Rape Case: Sign for Need of Improved Safety Procedures at Churches

Written by Leah Jones

Monday, 28 June 2010

Christian Web News - The recent rape of a staff member at an Oklahoma City church demonstrates the need for congregations to improve their safety procedures, says a church security expert with 30 years of experience in police and security work.

"One of the things we teach churches through our training is the vulnerability of their employees, especially during the opening and closing of property," said Jeffrey Hawkins, executive director of the Christian Security Network (CSN) (www.christiansecuritynetwork.org). "It's usually a lone, vulnerable person, such as a secretary, and that's asking for trouble.

"Last year we saw savage beatings, sexual assaults and other crimes – all during the opening or closing a church."

According to news reports, on June 22 the woman in Oklahoma City was raped and sodomized behind the church building seconds after arriving for work. The suspect, a part-time employee who did odd jobs at the church, has a lengthy criminal record, including burglary and violating a victim's protective order.

Hawkins said such cases emphasize the need for thorough background checks of everyone who is employed by a church or volunteers for one of its ministries. Churches that fail to adequately protect their employees and members from such criminals also are leaving themselves open to lawsuits, Hawkins said. "Even OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) rules stipulate every employer must provide a safe and secure environment for all their employees," he said.

The Oklahoma City tragedy follows the recent beating death of an 80-year-old woman near Wynne, Ark., at her church when she entered alone one morning. Hers is one of five murders among more than 35 violent incidents on church property during the first six months of 2010. Last year 50 violent incidents occurred nationally, including a dozen murders, Hawkins said.

The Christian Security Network (www.christiansecuritynetwork.com) is a national organization dedicated to the advancement of security, safety and emergency planning for Christian churches, schools, ministries and missionaries.

Call or email Ophelia Livingston to schedule a review of your safety and security policies and procedures.  Ophelia is founder of OWL Risk Management Consulting helping ministries develop and strengthen their safety and security programs.  1-866-579-7475 or owlivingston@owlrisk.com.

Churchshoppers.com Match People to Churches

Website Requests Unconventional Help From Christian Churches

Churches have traditionally been known for helping others. Churchshoppers.com, an on-line business dedicated to church growth and the spreading of the gospel, is asking for help in a non-conventional way. They are not looking for a hand-out, counseling or spiritual advice. What they need is information.

Churchshoppers.com was created to help people looking for a church, because of relocation or need for change, narrow down the search to churches that best fit their spiritual compatibility.

Churchshopper's owner Chad Olson, knows this well. Being a church-attendee all of his life, he has seen the struggle that many families go through in finding a home church that will not only meet their needs but allow for their own unique gifts and talents to be developed and used.

"In the course of our research we've asked hundreds of people how they go about finding a church and we've concluded that people have a spiritual temperament," Olson said. "Certain churches seem to fit their groove better than others. This Web site helps people find the right church in a shorter period of time."

Churchshoppers launched on-line in March and currently has over 103,500 nationwide churches in their database. The majority of these listings contain basic contact information only. This is where the help from churches is needed. Churches are invited to create a profile with comprehensive information that helps searchers get a good feel for a church's culture. This service is available absolutely free to churches. Churches have an opportunity to build a premium profile that allows them to include images, audio and video clips for a small fee if so desired. During the month of August, the premium profile is also being offered for free through the use of a promotional code available on the website.

"We want to give people looking for a church the best help possible, but we can only do that if churches build their profile and provide the detailed information. No catches here...we just want to provide great and thorough service to those using our site to find a church. Of course, we believe we will see those churches building their profiles grow and flourish as well!"

Churches have several options on how to build their profiles. Creating it on-line at Churchshoppers.com, Market Your Church, allows them to enter their own information, including an"In your own words" section to personally convey the vision of their church. Churches can also do a telephone with a Churchshoppers representative or print out a written template to be filled out and faxed in at their convenience.

"Finding the right home church is one of the most important decisions you can make. We believe the place of worship needs to inspire, encourage, challenge as well as utilize the unique gifts and talents one has to offer. That's why we created Churchshoppers," he said

Compliance and Your Church's Insurance Policy?

CALL 1-866-579-7475 TO REVIEW YOUR CHURCH SAFETY/SECURITY PROGRAM, ASK FOR OPHELIA LIVINGSTON.
Do You Know What Is Covered?

Edward started his Saturday just like he did every Saturday: he went to the church to get ready for his participation in the church Children Ministry’s outreach. But, this Saturday was different. It was his turn to do a run in the church van to pick up some of the children. Because Edward did not have a Commercial Driver’s License (CDL), the children's pastor clearly instructed Edward not to transport more than 14 children at any one time. "That will keep us in compliance," thought the children's pastor, who remembered that the law does not let an individual transport more than 15 people in one vehicle. He wanted to make sure that Edward stayed within his legal limitation.

The Church Made Every Effort To Comply With The Law

Edward gladly complied, making three runs without any problems. However, on his fourth and final run, with 7 excited children riding in the van, Edward ran a red light in his hurry to get back to the church on time...which resulted in an accident that injured three of the children! The children's pastor visited the three children while they were in the emergency room and had a time of prayer with them and their parents. Between the three children, there were two broken arms, one broken leg that required surgery, and a bill of $120,000.00. The church filed a claim with the church insurance company and the insurance company paid it. Whew! That was close.

Was The Driver Negligent?

The church was very supportive of Edward and understood that he was trying to serve the church by picking up the children. He still could not figure out how he ran the red light. He just did not see it. Seconds earlier he saw a text message come in and briefly looked at his phone to see whom it was from. Before he knew it, he was in an accident.

The Driver (Edward) Gets Sued

Three months after the insurance company paid the claim; Edward got a letter from the church's insurance company letting him know that they wanted him to reimburse them the $120,000.00 for his gross negligence. They also stated that they would sue him in court if he did not agree to their terms for repayment of the claim. Confused and completely surprised by this, Edward first took it to his pastor. But he, too, was bewildered by the lawsuit against Edward, and so the pastor took it to the church attorney, asking, "Can our insurance company sue one of our members for the claim that the church filed?" Unfortunately for Edward, insurance companies have the right to seek reimbursement from the person or entity legally responsible for an accident after they have paid out money on behalf of the church. This is known as Subrogation. Webster definition of subrogation is “If one person performs a duty of another, they are then "equitable subrogated" to the rights of the person owed the duty”. The most common form of subrogation is when an insurance company pays a claim caused by the negligence of another. Who would have thought that the same company that is supposed to protect the church, sues one of its members?

Get The Right People Listed As Insured Under The Church Policy

After inspecting the church insurance policy, they noticed that the policy covered the acts of the board of directors and employees but it did not cover volunteers and members. Getting the members and volunteers of the church listed as insured is not automatic. In fact, you have to specifically request it. Since Edward was not listed as insured on the church policy, he was not protected from being sued by the church's insurance company.

Get An Insurance Policy and Cover The Right People

The number of churches and ministries that do not have an insurance policy of any kind is a surprise in itself. Though many pastors know of the real possibilities that exist in today's litigious society, they see insurance as an expense that brings no benefit. As a risk management consultant, I see it differently. It is an asset, because it protects the wealth and prosperity of the church. When getting a general liability insurance policy, make sure that the policy covers the board of directors, employees, and church volunteers, including members. This is very important. Incidents like the one Edward went through are frequent. The church was diligent to make sure they complied with the law, but it failed to spend adequate time reviewing its insurance policy to make sure the right people were covered.

Many Different Types Of Church Insurance

Did you know that there are over 30 different types of liability insurance? That does not include property, theft, missions' travel, fire, key man and many more. Getting the right policy is absolutely important. We have added the topic of church insurance to our seminars because getting the right insurance policy is a must. Have you spent time lately thinking about insurance for the church? You may have felt intimidated by the number of policies that exist. With the right information, you will be able to get the right policy that provides maximum coverage at the best price. Call today and schedule your risk management seminar.  1-866-579-7475!

Woman Attacked and Raped at OKC Church

 CALL 1-866-579-7475 TO REVIEW YOUR CHURCH SAFETY/SECURITY PROGRAM, ASK FOR OPHELIA LIVINGSTON.

OKLAHOMA CITY -- An Oklahoma City woman is attacked and raped at a local church. Luckily, within just a few hours, police were able to make an arrest. The accused rapist is 30-year-old Antwine Walker. The crime took place at Britton Baptist Church near Britton and Western. The suspect occasionally worked at the church doing odd jobs. Police say that made it easy for employees to ID him.
The alleged rape victim told police she was ambushed and assaulted just seconds after arriving for work early Tuesday.

"The suspect actually followed her to the back of the building, threw some kind of rope around her neck and proceeded to choke her and rape and sodomize her in the building," said Sgt. Jennifer Wardlow.

Walker remains behind bars at the county jail.

Walker has a lengthy criminal record, including convictions for burglary and violating a victim's protective order.

The church pastor says he knew of Walker's criminal past but wanted to give him a chance to go straight.

No one at the church wanted to go on camera to talk about the crime. 

How to Create an E-Book

There are many reasons why a person would want to write an e-book. One is to help spread his knowledge and teach others about a certain topic. Another is to promote a business, organization or idea. And also, it can be for marketing purposes to help sell a certain product or service. Whatever the reason may be, it is essential to understand the basics on how to create an e-book. Because you must understand that it is not simply about putting sentences together, slapping it all in one file, and publishing it as an e-book. There is more to it than that.

You probably have tried making your own first e-book and when you released it to the public, or even offered it for a fee, you realized that the feedback was not really that good. You might even have received some negative feed back regarding the quality of your e-book. Rest assured that just like everything else, writing an e-book is not really a rocket science. It is easy to understand and achieve if you keep the following points in mind.

1. First of all, know your goal for creating that e-book.
Everything has a purpose. All things have a goal and your creating an e-book is not an exemption. List down the things that you want to achieve through your e-book. Think first your main goal and then break it down to smaller goals and stick with them.

2. Practice good grammar and proper spelling.
Part of the basics on how to create an e-book are using the right grammar and checking for any wrong spellings. Why are these important? You must remember that you are positioning yourself as an expert, as a professional in your field. The only reason that you will be seen as such is if you conform to standards and you present yourself as an intelligent and smart person which good grammar can greatly help you with.

3. Who are your target audience or readers?
An e-book naturally has a target set of readers. Are they your colleagues? Perhaps they are people who are just starting to learn about marketing and stuff. Maybe you are trying to teach people the proper ways of protecting their home computers from malware threats. As the topics of e-books can be greatly varied, so are their readers. You must nail down who your readers will be and then fashion your e-book specifically for them.

Other things that you have to consider when you're creating your e-book are the number of pages or word count. Since people are just reading online or through their computers, their attention span is very short. So it is best if you keep your e-book very short. Another point to consider is your choice of words. You can use highly technical terms if your readers are your colleagues. But if it's just anybody from around the globe, using layman's terms is usually the best approach. These are just the basics on how to create an e-book. Follow these and you are all set for a successful launching of your e-book.

Creating a Twitter Following - Do You Need Help, I Do.

After you’ve been on Twitter for a little while, you will find that you’re following people who you’re actually not all that interested in. You want to remove them, but it seems like such a pain that you never bother. Not only that, but some of these people followed you just so you would follow them back, then they dropped you like a bad habit to game the system a little.

On the other hand, you see that there is a core group that you regularly interact with. You share common interests, DM and reply to each other’s tweets, and generally have a good time. Problem is, some of their tweets get buried by the noise you’ve accumulated.

This post will help you remedy this situation. You need to cut the dead weight and get focused on those who say things you actually want to read. Who knows, maybe you’ll replace the losers with more people you can relate to.

Trimming The Fat

We need to get rid of people who we follow that are not providing any value to us. First to go are those that aren’t actually tweeting. How can you get value from someone who doesn’t say anything? We can use Twitoria to drop anyone who hasn’t tweeted in a while. You don’t even have to give up your password. You do have to open each profile in a new window and manually remove/unfollow them.

Another option here is to unfollow anyone who is not following you. At first, I thought this was a shady thing to do. The argument is that you follow people because they provide you with good content, not because you expect them to follow you back. I actually agree with this argument, but the fact is that there are very few people who are just that awesome and the ones you’re following probably don’t fall into that category.

To get rid of the folks that don’t follow you back, hop on over to Twitter Karma. Put in your Twitter user name and password and whack the button (or just click Sign In With Twitter to use the safer OAuth option). It will take a while to load, but you will eventually be able to see all the people who you follow that do not follow you back. You can actually select them all and bulk un-follow them. Simple as that.

Finding Your Crew

Now that you’ve kicked some people to the curb, it’s time to take a look at who you actually engage with on a regular basis. You can probably name a few of these people off the top of your head. The reason that you need to know who your real tweeps are is so that you can give them priority by adding them to groups or simply looking out for their tweets. Also, it’s always cool to look at stats because you may be surprised at what they tell you.

There are a bunch of tools for seeing who your BFF’s are, but my favorites are Twitter Analyzer and Mailana. With Twitter Analyzer, just put in your Twitter username, click User’s Friends, then Closest Friends. I won’t get into all the other features available here, but you may also want to check out Disregarded Friends. These are the people you keep ignoring and you might want to correct that.

Mailana is a whole different story. Once you put in your Twitter username, you’ll see a graphical representation of your social graph. The thicker the lines that connect people, the more they talk to each other. The BFF’s list on the left should provide some valuable data as to who you like most.

Making New Friends

Mailana gives you a quick list of who you should be following based on your current habits. Another option is to check out Twubs or WeFollow to see what users are interested in the same hashtags or events as you. Probably the most popular tool for finding new followers is Mr. Tweet (@corvida recently became the Mr. Tweet blog editor). All you have to do is follow Mr. Tweet and he will DM you a link about what he’s found for you. This can sometimes take quite a while though.

A few things I’ve done to find new people to follow:

• Use Twitter’s built-in threading to see what parts of a conversation you’re missing. On the web, click “in reply to” and you can see who those you follow are talking to. They may share your interests.
• Keep an eye out for people talking about you or ReTweeting your stuff. Since Twitter implemented Mentions, you can just check your replies tab to catch these tweets. You probably don’t follow all of these people and the fact that they’re talking about you means you should check them out.
• Set up searches to catch people talking about topics you’re interested. Most Twitter clients have a method for setting up persistent searches. You can also just go to Twitter Search and look for keywords and topics that interest you.

Owning Your Googgle 10

It’s becoming more and more important for small business owners to “own” their Google results. In a world where you are what Google says you are, when someone searches for your name they need to be able to find you. The real you. Not a lookalike, another company with the same name or that social profile you thought you had taken care of it. Business owners must protect their brand, and sometimes that means doing just a touch of proactive online reputation management to secure your Google 10.

Your Google 10 is the top ten results that appear when someone does a Google search for your name. How do you go about ensuring you own all ten spots? Surprisingly, it’s not that hard. Here are some of the sites and profiles you’ll want to grab and pay attention to.

Grab your .com: Chances are you already have this one and it’s naturally ranking very well for your brand. Congrats. That’s one listing. Time to go after the other nine.

Join Professional Directories: Whatever your industry, there are guaranteed to be at least a handful of directory or resource sites you can join to help customers find you, while also helping you to take advantage of the company profile pages they offer. Often these directories will require a small application fee for your profile to be reviewed, but if you’re able to choose targeted sites, you’ll get both customers and a major search ranking benefit from them. To find these directories, try doing a search for [your industry] + directory].

Get Social: Besides just being a great way to reach out to customers, social profiles are known for how well they rank in Google due to their authority and all the links being pointed at them. If you’re looking to claim some space, try creating a Facebook Fan page, Twitter account and corporate accounts on sites like LinkedIn, Crunchbase, Naymz, etc. Don’t just register the accounts, though. Actually build out the profiles and make them useful. There’s no sense ranking a profile if the information on it isn’t up to par.

Target Industry-Specific Social Sites: Thanks to the social media boom, there are social sites now geared toward virtually every industry on the planet, whether it’s finance, sports, art and design, programming, SEO, etc. Find your niche and get involved. Create accounts on these sites and engage in the community when it makes sense. Many of the smaller social sites will also allow you to link to your “mainstream” social media accounts like Twitter, Facebook, etc. Take advantage of this feature. The more links you get to each account, the stronger it will become and the better it will rank. If there are any forums in your area of specialty, consider creating usernames on those as well.

Make Media: The search engines like media. In fact, they like it so much that they’re starting to replace “regular” search results with images, videos and news clippings. Because so few companies are being proactive about media content, you can often overtake competitor listings simply by creating media content and optimizing it – including the name of your company in the title, file name, description and within the tags, etc. As mentioned before, video and small businesses go really well together. Obviously, Flickr, YouTube and Vimeo are great sites to focus on for these purposes. [If you’re really adventurous, perhaps even create your own podcast!]

Guest Blog: Guest blogging is a great way to increase visibility and bring visitors to your site, but it can also be an effective way of grabbing more search real estate. Offer to provide a blogger with unique content in your site. In return you’ll often be given a brief bio box which will allow you to link out to your Web site and maybe even some other prominent profiles or content pieces. If the site owner is agreeable, you should also put your name and company name in the Title tag of that entry.

Speak At Local Events: Look for opportunities to speak or get involved with local events in your niche. These spots usually come with speaker bios that you can build out to rank very well (and very easily) for your name and company. They’re also exactly what you want to be ranking for when a potential partner or prospect goes searching for your brand. It shows that you know what you’re talking about AND that you care about your community.

If the list above looks a bit overwhelming, fear not. Chances are you won’t have to create each and every account mentioned in order to secure and protect your Google 10. However, variety is the spice of life…and Google rankings.