“Honey, I’ve Got the Bible. You Bring the Gun.”

Schools, movie theaters, concerts. We can now include our churches.

I am a gun owner, and Monday-Saturday, that gun is usually on me.

If there was one time and place on Earth I thought I could leave my handgun at home, it was when I went to church with my family on Sundays. I have enough trouble as it is getting dressed in time and remembering my Bible.

After small-town church shootings in Antioch, Tennessee (September) and now Sutherland Springs, Texas, church goers across the country are understandably nervous. Most of them felt they, too, were free to leave their weapons at home on Sundays.

I don’t want to carry a gun to church.

A small bit of personal backstory: my family-unit left the big-city two years ago for small-town country life for several reasons, a big one being the desire to find a place to live where we did not feel we had to constantly be looking over our shoulders for the nut everywhere we went.

This just in-the nuts are everywhere.

Burnett Chapel Church of Christ in Antioch and Sutherland Springs Baptist Church in Texas are usually filled with about 50–60 worshipers on a Sunday morning. So is the little church my family and neighbors attend. In a place where life’s pace is slow and disruption kept to a minimum, folks here are suddenly on edge.

Throughout Texas, throughout America, thousands of little churches like these dot the map. Facilities and furnishings are humble. Congregations plain and simple. Financially speaking, there’s usually not much to go around. There isn’t much to be threatened by.

Last night after our Sunday services, a meeting was held to discuss what security measures (if any) our congregation had in place. I had some simple suggestions I felt would make a difference, but before I could get them out, the consensus among the men present to “gun up” was quickly voiced. This was not what I was hoping for.

Have you ever sat in a church pew? Out of all the seating devices in the world, the church pew is hands down the most uncomfortable invented. Hard wood, little if any padding. It’s designed, I am convinced, to keep you awake. And now, I must occupy one with a .45 cutting into my back hip? C’mon.

I don’t want to carry a gun to church.

About ten years ago, before we left the city and were still attending a large church, my family and I were walking through the parking lot one morning when I noticed a man at his vehicle removing something from his back seat. As he did, he unknowingly unconcealed his concealed handgun. I thought to myself, “Really? At church?”

A couple of years later, that same church warmed to the idea of police officers who were members attending services in uniform, spending extra time in the foyer and near the front doors, politely making their presence known. I had no problem with this, but it did get me wondering-is something going on I need to be aware of?

As a friend politely reminded me yesterday afternoon as the news of this most recent tragedy was spreading: “This is not new. There have been many instances of church shootings in America over the last 25 years.”

Another expressed that this tragedy was no different than the mass shootings in our schools, movie theaters, night clubs, and concerts.

It isn’t, but it is.

I fear our places of worship are now actively and purposefully being targeted. Not just because we are easy, sitting-ducks, but because we are perceived by some to be part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

Christianity is no stranger to persecution. It was there at the beginning of our history and has never left. But for the most part, acts of aggressive violence towards Christians in America have not been commonplace, at least not in our churches. But today, as the cauldron of hate cooks before us, being stirred faster and its bitter brew splashing out upon us, confused and angry people who have lost their direction are actively searching for someone to point a finger at and hold responsible for all that is wrong. Some choose politicians. Some choose innocent concert-goers. Now, it appears some are choosing people of faith.

No one feels a victim until they have been victimized. Not the people of Orlando. Not the people of Virginia Tech. Not the people of San Bernardino.

Neither did the 26 murdered in a quiet little church in Texas yesterday who felt Sunday was the one day they could relax and leave their guns at home.

I don’t have any answers. A lot of people out there seem to. For now, though, it looks like I’m back to looking over my shoulder again.

What I do know is, I don’t want to carry a gun to church.