Church Security Team Training Day

April 2, 2026 18:19 2 Views by Terry Goodlad

God has blessed me with the honor of being a member of our church’s safety and security team. Most of the 20-plus team members are either former or active Law Enforcement Officers, Military Veterans, Paramedics, or otherwise experienced armed professionals. That means we love to train, and especially on range days. This week, we had the opportunity to train at a private range, which translates into we don’t have to stand in one spot, shooting a static paper target.

A good training day is best started by working on the fundamentals. Grip, draw, sight picture, and trigger pull. Master that, and no matter how complex the work gets after that, you will be more accurate.

My plan was to work on some basic movement, working from cover, both strong and support hand, while facing multiple threats. I set up two barriers to represent cover, then two target stands with two targets on each, approximately ten feet away.

The Course of Fire:

Start 15 yards away from cover, draw your weapon, and run to the first point of cover.
While staying a short distance behind cover, acquire the targets and engage with two rounds in each target.
Before leaving cover, perform a tactical magazine change.
Run to the next point of cover, then behind cover, switch the weapon to the support hand.
Working from cover, fire two rounds into each target with the support hand.

The first evolution was performed slowly with a focus on control.

The second and subsequent evolutions were performed with slight increases in speed without sacrificing efficient movement and accuracy.

Result:

When working from cover, one should never actually be on the cover. You should position yourself well back from cover so as to reduce your exposure to the threat. Nobody got this perfect the first time, but got better with each evolution.
When engaging the target from cover, there is a tendency to delay breaking that first shot. This is a bad habit we learn from shooting at a static range. Our brains and ego want to score a perfect hit, so we slow down and try for perfection. That is marksmanship, but that delay will get you killed in a gunfight. When you move any part of your body from cover, you must be prepared to break a shot immediately, then get back behind cover. Precision is not the goal here. Scoring a good hit anywhere on the body will start the threat bleeding and will be a tremendous shock to the central nervous system. Subsequent rounds placed on that threat will eventually neutralize it. They don’t have to be precise; they just need to hit the threat, so you must break those shots quickly, before the threat shoots you.
Training to shoot as well with your support hand as you do with your strong hand is absolutely necessary in a gun fight, so if you are a working professional, this is vital to train the ugly stuff you don’t do well. Train the hard stuff, the awkward stuff, the uncomfortable stuff until it becomes just as fluid and effective as your strong side. Your life and the lives of others may depend on it one day.
When you are faced with multiple threats, engage the primary target, then move your eye to the next target and move the gun to your eye. You will acquire the target and break a shot much quicker using this method.

Summary:

All team members present passed their qualification within a few points of a perfect score. The biggest takeaway is that range day is a ton of fun, and whatever you practice is what you will do under pressure, so it’s absolutely necessary to practice exactly how you fight.