Pastor Kris Dillingham knows what it’s like to be afraid at church.

In 2009, he was preaching near St. Louis just a mile away from an Illinois Baptist church where a man walked in and fatally shot the pastor.

“Obviously, that leaves a mark,” said the senior pastor at Summit Church (formerly First Apostolic Church of Toledo) on West Sylvania Avenue.

It can be a challenge to focus on presenting a spiritual message when sometimes scanning the crowd for threats, Pastor Dillingham said.

As the leader of the congregation, he feels a responsibility to make sure his members feel safe while they worship.

“It’s really unfortunate that a church has to have a very robust security team these days. It’s just the world that we live in and something that we take extremely serious,” he said the day af

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