The Zero 5 Podcast brings ideas, information, and training to help churches build safety ministries that facilitate worship and fellowship that is safe and free from worry.
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In this episode of the Zero 5 Podcast I’m joined by my fellow Zero 5 instructor Grant Flynn, and a close friend and fellow safety team member Wes Tanskley. Wes brought up a great question a couple of weeks ago about whether or not it’s possible for safety team members to train too much. The original goal of this episode was to have a discussion debating on whether or not training too much is possible. What we ended up having was an agreement that it IS possible, and more discussion on why it’s possible and how it can be mitigated.
If you are a safety ministry leader, or a team member and you have a struggle getting people to attend your training sessions or find enough value in your training to make it a priority this is the episode for you.
PROTECT HIS PEOPLE. GIVE HIM THE GLORY.
Mike
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15 Sept 2026
Ep. 21 Vetting Instructors and Trainers
Eight years ago if you did a Google search for church safety training you might come up with 2 or 3 entities that were in the “business” of training and consulting church safety ministries. Now it seems like every church-going, retired police officer or veteran has a “training” business and TONS of firearms instructors have suddenly entered the church safety training world. Thats all fine and dandy, but when it comes to training your safety ministry do you really want just any trainer?
In this episode I briefly rehash the difference between instruction and training, and then I outline some key markers to look for in a quality trainer for your church safety ministry. Note that I specify “trainer for your safety ministry”. There are plenty of great trainers and instructors out there, but very few can relate the topics they are teaching to safety ministry. A trainer or instructor may check all of the boxes of real world knowledge/experience, certifications, and understanding of training processes, but if the heart behind why they are instructing what their instructing is not rooted in the Holy Spirit and in the role of the safety ministry in actually ministering to people then they’ve missed the boat.
PROTECT HIS PEOPLE. GIVE HIM THE GLORY.
Mike
Zero 5 Safety Training's Substack is made possible through the support of paid subscribers. If you enjoy our content please consider upgrading your subscription, or at the very least sharing our content.
Get full access to Zero 5 Safety Training's Substack at zero5safetytraining.substack.com/subscribe (https://zero5safetytraining.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)
1 Sept 2026
Foundations of Incident Response pt.2
Last episode I discussed the most important, foundational skill of incident response: Radio Communications. In that episode I alluded to another concept called the 1000 piece puzzle, which I discuss in this episode.
The gist of this concept is that every incident must be viewed as a puzzle, some easy and some complex, that needs to be put together. The easier the puzzle the less coordination the less need for separate oversight. As we get into more complex puzzles the need for oversight/command and team work grows. This is where having GOOD training in basic skillsets, experience through real world operations or through scenarios; and the ability to problem solve rather be robotic is so key.
A good team/teammate recognizes the type of puzzle they have, the pieces they have in front of them, the tools they have to put those pieces together, and is able to start plugging in their part of the puzzle without explicit direction. One of the fire department traditions that has begun to go by the wayside with the newer generation is initiating rookies. Today they call it hazing, but when it was prevalent it was initiation with a purpose.
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When a rookie or probationary firefighter came to a station the older firefighters would nitpick every little thing they did, and constantly gave them a hard time for work that wasn’t done around the station. Heaven forbid a rookie ever stand around or sit while there was work that needed to be done! While this appeared like hazing to outsiders, to the salty firefighters it served a purpose. They understood the concept of the incident puzzle and the fact that every emergency incident had 50 different tasks that needed completed by only 4 people. If you weren’t working on something to mitigate the incident you were wrong.
By giving rookie firefighters a hard time anytime there was work that needed to be done that wasn’t getting done it created a natural stress response that drove them to search for work and plug in anywhere they could. It was an indirect way of training them how to look for pieces of the puzzle that needed filling in, which defaulted into training them to be problem solvers. That mentality is what is needed of church safety team members!
Watch/listen to this episode and learn what the 1000 piece puzzle concept is and how you can apply it as a team member or ministry leader.
PROTECT HIS PEOPLE. GIVE HIM THE GLORY.
Mike
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