Active Shooter Survival Training for Houses of Worship
Protect your congregation without changing what your doors feel like. Certified A.L.I.V.E. training and sanctuary risk assessments for churches, synagogues, and mosques — online, by webinar, or on site.
Protect your congregation without changing what your doors feel like. Certified A.L.I.V.E. training and sanctuary risk assessments for churches, synagogues, and mosques — online, by webinar, or on site.
Why this matters to faith communities
Houses of worship are built to be open. That’s the mission — and it’s also what makes threat detection harder than it is in a building with a badge-in lobby. Faith communities have seen real incidents in recent years, and greeters, ushers, and security-team volunteers are usually the least formally trained people in the building for a violent-threat scenario, even though they’re often the first to notice something wrong.
Leadership carries a duty of care to the people who gather there — staff, volunteers, and congregants alike. A trained response plan for the sanctuary, the fellowship hall, and the children’s wing is how that duty gets met without turning the building into something it isn’t.
What a Train & Protect program for your congregation covers
- The five-step A.L.I.V.E. method, adapted for a sanctuary layout, a fellowship hall, and a children’s or nursery wing
- Usher and greeter protocols — what to watch for, when to intervene, when to call for help
- Coordinating a response across staff, a volunteer security team, and the congregation itself, without turning worship into a drill
- Children’s-wing and Sunday-school-specific planning, since that space usually has its own doors, its own staff, and its own risk profile
- Optional Stop the Bleed / first-aid add-on for your volunteer security or medical team
Who this is built for
Executive pastors and facilities pastors · Church administrators · Volunteer safety and security teams · Ushers and greeters · Synagogue and mosque security committees · Congregations of any size
About the A.L.I.V.E. Instructor
Delivered by Ron Colbert, a certified A.L.I.V.E. instructor and USCCA instructor, NRA instructor, Maryland State Police-approved instructor, and Red Cross CPR/First Aid and Stop the Bleed provider. Based in Mount Airy, serving houses of worship across the Baltimore–Washington corridor.
Class Formats
Online/On-Demand
Self-paced training for staff and volunteers on their own schedule.
Live Webinar
A shared session for staff, ushers, and security-team volunteers.
In-Person On-Site
Delivered in your sanctuary and fellowship spaces, using your real layout.
Facility Risk & Threat Assessment
A walk-through of entrances, sightlines, the children’s wing, and rally points, with a written, prioritized list of recommendations.
FAQs
Training is typically scheduled outside service times so your team can focus, but a facility walk-through can be timed around an actual gathering if that helps you evaluate real crowd flow.
Yes — Sunday school and nursery spaces get their own walk-through and their own plan, since they’re usually staffed and laid out differently from the main sanctuary.
Yes — most of our worship-community sessions are built specifically for volunteer ushers and greeters alongside paid staff.
No — the goal is a trained, calm response, not visible security theater. Most changes are procedural (who’s watching what, when) rather than physical.
