Faith-Based Daily Awareness Post 19 October 2026

These updates are shared to help raise the situational awareness of Faith-Based organizations to best defend against and mitigate the impacts from all-hazards threats including physical security, cybersecurity, and natural disasters.

IL: Little Village shooting victims were targeted outside New Life Center church after packing meals

A group of New Life Center staff and volunteers was targeted in a shooting outside the Little Village church shortly after returning from a meal-packing event Friday night. According to church officials, the group had taken teenagers to Feed My Starving Children to prepare meals for families abroad. An assailant in a white sedan opened fire as three people left the church, injuring two staff members and a volunteer; a fourth person was also wounded. All four victims ages 19, 25, 26, and 56 were hospitalized in good condition. Church leaders condemned the violence and emphasized that their offices, youth centers, and community spaces must remain safe for those working to mentor young people, prevent violence, and support the neighborhood.

Analyst Comments: This incident highlights the vulnerability of faith-based personnel and volunteers during arrivals and departures, particularly after evening activities.

Houses of worship may consider:

• Assessing exterior lighting.
• Evaluating surveillance coverage.
• Reviewing access-control measures.
• Improving visibility in parking areas and along arrival and departure routes.
• Establishing check-in and buddy procedures for staff and volunteers.
• Coordinating response plans with local law enforcement.
• Training personnel to recognize and report suspicious vehicles or behavior without confrontation.
• Identifying secure areas and practicing how to move to them quickly.

The Gate 15 Interview EP 75. E-ISAC’s Jesse Sythe on GridEx, Resilience, Fromage, and MTV!

The Gate 15 Interview is a monthly interview between Gate 15’s Founder and Managing Director, Andy Jabbour and guests from throughout the homeland security risk management community addressing a wide range of all-hazards topics and issues.

In this month’s Gate 15 Interview Andy hosts Jesse Sythe, GridEx program manager at the Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center (E-ISAC). The ISAC’s lessons extend well beyond the grid. Dependencies among electricity, natural gas, data centers, and AI continue to grow. Recovery deserves as much exercise time as response, and resilience starts with being comfortable identifying your own faults. The best parts: how a gas pipeline problem can snowball into outages and back again, why data centers and AI introduce a new dependency to plan for, and why Jesse tells organizations to put their rock stars on the evaluator side to test their bench. The takeaway: assume you will get hit, practice with the people you will need on the bad day and keep your bench deeper than your best performers.

Information on other Gate 15 podcasts can be found at Podcasts (gate15.global).

FB-ISAO Releases an All-Faiths Analysis of Attacks on U.S. Houses of Worship in 2025

The Faith-Based Information Sharing and Analysis Organization (FB-ISAO) released its third annual analysis of attacks on U.S. houses of worship, identifying 915 reported incidents in 2025, an 8.8% increase from 2024. Protestant churches accounted for 63% of incidents, followed by Catholic churches (14%), synagogues (12%), and mosques (5%). Theft and vandalism remained common, but casualties increased from 69 in 2024 to 202 in 2025, including 48 deaths and 154 injuries. Assaults accounted for nearly 90% of deaths and more than 86% of injuries.

More than half of reported incidents occurred outside houses of worship, highlighting vulnerabilities in parking lots, walkways, entrances, and surrounding grounds. Threats also varied by faith community, with Jewish and Muslim institutions experiencing more communicated threats, intimidation, and graffiti. Cyber incidents were significantly underreported, despite risks from phishing, compromised credentials, data theft, and extortion.

FB-ISAO recommends conducting site-specific threat assessments, improving perimeter security and lighting, controlling access, training staff and volunteers, coordinating with law enforcement, and strengthening cybersecurity practices. The report emphasizes prioritizing security measures based on the threats most likely to affect each congregation.