duty flydubai pilots and passengers on board subdued him, and the plane landed in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. Israel’s prime minister said the copilot had undergone Islamist radical indoctrination, and Arabic-language media report that Oman Air had removed him from flying in 2024 or 2025 for visiting extremist websites. The day before the flight, the prime minister said publicly he had received indications of a planned attack on Israel ahead of its October 27 election, and it has not been reported whether that warning related to the flight. The United Arab Emirates opened a formal investigation on October 1, including whether the attack is linked to terrorism, and investigators have not said whether anyone directed him.

The flight number has drawn attention online because 1073 can be read as October 7, three years later. FZ1073 is flydubai’s standing daily flight number for its morning Dubai to Tel Aviv route and flew under that number for months before the attack, so the copilot did not choose it. He did choose the day. Attacking a plane full of Israelis one week before the anniversary fits the pattern of attackers timing violence to the October 7 date, whether he acted on his own or someone tasked him. If investigators find outside direction, it would match the IRGC model described above, with an insider reached through a chain of contacts and pointed at a target.

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What Governments Have Said About the Anniversary

For the first anniversary in 2024, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a joint public warning that the date could motivate violent extremists and hate crime perpetrators. A bulletin from the FBI, DHS, and the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) sent to local police listed “memorials, vigils, or other demonstrations” as attractive targets, alongside synagogues, mosques, and community centers. The agencies warned that online messaging about the anniversary could push individuals to act alone with little or no warning. A church lawn covered in October 7 memorial flags falls in the memorial category that bulletin named.

On September 6, 2026, Israel’s National Security Council (NSC) issued its holiday-season warning for Israelis and Jews abroad. The NSC said October 7 could be a focus of protests, possibly violent, and of increased efforts to carry out attacks. It named Iran and its proxies as the primary source of the threat and reported that 25 Israelis and Jews have been killed in terror attacks abroad since the war began. The council also reported a marked increase in lone attackers going after soft targets such as places of worship and community centers.

The 2026 Threat Environment in the United States and Britain

On January 10, an arsonist set fire to Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson, Mississippi, in the early morning hours of the Sabbath. On July 23, a man shouting “Allahu Akbar” stabbed two people in Manhattan’s Upper West Side, one of them leaving synagogue services. In the last week of September, British police arrested a United Kingdom and Iranian dual national in London over a suspected plot against a U.S.-run air base, and the British prime minister said there are strong indications of Iranian involvement. On October 2, 2025, five days before the second anniversary, an attacker rammed a car into the gates of Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester, England, during Yom Kippur prayers and killed two people.

Jewish congregations also mark the anniversary on the Hebrew calendar at Simchat Torah, the holiday on which Hamas attacked in 2023. Simchat Torah falls on October 3 and 4 this year, so the anniversary period runs from that weekend through Wednesday, October 7.

Why Churches That Support Israel Are in the Target Set

Most government reporting on the anniversary focuses on synagogues, Jewish schools, and Israeli diplomatic sites, and Jews remain the primary target of this campaign. Christian churches that show outward support for Israel belong on the watch list as well. That support is visible on the property through Israeli flags, October 7 memorials, banners, and announced vigils or Israel-themed services. It also comes through people, such as a pastor who preaches on Israel and posts the sermons online, a pastor or congregant who speaks for Israel in the media or on social media, or a church that hosts Israeli speakers or leads trips to Israel.

An attacker looking for a pro-Israel target can find these churches as easily as a synagogue, and they usually have less security. Many synagogues in major cities will have police at the door this week, while most churches with a lawn display have nobody on the property overnight. A pastor known for public support of Israel can be identified and located from what is posted online. Theft and vandalism of displays remain the most common result, and the Anchorage, Warrior, and Nash County incidents all happened with no one from the church on the grounds. The concern for this week is the smaller number of people who notice a display or a sermon and come back during a service.

Actions for Your Team, October 4 Through October 8

• Photograph the display. Walk the display before the first service on Sunday and photograph it so you have a record if anything is taken or damaged.

• Cover the display at night. Point an existing exterior camera at the display, confirm it records in the dark, and confirm someone on the team can pull the footage the next morning. If you have no camera coverage of that area, ask your pastor about bringing the display inside after dark for the week.

• Cover the pastor. If your pastor or a congregant has spoken publicly in support of Israel, assign one team member to that person from arrival to departure at every service and event through October 8, including the walk to the car.

• Call your police non-emergency line before Sunday. Tell them the church has an Israel display, an October 7 event, or a pastor who speaks publicly on Israel, give them your service times, and ask for extra patrol passes overnight and on Wednesday evening.

• Staff Wednesday night. October 7 falls on a Wednesday. If your church holds a midweek service or Bible study, schedule your full team for it with one person at each open entrance and one person in the parking lot.

• Brief greeters and ushers on protesters. Tell them not to engage protesters on the sidewalk, to send any contact to the team leader, and to call 911 if anyone blocks an entrance or comes onto the property to confront people.

• Check online comments daily. Have one team member read the comments on the church’s social media posts and posted sermons about Israel each day through October 8, screenshot any threat, and give it to police with the link to the post.

• Limit what gets posted. Ask the pastor whether an October 7 vigil or Israel-themed event needs its exact time and location on the public website, or whether the details can go to members by email or text.

• Report incidents. If your display is vandalized or stolen, file a police report the same day and submit a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) through the Christian Warrior Training (CWT) Intelligence Platform at intel.christianwarriortraining.com. Include the time, any vehicle description, and video if you have it.

Threat Assessment

The overall threat level for churches that show outward support for Israel during the October 4 through October 8 window is HIGH (ORANGE). This matches the current Church Security Threat Level System (CSTLS) setting, which has held at HIGH (ORANGE) since June 2026 because of the war with Iran, Iranian proxy operations, and Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) messaging targeting Christians. The anniversary does not move the level to RED (CRITICAL), because no reporting I have seen points to a specific, credible plot against a U.S. church.

The primary concern is theft and vandalism of Israel displays. It is highly likely those incidents continue through the week, carried out overnight by people who arrive by vehicle, work fast, and leave before anyone responds. The secondary concern is a lone attacker, either self-motivated by anniversary messaging online or recruited and paid through an Iranian proxy network. Iran’s tasking has gone after Jewish targets so far, and it is unlikely a proxy tasks an attack on a U.S. church this week. It is possible a self-motivated attacker selects a church or pastor with visible support for Israel, and if so, it is likely he comes during a service or advertised event when people are present.

Teams at churches with Israel displays, October 7 events, or a pastor who speaks publicly on Israel should staff Sunday and Wednesday the way they staff a high-attendance holiday service. Document and report any person photographing, filming, or loitering near the display or the pastor. Churches with no outward Israel connection should hold their normal HIGH (ORANGE) posture.

Biblical Lens

“But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you.” (Romans 11:17-18, ESV)

Paul tells Gentile believers they were grafted into Israel’s olive tree and draw their life from its root, and he warns them against arrogance toward the natural branches. A church that flies Israel’s flag or prays for the Jewish people on October 7 is acting on that teaching, and it should expect some of the hostility aimed at Israel to come its way. Stand with Israel this week, and put a guard on your doors while you do it.

If your church has an Israel display up or has had one targeted, leave a comment below with the date, the time, and what was taken or damaged. We track these reports to see the pattern across the country. Share this bulletin with your pastor and your team leader before Sunday.

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Hello Christian Warriors. Here is your weekly Roll Call Briefing. It is meant to be read, or to be delivered verbally as a team, before you start your shift protecting the Body of Christ. Here is what we cover today:

1. 0:00 Intro

2. 0:52 Alert Posture — did the threat level change?

3. 1:26 Intelligence Updates — five cases overseas, including an ISIS plot

4. 5:55 Violence Against Churches — six incidents in one week

5. 9:48 Ministry Access Surge — the risk more likely than an active shooter

6. 10:27 Training — welcome them or remove them?

7. 12:14 Christ First — John 15:13

8. 12:46 Assignments & Close

FREE, LIVE TRAINING IN ILLINOIS AND MICHIGAN: ACTIVE SHOOTER INSTRUCTOR SCHOOL

Don’t forget to sign up for either the Michigan or Illinois classes. I’m giving these classes for free. It is in person only.

We are accepting applications for our upcoming active shooter instructor school. Click here to get more information.

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Seats Open for Our Free Michigan and Illinois Classes, and Applications Open for Active Shooter Instructor

We still have seats in both of our free in-person church safety classes next month. The first is Thursday, October 8, from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time at CrossPointe Community Church, 36125 Glenwood Road, Wayne, Michigan. The second is Saturday, October 10, from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Central Time at Immanuel Lutheran Church, 300 Pathway Court, Crystal Lake, Illinois.

Both classes run the same material: recognizing warning signs before a situation escalates, de-escalation, building a team, access control, legal considerations, emergency action plans, working with local police, and keeping a church welcoming while it stays secure. Pastors, church leaders, safety team members, ushers, greeters and volunteers are all welcome, and so are the police officers who work with your church. There is no livestream or online option. Registration is through Eventbrite. Enter the promo code CWT at checkout and the class is free.

• Register for the October 8 class in Wayne, Michigan

• Register for the October 10 class in Crystal Lake, Illinois

The Church Active Shooter Instructor Course (CASIC)

CASIC is a three-day train-the-trainer certification course for church security team members. This is the first time we are running it. You spend three days learning to plan, teach and run active shooter response training, and you go home qualified to train your own team. Students write operations orders and lesson plans during the course, and the scenario days use blank-firing weapons.

Dates: Wednesday, October 28, through Friday, October 30, 2026

Hours: 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Mountain Time each day

Location: Eagle, Idaho

Tuition: $249 for all three days. The normal price of this course is $1,000. We set it at $249 because the mission of Christian Warrior Training is to keep training free or close to free for church security teams.

Class size: 15 students

This first class is aimed at churches in our region. Applicants from Idaho, eastern Oregon and eastern Washington get priority for the open seats. If seats remain after that, we will open them to applicants from anywhere. We plan to run CASIC in other parts of the country in 2027, so if you are farther away and do not get a seat this time, there will be more chances next year.

NO REGISTRATIONS AT THE DOOR. DO NOT COME UNLESS YOU HAVE BEEN AUTHORIZED TO ATTEND.

CASIC prerequisites

CASIC is an instructor course for people who already know active shooter response, basic church security and safe firearms handling. Over three days it teaches you how to train your own team in that material. Every student has to meet the requirements below. A student who cannot document them is not admitted.

We also recommend, but do not require, the following. They are not disqualifying if you do not have them.

• Experience as an instructor in any setting: military, law enforcement, coaching or anything else

• A Stop the Bleed, Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC) or equivalent trauma care course

• Defensive handgun training beyond a basic safety class

• Knowing your state’s use-of-force law as it applies to armed church security

What to send with your application

Email the following to casic@christianwarriortraining.com:

1. Your church letter. Anyone in your chain of command can sign it, including your pastor, an elder, your safety director or your team leader. It needs to state that your church supports you attending CASIC, that you hold an active role on the security team or have authority to start one, and that you have passed a background check through your church.

2. Your training certificate from a church security or active shooter response course.

3. A copy of your concealed carry permit, or your law enforcement or military credential.

4. Your answer to this question, at least two paragraphs long: Describe your current active shooter training background, your role on your church security team, and what you intend to do with this certification at your church.

   

Include your full name, your church, and your city and state in the email. The signed statement on felony and domestic violence convictions and the enrollment application are completed before the first day of class. If your training background falls short, we will tell you which course to take first so you can apply for a later CASIC class.What to bring

• A laptop. You will write operations orders and lesson plans during the course.

• A full-face mask for the blank-firing scenarios.

• Your church load-out, including your radio, if you want to train in the gear you wear on Sunday.

• A blue gun or a laser trainer such as a TitanX or SIRT pistol, if you have one.

Do not bring firearms, ammunition, knives, pepper spray or any other weapon. None are allowed on site at any point during the course. The blue gun or laser trainer takes the place of your carry gun for every drill.

If your church sits in Idaho, eastern Oregon or eastern Washington, get your letter written this week and send it to casic@christianwarriortraining.com.

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10 Ways to Protect Your Church, in the Right Order

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If I walked into your church this Sunday, I might find three men carrying concealed firearms. If I walked around the building, I might also find a back door propped open, a children’s wing anybody can enter, and an alarm nobody has tested.

Those men may be committed, trained, and willing to protect the congregation. But they cannot cover every unsecured entrance, screen every volunteer, or replace a medical response plan. There are other things your church needs to get working, and the order deserves some attention.

Here are ten things you can do to protect your church. This is a way to set priorities, not a complete security plan for every building. Take it to your pastor and safety team, look honestly at what you have, and start with the first item that is unfinished.

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1. A Working Burglar and Fire Alarm

Your building probably sits empty more hours than it is occupied. You need a monitored alarm that covers intrusion and fire, and somebody needs to know that it actually works. Test it regularly and keep the contact list current.

Think about who gets called at two in the morning. I do not want the pastor walking into a building to find out whether a burglar is still inside. Have an appropriate response procedure, and put people on the list who will actually answer the phone. An alarm nobody acts on gives you very little protection.

2. A Useful Video System

I want footage somebody can use after an incident. A well placed camera with a clear view of an entrance is more useful than a pile of cameras that show a blurry figure walking away. Resolution, placement, lighting, and distance all affect whether you can identify a person.

Cover your entrances, children’s areas, offices, sanctuary, and parking lot. Aim for at least 30 days of storage if your system and budget allow it. Then have somebody on your team find a recording and export it. You do not want to discover after an incident that nobody knows how to retrieve the video.

3. Volunteer Screening and Written Safety Policies

Some of the people who can harm a church are people the congregation already knows. That is why child protection and financial safeguards belong near the top of this list. Use appropriate background checks for each position, repeat them on a schedule, and use references, supervision, and a waiting period before a new attender serves with children. A background check will not catch everything.

Put your rules in writing. Who can work with a child? Can someone be alone with a child? Who counts the money? Who receives a report when somebody raises a concern? If your staff and volunteers give different answers, you have work to do. We have free policy examples available at Christian Warrior Training to help you get started.

4. Control Your Doors

Walk your building during a Sunday service and count the doors that are propped open, unlocked, or out of sight. Know which entrances people are supposed to use, and assign somebody to pay attention to them. That side door by the fellowship hall should not let somebody walk through the building unnoticed.

Keep track of keys and access codes, and update access when somebody leaves a position. Every required exit still needs to work immediately from the inside. Have your fire marshal or the appropriate local authority review proposed door changes so controlling entry does not interfere with people getting out.

5. Exterior Lighting

Go to your property after dark. Look at the parking lot, entrances, walkways, and corners around the building. Can someone leaving Wednesday night Bible study see where they are going? Can your cameras record a face, or do you get a black screen with two headlights in it?

Good lighting helps people move safely and helps your team see what is happening. You can spot many of the first problems by taking a walk at night. Write them down and give somebody responsibility for getting them corrected.

6. Children’s Check In and Check Out

Have a clear process for who drops a child off and who is authorized to pick that child up. Use matching tags or another reliable system. Decide ahead of time what happens when a tag is lost, adults dispute a pickup, or a custody restriction applies.

Do not create an exception because the adult is well known and everybody feels uncomfortable saying no. Control access to the children’s area and assign someone to watch it while keeping emergency exits usable. Practice those awkward conversations before you have a parent standing at the door. The free scenario resources under the Training tab at Christian Warrior Training can help your team prepare.

7. A Trained Unarmed Safety Team

Most church safety work happens long before anybody reaches for a weapon. Somebody greets people, watches the parking lot, and notices the person entering the children’s hallway who does not belong there. Somebody needs to speak calmly with a person in crisis and recognize when help is needed.

Train your people to observe behavior, communicate, deescalate, and get the right help. Give each person a clear assignment. A safety team shirt does not tell a volunteer what to do, and good intentions do not replace training.

8. Medical Response

People fall, have trouble breathing, and suffer medical emergencies during services. Your team needs to be ready to help. Put an AED where someone can get to it quickly, train people in CPR and AED use, and make trauma supplies accessible to trained responders. Send your team to Stop the Bleed training.

Assign the jobs before the call happens. Who calls 911? Who brings the equipment? Who meets the ambulance and guides responders to the patient? Practice those assignments so your team can get moving when someone needs help.

9. Team Communications

If a team member sees a problem in the parking lot, how does the person in the children’s wing find out? If the answer is that somebody will try to make a phone call, you need to test whether that is a dependable plan. Give your team radios or another reliable way to communicate throughout the property.

Test communications in the rooms and hallways where signals tend to fail. Use plain language and practice the calls your team may actually make: a missing child, a medical emergency, a concerning person, or an entrance that needs attention. Having radios and knowing how to use them are two separate things.

10. Armed Team Members

I believe armed response can be an important part of church safety. I have made that clear over the years. It is number ten because a firearm cannot secure an open door, screen a children’s volunteer, perform CPR, or tell the rest of the team what is happening.

If your church authorizes armed team members, take that responsibility seriously. Establish written standards for selection, qualification, and ongoing training. Address use of force, communications, identification, insurance, and legal review. Make sure your pastor understands the program he is approving. A concealed carry permit by itself does not prepare someone for every responsibility of serving on a church safety team.

Preparation and Humility

Second Chronicles 26 describes Uzziah fortifying Jerusalem, building towers, securing water, and organizing his men. It also describes the weapons and equipment he provided. There is a lesson there about preparing several parts of a defense and getting people organized.

But keep reading. Verse 16 tells us that when Uzziah became strong, he grew proud, and that pride led to his downfall. He stepped into a role God had not given him. That warning applies to me and to every person serving on a church safety team.

If we begin enjoying the authority or the gear more than we care about the congregation, we need to examine ourselves. We serve the church under its leadership. The people God has placed in front of us are the reason we do this work.

What to Do at Your Next Meeting

Bring these ten items to your next safety team meeting. Mark which ones are actually working, then identify the first unfinished item. Maybe it is the alarm. Maybe it is the children’s checkout procedure. Maybe everybody has a radio, but nobody has tested it in the back hallway.

Make that your next project and keep moving down the list. Tell me in the comments which number your church needs to work on and what is making it difficult. Your answers help me develop training that is useful to your team.

Keep praying for the people who might threaten our churches. Pray that they turn away from violence and come to know Jesus Christ. Keep caring for the congregation, and remember your ABCs: Always Be Carrying.

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Intel Monitor/Report Suspicious Activity

Christian creators should not have to fight a faceless system simply to warn churches about crime, but that is exactly what Christian Warrior Training is dealing with right now.

Do social media companies discriminate against Christian creators and Christian channels?

I will let you decide. I can only tell you what Christian Warrior Training is dealing with right now and show you the example Facebook gave me when I finally reached a real person.

This is not a complaint about one post failing to perform well. It is about a platform restricting our ability to reach people, refusing to explain the original violation, and then labeling a basic church security warning as politically divisive.

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How Facebook Helped Us Reach Thousands

Facebook and Instagram have never produced much direct income for Christian Warrior Training. Together, they might bring in a couple hundred dollars in a month. Their real value was distribution.

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When Facebook shared our content with people who did not already follow us, those people could watch it, decide whether it was useful, and follow the page if they wanted more. That allowed us to reach Christians, church safety volunteers, pastors, Jewish followers, and others who wanted practical information about protecting their churches and families.

When my daughter Caitlyn took over our Facebook work, the page grew from roughly 1,000 followers to 60,000 in about three months. The growth happened because Facebook was recommending our content. People saw the information, found value in it, and chose to follow us.

Then, in April, everything changed.

Restricted Without an Explanation

Facebook demonetized the page and stopped recommending our content. The notice said we had violated community standards, but it did not tell me what we had posted that supposedly violated those standards.

That leaves a creator trying to correct a problem that Facebook will not identify. You cannot remove the offending post, change your approach, or even make a meaningful appeal when no one will tell you what you allegedly did wrong.

More recently, I received another notice telling me that I had 30 days to appeal or Facebook might take further action against the account. The notice did not clearly explain what that action would be. It could have meant another restriction, or it could have placed the entire Facebook and Instagram presence at risk.

I clicked the appeal button. Nothing happened.

That is a common problem for creators dealing with large social media companies. There is often no obvious phone number, no accessible customer service department, and no person who can explain why an account has been restricted.

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Paying for Access to Customer Service

I belong to a Signal group with some of the largest firearms creators online. Several of them told me that purchasing Meta Verified could provide access to customer service. I paid $12.95, worked through the support process, and finally reached someone.

The support representative called to confirm my identity. Communication was difficult at times, but we worked through it. I asked him to open the Christian Warrior Training page and show me the type of post Facebook considered a problem.

The example he selected was a warning about thieves stripping copper, scrap metal, and air conditioning equipment from more than 30 churches in St. Louis.

The post explained that police were seeing a renewed crime wave rather than a few isolated incidents. It warned church leaders about the repeated thefts and offered practical steps they could take to protect buildings that may sit empty for much of the week.

Facebook classified that church crime warning as politically divisive.

Read that again. A post warning churches about theft and helping them protect their property was presented as an example of politically divisive content.

There was no political candidate in the post. There was no political party. There was no election argument. It was a church security warning based on reported criminal activity.

I asked the representative a simple question: If someone is warning people about crime and giving them ways to protect themselves, should that not be the kind of useful information a social media company wants on its platform?

He agreed.

The Appeal Was Rejected While Support Was Helping Me

Facebook then required me to upload identification. I provided a government issued ID while the representative was still helping me by phone.

The system rejected it almost immediately.

The representative was there with me, walking through the process, and the automated system still refused the identification. I spent about an hour on the phone trying to resolve a problem that should never have required this much effort.

As I write this, I am still waiting to learn whether Facebook will accept my identification and restore the page’s ability to reach people.

Why I Am Telling You This

I am sharing this because most viewers never see what happens behind the screen. You may follow a page and assume you will continue to see its posts. That is no longer a safe assumption.

A social media company can stop recommending a creator overnight. It can reduce the audience without clearly identifying the reason. It can threaten further action while providing an appeal button that does not work. The creator may have no meaningful way to reach a person unless he pays for a verification service.

Firearms creators have dealt with these restrictions for years. Content related to the Second Amendment is routinely limited, demonetized, or removed. Christian creators face many of the same problems when they discuss faith, evil, crime, self defense, and the responsibility to protect innocent people.

In this case, Facebook’s own example was not inflammatory or partisan. It was a factual warning intended to help churches prevent theft.

I believe this is censorship. Whatever label Facebook places on it, the practical result is the same: fewer people receive information that can help them protect their church and family, and fewer people hear the message of Jesus Christ.

Do Not Let an Algorithm Decide Whether We Stay Connected

If you follow Christian Warrior Training on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or another platform, please like the page, subscribe, and turn on alerts. Those actions may help, but none of them guarantees that the platform will continue showing you our work.

The best way to stay connected is to subscribe at ChristianWarriorTraining.com.

I send only a few emails each week. I do not spam you, and I do not share your information. If a social media company removes Christian Warrior Training, the email list gives us a way to reconnect somewhere else with as little interruption as possible.

If you can afford a paid subscription, it directly supports this work and helps us continue providing church security information, training, and intelligence. If you cannot afford one, stay on the free list. Take care of your family and tithe to your church first. The people who can support this ministry help keep the information available for those who cannot.

Please pray for Christian Warrior Training. Pray that we can continue reaching the people who need this information. Pray also for the people making these decisions, that they will come to know Christ and understand the effect these restrictions have on others.

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Intel Monitor/Report Suspicious Activity

CWT Church Crime Newsletter

Saturday, September 26, 2026

Draft prepared Thursday, September 24. Google Alerts window: September 18 through September 24.

BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT (BLUF)

An active shooter was stopped outside Sons of Jacob Synagogue in Belleville, Ontario on Yom Kippur before he ever reached the door, and the officer who stopped him is still in the hospital. That is the top item this week and the details are below. German prosecutors also disclosed that an ISIS supporter arrested near Berlin had bought a gun and surveilled a church in Bremen as his intended first target. The rest of the week ran heavy on threats, with six separate American cases of people arrested or charged for threatening a congregation inside six days, so we consolidated them into one section rather than running six near-identical entries. Sex crimes again came down to access, with three men in three states charged over volunteer or staff roles that put them next to children, and a fourth man who confessed in writing two decades ago and has been working in metro Atlanta churches ever since. A 12-year-old girl was killed in a South Carolina church parking lot when a vehicle backed into her after a funeral. Two reader-submitted Suspicious Activity Reports came in, including a man who walked onto the stage, went back into the production area, and checked the exterior doors on his way out.

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TERRORISM AND INTELLIGENCE

ISIS Supporter Bought a Gun and Surveilled a Church as His First Target — Bremen and Barnim District, Germany

German police arrested Iraqi national and ISIS supporter Gailan Al-M, 24, in Barnim District, Brandenburg, Germany on 17 September for planning a terrorist attack in support of ISIS. He faces charges of attempted establishment of a terrorist organization, preparation of a serious act of violence endangering the state, and violation of the Weapons Act. German prosecutors say that in the spring of 2025 Al-M planned to attack people he viewed as “infidels,” that he obtained a firearm, and that he surveilled a church in Bremen in preparation for the attack, making that congregation the group’s intended first target. He recruited one associate who is still unidentified, and further recruiting attempts failed. The Federal Court of Justice ordered him placed in pre-trial detention.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: Lone wolf actors continue to be the biggest threat to churches. We should watch how these cases evolve. Many are recruited online and encouraged to attack. When will they be encouraged to attack your church? The chances are slim, but it’s not zero.

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Counter-Terrorism Police Say They Foiled Imminent Attack on Jewish Community — Manchester, United Kingdom

United Kingdom counter-terrorism police arrested two men in their 30s on Newton Street in Salford, Manchester on Sunday, September 20 under the Terrorism Act 2000, in an investigation the Metropolitan Police Service said related to a suspected terrorist plot targeting the Jewish community in the Manchester area. The men were transported to a London police station, and officers conducted searches at addresses on Newton Street and Lancaster Road in Salford and at an address on Epworth Street in Liverpool. On 22 September authorities obtained warrants of further detention allowing police to hold both suspects until 27 September. The Metropolitan Police Service stated there was no ongoing threat to the public related to the case. Police have not released details of the suspected plot or the intended target.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: Again, it is important to watch how these cases and see how the tactical planning laid out. Right now, most of the planned attacks center around multi faceted attacks using guns, knives, ramming, explosives and/or fire.

Teen’s Own Chatbot Turned Him In, Attack Plot Stopped — Győr, Hungary

Hungarian police arrested a 16-year-old at his home in Győr, Hungary on 15 September on suspicion of plotting a terrorist attack, and the tip that started it came from an artificial intelligence company. The teen used an AI chatbot to coordinate his plans, discussing acts of violence against groups and individuals and asking the chatbot about weapons suitable for the planned attack. The AI company notified the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and in mid-September the FBI notified the Hungarian National Bureau of Investigation that a user linked to Hungary had posted threats related to violent and life-threatening acts on a United States company’s online platform. In his conversations the teen said “there can be no mercy, and you have to be able to carry out what you have planned” and that “this will soon be a mass atrocity.” Police searched his home and seized his phone and computer, and no specific target has been publicly identified.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: Many church attacks happen from within our own walls. Think of the Covenant attack in TN a few years ago. We need to monitor our kids for radicalization or recruitment from Nihilist movements. This mainly rests with your youth minister, so keep an open communication with him and help him look for the signs.

Update: Pittsburgh ISIS Suspect Had Already Been Adjudicated for a Mass Casualty Plot as a Juvenile — Valencia, Pennsylvania

We covered the arrest last week. The federal charging documents add detail worth having. The Department of Justice announced on 15 September that Jonathan Hunter Kramer, 21, of Valencia, Pennsylvania was charged with obtaining a firearm and ammunition to carry out an attack on behalf of ISIS, having acquired a semiautomatic rifle, five magazines, and roughly 190 rounds. As a minor Kramer had already been charged and adjudicated in Pennsylvania for his role in a plot to commit a mass casualty attack, and he was released from a juvenile detention facility in March 2026. The FBI says he then adopted the online persona “Hamza Al Rashid,” claimed ISIS affiliation, offered to share explosive manuals, and said he only required a weapon to prepare for his “mission.” On 12 September officers observed him taking a rideshare to buy a disposable phone, collecting a long black bag from a vehicle trunk, paying cash for a hotel room, and visiting the gun counter at a sporting goods store, and he was arrested on his return to the hotel. Search warrants recovered a rifle bipod and scope, pepper spray, roughly 30 knives, and an entrenching tool, and the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh said afterward that “countless lives” were saved.

Source · NYPD Open Source Intelligence Reporting, 9-20-26

SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY REPORTS

Reader-submitted suspicious activity at U.S. churches. If you see something similar in your area, submit your own report at alert.christianwarriortraining.com.

Greenwood, Indiana — Subject Walked the Stage, Production Area, and Exterior Doors On Saturday, September 19, 2026, a reporting party at a church in Greenwood, Indiana observed a man walk onto the stage and continue back into the production area before leaving the building. On his way out he checked the exterior doors. Police and the county sheriff’s office were both notified, and no law enforcement case number was provided to the reporting party.

Kissimmee, Florida — Bicycle Stolen From Under Church Portico, Recorded on Camera On Sunday, September 20, 2026, a bicycle was stolen from under the portico at a church in Kissimmee, Florida. The theft was captured on the church’s camera system. The victim declined to file a police report, so no law enforcement case number exists for the incident.

🛡️ My thoughts: Please continue to input your SAR’s to intel.christianwarriortraining.com. Your SAR’s have stopped major incidents. Please keep it up!

VIOLENT CRIME

Gunfire at Our Lady of Grace Church During Teen Basketball Game — Edina, Minnesota

Someone fired shots in the parking lot of Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church at 5071 Eden Avenue in Edina, Minnesota around 8 p.m. on Tuesday, September 22, while teenagers were playing basketball on the church lot. No injuries were reported. Edina police are asking the public for tips and for any video recorded in the area that night. Investigators have not said whether the shooting was directed at the group on the court or whether the church property was incidental to a dispute that began elsewhere. No arrests have been announced.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: We need to continue monitoring the area around the church. Often times, we are too concerned with the parking lot and the inside of the building, when most of the time the incident will start beyond our border. At some point, the incident outside our border will spill into our territory and we will need to be prepared to take action. This extra vigilance will save lives.

Rifle Fired Near Kahaluu Church, Attempted Murder Charge — Kahaluu, Hawaii

Honolulu police arrested a man on Thursday, September 17 on suspicion of attempted murder in the second degree after he allegedly fired a rifle at another man near a church in Kahaluu, Hawaii. Officers took the suspect into custody without incident. Police have not released the name of the church or said whether services or church activities were underway at the time. No injuries were reported from the gunfire. The investigation is ongoing.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: I can’t tell how close to the church this was, but it is worth repeating. Keep an extra eye outside the border of the church. These incidents can cause stray gunfire hitting congregants or staff.

Man, 87, Confesses Roommate’s Killing to His Pastor — Frederick, Maryland

An 87-year-old Frederick, Maryland man is charged with murder after allegedly shooting his roommate multiple times in the torso while the roommate was in the shower early on Sunday, September 20. Investigators say the man then went to his church and confessed to the pastor. The pastor called police, and according to court documents the confession is what led authorities to the murder scene. The victim was a man in his 60s. The case is charged in Frederick County.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: This happens more than you think. It is worth having a discussion with your pastor about what you would do if this were to happen at your church. Some key things here: Acknowledge what he said and thank him for coming forward. Have someone call 911 IMMEDIATELY. Ask him if he is armed. If he is armed, ask him to disarm himself. Then counsel him until the police arrive. Prayer would be a good thing to do here. Keeping him in prayer will make him bow his head and close his eyes (plus, we should be praying for him anyways). But, don’t YOU close your eyes! Keep your eyes open and head up and wait for the police.

Person Shot Outside Trinity CME Church — Indianapolis, Indiana

A person was shot on Tuesday, September 22 in front of Trinity Christian Methodist Episcopal (CME) Church near Dr. Andrew J. Brown Avenue and North 23rd Street in northeast Indianapolis. Police have not released the victim’s condition or a motive. No arrests have been announced. Investigators have not said whether the shooting was connected to church activity or whether the church frontage was simply where the dispute ended up. The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department is investigating.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: We now have our third case of shots fired outside of a church that could impact the church itself.

THREATS AGAINST CONGREGATIONS

Six separate threat cases against American congregations came through the alerts in six days. None of them ended in violence, and every one of them ended in an arrest or a charge, which is the part worth noticing. Here is the short version of each.

Bleckley County, Georgia. The Bleckley County Sheriff’s Office said a juvenile charged over a threatened school shooting also expressed plans to attack a church, and investigators described the church portion as an “active event” rather than idle talk. The juvenile is in a youth detention center and the targeted church has not been identified. Source

Gettysburg, South Dakota. Russell Luke Bauer, 41, is charged with a class 5 felony terroristic threat over threats made against Sacred Heart Catholic Church on September 9 and 10. Prosecutors say it is the second time in nine months Bauer has been accused of threatening churches. Source

Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Buckingham Township police charged a Point Pleasant man with ethnic intimidation after he allegedly sent text messages containing threats and racial and ethnic slurs to a leader at a Baptist church he had recently been attending. Source

Sacramento, California. The Sacramento Police Department arrested a man on September 23 after investigators alleged he made online threats of violence against a local church. Police have not named the church or released the content of the threats. Source

Monroe, Michigan. Monroe police arrested a man on September 23 after threats were made against a church in the city. The nature of the threats and the name of the church have not been released. Source

Sarasota and Jacksonville, Florida. Duncan Fraser MacDonald is federally charged with interstate transmission of a threat to injure after allegedly posting Instagram videos saying he would hunt Jews. An FBI affidavit says the Jacksonville Joint Terrorism Task Force learned of the threats on September 17 from the Community Security Director for the Jewish Federation and Foundation of Northeast Florida, meaning the report came from a congregation’s own security professional. Source

🛡️ My thoughts: This is an unprecedented amount of threats against churches for one week. I cannot put my finger on one single event. However, we need to look at each case individually and see what we can do to protect our church. If someone makes a threat, you need to take it seriously. You can forgive them, but call the police, document it (and after, please log it at our SAR site), and consider a restraining order. It is just a piece of paper, but it lays the groundwork if your team has to use force to defend the church against this person.

SEX CRIMES

Church Volunteer Accused of Sex Acts With Three Juvenile Girls — Fresno, California

Fresno police arrested church volunteer Benjamin Mora on September 4 on suspicion of sexually assaulting three juvenile girls, with the alleged offenses beginning in 2025. Members of the Fresno church alerted church leaders that Mora had possibly assaulted children, and that internal report is what brought the case to detectives. Mora was booked into the Fresno County Jail on sexual assault charges. The arrest became public this week when the Fresno Police Department released details. He is due in court on the pending charges.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: Pedophiles will volunteer at churches to get easy access to a large pool of victims. You need to have a strong policy and you need to have background checks that are continuous and ongoing.

Youth Pastor Charged With Grooming Underage Teen — Ocala, Florida

Ocala police charged Caleb Fischer Ray, 27, a youth pastor at Connection Church in Ocala, Florida with committing sexual acts with a child between the ages of 13 and 17. Investigators allege Ray groomed the victim for years, beginning when the child was younger, before any contact occurred. The arrest was announced on September 22. Police have not said whether additional victims are being sought. The church has not publicly addressed the charges.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: This sounds like a model case of grooming. You can learn more about this and how pedophiles operate by taking the training below.

Former Baptist Youth Leader Charged With 11 Counts of Sexual Abuse — Ypsilanti, Michigan

Zachary Radcliff of Ypsilanti, Michigan, a former Baptist youth leader with ties to Liberty University, has been charged with 11 counts of sexual abuse crimes, according to the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office. New civil lawsuits filed this week allege the abuse and further allege that the church covered it up rather than reporting it. The criminal charges and the lawsuits both became public during this reporting window. Radcliff held a youth leadership role at the congregation at the time of the alleged conduct. The criminal case is pending in Washtenaw County.

Source

Worship Leader Who Confessed in Writing Kept Working in Churches for Two Decades — Atlanta, Georgia

A metro Atlanta worship leader put a confession to molesting children in writing more than twenty years ago and has continued moving from church to church across the Atlanta area ever since, according to reporting published September 24 by The Roys Report. No criminal charge has been filed against him. The written confession did not follow him between congregations, and the churches that hired him after the confession was made did not surface it. The reporting names the churches involved and traces the hiring chain. This one is in the newsletter because of the screening failure, not because of a new arrest.

Source

ARSON AND SUSPICIOUS FIRES

Woman Set Fires Around Vineyard Church After Being Told to Stay Away — Augusta, Georgia

A woman set multiple fires around a Vineyard church campus in Augusta, Georgia after church leadership had already told her not to return. Church leaders said they had attempted to work with her and that she was not receptive to those efforts, which is why she was trespassed from the property. A church representative identified as LeRoy said leadership regretted having to bar her but considered it necessary. She was arrested in connection with the fires. The campus sustained fire damage in several places.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: This is your weekly reminder that you need a burglar alarm, a fire alarm and a 4k video system.

VEHICLE COLLISIONS

Girl, 12, Killed When SUV Backed Into Her in Church Parking Lot — Horry County, South Carolina

A 12-year-old girl died after a 2026 Nissan Rogue backed into her in the parking lot of Cedar Branch Missionary Baptist Church in Horry County, South Carolina on the night of Wednesday, September 16. The South Carolina Highway Patrol said the crash happened as people were leaving, hours after the girl had attended a funeral at the church. The victim was identified as Kantori Chestnut. The crash happened at night, in a full lot, as vehicles were backing out. No charges were announced in the initial reporting.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: Watch my video breakdown of this incident below:

Pickup Truck Crashes Into Church Front on Capital Boulevard — Raleigh, North Carolina

A pickup truck crashed into the front of Iglesia de Dios at Ashton Square, a church in a shopping plaza off Capital Boulevard in Raleigh, North Carolina, early on the morning of Friday, September 18. Raleigh police and emergency medical services responded. The church was not occupied at the time and no injuries inside the building were reported. The front of the structure was damaged. Police have not released the cause of the crash.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: I’ve been including crashes in the newsletter due to the increase of major injuries and fatalities due to collisions and churches with no thought of pedestrian safety. You have a duty, both biblically and by man’s law, to safeguard the pedestrians at your church. Look at your parking lot right now. Do you have bollards? How about clear paths for pedestrians to walk? What about proper lighting?

Driver Cited for Impaired Driving After Crashing Into Church Property — Westlake, Ohio

The Westlake Police Department in Ohio arrested and cited a 20-year-old Fairview Park man for operating a vehicle while impaired (OVI) after he crashed into bushes on the grounds of St. Ladislas church on Bassett Road. Police responded Sunday after a report of a vehicle driving away from the church property. When officers asked the driver how much he had consumed, he answered “just a little bit.” No injuries were reported. The vehicle stopped short of the building.

Source

INTERNATIONAL

Yom Kippur Shooting at Sons of Jacob Synagogue — Belleville, Ontario, Canada

Sean Ward, 29, of Quinte West, Ontario arrived outside Sons of Jacob Synagogue in Belleville on September 20, during Yom Kippur, armed with a shotgun and opened fire on Belleville Police Constable Jeff Smith, who was assigned to synagogue security. Smith exchanged gunfire with Ward and multiple rounds struck the synagogue, including its stained-glass windows. Ward died of his injuries on the night of Monday, September 21, according to Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU), the independent civilian agency that investigates police shootings. Constable Smith remains hospitalized in critical but stable condition. Ontario Solicitor General Michael Kerzner has publicly called the shooting an antisemitic attack and said police prevented what he described as a “massacre in the making,” and Global News reported, citing multiple Canadian military sources, that Ward expressed antisemitic conspiracy theories while serving with Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry from 2017 to 2022. Belleville Police have not yet formally announced their determination on motive or on whether Ward intended to enter the building and attack worshippers.

Source

Baptist Pastor and Eight Others Killed in Coordinated Attacks — Plateau State, Nigeria

Gunmen killed a Baptist pastor, a church employee, and seven other people in coordinated attacks 30 to 40 kilometers south of Jos in Plateau State, Nigeria on Saturday, September 19. Local accounts say the pastor was on his way to church when he was attacked and killed. Five of the other victims were laborers traveling to work in Barkin Ladi and were shot in a separate attack nearby. Bulus Dabit, national president of a local Christian association, and community leader Kara Dakup both attributed the attacks to terrorists operating in the region. Nigerian church leaders have renewed their call for the creation of state police forces, arguing federal coverage is not reaching these communities.

Source

Another Baptist Pastor Shot Dead by Military — Chin State, Myanmar

The Myanmar military is accused of killing another Baptist pastor, identified as Pastor Tuang, amid ongoing violence against Christian communities. His death follows the reported killing of Rev. William and another Chin pastor. Christian advocacy groups are urging the United States government to take action. Violence against Christians, churches, and civilians in Myanmar has intensified over the reporting period. Local church leaders have asked for prayer that the church remain united and encouraged during the ongoing conflict.

Source

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Hello Christian Warriors. Here is your weekly Roll Call Briefing. It is meant to be read, or to be delivered verbally as a team, before you start your shift protecting the Body of Christ. Here is what we cover today:

• 0:00 Intro

• 0:30 Christ First — Proverbs 28:13

• 1:17 Alert Posture — Condition Orange

• 1:56 Suspicious Activity Reports

• 3:06 Terrorism Updates

• 6:38 Threat Surge — six congregations

• 7:29 Violence Against Churches

• 9:44 Training — handling a walk-in confession

• 11:25 Assignments & Close

FREE, LIVE TRAINING IN ILLINOIS AND MICHIGAN

Don’t forget to sign up for either the Michigan or Illinois classes. I’m giving these classes for free. It is in person only.

BRIEFING SHEET

The roll call briefing sheet is below. I appreciate you supporting CWT so we can help those churches that can’t afford training! God bless you Warriors. May the Lord protect you during your shift and give you the discernment you need to find evil and destroy it or stop it.

↓ Download the Briefing Sheet Here ↓

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Certificates are Back On, New CASIC and Leadership Class and More

I wanted to give everyone an update on what is happening with Christian Warrior Training because there is quite a bit going on right now.

The first thing many of you have been asking about is certificates for our online training. They are back. I had to temporarily shut the certificate system down because I learned that my insurance was not going to cover certain parts of the online training the way we were doing it. I was not willing to keep operating that way without proper coverage, so we stopped issuing certificates until I could get everything worked out.

That has now been resolved, and certificates are turned back on. One thing to keep in mind is that the course system can be finicky. You may need to allow pop-ups in your browser before the certificate will download properly.

I also want to explain something about Christian Warrior Training that I do not think I have ever really laid out before. When I say our training is free, I mean it is free to you. It is definitely not free to produce.

My insurance alone is now about $10,000 a year. Last year, my expenses for Christian Warrior Training were more than $200,000. That includes cameras, computers, websites, email systems, insurance, travel, printing, software, research tools, equipment, and contractors when we need specialized help. There are a lot of expenses involved in keeping this operation going every day.

I am not telling you that because I want everybody reading this to run out and buy a paid subscription. In fact, I want to say the opposite. If paying for Christian Warrior Training means taking money away from your family, do not do it. Take care of your family. If that money needs to go to your church, then give it to your church. Tithe to your church. I come last.

My hope has always been that the people who can afford to support Christian Warrior Training will help make it possible for the people who cannot afford it to receive the same information and training. A paid subscriber may be helping a small rural church somewhere with almost no security budget get information they otherwise would not have access to.

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I could put everything behind a paywall. I could charge for every online class, every intelligence product, and every piece of training we produce. I do not want Christian Warrior Training to become a place where somebody has to decide whether they can afford information that might help them protect their church.

That is especially important to me when we are talking about church security. We hear from churches all the time that started a safety ministry because of Christian Warrior Training, or that dealt with a serious incident using things they learned through our training. That is what keeps me focused on the mission.

Christian Warrior Training did not start as a business plan. It started as a newsletter for my own church security team. I was putting information together for my guys, and they asked if they could share it with other churches. Those churches started sharing it, more churches began asking for it, and it just kept growing.

Eventually, Christian Warrior Training became so large that I stopped doing law enforcement training and dedicated myself to this full time. Today, the core of Christian Warrior Training is basically four people: me, my wife Kari, my daughter Caitlin, and my son TJ. We bring in contractors occasionally when we need specialized help, but the four of us are the ones doing the work day after day.

I spend about 60 hours a week working on Christian Warrior Training. I am able to do that because so many of you decided this work was worth supporting, and I am extremely grateful for that support.

Two Free Classes Coming in October

We have two free, in-person church security classes coming up in October. One is in Michigan and the other is outside Chicago in Illinois.

The Michigan class is going to be unique because we will be teaching at the site of an actual active shooter event from last year. The attacker was stopped by the church security team in the parking lot before he was able to enter the church. We will be standing at that location talking about church security preparedness and looking at lessons we can learn from what happened there.

That class was originally limited to 100 people and filled up very quickly. We were able to create more room inside the church and increase attendance to 200. If you tried to register before and were told the event was full, check again because additional seats have been opened.

Register for the Michigan class here

We also have our Illinois class outside Chicago. There are still seats available there as well, and I would love to see as many of you as possible.

Register for the Illinois class here

Both of these classes are free.

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Right To Bear Is Helping Make This Possible

Right To Bear is covering my expenses for these training events and helping coordinate what goes into putting them together. I especially want to thank Johnny, Lana, Frank, and Perry for the work they have put in and the support they have shown Christian Warrior Training.

I also want to say this clearly. Right To Bear is the self-defense protection company I use and recommend. I have gotten to know the people behind the company, looked closely at what they are doing, and spent time with the people involved. They understand the church security community and have supported what we are trying to accomplish.

That recommendation is not simply because they are helping with these classes. I have looked at their program and I believe in what they are doing.

CASIC Is Moving Forward

Another project I am very excited about is the Church Active Shooter Instructor Course, or CASIC.

We will conduct our first CASIC course here in Star, Idaho, at my home church. The course is designed to develop instructors who can go back to their own churches and communities and properly train church security teams for an active killer response.

I am going to open a limited number of seats in this first course to people outside our own church organization. I will have more information on that soon.

Beginning next year, my plan is to take CASIC on the road. I want to develop qualified instructors in different parts of the country so they can train churches in their own communities.

CASIC will not be free. I wish I could make everything we do free, but an instructor-level course like this comes with significant expenses. Travel, insurance, printing, facilities, training materials, and the other costs involved in putting on this type of program add up quickly.

I am going to keep the cost as low as I reasonably can. My goal has never been to build Christian Warrior Training around making a large profit. I want it to sustain itself so we can continue producing training, intelligence, and resources for churches.

Where Christian Warrior Training Is Today

Sometimes I still have a hard time believing how far this has grown. Something I started for my own church security team now reaches people in approximately 130 countries.

Some of those people are in places like Iran, Iraq, North Africa, and the Sahel, where Christians can face serious persecution. I am honored that they choose to follow Christian Warrior Training and use what we produce.

That reach is possible because of all of you. Some people support us financially. Some share our videos. Some forward our newsletters to another church. Some take one of our free courses and bring that information back to their team. Others pray for us, and I am always grateful for those prayers.

Going forward, we are going to keep producing intelligence and training. I have new classes planned for next year, including the possibility of a live online leadership course taught over several weeks. We are also going to keep traveling and training churches in person whenever we can.

My goal is to continue making as much of this information available as possible without putting a price tag between someone and information they may need to protect their congregation.

I want the church with a large budget learning alongside the little rural church that barely has a security budget at all. I want both of them getting better, learning from the same information, and raising the standard of church security.

Thank you to everyone who supports Christian Warrior Training, everyone who shares what we produce, and everyone who prays for us. I also want to thank Right To Bear for helping make these upcoming seminars possible, and I want to thank my family because none of this would happen without them.

If you missed the Michigan registration the first time around, check it again because we have opened additional seats. If Michigan does not work for you, I hope I will see you outside Chicago.

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Register for Illinois

Until next time, please pray for the suspects we talk about here at Christian Warrior Training. Pray that they come to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and remember your ABCs: Always Be Carrying.

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At SHOT Show, members of the Christian Warrior Training team stepped into the MILO interactive training simulator to see how they would respond when a routine encounter suddenly became a deadly force situation.

MILO stands for Multiple Interactive Learning Objectives. The system uses interactive video scenarios, simulated weapons, instructor controlled branching outcomes, and detailed playback to place trainees inside situations that require communication, observation, de-escalation, force decisions, and accurate shooting under pressure.

This goes far beyond standing on a range and shooting a qualification course.

A church security team member may be able to shoot a tight group on paper and still struggle when confronted by a suicidal person, an emotionally disturbed visitor, an armed subject who refuses commands, or a rapidly changing situation inside a crowded sanctuary. The team member must recognize what is happening, communicate clearly, create distance, call for help, consider available force options, and determine whether deadly force is legally and morally necessary.

Those are difficult skills to develop during conventional firearms training.

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How the MILO System Works

MILO systems can use laser equipped training firearms, recoil conversion systems, simulated OC spray, electronic control devices, batons, flashlights, and other tools. The trainee talks to the people shown on the screen and responds as if the encounter were real.

The instructor can change the direction of the scenario based on what the trainee says and does. A subject might comply, become more agitated, produce a weapon, surrender, or force the trainee to make an immediate deadly force decision.

Afterward, the instructor can replay the encounter, review shot placement, examine the trainee’s actions, and discuss what could have been done differently. The value of this training is found as much in that discussion as it is in the scenario itself.

During our demonstration, one scenario involved a suicidal person outside a church. Another involved a woman armed with a knife who had already stabbed someone inside the congregation. These encounters required far more than firearms proficiency. They tested distance, communication, threat recognition, radio use, de-escalation, force options, and the ability to explain every decision afterward.

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Reality Based Training for Churches

Church security teams frequently devote most of their training time to firearms. Firearms proficiency is necessary, but carrying a gun does not prepare someone to manage every threat a church may encounter.

Many incidents begin with behavior that is concerning but does not immediately justify force. A person may be experiencing a mental health crisis, involved in a family dispute, intoxicated, angry at church leadership, or attempting to disrupt a service. Security personnel need options between doing nothing and drawing a firearm.

A simulator allows teams to practice:

• Verbal de-escalation and active listening

• Recognizing behavioral warning signs

• Maintaining proper distance and positioning

• Communicating with other team members

• Calling law enforcement and medical personnel

• Transitioning between force options

• Identifying innocent people and unsafe backgrounds

• Making defensible deadly force decisions

• Providing an organized response after an incident

MILO also allows organizations to create scenarios filmed at their own facilities. A church could build exercises around its sanctuary, lobby, children’s ministry, parking lot, offices, or other vulnerable areas. Team members could then rehearse incidents in locations they already know.

That kind of repetition helps expose problems in policies, radio procedures, positioning, equipment, and command structure before a real emergency occurs.

The Cost

A MILO representative at SHOT Show told us that smaller systems begin around $15,000, with more capable configurations costing considerably more. Current pricing depends on the simulator, weapons, recoil systems, software, training, and other options, so churches should request a current quote directly from MILO.

That price will place the system beyond the budget of many individual congregations. Shared ownership may be a realistic solution.

Several churches in the same region could create a training coalition, divide the purchase and maintenance costs, place the simulator at a central facility, and schedule recurring training for participating teams. A regional church association, Christian school, firearms training organization, or private range could also operate the system and charge participating churches a reasonable training fee.

Another possibility is finding a benefactor who wants to support church safety in a measurable way. A donated simulator could serve dozens of congregations and hundreds of volunteer protectors over its service life.

A Training Tool, Not a Complete Program

A simulator should supplement live fire, hands-on defensive tactics, medical training, role player scenarios, policy instruction, and supervised training inside the church. It cannot replace competent instructors or a properly written use of force policy.

It can, however, place team members into complicated situations that are difficult to reproduce safely. It gives them a chance to make mistakes, receive correction, and face the situation again without anyone being injured.

Church security teams should train for the encounter where a gun is required. They must also train for the many encounters where communication, distance, teamwork, OC spray, or another response may produce a safer outcome.

The MILO system provides a controlled place to practice those decisions before someone is forced to make them in a crowded church.

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What Happened

A 12-year-old girl died after a reversing SUV struck her on the property of Cedar Branch Missionary Baptist Church in Loris, South Carolina, on the night of Wednesday, September 16, 2026. Kantori Chestnut had attended a funeral at the church, 744 Cedar Branch Road, earlier that day. Just before 10 p.m., the driver of a 2026 Nissan Rogue was backing up on church property when the vehicle struck Kantori and then struck a building. Horry County Fire Rescue (HCFR) was dispatched at 9:53 p.m. Emergency Medical Services (EMS) took Kantori and the driver, who was alone in the vehicle, to the hospital, where Kantori died from her injuries.

The South Carolina Highway Patrol (SCHP) is investigating. At the time of writing, SCHP has not released a cause, identified the driver, or announced charges. HCFR reported that three people were transported to the hospital, while SCHP has accounted for two. Reports also differ on why Kantori was still at the church at 10 p.m. The coroner’s office said the funeral took place hours earlier, while local law enforcement described her as leaving a church service.

Kantori lived in Loris and attended Loris Middle School, where she was a cheerleader. She had played recreational softball in town since 2019. Woody Hinson, the Loris interim recreation director, told The Sun News she was one of the fastest kids he had ever seen and described her as outgoing and always laughing.

Satellite imagery of the property shows a small L-shaped church set back from Cedar Branch Road on open grass. A dirt loop drive runs off the road and across the front of the building. There is a small concrete apron at the entrance, no paved lot, no marked parking spaces, and no visible parking lot lighting, and tree lines surround the property. At night, people leaving this church walk out the front door directly into the area where vehicles drive and park, with nothing marking where one ends and the other begins.

No one in this incident set out to hurt anyone. The danger was an ordinary vehicle moving through a dark area where people were on foot.

Pedestrians and Vehicles on Unmarked Ground

I have been telling church security teams for years that pedestrian protection is part of their job, and for most churches it is still an afterthought. Teams staff the doors, the sanctuary, and the children’s wing. When the service ends, those posts close, and the congregation walks out to the parking area on its own. At dismissal, the entire congregation is on foot and moving between vehicles that are starting up and pulling out.

A grass or dirt lot makes this worse. Without marked spaces, there are no drive aisles and no walking lanes. Drivers park wherever there is room and leave in whatever direction is open. Pedestrians walk wherever the cars are not, which changes every few seconds. A Nissan Rogue weighs well over a ton and a half, and at walking speed it can kill a child.

You do not need to pave your lot to fix this. Cone off a walking lane from the main door to the parking area and keep people in it at dismissal. Mark the edges of the drive area with cones, rope, or temporary stakes so drivers and pedestrians can both see where vehicles belong. Keep children with an adult in the parking area. Make that a standing rule, announce it before dismissal at evening events, and have your team enforce it.

The Same Exposure a Vehicle Attack Would Use

This was not a terrorist attack, and nothing reported suggests it was anything other than an accident. It still shows how exposed the people in most church parking areas are. A crowd leaving a building on foot, mixed in with moving vehicles and with nothing between them, is the condition a vehicle ramming attacker looks for. At Cedar Branch, a vehicle moving in reverse at parking lot speed killed a child. A driver who wanted to hurt people could come off the road at 30 miles per hour and reach the front door with nothing in his way.

Look at the area where your congregation gathers after services, usually right outside the main doors. Put something between that area and the drive lanes. Permanent bollards and heavy planters are the best option. Where the budget does not allow them, park a church van or a team member’s truck as a barrier at dismissal. Keep people from standing in groups in the drive area, and move conversations onto the sidewalk or into the building.

Lighting for Pedestrian and Vehicle Safety

Most churches think about exterior lighting in terms of burglary. Lighting also decides whether a driver can see a person standing behind his vehicle and whether a person can see a vehicle coming. A rural church surrounded by trees has no streetlights and no neighboring buildings to add light, so after sunset the parking area is only as bright as the church makes it.

Walk your parking area at 10 p.m. on a night with no event. Stand where people park, at the far edges, and behind where vehicles sit, and look for places where a person would be hard to see from a driver’s seat. Install or repair lighting to cover the walking path from the door to the parking area first, then the drive area. Until permanent lighting is in place, put portable work lights out for evening events.

Traffic Control Teams for Surge Events

A funeral at a small rural church can bring several times the normal Sunday attendance onto a property built for far fewer vehicles. Visitors who have never been there park on the grass and in the drive lanes. Drivers are grieving and distracted. Adults stand among the vehicles talking long after the service, while children run around them. A repast keeps people on the property well after dark.

Any event that draws a large crowd, whatever the size of your church, needs team members assigned to the parking area. Those team members need training before the event. Equip them with reflective vests and lighted wands or flashlights. Teach them standard hand signals and where to stand so they are never in a vehicle’s path, and give them radio contact with the team inside the building. Keep at least one team member in the parking area until the last vehicle has left the property.

Your team controls traffic on church property only. In most states, volunteers have no authority to direct traffic on a public road. For large funerals, the church should request police at the road entrance. Cedar Branch Road connects to Highway 9 near the church, and a rural road at night with a line of vehicles turning out of a dirt drive is exactly where that request is needed. Coordinate the plan with the funeral director ahead of time, since funeral home staff will be directing the procession.

Medical Response Until EMS Arrives

A vehicle strike causes blunt trauma, crush injuries, and bleeding, and your team controls the minutes before the ambulance arrives. One team member calls 911 and gives the street address of the church. Responders in Loris were dispatched to an intersection area, which is common on rural roads, so post your church’s physical address at every door and put it in every team member’s phone.

A second team member stays with the victim and does not move the injured person unless the scene is unsafe. That team member controls bleeding with direct pressure or a tourniquet, and someone brings the Automated External Defibrillator (AED) and the trauma kit to the scene. A third team member goes to the road entrance to meet the ambulance and guide it in, which is harder at night on an unmarked dirt drive. A fourth moves the crowd back, keeps witnesses on scene for police, and stays with the driver, who may also need medical care. If your team does not have Stop the Bleed training, schedule it this month.

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Biblical Perspective

Ecclesiastes 9:12

For man does not know his time. Like fish that are taken in an evil net, and like birds that are caught in a snare, so the children of man are snared at an evil time, when it suddenly falls upon them.

Kantori came to church to mourn someone else. By the end of the night, the congregation that gathered for one funeral was preparing for another. Solomon describes this exactly. Death does not send a warning, and it does not wait for a good time. Every church security team should read this verse as a plain statement about the ground it works on.

2 Samuel 12:22–23

He said, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, ‘Who knows whether the LORD will be gracious to me, that the child may live?’ But now he is dead. Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.”

David lost a child and grieved hard while there was still hope. When the child died, he got up, washed, worshiped, and ate. He called the loss what it was and stated his hope just as plainly: he would go to the child. A church offers a family the same thing after a death like this one. The family does not need explanations. It needs people who will sit with them and point them to the hope David held. Your team will be among the first people at the scene and among the last to leave, and the family and the driver will remember how your team treated them.

John 11:9–10

Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.”

Jesus said this on His way to the tomb of Lazarus, in a chapter about a family grieving a death. His point is about walking in Him, who is the light of the world. The image He uses is literal: a person walking at night cannot see what is in front of him. Everyone who walked across the property at Cedar Branch that night was in that position, driver and pedestrian alike. A church cannot give anyone the light Jesus is speaking of by installing fixtures. It can make sure the people of God can see the ground they walk on when they leave His house at night.

Final Assessment

Kantori Chestnut died on church property after a funeral, struck by a vehicle backing up in the dark. The investigation is ongoing and no cause has been released, so this review draws no conclusions about the driver. The property shows what most church security plans overlook: people leaving the building walk straight into the area where vehicles move, with no marked lanes, no separation, and no visible lighting.

Most churches have the same exposure, paved or not. An accident killed a child here, and a deliberate attack would use the same open ground. Walking lanes, barriers near the doors, working lights, and a trained parking team cost little compared with what this congregation is now living through.

Walk your parking area after dark this week, and assign and train a parking team before your next funeral or evening event.

Leave a comment and tell us how your team protects pedestrians after funerals and evening services. Share this article with your pastor and your safety team leader.

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BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT (BLUF)

A 65-year-old man was stabbed in the neck during a basement meeting at a Methodist church in Amityville, New York on Friday night, September 11, and he survived. That same Friday morning, a 17-year-old from Torrington was shot in the head in front of Varick Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Church in New Haven, Connecticut and was left in critical condition. Suffolk County police had their man in custody about two hours after the stabbing. No arrest has been made in New Haven.

Three other cases this week involve men who already held a position inside the building: a church elder in Knoxville, a children’s ministry volunteer in Punxsutawney, and a former youth minister at The Falls Church in Virginia indicted on federal charges covering three congregations from 1990 to 2008. A man in Missouri was charged after posting two TikTok videos from the Archdiocese of St. Louis parking lot saying his directions were to leave no one breathing. On the intelligence side, the Islamic State used the 25th anniversary of September 11 to call for attacks in the “backyard” of the United States and other Christian nations, Pakistani police killed a cell that was plotting attacks on churches, and Nigeria issued two separate national alerts in a week naming places of worship as targets. Four reader-submitted Suspicious Activity Reports came in, three of them from the same Sunday. The Vehicle Collisions section is empty this week.

TERRORISM AND INTELLIGENCE

Pittsburgh Man Charged in Islamic State Mass-Shooting Plot That Included Poisoning Synagogue Food — Butler County, Pennsylvania

The Department of Justice announced on September 15 that it charged Jonathan Hunter Kramer, 21, of Valencia, Pennsylvania with receiving a firearm and ammunition in preparation for an Islamic State-inspired mass-shooting attack. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested Kramer on September 12 outside a hotel in Cranberry, Pennsylvania where he had paid cash to stay a week, and searches of his person, hotel room, and residence produced a semiautomatic rifle, five rifle magazines, a rifle bipod and scope, 190 rounds of ammunition, an entrenchment tool, a prayer rug, pepper spray, roughly 30 knives, and a handwritten note. The criminal complaint says Kramer discussed attacks on “kuffar,” or disbelievers, with other users on the SimpleX messaging platform, naming arson, poison, vehicular ramming, explosive-laden drones, and shootings, and that he specifically sought to poison food and drink at synagogues. Pennsylvania state authorities had charged Kramer in 2023, when he was a minor, over a plot to commit a mass-casualty incident and for possessing child sexual abuse material, and the current investigation began on March 19, 2026 when an anonymous tipster contacted the FBI about his behavior after his release from juvenile detention. Investigators confirmed he used the online persona “Hamza Al Rashid,” claimed Islamic State affiliation, offered to share explosive manuals, and said he intended to prepare for his “mission.” He made his initial court appearance on September 14.

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🛡️ My thoughts: it is just a matter of time before one of these people choose a church to attack. We have seen it in the past so we should expect it again. When is that going to happen? Nobody knows for sure. But is each day draws down that time comes closer.

Police Issue a Second Nationwide Alert on Places of Worship, Schools, and Youth Camps — Nigeria

The Nigeria Police Force issued a nationwide alert on September 15 stating it had received intelligence warning of an increased likelihood of terrorist attacks on places of worship, schools, National Youth Service Corps orientation camps, and other vulnerable areas. Authorities said Islamic State-West Africa Province had conducted surveillance and reconnaissance of potential targets including schools and other significant locations, timed to the 2026/2027 academic session and the 2027 general elections. The alert named the North-East, West, Central, and parts of the South-West as requiring heightened vigilance, and police commands were ordered to strengthen response arrangements and tighten security around state borders, entry and exit routes, and other critical areas. This is the second such warning in a week, following the Nigerian Army’s 2 Division alert of September 9 covering the same target set. JCAT notes that terrorists target educational institutions for their symbolic value, the breadth of media coverage an attack generates, and the low level of security normally associated with such institutions, and that previous attacks have used small arms, explosives, arson, chemicals, and edged weapons.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: keep our brothers and sisters in Nigeria in your prayers. I continually post this because Nigeria is the number two country following Christian Warrior behind the United States. Thousands of Nigerians read this newsletter each week. They do so because we are one of the few outlets reporting what's happening there on a routine basis.

Iran-Linked Group Claimed Four Arson Attacks on London Synagogues and Jewish Institutions — United Kingdom

The Community Security Trust (CST), the security organization for the British Jewish community, reported that Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia (HAYI) publicly claimed responsibility for seven attacks at United Kingdom locations tied to Jewish and Israeli communities, including at least four acts of arson or attempted arson against synagogues and Jewish communal organizations in London. The sequence CST documents runs from March through May 2026: four Hatzola ambulances set on fire on March 23, an attempted arson at Finchley Reform Synagogue on April 15, a claimed failed arson attempt at the former offices of a Jewish charity in Hendon on April 17, a petrol bombing at Kenton United Synagogue on April 19, and an arson attack on a disused synagogue in east London on May 5. On April 29, Essa Suleiman allegedly traveled to Golders Green and stabbed two visibly Jewish men, an attack police formally declared a terrorist incident. On July 13, 2026 the United Kingdom government designated both the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and HAYI under the National Security Act 2023. In March 2026, two men were charged with conducting hostile reconnaissance on Jewish community buildings in London for Iranian intelligence.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: this newsletter is for Christians, but we are going to continue what is happening to the Jews because that is important for those of us that are following Christ’s teaching closely. Look at how they are attacking the Jews in Europe, because that is how they are going to attack you here in the United States when they finally decide to start attacking us. Study these events and be ready for when it comes on our shores. We have already disrupted one of their plots. At some point, they are going to get through.

Attacks on British Synagogues Hit a Record High, and Suspicious-Activity Reports Outnumbered Confirmed Incidents — United Kingdom

CST recorded 96 antisemitic incidents targeting synagogue premises, buildings, congregants, and staff in the first six months of 2026, with congregants traveling to or from prayers victims in another 21. That is 117 reports against 89 in the same period of 2025, a rise of 31 percent and the highest first-half total CST has ever recorded for incidents affecting synagogues and the people going to and from them. Alongside the 1,926 antisemitic incidents in the report, CST logged a further 2,264 potential incidents that did not meet its threshold for classification, and it states that many of those involved suspicious activity or possible hostile reconnaissance at Jewish locations. This is the first time non-incidents have outnumbered confirmed incidents in a January-to-June period, which CST attributes to increased vigilance, more reporting by congregants, and more security guards posted at Jewish locations. CST describes those uncounted reports as vital to its provision of security protection, with many requiring further investigation or a security response.

Source

Yom Kippur and Sukkot Fall in the Next Two Weeks

The NCTC digest lists Yom Kippur on September 20 and 21 and Sukkot from September 25 through October 2 in its upcoming events calendar, which flags dates carrying historic or current threat significance. CST’s report notes that the terrorist attack on Heaton Park Synagogue on Yom Kippur last year demonstrated that terrorism is a reality British Jews now have to confront. In the United States, the Los Angeles Police Department increased patrols and visibility around Jewish houses of worship, schools, and cultural centers for the High Holy Days, and Senator Jacky Rosen of Nevada called on Congress to fully fund and reform the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, which helps at-risk congregations pay for guards, cameras, and reinforced doors. Fireworks were launched at the Lauderdale Road Synagogue in Maida Vale, west London on September 13, the second day of Rosh Hashanah, and mezuzahs were smashed at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario over the same weekend. Churches that share a campus, a parking lot, or a neighborhood with a synagogue have a stake in the next two weeks.

Source

SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY REPORTS

Reader-submitted suspicious activity at U.S. churches. If you see something similar in your area, submit your own report at alert.christianwarriortraining.com.

Gibsonia, Pennsylvania — Male Tried Two Locked Entrances Before Sunday Service On Sunday, September 13, 2026, a safety team member at a church in Gibsonia, Pennsylvania watched a lone male leave his vehicle around 10:20 a.m. and try the doors at the two locked entrances nearest the parking area before coming to the main entrance. The subject was a white male in his twenties with bushy black hair, a closely trimmed mustache and beard, a faded green or grey t-shirt and black pants, and he kept his left hand in his front pocket for the entire visit. He allowed direct eye contact, was greeted by two ushers and two plainclothes safety team members, stood at the rear of the sanctuary without ever sitting down, then walked out after several minutes and drove off in a blacked out Ford Maverick. The reporting team has seen similar short visits by young male subjects before or during services. CWT case 20260916-F3B27C357B74

Jeffersontown, Kentucky — Man Said He Had an Assignment to Photograph the Pastor On Sunday, September 13, 2026, a safety team member at a church in Jeffersontown, Kentucky was approached at the front door at about 11:50 a.m. by a man who said it was his first time there and that he had an assignment to take pictures of the pastor. Told the pastor was not preaching and that roughly ten to fifteen minutes of service remained, he sat on the back row, did not engage with the service, texted heavily twice, checked the time and walked out; the safety team stopped him when he raised taking a photograph in the foyer and told him to leave. He waited about two minutes in his vehicle and then drove quickly out of the lot, heading west on the main road out front. The subject was a Middle Eastern male roughly 20 to 25 years old with dark skin, black curly hair and beard, oversized faded blue jeans, a white t-shirt and white or gray sneakers, driving a maroon Honda CR-V with Kentucky plates, a pink plate cover and a yellow “Please Be Patient New Driver” sticker on the back. The team reported the encounter to the Louisville Metro Police Department. CWT case 20260913-B876ECA37CFC

Rogers, Minnesota — Two Men Walked the Building 90 Minutes Before Service On Sunday, September 13, 2026, a volunteer at a church in Rogers, Minnesota saw two men he did not recognize enter the lobby during pre-service practice about 90 minutes before the 10:30 service, go into the men’s restroom, and then stand in a small adjacent hallway for a minute or two. They shook hands with him, asked whether service started at 10:30, thanked him and went out to their car, parked in the second slot from the main entrance. They sat there about two minutes, repositioned to the church’s less used gravel exit at the north end of the lot, waited another one to two minutes, then departed south past the main entrance and left the area without returning for service. Both subjects were cleanly dressed in button down shirts and appeared to be in their late forties or early fifties, one Black and clean shaven, one white with slight stubble, in a bright blue 2025 Lexus NX with Minnesota plates. CWT case 20260913-51562DADC5F0

North Augusta, South Carolina — Driver Circled Three Church Lots the Same Morning On Sunday, September 6, 2026, a blacked out 2010 Ram 1500 with blacked out headlights, tail lights and license plate lights was observed circling the parking lot at one church in North Augusta, South Carolina and then doing the same at a second church in the same city. The male driver exited the vehicle and appeared to observe the property from outside until a safety team member approached and asked if he needed assistance; he said he did not need anything and left. The second church called a third congregation nearby to pass on the encounter, and the same male arrived there shortly after, asked about their security teams and made no open threats. He was described as bald and appearing of Middle Eastern ethnicity, from a grainy photo and limited description. This report reached CWT third-hand at medium confidence. CWT case 20260913-D02A7D08EC7A

🛡️ My thoughts: I need you to continue submitting your suspicious activity. The more people report the better people in your area have an understanding of what's occurring. Each newsletter that I put out has a link to submit a suspicious activity report at the very top.

VIOLENT CRIME

Man Stabbed in Neck During Basement Meeting at Methodist Church — Amityville, New York

A 65-year-old man was stabbed in the neck during a meeting in the basement of First United Methodist Church at 25 Broadway in Amityville, New York on Friday, September 11, at roughly 8:30 p.m. Suffolk County police said another man attacked him during the meeting and then ran. First Squad detectives located Daniel Escobar, 33, of Bay Shore on Ackerson Boulevard and took him into custody at 10:22 p.m., about two hours after the stabbing. The victim was taken to a hospital with serious injuries and survived. Escobar was charged with first-degree assault and arraigned the following morning at First District Court in Central Islip, and police have not released a motive. Sunday services went on as scheduled.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: again, another violent incident that occurred outside of worship hours, and outside of where the congregation normally meets. If you have people meeting at your church, we still have a duty and liability to protect the church and the people within.

Teenager Critically Wounded in Shooting Outside African Methodist Episcopal Church — New Haven, Connecticut

A 17-year-old from Torrington, Connecticut was shot in the head in front of Varick Memorial African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church on Dixwell Avenue in New Haven at about 8:30 a.m. on Friday, September 11. Police received multiple 911 calls and a ShotSpotter activation as people were heading to work and children were walking to nearby schools. The church sits around the corner from a police substation. New Haven Police Chief David Zannelli said the victim appeared to know the attacker and that the shooting looked targeted, and police said the public was not in danger. Dixwell Avenue was closed for roughly three hours for evidence collection and canvassing, and no arrest had been made as of the last report.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: 75% of violent crime occurs outside of the church building. Expected if there's a shooting in front of your church, the people are going to run to your church for sanctuary. This includes people running from the shooters, the shooters trying to chase down their victims, and the wounded. Have a plan in case this happens. It doesn't matter where your church is. It could be the inner city or it could be in a rural environment. Each week we show you violent incidents like this that occur in a variety of different locations.

Man Charged After TikTok Bomb Threat Against Archdiocese Campus — Shrewsbury, Missouri

Jeremiah Robinson of Ste. Genevieve, Missouri was charged on Wednesday, September 16, with one count of making a terrorist threat in the first degree. Prosecutors said Robinson posted two TikTok videos on Tuesday, September 15, the first stating he was two minutes from the Archdiocese of St. Louis campus and that God had told him to use no discernment because “everyone who walks into that church is guilty and to kill them.” In a second video recorded from the Archdiocese parking lot, prosecutors said he stated his directions were to “leave no one breathing.” The FBI’s National Threat Operations Center flagged the videos and contacted the Shrewsbury Police Department, which led the investigation. The Archdiocese campus was evacuated and searched and nothing was found. Robinson is being held at the St. Louis County Justice Center on a $100,000 bond.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: take every threat seriously. If somebody says they're going to hurt you then take their word for it. Trespass them from your property, get a restraining order, and follow the court case to make sure nobody drops the ball. The Lord can forgive them, but they still need to deal with the consequences.

Church Elder Arrested on Child Abuse Charge — Knoxville, Tennessee

Nicholas Blevins, 41, an elder at Reformed Fellowship Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, was arrested on Thursday, September 10, on one count of child abuse. Court records show the warrants came out of Loudon County, and he was booked into the Loudon County Jail on a $50,000 bond. The Tennessee Department of Children’s Services confirmed it is involved in an investigation related to the matter but released no further detail. Reformed Fellowship, founded in 2018, said Blevins had been responsible for leading both members and children in worship, that leaders were unaware of any allegations before the charge, and that he was removed from his leadership position immediately. The church said it is cooperating with civil authorities.

Source

SEX CRIMES

Former Youth Minister Indicted on Federal Child Sex Charges Covering Three Churches — Falls Church, Virginia

A federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia indicted Jeffrey Turner Taylor, 66, now of Milford, Ohio, on charges of enticement of minors for illegal sexual activity and travel with intent to engage in illegal sexual activity with minors. Taylor served as a youth minister at The Falls Church in northern Virginia from 1990 to 2002 and also served at two churches in Atlanta. The indictment alleges he groomed multiple boys under the guise of spiritual guidance, steering them into sexual conversations, asking about their sexual habits, and describing his own sexual experiences, then transported minors to ministry events in other states and countries where he engaged in or attempted sexual molestation. Prosecutors say the conduct ran from 1990 until 2008. Taylor was arrested and made an initial appearance on Monday, September 14, with arraignment set for September 24, and he faces up to 105 years in prison if convicted. The case was investigated by the FBI’s Washington Field Office.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: sexual abuse of children is the number one crime, outside of property crime, that occurs at churches. We need to do a better job getting rid of these pedophiles that invade our church. If you’re a pedophile and you want to find victims, a church is the perfect place to find a victim.

Children’s Ministry Volunteer Charged After Police Find Video He Filmed Himself — Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania

Corey James Clark, 35, of Newville, Pennsylvania was charged this week with felony unlawful contact with a minor, sexual abuse of children, and misdemeanor indecent assault. State police said Clark volunteered in children’s programs at First Church of God in Punxsutawney, including Sunday school, the nursery, and Kingdom Kids, a program for children in sixth grade and younger, and had attended the church for several years while working about two school years in those roles. Investigators said a forensic download of a camera and a Samsung cellphone belonging to Clark produced video, dated 2024, in which he filmed himself engaged in sexual contact with a child in a church restroom before walking back into what appears to be a classroom. The case was worked by the state police criminal investigation unit out of Erie along with the local barracks. Clark was jailed in Jefferson County on $100,000 bail with a preliminary hearing set for September 29.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: he filmed himself raping a child in the church bathroom! Do you think that child and the family of the child have faith in any church institution after this event? This is how we lose followers. What are you doing to protect your children?

Pastor, 87, Arrested on Child Sexual Assault Charge From the 1990s — Texarkana, Texas

Louie George, 87, a pastor at a Texarkana, Texas church, was arrested on Wednesday, September 9, on a charge of sexual assault of a child. The Texarkana Texas Police Department said the reported abuse happened in the 1990s when the victim was a young child. Detectives said at least two more victims have been identified since the investigation opened, and given the length of George’s tenure as a pastor they believe others may not have come forward. Bail was set at $500,000 and George was held in the Bi-State Jail. The department asked anyone with information to contact Detective Tabitha Smith at 903-798-3116.

Source

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Church Youth Volunteer and Youth Football Coach Arrested on Child Sex Abuse Charge — Grapevine, Texas

Grapevine, Texas police announced on Tuesday, September 15, that Carlos Ernesto Ramos, 39, had been arrested on August 26 on a child sexual abuse charge stemming from a 2023 incident. Ramos held two positions that put him around children over four straight years. He was a volunteer youth leader at a local church from 2020 to 2023 and an assistant coach in a youth football league from 2022 to 2024. Police said they are continuing to investigate whether he had inappropriate contact with other children and asked families to contact Detective Velez at 817-410-3268 if their children share anything about him. Ramos remained in the Tarrant County jail on a $500,000 bond at the time of the announcement.

Source

ARSON AND SUSPICIOUS FIRES

Synagogue Fire Ruled Not Suspicious Until Surveillance Video Showed Otherwise — Lakewood, New Jersey

Yaakov Y. Stern, 48, was charged with aggravated arson in a fire at Mordy’s Shteibel, a stand-alone synagogue on Delaware Trail in Lakewood, New Jersey, at about 6 a.m. on Tuesday, August 25. The Ocean County Fire Marshal initially deemed the fire not suspicious after knocking it down and declaring the building uninhabitable. According to the affidavit, surveillance footage later showed a man walk into the main learning room, approach a podium, bend over, and set the corner of the cloth covering it on fire, then light a second cloth-covered podium. Lakewood police detectives and the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office filed the aggravated arson charge in early September. Stern has a 2019 reckless driving case and a prior aggravated assault conviction that carried 18 months of probation.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: this is your weekly reminder that you need a burglar alarm, a fire alarm, and a 4K video system.

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INTERNATIONAL

Army Warns of Coordinated Attacks on Churches, Schools, and Youth Camps — Ibadan, Nigeria

The General Officer Commanding the Nigerian Army’s 2 Division at Adekunle Fajuyi Cantonment in Ibadan issued a written security alert on Wednesday, September 9, warning that Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) may be mobilizing fighters for attacks “any moment from now.” The alert names Catholic and Protestant churches, primary and secondary schools, National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) orientation camps, and other public facilities as specific targets. It cites reported fighter movements from Katsina through Kaduna toward Plateau State and places the North-East, North-West, North-Central, and parts of the South-West at risk. The alert also references surveillance and reconnaissance activity by suspected operatives and links the timing to schools reopening for the 2026/2027 academic session and the approaching 2027 elections. Church leaders, school authorities, and NYSC officials were told to increase surveillance, strengthen defensive measures, and report suspicious movement.

Source

Pastor Kidnapped Off a Minibus Found Stabbed to Death; Second Pastor Released — Plateau State, Nigeria

Armed men stopped a minibus carrying nine passengers in Plateau State, Nigeria on Friday, August 28, and singled out two men they recognized as pastors. Hills Emmanuel, formerly of Dunamis Church, and Gabriel Joseph Dipak of Christ Apostolic Church were taken away, and the other passengers were robbed. Emmanuel’s body was found the next morning near the site of the assault with multiple stab wounds. Dipak was released and returned to his family, and a local news source reported the kidnappers had demanded a ransom from his family, though it has not been confirmed whether any payment was made. The attackers spoke Fulani, and no group has been identified. Emmanuel leaves behind his widow, Scholastica, and five children.

Source

Special Forces Police Raid Worship Service and Arrest All 12 Present — L’Ayaida, Algeria

Special force police raided a worship service at the House of Refuge shelter in L’Ayaida, about 36 kilometers east of Oran, Algeria, on Friday, September 4, and arrested all 12 Christians present. Officers executed a search warrant and seized all Christian literature, mobile phones, and identity cards, and the premises had been under surveillance before the raid. Those arrested were taken to the Bethioua police station about 40 kilometers from Oran, where the women were released for questioning the next morning and the men were held late into the night, some until 3 a.m. Police cited the holding of an unauthorized non-Muslim religious service, which falls under Ordinance 06-03 and carries two to five years in prison and fines of 500,000 to 1 million dinars. Nearly all 47 official Protestant Church of Algeria congregations have received closure orders or been sealed, and more than 50 Christians have been prosecuted in recent years.

Source

Police Raid House Church and Hold Its Leader for Seven Days — Shanghai, China

More than 30 government workers, including police officers, security workers, and religious affairs officials, raided Jie’en Church on the seventh floor of a building in Shanghai’s Hongkou District at about 8 a.m. on Sunday, August 30. Officials recorded personal identification information from everyone in the congregation before ordering them out. Church leader Hu Yile was detained and held for seven days, and Shanghai officials gave no explanation for the raid or the detention. Hu is the widow of Xu Guoxing, a Chinese Christian who founded churches and spent more than eight years in prison. The rights group ChinaAid, which documented the raid, said it followed another August operation in which Shanghai police detained Pastor David Tang and six other Christians across provincial lines, also without stated charges.

Source

Man Enters Church Shouting “Allahu Akbar” and Asking for the Priest — Forbach, France

A 35-year-old man walked into the Church of Saint-Rémi in Forbach, in the Moselle department of north-eastern France, at about 1 p.m. on Tuesday, September 8, repeatedly shouting “Allahu Akbar” and asking for the priest. Two 14-year-old students heard the shouting and called police, who arrested him at about 1:45 p.m. without resistance. Officers found an Opinel-type knife that was never brandished, three SIM cards, and cannabis resin. The parish priest, Father Laurent Pidolle, said there was no assault, no violence, and no damage to the church. Prosecutor Olivier Glady said the man, born in 1991 in the former Yugoslavia and living with his mother in Stiring-Wendel, was unknown to territorial intelligence services and had two prior convictions unrelated to terrorism, and he ordered an examination of the man’s religious background and psychiatric profile. The man was placed in custody on charges of glorifying terrorism, possessing a Category D weapon, and drug possession.

Source

Pentecost Deacon Murdered in Ambush, Suspect Killed by a Mob — Offinso, Ghana

Osei Kwabena, a deacon in the Church of Pentecost who also worked as a caretaker farmer for the local chief, was ambushed and killed at Offinso Abrukyire in the Offinso Municipality of Ghana’s Ashanti Region on Saturday, September 12. Residents said the suspect, a 22-year-old identified as Awineme, returned home covered in blood and announced the killing. When the chief, Nana Osei Bonsu, tried to find out what had happened, the suspect attacked him with a machete and severely wounded him, then went after another person. Youths in the area beat the suspect to death with sticks after attempts to restrain him failed. Nana Osei Bonsu was hospitalized at St. Patrick Hospital in Offinso, where doctors said one hand may have to be amputated, and police have opened an investigation with both bodies at the morgue.

Source

Methodist Church Burns in Latest of a String of British Church Fires — Kilburn, England

Kilburn Methodist Church in Kilburn, north-west London caught fire in the early hours of Friday, September 11, and six fire engines worked the scene until it was extinguished around 4 a.m. The 135-year-old building was being converted into apartments at the time and was severely damaged, though it is still standing. Police and fire investigators have not determined a cause and have listed arson, a failure of the electrical wiring, and accidental ignition as possibilities. No injuries were reported and no arrests have been made. The fire follows the July arson at Pitsmoor Christ Church in Sheffield, which produced no arrests, a late-July fire at St. Andrew’s Church in Leicester that was ruled accidental, and an undetermined fire at St. Mark’s Church in London earlier this year.

Source

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FREE, LIVE TRAINING IN ILLINOIS AND MICHIGAN

Don’t forget to sign up for either the Michigan or Illinois classes. I’m giving these classes for free. It is in person only.

Inside This Week’s Roll Call Briefing

✅ Current threat condition: HIGH / ORANGE

✅ Suspicious activity and possible surveillance at churches

✅ Armed and violent incidents involving churches

✅ Terrorism and intelligence developments

✅ September dates of significance and elevated-risk periods

✅ Training guidance for working elevated-risk dates

This is meant to be read by your team, or as a reference for team leads as they address the troops, before starting your shift guarding the Body of Christ.

Download The Briefing Here👇

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I will be teaching two free, live church security classes this October. If you are a pastor, church leader, safety team member, usher, greeter, volunteer, or law enforcement partner who works with a church, I would like to see you there.

These are live, in-person classes only. There will be no livestream or online option.

The class is called Securing Sacred Spaces: Advanced Church Safety and De-Escalation Training. It is designed for churches that are building a safety ministry as well as established teams that want to strengthen their training, planning, and response.

We will cover:

• Recognizing warning signs before a situation escalates

• Practical de-escalation techniques

• Building and strengthening a church security team

• Access control, surveillance, and service monitoring

• Use of force considerations, legal responsibilities, and liability

• Emergency action plans for lockdowns, evacuations, and medical incidents

• Coordination with law enforcement and first responders

• Maintaining a welcoming church while taking security seriously

Thursday, October 8: Wayne, Michigan

Time: 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Location: CrossPointe Community Church
36125 Glenwood Road
Wayne, Michigan 48184

CrossPointe is the church where a trained volunteer security team stopped an armed attacker outside a Sunday service in June 2025. Holding this training there gives us a rare opportunity to learn in a place where preparation, awareness, and decisive action helped save lives.

Register for the October 8 class in Wayne, Michigan

Saturday, October 10: Crystal Lake, Illinois

Time: 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

Location: Immanuel Lutheran Church
300 Pathway Court
Crystal Lake, Illinois

Register for the October 10 class in Crystal Lake, Illinois

How to Attend for Free

Choose the class you want to attend and register through the appropriate Eventbrite link above.

Use promo code CWT during registration to attend free.

Space is limited, and advance registration is required. Please reserve a seat only if you plan to attend so we can make room for as many church leaders and safety team members as possible.

Bring members of your team if you can. Training together gives your church a common understanding of warning signs, communication, emergency planning, and coordinated response.

I look forward to meeting you and helping your church better protect the people God has placed in your care.

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Realistic scenario training can help church security teams recognize gunfire, locate a threat, and make decisions under stress, but introducing any blank firing device into a church requires strict safety controls and properly trained instructors. In this video, I review the EKOL ASI UZI blank firing device, including its construction, reliability, fully automatic operation, advantages over rifles fitted with blank firing adapters, and the serious precautions required before using it in training. This is a product review, not an instructional course, and no church should attempt this type of training without qualified instruction and a complete safety plan.

LINKS TO PRODUCTS

EKOL UZI Blank Firing Machine Gun

9mm PAK Blanks

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What to Expect in This Edition

• The 9/11 anniversary and Rosh Hashanah fall on the same weekend, creating an elevated security period for churches near synagogues or Jewish community events.

• Federal guidance again identifies houses of worship, clergy, staff, and congregants as potential targets.

• DHS released updated mobilization indicators that show where families, churches, and communities may have the best chance to intervene before violence occurs.

• Online radicalization remains a major thread, with cases involving teens, livestreamed attacks, Telegram, TikTok, Discord, Roblox, and extremist propaganda.

• International plots and arrests in France, Israel, Italy, Turkey, Nigeria, Mozambique, and other locations show how connected these threat networks have become.

• This week’s suspicious activity reports include filming inside a Messianic congregation, an abandoned vehicle outside camera coverage, attempted cyber intrusions traced to Iran, and an online shooting threat.

• Violent crime, sex crime, arson, kidnapping, and armed assault cases involving churches are included near the end of the report.

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TERROR UPDATE

Week of 6 to 12 September 2026

9/11 Anniversary and Rosh Hashanah Fall on the Same Weekend

The 9/11 anniversary lands on Friday, 11 September. Rosh Hashanah begins that evening and runs through Sunday, 13 September, which puts Sunday morning services two days after the anniversary and inside the Jewish High Holidays. The US National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) lists all three dates on its September events calendar, which it publishes because those dates carry historic significance for terrorist groups or current threat activity. Yom Kippur follows on 20 and 21 September and Sukkot on 25 through 27 September, so the elevated period runs through the month. New York State has begun increasing State Police patrols at synagogues and is distributing $70 million through its Securing Communities Against Hate Crimes program, and the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh has arranged expanded security at roughly 30 locations. Churches that share a block, a neighborhood, or a parking area with a synagogue should expect visible police presence over the next three weeks and should know why it is there.

Source: NCTC Counterterrorism Digest, 3 to 9 September 2026

🛡️ My thoughts: We are going to have a busy few weeks. I suggest that you prepare your guardians/safety ministry by briefing them as often as possible and monitor the news for any new threats. I am going to be delayed in my reporting. I’m still out of the country, but I am trying to keep up with what is happening and I have some talented people at CWT keeping me updated on any emerging threats.

Teen Indicted for Murder Over Livestream Deal With San Diego Mosque Shooters

On 31 August, 17-year-old Sarah Santiago of North Carolina was indicted on charges of murder by aiding and abetting for her role in the May shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego. Santiago was not at the scene. Prosecutors allege she maintained contact with the two shooters, purchased a Sonnenrad patch for Caleb Vasquez, and then distributed the livestreamed video of the attack and the perpetrator’s manifesto under an agreement she made with the assailants beforehand, so that the attackers would be, in the district attorney’s words, famous forever. Vasquez and his accomplice Cain Clark communicated only through online platforms. The indictment states that Clark and Vasquez planned to attack a synagogue and a majority-Black high school the same day. Santiago is being charged as an adult and faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Sources: The Washington Post, The New York Times, CBS News, via NYPD Open Source Intelligence Reporting, 6 September 2026

🛡️ My thoughts: So they planned on hitting a mosque and an all black high school after their initial attack. They also communicated solely online with others, which we have been warning you about. This should make every one of you realize how vulnerable our churches are.

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Three Arrested in France Over Plot to Attack Jewish Community

On 6 September, France’s National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT) announced the arrest of three Islamic State supporters suspected of plotting an attack against a Jewish community in France. The three coordinated through a WhatsApp group called Soldiers of Allah and intended to travel to Africa to join the Islamic State. PNAT transferred the investigation to the General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI) and asked that the men be held in custody. One of the three has a reported connection to a United States suspect in an alleged Islamic State inspired plot to bomb the New York State Capitol, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and PNAT are both working that transatlantic thread.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: All of these actors are connected, no matter what continent they are on. People are actively plotting against our nation and the Body of Christ. We have to keep abreast of what is happening elsewhere so that we can protect our congregation.

Federal Assessment Names Houses of Worship as Targets

The Joint Counterterrorism Assessment Team (JCAT), the working group that translates intelligence into guidance for state, local, and private sector responders, attached commentary to the France arrests in this week’s NCTC digest. JCAT states that terrorists may consider faith-based institutions and communities as targets for four reasons: their symbolism, a perceived lack of security, direct encouragement from terrorists overseas, and violent extremist messaging that glorifies recent attacks. It states plainly that religious structures and events, along with the clergy, staff, and congregants who occupy them, are potentially at risk, and it encourages first responders to build working relationships with religious leaders so local threats and suspicious activity get reported, vetted, and investigated. JCAT points to three publicly available First Responder’s Toolboxes on the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) website: Threats Against Religious Facilities and Adherents (28 June 2019), Threats Against Houses of Worship (22 June 2019), and Threat of Terrorism and Hate Crimes Against Jewish Communities in the United States (4 August 2020).

Source: NCTC Counterterrorism Digest, 3 to 9 September 2026

🛡️ My thoughts: We already knew this. Some people need to see it in a federal document before they will act on it, and now they can. Read what JCAT actually wrote: it tells first responders to go build relationships with religious leaders and get local threats reported. The government put in writing that your church needs to hear this, then filed it where your pastor will never see it. Somebody has to close that gap, and in your church that somebody is you. Take this to your pastor and read Nehemiah 4 with him.

Nehemiah prayed and posted a guard day and night. The builders kept working with a weapon at hand. He did both, and the wall went up.

DHS Publishes Updated Mobilization Indicators

On 8 September, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Intelligence and Analysis released an updated graphic mapping how a person moves from belief to violence, built on the public DHS, FBI, and NCTC Mobilization Indicators Booklet and its 42 indicators. The motivation stage has no fixed timeline and shows as a hardened violent worldview, violent rhetoric, fixation on past attackers, and withdrawal from family and friends, and DHS notes these behaviors are largely constitutionally protected, which means family, peers, and community are the ones positioned to intervene rather than law enforcement. The preparation stage runs weeks to years and is what DHS calls the greatest operational window: surveillance of targets, research on targets and tactics, attempts to gain access, weapons and explosives acquisition, tactical training, suspicious travel and financial transfers, and a shift into concealment and smaller groups. The mobilization stage runs hours to days and shows as final movement, a dry run or access attempt, sharing attack details, a final statement, and putting affairs in order. Two preparation indicators, surveillance of potential targets and attempts to gain access, describe what comes through our Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) submissions every week, which puts the man filming your entrances or pulling on a locked side door inside the stage the federal government calls the best opportunity to stop an attack. A case from 31 August shows the targeting indicator in its plainest form: 44-year-old Ousman Ceesay shot two people to death outside a bar in Tucson, Arizona and then killed himself, and he was carrying a written list of several similar businesses across the region.

Sources: DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis product DHS-IA-IV-2026-23720, 8 September 2026; CNN and The Associated Press for the Tucson case

🛡️ My thoughts: I’m including the document from DHS so you can share it with your team. They marked it FOUO, or “For Official Use Only” which is absolutely silly. This should be distributed to the public, not restricted to just law enforcement and fed agencies. I know some current and former Federal LEO’s are upset at my continual bashing of the federal system, but it is broken and needs fixing and we all know it. Don’t take it personally. It is not an attack against you. Think of it more as a plea that we need to be doing better at communicating with houses of worship

.

Israel Reports 25 Killed in Lone Actor Attacks Since Iran Conflict Began

On 6 September, Israel’s National Security Council published a threat assessment for Israelis abroad ahead of the High Holidays, attributing elevated worldwide risk to the ongoing conflict with Iran, Lebanese Hizballah, and HAMAS, and to continued promotion of attacks by Palestinian groups, the Islamic State, al-Qa’ida, and the Huthis. The assessment reports an increase in lone-wolf attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets worldwide, with 25 Israelis and Jews killed since the Iran conflict began. It advises avoiding overt Jewish or Israeli symbols in certain countries, paying heightened attention to anything unusual near Jewish institutions, and not publishing social media content that indicates Israeli affiliation.

Source: Government of Israel, via NCTC Counterterrorism Digest

🛡️ My thoughts: Pay attention to these warning signs. Lone wolf actor attacks are growing exponentially across the globe. They are being radicalized by Jihadis online and they have become very successful at it.

Islamic State Recruiting Children Through Gaming and Short Video Platforms

Researchers at the Global Network on Extremism and Technology, along with Europol and Spain’s counter-extremism agency, have documented a recruitment pipeline running from TikTok to Discord to Roblox, in which Islamic State affiliated accounts normalize jihadist identity among minors using gamified content, official group anasheed, and flag imagery embedded in game assets before moving contacts to encrypted messaging, with material reaching children as young as 13. Three cases landed in the past two weeks. A 16-year-old male in Sydney, Australia, radicalized on TikTok and Telegram, pleaded guilty on 1 September to a 2024 plot to detonate an improvised explosive device at the Sydney Marathon finish line at the Sydney Opera House, drawing on the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, and he told online contacts he was picking a location where lots of people and tourists are out. Mohammed Khalil Nadir, 19, was sentenced in Middlesbrough, United Kingdom to nine and a half years for building a mock suicide vest modeled on the 2025 Manchester synagogue attack and posting it to Telegram. Italian authorities arrested a 16-year-old on 2 September whose devices held propaganda blending Islamic State, neo-Nazi, and accelerationist material, along with instructions for building homemade explosive devices, guidance on vehicle-ramming attacks, and searches for how to obtain a firearm and ammunition. In Nigeria, the Islamic State’s West Africa Province and Boko Haram have moved to TikTok for recruitment and for fundraising through TikTok gifting.

Research · Sydney · Middlesbrough · Italy: Polizia di Stato

🛡️ My thoughts: Please share this with your youth minister. They are successfully reaching American kids through this same route. Most church attackers have a current or past affiliation in some way with the church they are attacking. Your youth minister should be familiar with these tools and monitor their children for signs of radicalization.

United States and Iran Exchange Strikes; IRGC Support Cell Arrested in Italy

United States forces struck Iranian air defense sites, radar systems, maritime assets, and mine-laying capability along the Strait of Hormuz between 30 August and 2 September, the first confirmed kinetic action against Iran since 29 July, after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) reportedly prepared to launch rockets and lay sea mines in the Strait. Iran answered with missiles and drones against United States assets in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates, with no casualties reported, and an IRGC spokesman promised severe punishment against the United States. On 3 September, Akram al-Kaabi, leader of the Iran-backed Harakat al-Nujaba, threatened to kill any American servicemember still in Iraq after the 30 September withdrawal deadline. Separately, on 8 September, Italy’s Polizia di Stato announced that the Digos counterterrorism unit in Florence had arrested a 41-year-old Jordanian national on 31 August on terrorism charges involving support to multiple organizations including the IRGC and Lebanese Hizballah, alleging he conspired with others in 2025 to establish a terrorist cell in Jordan. On 1 September, an Iranian regime-aligned media outlet circulated an artificial intelligence generated video depicting the Iranian president entering the White House and shooting the President of the United States in the Oval Office.

Sources: Reuters, NBC News, AP News, BBC, Rudaw, Polizia di Stato, via NYPD Open Source Intelligence Reporting, 6 September 2026, and NCTC Counterterrorism Digest

🛡️ My thoughts: We have thousands of IRGC loyalists here in the United States. Re watch my interview with an agent assigned to hezbollah in the US and see what we are facing.

Al-Qa’ida Publishes 9/11 Editorial Five Days Before the Anniversary

On 6 September, the pro-al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula media group al-Yaqin published issue 7 of its weekly al-Bayan newsletter, leading with an editorial on the 11 September 2001 attacks that frames them as an Islamic awakening and a turning point in what the group calls a clash of civilizations, and asserts that al-Qa’ida will lead that awakening. Messaging of this kind carries no specific plot information, and its function is to reach people the organization has never met and will never direct. The JCAT assessment above names direct encouragement from terrorists overseas and messaging that glorifies past attacks as two of the four reasons faith-based institutions get selected as targets.

Source: al-Bayan No. 7, cited in NCTC Counterterrorism Digest, 3 to 9 September 2026

Propaganda Tracking

NCTC lists five official terrorist publications released this period, and analysts on church intelligence teams should be able to identify each by name. The Global Islamic Media Front released issues 11 and 12 of Sada al-Thughur, with issue 12 listing Abu Muslim al-Tamimi as editor, contacts at sadathughur@proton.me and talk.gnews.to/direct/sadathughur, and affiliate brands al-Kata’ib, al-Andalus, and az-Zallaqa; that issue also runs an open recruitment ad for what the group calls Media Front Cells, soliciting anyone already running a channel to redistribute jihadist releases, listing @GIMF on GNews and @khalayaaljabha1 on Telegram. Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula released al-Bayan issue 7 through al-Yaqin Media Group. The Islamic State released al-Naba issue 563 through its Central Media Diwan, and Islamic State Khorasan’s al-Azaim Media Foundation released The Emirate of Fools, a Pashto attack on the Taliban arguing that any authority governing by human reason rather than revelation is illegitimate, the same argument the group applies to Western democracies. Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan released an infographic claiming 406 operations in August 2026 with 294 killed and 352 wounded. A separate pro-Islamic State poster released on 30 August featured four foreign fighters, including former senior official Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, with text encouraging attacks, which NYPD analysts assess was aimed at global audiences including in the West.

Source: NCTC Counterterrorism Digest, 3 to 9 September 2026, Terrorist Publications section; NYPD Open Source Intelligence Reporting, 6 September 2026

Watch Items

A joint Saudi coalition and Yemeni operation killed Abu Hudhayfah al-Ansari, the Islamic State’s global spokesman since August 2023, in Seiyun, Yemen on 1 September. Supporters posted condolences online afterward, some questioned whether he actually died, and at least one called for the group to avenge him by targeting Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, so analysts should watch al-Naba and official group channels for a named successor and for further retaliatory messaging, since a retaliation call is what lone actors in the West respond to. Turkey moved 184 citizens with suspected Islamic State ties from Baghdad to Ankara on 7 September, including Savas Yildiz, a fugitive suspect in the 2015 Ankara train station bombing that killed 104 people. Four Islamic State related indictments were filed in northern Israel in under two weeks, including a former Israel Defense Forces soldier and a 16-year-old accused of planning an attack at the Temple Mount. Istanbul authorities killed Islamic State member Berkan Cil, 21, in a shootout at a bus terminal on 3 September after he evaded raids at two residences, recovering a handgun, 200 rounds, and a large volume of digital material; a 49-year-old bystander was struck and later died. Suspected Islamic State Mozambique fighters burned a hunting camp in Niassa Province on 3 September, three United States nationals were airlifted out, and the United States Embassy has warned Americans away from the Niassa and Cabo Delgado border area.

Yemen · Turkey repatriation · Israel · Istanbul · Mozambique

SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY REPORTS

Reader-submitted suspicious activity at U.S. churches. If you see something similar in your area, submit your own report at alert.christianwarriortraining.com.

Newcastle, Washington — Man Filmed Interior and Exterior of Messianic Congregation During Services On Saturday, September 5, 2026, a security director at a Messianic Jewish congregation in Newcastle, Washington reported that a man entered the fellowship hall around 8:30 a.m. while congregants were praying, walked through every room, and recorded video of the building inside and out. When the sanctuary opened at about 9:00 a.m. for worship team practice, he repeated the same pattern there. The security director found him outside the sanctuary talking to an elderly female congregant about having been raped as a child, told him to stop, and the man left on foot without a vehicle. The subject was described as a black male in his late 20s, approximately 6 feet 5 inches tall, very dark skin, wearing an ankle-length Muslim thobe with no skull cap, a beard about an inch and a half long, and speaking with an American accent. CWT case 20260907-51E913EFBEC6

Chehalis, Washington — Vehicle Left Overnight in Church Lot Outside Camera Coverage On Saturday, September 5, 2026, a safety team member at a church in Chehalis, Washington reported a pickup truck parked alongside the church building and apparently abandoned. The vehicle was locked, parked at an angle roughly six feet off the curb, and partially blocking traffic through the lot. It was described as a late 1990s blue Chevrolet Silverado 1500, heavily soiled with algae growth consistent with sitting unused for a long period. The truck remained overnight, and its entry onto the property was not captured on the church’s cameras. CWT case 20260906-44E729042C5C

Old Bridge, New Jersey — Two Brute-Force Intrusion Attempts on Church Radio Station Server Traced to Iran On Tuesday, August 25, 2026, at approximately 6:59 a.m., and again on Sunday, August 30, 2026, at approximately 11:09 p.m., a Christian radio station operated by a church in Old Bridge, New Jersey recorded attempts to break into its server. Both attempts were brute-force password attacks and both were unsuccessful. The station traced both originating internet protocol (IP) addresses to Tehran, Iran. The station reported the activity to its local police department, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness (OHSP), the Faith-Based Information Sharing and Analysis Organization (FB-ISAO), the New Jersey Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Cell (NJCCIC), and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) InfraGard, and added additional security controls. CWT case 20260904-0A133B1C9104 · agency case CCASE0216668

Saint John’s, Arizona — Online Shooting Threat Reported to Sheriff, Subject Released on Bond A safety team member at a church in Saint John’s, Arizona reported an online post made Tuesday, June 30, 2026, in which the writer stated he was going into town to shoot people and stand on their dead bodies. The report was based on a police report the reporter reviewed online covering the subject’s detention and subsequent release on bond. The matter was handled by the Apache County Sheriff’s Office. The reporter rated his own confidence as medium and did not observe the post directly. CWT case 20260903-39A1C33168EF

VIOLENT CRIME

Man Charged With Threatening Church and Congregation — Knoxville, Tennessee

A Knoxville man was charged in early September after allegedly making threats against a church and the people who attend it. According to a warrant reported by WVLT, the threats included a statement that the entire congregation would meet God. The church canceled scheduled events and added security in response to the threat. The case was filed in Knox County court records on Thursday, September 4, 2026. The suspect’s name and the name of the church have not been carried consistently across reporting.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts: Take these threats seriously. Make sure you get a restraining order protecting the church and all employees of the church and issue a no trespass order. These are just pieces of paper, but they mean a lot for your defense in court if you have a deadly force incident with someone doing the same at your church. All of that will be brought up in a decision as to whether or not to charge you with a crime.

SEX CRIMES

Registered Sex Offender Remains Senior Pastor After Denomination Blocks Promotion — St. Louis, Missouri

Timothy D. Price III, senior pastor of First Baptist Church City of St. Louis, was scheduled to be installed as Missouri State Overseer of the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship on September 16, 2026. International Presiding Bishop Joseph Warren Walker III canceled the installation the weekend of September 6 after learning Price was convicted in 2008 of second-degree rape of a 12-year-old girl and is a registered sex offender. Walker said the denomination did not know about the conviction when it made the appointment, confronted Price at noon on Saturday, and issued a public statement three hours later. Price resigned from all Fellowship leadership positions and will not be permitted to serve in any jurisdictional or auxiliary role in the denomination. Walker said the Fellowship has no authority over Price’s job as senior pastor because each member church is autonomous, and Price remains in the pulpit at First Baptist Church City of St. Louis.

Source

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ARSON AND SUSPICIOUS FIRES

August Church Fire Ruled Arson, Federal Reward Offered — Federalsburg, Maryland

The Office of the Maryland State Fire Marshal and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) announced on Friday, September 4, 2026, that the fire that destroyed the Church of the Nazarene on Houston Branch Road was intentionally set. The fire was reported by a passerby at 11:46 p.m. on Wednesday, August 5, and took 62 firefighters just over an hour to control. Damage to the building and contents was estimated at $350,000. Fire alarms were installed in the building but were not operational at the time of the fire. ATF is offering a reward of up to $5,000 for information leading to identification, arrest, and conviction.

Source

🛡️ My thoughts

INTERNATIONAL

Three Kidnap Victims Die in Captivity, Held With 37 Taken From Worship Service — Nigeria

Three people abducted in separate incidents died while being held in the same bush camp as 37 worshippers taken during Easter Sunday church raids. The 37 captives were seized during services and have been held for months. Kaduna State accounts for the largest share of both civilian abductions and Christian civilian abductions reported in Nigeria this year, at 26 percent and 42 percent respectively. Reporting on the deaths came from released captives and family members negotiating ransom. No security force rescue operation has been reported.

Source

Armed Assault on Church Leaves at Least 12 Dead — Nzangula, Adamawa State, Nigeria

Armed men attacked a church in Nzangula in Adamawa State in early September 2026, killing at least twelve people, wounding others, and kidnapping one person. Adamawa State sits in Nigeria’s northeast, a region with sustained Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province activity. The attack follows a pattern of assaults on rural congregations with limited security presence and long law enforcement response times. Casualty figures in the initial reporting are preliminary.

Source

Volunteer Stabbed Nine Times Guarding Church Against Cable Thieves — Daleview, Eastern Cape, South Africa

A member of a community police forum was stabbed nine times during a night patrol while protecting his Daleview church from cable thieves. The attack occurred in an area where residents have complained that street lighting has been out for an extended period. Cable theft at church properties has drawn volunteers into overnight guarding roles they are not trained or equipped for. The victim survived. The reporting was published Monday, September 7, 2026.

Source

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Intel Monitor/Report Suspicious Activity

Inside This Week’s Roll Call Briefing

✅ Current threat condition: HIGH / ORANGE

✅ Suspicious activity and possible surveillance at churches

✅ Armed and violent incidents involving churches

✅ Terrorism and intelligence developments

✅ September dates of significance and elevated-risk periods

✅ Training guidance for working elevated-risk dates

This is meant to be read by your team, or as a reference for team leads as they address the troops, before starting your shift guarding the Body of Christ.

Download The Briefing Here👇

Read more

Intel Monitor/Report Suspicious Activity

American Christians have been hearing fragments of the Nigeria story for years. A kidnapped schoolgirl. A burned church. A Christmas massacre. What most believers in this country do not have is a clear picture of what is actually happening, who is driving it, and where it is headed. This article is built to fill that gap.

Nigeria is currently the deadliest country in the world for Christians. Open Doors, in its 2026 World Watch List, reports that of the 4,849 Christians killed for their faith over the past reporting year, 3,490 of them were killed in Nigeria. That is more than seventy percent of the global total coming from a single country. The violence is not limited to one region or one group. It runs from the northeast, where Boko Haram first emerged, through the Middle Belt, where Fulani militia attacks have emptied entire villages, into the northwest, where ISIS-linked groups now move freely, and across the borders into Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, Cameroon, and the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

This is a long article. I wrote it that way on purpose. A pastor, a security team leader, or a congregant who wants to understand this situation should be able to come back to a single piece and have the picture in front of them.

The Scale of the Problem

Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa with roughly 220 million people, split about evenly between Muslims in the north and Christians in the south. The Middle Belt sits between the two halves and has become the fault line where most of the killing occurs. The country sits at the southern edge of the Sahel, the arid band that runs across Africa from Senegal in the west to Sudan in the east. Every major jihadist movement currently operating in Africa touches that band somewhere.

The Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa documented 79,323 people killed across Nigeria between October 2019 and September 2025, of whom 42,033 were civilians. Forty-four percent of the civilian killings were attributed to Fulani militias, compared to twelve percent for Boko Haram and ISWAP combined. In the states where attacks occur, Christians were killed at a rate approximately 4.4 times higher than Muslims relative to their share of the population. The count was 22,835 Christian civilians killed against 10,519 Muslims.

The numbers do not capture the displacement. Since 2019, more than 2.2 million Nigerians have been driven from their homes by the farmer-herder violence alone. That figure does not include the millions more displaced by Boko Haram, ISWAP, and the kidnapping gangs that now operate across large portions of the country. Entire Christian farming villages have been burned. Survivors are pushed into displacement camps with conditions that are hard for most Americans to picture.

The Nigerian federal government has refused for more than a decade to name what is happening. In December 2025, Abuja finally classified Fulani militias, bandits, and armed gangs as terrorists under a new counterterrorism doctrine. Most Nigerian Christians view the move as too late and too narrow.

Who the Fulani Are

To understand the Middle Belt, you have to understand who the Fulani are. The American press almost always reduces them to a single word, “herdsmen,” which leaves out everything that matters.

The Fulani, also called Fula, Fulbe, or Peul, are one of the largest ethnic groups on the African continent. Estimates place their population between 25 and 45 million, spread across at least twenty countries, with the largest concentrations in Nigeria, Mali, Guinea, Senegal, Niger, Cameroon, and Burkina Faso. About 17 million Fulani live in Nigeria. They are the largest nomadic pastoral community in the world. Roughly a third of them still live as traditional herders moving cattle across the Sahel. The rest are semi-settled farmers, traders, scholars, merchants, and in many countries, the ruling class.

The Fulani were among the earliest sub-Saharan African peoples to convert to Islam, centuries before most of their neighbors. That early conversion shaped their identity and gave them a sense of religious superiority over the surrounding peoples they regarded as pagans. From the 1700s into the 1800s, Fulani clerics led a series of holy wars across West Africa. The most significant was the jihad launched in 1804 by Usman dan Fodio, a Fulani preacher who declared the existing Hausa kings insufficiently Islamic and called the population to revolt. His jihad swept through what is now northern Nigeria and built the Sokoto Caliphate, one of the largest Islamic empires Africa has ever seen. That caliphate lasted until the British arrived in the early 1900s.

The Sokoto Caliphate is not history to the people in the region. The Sultan of Sokoto is still recognized as the traditional religious leader of Sunni Muslims across northern Nigeria. Many of Nigeria’s most powerful political figures have been Fulani or Hausa-Fulani, including former president Muhammadu Buhari. The Fulani are not a marginal people. They are historically the dominant political force in the north. Elements within the Fulani community view the Christian Middle Belt as territory that was not fully conquered during the original jihad, and there are factions now working to finish what Usman dan Fodio started.

The Fulani are overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim. Settled, urban Fulani tend to be more devout and more supportive of religious activism. Pastoral Fulani have historically been less rigorous in their practice. That pattern has shifted in the past decade.

How the Herder Conflict Became a Religious Campaign

For generations, Fulani cattle herders and settled farmers across West Africa clashed over grazing land, water, and crop damage. These disputes were local and seasonal, and they were usually resolved through traditional mediation. Something changed in the mid-2010s.

A few factors hit at the same time. Climate pressure pushed pastoral Fulani further south into the Middle Belt looking for water and grazing. The collapse of Libya in 2011 flooded the Sahel with military-grade weapons from Gaddafi’s armories. Boko Haram’s rise in the northeast made Islamist violence regionally normal. And the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, a Fulani herders’ organization, has been accused by Nigerian Christians, law enforcement sources, and international observers of financing weapons distribution and coordinating attacks on Christian villages. In February 2026, nine Fulani leaders linked to Miyetti Allah were arraigned in Abuja on 57 terrorism counts for the June 2025 Benue massacre.

Portions of the Fulani were radicalized inside that environment. Jihadist ideology teaches that Christians are infidels who must be subjugated, killed, or forced to convert. That ideology found receptive ground among some of the armed herders. Attackers began chanting “Allahu Akbar” as they raided Christian farming villages. In December 2023, Fulani militants attacked at least 25 Christian communities across three local government areas in Plateau State on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and killed nearly 200 men, women, and children. The Nigerian Red Cross counted 84 communities affected and 29,350 people displaced. In June 2025, an attack on Yelwata village in Benue State killed between 200 and 270 people. In the first two weeks of 2026, Fulani militants killed at least 12 Christians in Plateau, 13 in Benue, and 10 in Taraba State. On January 18, Fulani militants stormed three churches in Kaduna State during Sunday services and abducted 177 Christians. Kaduna State officials initially denied the attack had happened and only admitted it two days later. The captives were released on February 5 after a joint security operation.

The Nigerian government’s response to attacks like these has followed a consistent pattern. Denial. Reclassification as banditry. Arrests made, then released without charges. Very few prosecutions. Families in the Middle Belt no longer trust that anyone will ever answer for the slaughter of their children.

Boko Haram, ISWAP, and the Sahel

The Fulani militia violence did not develop in isolation. It grew up alongside two formally designated terror organizations that have made Nigeria one of the most dangerous countries in the world.

Boko Haram emerged in Borno State in the northeast around 2002. The name is usually translated as “Western education is forbidden.” By 2009 the group was in open armed rebellion against the Nigerian state, bombing churches, kidnapping schoolgirls, and massacring Christian villages. The 2014 kidnapping of 276 girls from Chibok drew brief international attention. Most of those girls never came home.

In 2015, Boko Haram pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. A faction formally rebranded as the Islamic State West Africa Province, known as ISWAP. ISWAP is now the more capable of the two groups. It has used drones against Nigerian military bases, seized weapons from government forces, and operates across the Lake Chad Basin where the borders of Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon meet. After Niger exited the Multinational Joint Task Force in March 2025 and Chad threatened withdrawal, ISWAP exploited the gap and increased attacks on Nigerian military installations in Borno and Yobe states.

A separate ISIS affiliate operates further west. It was originally called the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara and is now known as the Islamic State Sahel Province, or ISSP. ISSP operates mainly in the tri-border region where Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger meet. Since 2024, it has pushed south along the Niger-Nigeria border into Sokoto and Kebbi states in Nigeria’s northwest. That is the region where, on Christmas Day 2025, American forces conducted airstrikes under President Trump’s order. The group that was struck was Lakurawa, an ISIS-linked faction that had moved into the northwest from the Sahel.

The Sahel itself has become the global center of jihadist terrorism. The Global Terrorism Index reports that in 2024, more than half of the 7,555 terrorism deaths recorded worldwide occurred in the region. In 2025 the global total fell to 5,582, with the Sahel still accounting for nearly half. That is the third consecutive year the region has held that position.

The military juntas now ruling Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger have expelled French and American forces, turned to Russian mercenary groups for security support, and watched as jihadist groups expanded their control. Al-Qaeda’s Sahel affiliate, JNIM, launched its largest offensive in more than a decade in late April 2026, attacking security forces across Mali, killing the Malian defense minister, and capturing Kidal, the country’s northernmost regional capital. On January 30, 2026, ISSP militants attacked the international airport in Niger’s capital and the adjoining air base. JNIM struck the same airport again on June 18.

The DRC and the Spread Eastward

The same ISIS movement that drives the violence in West Africa has also taken root 2,000 miles to the east in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A group called the Allied Democratic Forces, originally a Ugandan insurgency, pledged allegiance to ISIS in 2018. It is now known as the Islamic State Central Africa Province, or ISCAP.

ISCAP operates in North Kivu and Ituri provinces in eastern Congo. It has massacred churchgoers during services, beheaded villagers who refused to convert, and imposed jizya, the Islamic tax historically demanded from Christians and Jews living under Islamic rule, on entire farming communities. In 2025 alone, the group killed at least 967 civilians, most or all of them Christian villagers. In February, fighters abducted 70 Christians from the village of Mayba, marched them to a Protestant church in Kasanga, and executed them with machetes. In July they killed 43 people at a church in Komanda. On September 8, they infiltrated a funeral wake in Ntoyo village in North Kivu and killed more than 60 mourners.

Along the Niger-Burkina Faso border, jihadists have announced publicly that every male 15 and older who refuses to convert must pay 50,000 CFA francs in jizya. Christians have been told they will live as slaves if they pay, and that those who refuse may leave the village with nothing but the clothes they are wearing. In Mali’s Mopti region, an armed group imposed a monthly payment of 25,000 CFA francs on every Christian over 18 in the village of Douna-Pen, which is more than half the monthly income of most families in one of the poorest countries on earth.

This is the same playbook ISIS ran in Iraq and Syria. It has been exported to Africa, and the African affiliates have proven harder to dislodge than the original.

Where This Is Going

A few trends will determine what happens next.

The first is the collapse of Western security support across the Sahel. The United States withdrew from Niger in 2024. France has been pushed out of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. Russian private military contractors have stepped into some of the space, but they have focused on protecting the juntas that hired them rather than rolling back jihadist control. Regional counter-terrorism cooperation has fragmented.

The second is the evolution of the United States response. In late 2025, the Trump administration redesignated Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern. On Christmas Day 2025, American forces struck ISIS targets in the country’s northwest. On January 22, 2026, AFRICOM Deputy Commander Lieutenant General John Brennan arrived in Abuja to launch a joint working group established in response to that designation. Whether any of this translates into protection for Middle Belt villages is a different question. Airstrikes work against fixed positions of formally designated terror groups. They do not work well against dispersed Fulani militia fighters who live among civilian populations.

The third is the junction forming between ISSP in the Sahel and ISWAP in the Lake Chad Basin. Analysts with the Soufan Center and other counter-terrorism organizations have been tracking the growing connections between these two ISIS provinces. If they succeed in linking operationally across the northern half of West Africa, the result will be a continuous jihadist corridor stretching from the Atlantic coast to Lake Chad.

The fourth is the ideological trajectory of the Fulani militias. What began as resource disputes has moved into identity-based violence with explicit religious framing. Attacks timed to Sunday services, coordinated assaults on Christmas, and the targeting of church leaders are not features of a grazing dispute. They are features of a religious war.

The fifth is demographic. Nigeria’s population is projected to pass 400 million by 2050. If current patterns continue, the Middle Belt Christian population will either be displaced, converted, or killed over the course of a generation. Some Nigerian bishops and African scholars are using the word genocide. Others dispute it. Arguments over terminology do not save lives.

A Biblical Lens

Scripture does not promise that the faithful will be spared.

Jesus told His followers plainly in John 15:18-19, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”

Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:12, “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” That verse is not a metaphor. It is a description of what following Christ has always cost.

The author of Hebrews describes those who came before us in Hebrews 11:37-38, “They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated, of whom the world was not worthy, wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.” Our brothers and sisters in Nigeria’s Middle Belt villages are standing in that line. They are part of the body of Christ.

Scripture also gives us the response. Paul commanded the church in Galatia in Galatians 6:2, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” That burden-bearing is not optional. It is what the law of Christ requires.

Conclusion

The persecution of Nigerian Christians is the deadliest ongoing attack on the body of Christ in the world today. It is driven by Fulani militia violence, Boko Haram, ISWAP, and the broader Sahel-wide expansion of ISIS-affiliated groups. It has roots going back to the Sokoto Caliphate of the 1800s. It has been shaped by the collapse of Libya, the radicalization of portions of the Fulani population, and the indifference or complicity of the Nigerian federal government. It is spreading, not contracting, and the entire arc of jihadist violence across Africa, from Senegal to the DRC, is part of the same network.

Pray for the Nigerian church by name. Support the organizations reaching Christians on the ground with aid and protection. Keep pressure on Washington to maintain the pressure on Abuja. Share this with your pastor and your team.

Leave a comment below and tell me what you have seen about Nigeria in your own church conversations. Then share this article with your pastor or team leader so they have it as a reference the next time the topic comes up.