Strategos tracks church crimes around the country

​The murder of Wichita abortion provider George Tiller last May would have been shocking no matter what the circumstances. The fact that Tiller was gunned down while ushering at a church just made his death that much more outrageous.

As it turns out, attacks in God's house are all too common.

Since 2001, Grandview's Strategos has built its business by teaching church congregations to defend themselves (we wrote about Strategos' work training Missouri teachers to fight off attackers in a  March 2009 feature story.

Now, Strategos has launched a Web site to track attacks inside houses of worship called Church Safety News. The home page shows a map of the United States, marking every recent occurrence of a crime on church grounds.

Just this month there's been a stabbing, murder, rape, arson and multiple robberies -- all in U.S. churches. That includes a theft at a church in Salina, Kansas; an alleged molestation in Johnson County; and an arson in Lamar, Missouri.

Former Pitch staff writer and freelance journalist Ben Paynter wrote a good story in this month's edition of Fast Company detailing Strategos' work teaching churches to take out shooters.