Protecting Our Houses of Worship Series (PHOWS)
SITE UNDER CONSTRUCTION
The Why Behind PHOWS
Houses of Worship face a delicate but critical balance between maintaining a welcoming, inclusive environment and ensuring the safety and security of their congregations. Open and accessible spaces, while central to their mission, can increase exposure to risks such as vandalism, theft, targeted violence, and emergencies. At the same time, implementing effective security programs requires financial resources, trained personnel or volunteers, and thoughtful planning to avoid creating an atmosphere of mistrust or intrusion.
Many organizations also face challenges in building and sustaining security capabilities due to limited budgets and a lack of collaboration with peer institutions. Safety leaders often operate in isolation, missing opportunities to share best practices, coordinate training, and establish mutual aid networks that could strengthen overall preparedness.
Compounding these challenges is an evolving threat landscape that includes everything from hate incidents and domestic violence spillover to severe weather and medical emergencies. Addressing these risks requires comprehensive, adaptable strategies that align with legal requirements and uphold the core values of respect, privacy, and inclusivity.
An effective approach integrates safety, security, and community trust—enabling Houses of Worship to protect their people, steward resources responsibly, and remain open and welcoming. By fostering collaboration and implementing balanced, values-driven security measures, faith communities can create resilient environments prepared to prevent, respond to, and recover from a wide range of incidents.
Need for incident preparidness
Houses of Worship are welcoming spaces where people gather for comfort, community, and faith—and that’s exactly why it’s important to plan ahead for the unexpected. The graph above offers an example of the kinds of incidents that could affect members and the building, but it’s not meant to be complete. Instead, it’s a reminder to think broadly about risk and resilience: how quickly an unexpected situation could arise, how people would be informed and guided to safety, what resources are already in place, and where support may be needed. Preparing doesn’t mean expecting the worst—it means being ready to protect one another, respond with care, and stay focused on the mission of the House of Worship, even when circumstances change suddenly.
The PHOWS Experience
The PHOWS program needs to be scalable and provided as a FREE awareness and community engagement series. The Series enhances communication between like-minded and responsible staff, drive networking, while enhancing faith based best practices. Attendees quickly realize they are not alone, and there are resources available throughout the region.
The Series has served multiple communities to connect Faith and Safety Ministries of all Faiths with local and regional emergency responders, delivering community outreach. This has enhanced faith-based best practices, encouraged meaningful discussions, and enhanced community preparedness.
The Series also allows Public Sector officials to strengthen their relationship with their community and gain valuable insights from participants. The Series was launched in 2021 to assist Faith Based programs strengthen with an all-hazards preparedness structure for overall resilience.
Below are some of the images from our in-person events that have been held in the past and are held at a varying location around the community.
PREPARED+TRAINED+AWARE=RESILIENT
Past Attendee Quotes,
Evidence Of The Need
•Very Informative – This information opened my eyes to many parts of our church safety response ministry.
•Liked everything, especially the FBI Presentation (Colleyville, TX).
•Great job-appreciate you doing that! So grateful for you all organizing – I know a lot of work and it was a gift to all of us in the room. It was so helpful we have spent the time on this, but knowing we can send to the city of plans and give access to cameras was huge. I think our team just got better based on what I learned so THANK YOU.
•Up front sessions were solid. Panel discussion helpful. FBI part – super interesting. Friendly welcome at the door and inside the room. Food/Beverages were great.
•Liked the opportunity to network and share best practices.
•Liked learning where to look for resources and the FBI Presentation.
•Liked learning what PD has to offer and gathering of likeminded people.
Summary of Previous In-Person Topics
Below is a high-level summary of the session topics for the first four years of the series. Each year there has been a one-word theme driving the content for that year that you can see at the bottom of each column.
