2025 Annual Church Safety Conference
Looking for ways to help keep your church or organization safe in both daily activities and emergency situations? Our annual Church Safety Conference provides hands-on training from building safety to de-escalation tactics to legal liabilities.
It’s that time again! The 2025 Larry Jackson Memorial Church Safety Conference will be here before you know it!
When?
February 22, 2025
Where?
First Baptist Church of Middleville
Who?
You!
Why?
Because we value our freedom to gather and worship together, and we want to help and equip churches and organizations to keep those in their facilities safe.
How?
Through generous donations from our sponsors and attendees like you!
We are still working to nail down the last few breakout session speakers. Check back frequently for the finalized list and more information.
Featured Speaker:
John Riley
We’re happy to announce this year’s keynote speaker is John Riley, founder of Gentle Response, and an expert in de-escalation training. You can find out more about John and Gentle Response on his website via the link below.
About John
After 7 years in the Army as an infantryman John Riley became a police officer, and despite all the lights and sirens and drama on TV from shows like Cops, he learned early in his career that 99% of his time was spent simply talking to people, mediating between people, and de-escalating situations with people! Riley strongly believes that your body language, your tone of voice and whether you are actively listening will strongly affect how you handle a volatile situation with a loud angry person.
Riley retired from the Grand Rapids, Michigan police department in 2015, and it was while preparing a conflict de-escalation training class for his church security team in 2016 that he realized what he had to share and teach would benefit anyone who deals with the public. Riley can share with you and your staff or team what he learned in 20 years about de-escalating a situation and he reinforces it with dynamic scenario role-playing. He and his team travel wherever needed, and will help you and your team develop the knowledge, skills, confidence and de-escalation techniques to deal with a loud angry person, and prevent a stressful situation from becoming a dangerous critical incident.
From starting out teaching church staff and volunteers, Riley and his team now also travel around the country conducting very dynamic, realistic scenario based Conflict De-escalation Training seminars for businesses, corporations, state agencies, as well as staff and volunteers from educational and medical organizations. This training program is applicable for anyone who has regular contact with customers, clients, colleagues, and who may find themselves dealing with someone who is loud, rude, obnoxious, and confrontational.