Security Technology for
Religious Institutions
Smarter Security, Lower Liability, and Improved Safety for Churches, Synagogues, Temples, and Mosques Starts Here
LEARN MOREHouse of Worship Security Challenges:
From vandalism to parishioners being targeted in parking lots to risk of injury for sports or school ministries to theft of donations to target violence against a race or class of people, houses of worship have a lot of risks. In addition, figuring out how you run cables in complex buildings ranging from historical buildings to giant multi-location and multi-building campuses and using volunteers to manage systems, a house of worship can be a complex task. Have faith; we know what to do.
Note: You may want to also look at our Education category for advise specific to schooling, if your institution also has a school on campus.
Key Benefits for SCW Religious Institution Clients
Restrict Access to Authorized Personnel
Easily give finance, accounting, and others administrative staff access to building areas on a need-to-access basis. Limit access by time of day and/or day of week. learn more
Reduce the Odds of Vandalism
Long range cameras enable you to detect unwanted or unknown individuals before they cause an incident, as well as reduce theft and vandalism. more info
Liability Risk Reduction
Sports ministries, day cares, homeless ministries, feeding programs, and schools on campus require liability insurance for injury, violence, or abuse. You can lower your risk by using cameras to check to make sure your safety policies are being followed.
Protect Parishioners in Parking Lots
The parking lot for a house of worship is one of the few places where a stalker or other violent individual with a vendetta against a parishioner knows that they will be outside, alone, at an approximate time. Vulnerable parishioners need to be protected.
Control Access during the Service
Historically Black Churches, Mosques, Temples, and Synagogues face additional threats given the rise of antisemitism, islamaphobia, or white supremacy based targeted violence. Some minority communities choose to use doormen or create safety checkpoints using both cameras and automatic door locks.
Keep Track of Incident Reports
Solve your evidence tracking and chain of custody problems by utilizing survail vault cloud storage and incident reporting tools. learn more
School Security and Safety
Many religious institutions have integrated schools or preschools. We suggest you also check out our content on educational institutions.
Improve Network Cyber Security
Churches, once ignored by cyber criminals, are now being targeted. Our cloud based platforms increase your cyber security posture and make your church security systems easier to manage.
Layered Security
Good security has multiple layers that solve different and usually escalating needs. Different incidents have different levels of risk and more severe threats should trigger multiple systems. Churches face their own unique set of security threats and with our extensive background in securing places of worship, we have outlined best practices on how to secure your church below.
Church Parking Lots
- Parking lots mean accidents will happen. Security cameras give you video evidence for insurance adjusters and allow you to reduce conflict among parishioners.
- Cameras and parking attendants allow you to respond to imminent threats to vulnerable parishioners. Large religious institutions know that the parking lot for a house of worship is one of the few places where a stalker or other violent individual with a vendetta against a parishioner knows that they will be outside and alone, at an approximate time. Smaller groups have the same odds, but experience these events less frequently.
- The blue zones indicate the views of strategically places fixed lens wide angle cameras.
Liability and Risk Reduction
- Sports ministries, day cares, homeless ministries, feeding programs, and schools on campus require liability insurance for injury, violence, or abuse.
- You can lower your risk by using cameras to check to make sure your safety policies are being followed.
- An example of a church with an indoor gymnasiums used for "Upward Basketball" sports ministries is show to the right.
- The blue zone indicate the views of strategically places wide angle lens camera.
Unauthorized Access
- Electronic door locks and bluetooth readers allow you to control access to sensitive areas.
- Administrators can create groups based on job function. For example, only the finance team could have access to the finance office(s)
Intrusion
- Religious institutions need to think about intrusion in two ways. All religious institutions need to think about intrusion from outside of the building in to prevent break ins while closed. Historically Black Churches, Mosques, Temples, and Synagogues face additional threats given the rise of antisemitism, islamaphobia, or white supremacy based targeted violence, and also need to think more deeply about hostile individuals entering during the service.
- Outdoor cameras strategically placed in outdoors in areas with entry points, such as doors and windows, can alert your security teams to unwelcome individuals and unauthorized access.
- The outdoor green and yellow (marked to illustrate the employee entrance used during non-service times) zones indicate the views of strategically places fixed lens wide angle cameras for intrusion from outside in.
- The red zones indicate some additional cameras that should also probably be monitored while service is in session, if your religious institution serves ask risk communities that face racially targeted violence.
Emergency
- Administrators can remotely lock down their institution in a variety of emergencies, including active shooter, natural disasters, and unsolicited visitor situations.
Network, Cyber, and Application Security
- Our platforms use encryption, inbound connection refusal, automatic software updates, and cloud-based management so your physical security devices are not compromising your cyber security initiatives.
- VPN, MFA, SOC/SIEM, and Endpoint management services also available.
Hardware and Software Solutions
These are the tools that you want to implement to secure your house of worship.
Services
Many houses of worship choose to layer on additional services to help with maintenance and operations.
Resources for Houses of Worship
Religious Institution security is a challenge -- from securing access to administrative areas, to reducing vandalism and targeted violence to monitoring sports or other ministries for injuries.
SCW makes it possible to bring all the moving parts together to run a well-oiled machine.
Here are some case studies, guides, and videos that help you make the right choice.
Get in TouchCase Study #1
First Baptist Church need to replace several outdated analog systems across its multiple buildings with a modern HD platform.
Coverage Map
Need inspiration? Check our this Sample Church Security Camera System Coverage Map for a house of worship.
Guide: NDAA
All SCW camera are compliant with the National Defense Authorization Act. In this NDAA guide, we talk about what the NDAA regulations mean to the security industry.
Video: Success Story
Coming Soon.
Video: Roundtable Discussion
In this episode of "In the Trenches: Roundtable," we discuss the security threats and solutions for houses of worship.
Video: Roundtable Discussion
In this episode of "In the Trenches: Roundtable," we discuss mounting security cameras to ceilings.
Choose SCW
We have the history and expertise your company needs.
For Your IT Team
- Openpath Access Control System is a simple retrofit installation that is easily programmable and maintenance-free.
- SCW cameras are a single cable plug-and-play item that can stretch up tp 750 feet in you combine them with one of our extended transmission POE Switches.
- Both the Survail and Openpath Platforms include free and ongoing training and support. You don't have to do this.
- The Survail Platforms include one-on-one onboarding of devices, networks, and users, before we even ship it to you. There's no complicated setup process.
- The Survail Platform has integrated VLANs and VPNs which reduce network complexity and reduce the IT time spent on device management and securing remote access, when compared to on-premises NVR-based systems.
- The Survail and Openpath platforms Increase your company’s cybersecurity posture and decrease your cyber threat footprint, when compared to non-cloud, on-premesis systems.
- Every camera on one manufacturer-agnostic platform makes employee training infinitely simpler. The UI is so easy to use that other teams don't have to bother IT with every footage request.
- The ready availability of our on-call technical experts means total support for the life of your new system.
For Your Managers
- Both the Survail and Openpath Platforms include free and ongoing training and support.
- Imagine no more need to stare at a screen of security cameras all day! Every camera in your system--without limit--is being analyzed to identify what matters to you most.
- SCW AI-powered analytics software does all the watching for you. The AI-Powered Analytics distinguish individuals and vehicles in an evolving, learning process.
- In less than a second, recognize a potential threat incident and notify pre-selected personnel and first responders by text message, email alert, or automatic phone call.
- All notifications are in real-time. No more valuable minutes are lost. Immediate alerts profoundly alter outcomes.
- Every camera can filter by person, vehicle, camera, date, or time, which means no more endless searching for pertinent footage.
- The AI-Analytics proactively eliminate false positive events and reduce your huge number of current email alerts.
For Executives
- The secure cloud-based Survail and Openpath platforms offer a lower total-cost-of-ownership by removing the requirements that your IT team worry about enabling and securing remote access to your on-premises hardware and network.
- SCW offers the benefits you want - a system that keeps your educational facility secure without further involvement on from administrators or constant budget expansions.
- Our professional-grade equipment is rugged and performance-driven. Our sophisticated technology is both simple to install and maintain.
- Each component comes with 3 to 5 year warranties and is backed by the support of our US-based technical staff for the lifetime of your security system.
- Our AI-Powered Analytics and easy to use reporting and retention tools mean that you won't have to hire additional staff to manage your system.
With A Modern
Surveillance Ecosystem
For Your
House of Worship
Invest In The Best
SCW can protect house of worship and parishioners with money-saving time and benefits. And your IT and Security teams will love our US-based technical support. It comes FREE. Forever.World-class customer service and technical support are central to providing you with the best security available, anywhere.