Date

2-29-2024

Department

Rawlings School of Divinity

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Chair

Arlynne Perley-Huebscher

Keywords

active shooter, congregation, equipping, mass shooting, preparing, training

Disciplines

Christianity | Leadership Studies

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study is to establish a baseline of understanding what experiences South Carolina Southern Baptist church leaders have in active shooter training and what they believe about preparing, training, and equipping congregations for an active shooter incident in their house of worship. This researcher examined how church leaders prepare, train, and equip congregations for security threats like active shooter incidents. This study fills a gap in the existing literature, adding to the research by Auten (2021), Rainer (2017), and the FBI (2016). This researcher examined how churches prepare for security threats like active shooter incidents. This qualitative descriptive study aimed to understand what church leaders of 12 Southern Baptist churches in South Carolina believe about preparing, training, and equipping their congregations for an active shooter incident in their house of worship. The foundational theories discussed in this study include Social Bond/Control Theory, Five Stage Sequential Model Theory, Group Socialization Theory, and Mass Shooting Contagion Theory. Through a qualitative survey and interviews, this researcher discovered what South Carolina Southern Baptist church leaders think about the possibility of an active shooter in their church. The Research Subjects were randomly chosen from South Carolina Southern Baptist churches. For this study, church leaders are defined as individuals in formal leadership positions at the executive level, including senior and associate pastors of biblically based Southern Baptist church organizations in South Carolina.

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