ECCLESIASTICAL SAFETY (CHURCH HEALTH & SAFETY)

Some months ago, it was the collapse of a church building in Akwa Ibom State but now another church in Abuja called House on the Rock was engulfed in fire yesterday 25/06/2017 with the cause yet to be ascertained. Good to know that no lives were lost but what about the damage to properties.

With all these happenings around, it has become imperative to look into the Ecclesiastical Safety in our country. Asides efforts by our churches to ensure its members and visitors are spiritual safe, how many of them are also concerned about the health and safety of their so called members and visitors alike.

Our venues of worship aren’t exempted when it comes to health and safety. Our churches have duties of care to all their church members and visitors by possessing adequate health and safety policy, suitable and sufficient risk assessments, fire arrangements and procedures for emergencies and evacuations.

With the House on the Rock Church fire incident still fresh in our minds, it’s a wake up call to our churches to do the needful.

Good management of fire safety is essential to ensure that fires are unlikely to occur and that if they do occur, they are likely to be controlled or contained quickly; effectively and safely. If the fire does occur and grow, better still, everyone in your premises is able to escape to a place of total safety easily and quickly.

The risk assessment your church must carry out will help ensure that your fire safety procedures, fire prevention measures and fire precautions (plans, systems and equipment) are all in place and working properly and the risk assessment should identify any issues that needs attention. The risk assessment should establish that as far as is reasonably practicable, you have considered the needs of all relevant persons including the disabled people.

As Pastors, General Overseers, Bishops, Reverends, Founders etc there is the need to appoint one or more competent persons (it could be you or anyone trained or a third party) to carry out any of the preventive and protective measures your church needs.

Below are the steps to take to carry out a fire risk assessment.

1.       Identify the fire hazards (sources of ignition, fuel and oxygen)

2.       Identify people at risk (people in and around the premises, people especially at risk)

3.       Evaluate, remove, reduce and protect from risk

4.       Record, plan, inform, instruct and train

5.       Review your risk assessment.

Its high time our pastors, founders, general overseers translate the energy used to clamor for seed sowing into ensuring reasonably practicable actions are taken towards ensuring the safety and health of their members and visitors to their premises.

You can only get a living member to sow their seeds. Wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom and with all thy getting get understanding. Let’s join hands together to ensure and enforce ecclesiastical safety.