Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates

Terrorists Among Us with Keith Graves

• Travis Yates • Episode 133

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In this powerful interview, Travis speaks to Keith Graves, a 29-year law enforcement veteran and a worldwide expert in church security, to discuss the dangers in and outside the church. We share practical steps for Christmas services, early warning signs, and how to act with discernment and courage.

• Keith’s path from policing to church security training
• Free resources, newsletter growth, and why they matter
• Pre-attack indicators and surveillance cues to watch
• Why Christmas services raise a unique risk
• How to build an “enhanced greeter” safety culture
• When police response lags and how to bridge the gap
• Scriptural basis for vigilant, compassionate protection
• Practical coverage: doors, kids’ areas, parking, chokepoints
• Staying alert while worshiping without feeding fear
• A call for courageous leadership and clear mission

We encourage you to read our article associated with this podcast.

Go to ChristianWarriorTraining.com and sign up for the most important newsletter for any freedom loving American. 


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Announcement:

Welcome to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates, where leaders find the insights, advice, and encouragement they need to lead courageously.

Travis Yates:

Welcome back to the show. We've tried and tried, and we finally got him here. And you are not going to be disappointed. You know him already. His name is Keith Graves. He's a 29-year police officer, a 20-year SWAT team veteran with extensive experience in narcotics investigations training and leadership. He's the founder of Christian Warrior Training that empowers churches with the knowledge and tools they need to create a safe and secure environment for their numbers. And that's really what I want to talk to him about today. We're right before Christmas, entering into the new year, 2025, into 2026. Keith Graves, thanks so much for being here, man.

Keith Graves:

Thank you, brother. It's nice to be back on.

Travis Yates:

Well, I know I sort of twisted your arm. I, you know, you're busy and I'm busy, and we've tried a few times this year to get you on the on the show. And but you know, the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, You got to get Keith on before Christmas. You got to publish before Christmas. I don't ever know what that means. I just sort of, the older I get, I just follow it. And I sort of guilted you because I said, Keith, the Holy Spirit has told me you've got to be on the show before Christmas. And you very you very fortunately said, Well, can you do it Saturday? So here we are, man.

Keith Graves:

Right on. I'm glad to be here, man. This it's uh wonderful how the Lord talks to us. It's funny how, like, when you're younger, you ignore the signs from the Lord. And all the trouble that follows from that, and then when you just submit and just go, like, all right, man, what do you want me to do? Yeah, you want me to come on Saturday morning? Okay, you know. Well, I mean, I'll be honest, man.

Travis Yates:

You know, I I in retirement, or well, I would say I'm not retired like you, but I'm but in with I work with my own schedule now, like you. You know, I'm doing more Bible readings and more devotionals, and I'm I'm like, why did I not find this 30 years ago? My life would have been completely different, right? I I mean, from wellness to financial, I'm like, I knew it, but I just didn't take the time to do it. And so those some of you young bucks or gals that are listening to this, man, just stop for 15 minutes in a quiet room and just stop. I mean, I wish I would have, but we're there now, man, and you're doing amazing work. And I want people to know before we get going, because I'm sincere about this. There is there's a lot of so-called influencers out there. There's a lot of people in different spaces, in leadership space, or Christian security space, church security space. There's not anybody more selfless that's giving to these environments than Keith Graves, man. I mean, people they aren't aware probably of what you're doing. But I mean, I follow a lot of people because I have time to do that and I like to read. No one's putting out what you're putting out, Keith. I mean, it's just, and it's all free, it's all unbelievable. Let's before we get going, just sort of bring us into your journey. We know your law enforcement, we know you were on the left coast, west coast, we know all the crazy stuff you dealt with there, but man, you're devoting a lot of your time now to church security, and you talk about you know Christian persecution around the world, something that's media doesn't even talk about. You're the actual source for that, you're getting quoted in major media outlets for that. How did you get there, man?

Keith Graves:

Yeah, man. So I walked into my church uh one day and I felt like I needed to serve. And I thought I was gonna be a greeter, you know, just yeah, be careful with that feeling, right? Yeah, yeah. And uh my my one of the pastors looks at me and just goes, Hey, you look like a guy that carries concealed. I well carrying right now. He's like, Well, you have a CCW. And I'm like, Yeah, yeah, I do. You know, I didn't say I was a cop or a retired cop or anything. And he goes, uh, well, perfect. Why don't you join a security team? Okay. Didn't know there was a security team, didn't know anything about church security. You know, I was just like, okay. And I was on the team, that was it. And I was like, wait a minute, there should be more to this. There should be some questions, a qualification. There should be some training. We had train, our team was really good. We had training and a bunch of other stuff, but like I just realized as I started diving into this, I realized there's a lot of people that want to do the right thing, they just need to be pointing in the right direction and they need training. And so I started we start I started training my guys.

Travis Yates:

Now, Keith, if you look for other resources out there, I mean you you probably like me, you're like, This this has already got to exist. Let me let me look and find it. And fortunately, and obviously you came up a little short.

Keith Graves:

Yeah, I did. Yeah, and so uh I I looked and I was disappointed, and and you know, like I was disappointed with what I found. And and I so as I was training my guys, I was like, there's classes that we're gonna have that should just be online. And I was already training cops. I was trained, I was traveling like 40 weeks a year or more, training cops all around the world. And so I was like, I'm just gonna make these training videos sitting at my like sitting right here, and just like, hey, this is how you can tell if somebody's carrying a gun. This is how you tell if somebody wants to do something bad. Here's pre-attack indicators, you know, here's somebody that's surveilling your church. Here's how you talk, here's contact cover, you know, like simple stuff like that, right? Use of force. And I put those videos up hosted on my cop side of things, and it was just for my people. And then they were like, hey, can we share this? I was like, yeah, no problem, share it. And like the videos were going through the roof because the numbers were going through the roof because it's free training, right? And I was having the cop side of the house pay for things. And then um I started a newsletter to communicate with my people because my church was actually very strict with their email list. And I'm like, I just want to email. We had like 50 church security team members at the time. I mean, now we have 120. And I was like, hey, like, I want to email these people. Uh, send it to us, and then we'll send it out. And it just gets bifurcated. And so I started a newsletter, like, I was at a training. I'm like, everybody sign up and I'm gonna send you training stuff every week. And then they're like, Can I share it? Go ahead, brother. 40,000 people subscribed in the first year.

Travis Yates:

How many do you have now? Because I'm a subscriber.

Keith Graves:

Oh, I the last the last time I looked was like 60,000 plus, and I I just stopped looking because it's it just it's too much, you know. Like, like I don't want to be like, you know how it is that when you do social media, you have a huge dopamine hit on the numbers, like you see like the numbers going up, and you're like, Oh, I don't want that to be a driving factor, or you look at other people's numbers and go, how come I don't have those numbers? All that's yeah, and I know like I knew I knew how to do social media from from River City and and and other places, and yeah, for those of you that don't know, you didn't listen to the last show with Keith, is he's the River City chief. If you see that satire website, I I am Chief Sheriff, stay them. Um and uh like I knew how to do social media, and I'm like, you know, we we should be putting all this information out on social media. Well, like now I've hired my daughter. My daughter brought my she really in the last I brought her on four weeks ago. In the last four weeks, she brought my Facebook page from, and again, I don't want to look at numbers, but here I am looking at numbers from 4,500 people to 32,000 in four weeks.

Travis Yates:

Whoa, I may have to hire her. That's good. That's that's amazing, man.

Keith Graves:

Yeah, she's doing a good job. And what it is is like we're just trying to straight stay true to the Lord. We're trying to stay true to the Bible. So everything that we put out, if we put out an incident like this uh Bondi uh Bondi Beach shooting, we talk about like, hey, here's what happened. Here's your lessons learned, here's what you should do, right? And you know, I just break it down, like, you know, you have to, you're a security team, go out and look where a shooter would go, and then occupy that area to deny them that space. I mean, something simple like that, right? Stuff that we would already know. And in the end, I'll put what the Bible has to say about this. And, you know, certainly we can go to like Nehemiah 4.9 about like, you know, you're rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, you gotta, you know, you've got you're building stuff in one hand, you got your sword in the other. I mean, that's kind of one that everybody goes to where Luke 22, 36, uh, you know, sell your cloak by a sword. Everybody goes to that stuff. I try to go deeper than that. You know, I try to go to like uh, I just put out a newsletter and it had nothing to do with church security. It was about misunderstanding God's will. And people will be like, Well, we don't need a security team because God will protect us. God will protect us by giving us men that are warriors that go to training and learn how to use self-defense tools to protect their people. There, there's no there, God has made it clear when you go back.

Travis Yates:

Well, there's not there's not a page in scripture where people didn't have swords and weren't fighting. I mean, what are they thinking?

Keith Graves:

Like Noah, Noah didn't go like, oh, well, God will protect me from the flood waters. No, like, you know, the Lord was like, hey, the floods are coming, get ready, you know, and it's like, okay, right. And and it it bothers me a little bit when I see people that will say, like, why do you carry a gun to church? Because I love my I love my people, and Jesus told us we're gonna be persecuted. You know, like I get a lot from from retired cops. Look, man, I'm old and broken, but I take an MP5 and I go to the shoot house and I'll run through that thing like nobody's business, right? Or I'll take uh, you know, whatever, you know, uh whatever gun, right? And I'll go practice constantly because the Lord gave me that training. It wasn't the government, it wasn't my team leader sending me to that class. The Lord gave me that opportunity and he gave me these tools, and I I don't want to lose that, right? And I want to go out and I want to practice, I want to keep my skills sharp, and I want to share that with other people. And then, like the lastly, I just kind of I don't want to go on fine tangent here, but I've started going out and teaching tactics a little bit more deeper. And I get a lot of comments from people that would be like, Whoa, whoa, you shouldn't be doing that. The police should be doing that. 100% the police should be doing that. I agree wholeheartedly. Well, what if the police don't show up or they don't act? Then somebody's gonna have to do that, and it and it's gonna be you, whether you like it or not, and you're gonna be completely uncomfortable doing it, but somebody's got to do it. And all you have to do is go back and look at Uvaldi, or like just look at the Brown University active shooter and just watch those guys doing a news conference. And you know, why I mean, like, it's the homeless guy that came out and broke the case, you know. It's it's you know, and it just you you you have we have to be ready. The Lord we were told that we were gonna be persecuted, and that doesn't mean you should wait for that to come come get you.

Travis Yates:

Right, right. And and what's so wild, Keith, is is everybody needs to go to Christian Warrior Training.com, sign up for the newsletter. I assume that's the right place to get the newsletter right, Keith. Yes, thank you. And and you've got to because as Keith talked about, it's not just well, I don't go to church, I'm running church security. Man, you're you're reviewing guns, you're talking about the SIG controversy. I bought my CCW insurance through your recommendation, through bear something, whatever it's like. Right to bear. Yeah, right to bear. I mean, so you're you're just uh unlike the other stuff you see online, which is all paid for and this and that, you can't trust any reviews anywhere anymore. I mean, it's just so valuable if you do care about the safety of you or others, regardless of church environment or not. And is it just me, Keith? I mean, maybe it's because I follow your newsletter. I mean, these shootings appear to be occurring more often. I don't want to fall into that trap because the media can influence it, but you have a good beat on this. Is this more common than we used to see?

Keith Graves:

Uh, I do believe so. Uh, I've been tracking active shooter events over the last 50 years at churches, and you can see a steady increase. I mean, look at Sulfur Springs, Texas. You know, that's less than 10 years ago. 50 people shot, 20, 26 people killed, you know, in a church. Uh, I got an interview coming out with um uh Stephen Wilford, the guy that shot uh shot that suspect. Um I just coming out right now, it should pop up on YouTube in about four minutes. Uh I got a video uh year-end, the year-end review of all the most violent crimes at churches. And I so I wanted to pick 10 of the violent crimes at churches. I had a hard time picking which 10 would go in there because there were so many. You would think like there weren't like 10 shootings at churches. Oh man, like the top four are active shooter events. The the next two, three above that were church security teams that stopped active shooters in their tracks before they were able to initiate or shortly after they initiated, right? I mean, I I do believe it's increasing, but but we know that because the Lord told us that it was gonna happen. I mean, you could open up your book and go, where am I at right now in the Bible? Am I in Revelation? Am I in Daniel? Like, am I in Isaiah? Like, where am I at right now? And you could see the timeline, right? It's it shouldn't be a surprise for us, right? And then for the cops, you know, that are watching this. I mean, we see that on the street. I saw everything getting more screwed up on the street before I left. That that doesn't mean the church doesn't get does, you know, stays free of any violence or any problems or anything like that. And so it is increasing. And not only that, you had ISIS and Al-Qaeda, not to hit all the keywords that are gonna get you screwed up here. Um, ISIS, ISIS and Al-Qaeda have come out and told their people multiple, they tell them every couple months in their magazines, go attack the Christians, go attack the Jews, and do it in Europe and do it in America. And every time they do that, somebody does. Now, whether it's truly related or not, we don't know, right? But the last act that uh the last active shooter event we had, I put out like about a week before. I put out, hey, ISIS put out in their magazine for people to attack Christians in in America. I didn't say it and I should have, but I wanted to say like every time they do this, somebody does follow through with it. So my feeling is somebody's gonna get hit in the next couple weeks. Dude, it was four days later. It's almost predictable at this point, right?

Travis Yates:

Well, and and I don't want to, I mean, I don't want to, I'm not trying to freak anybody out, but I mean, I don't know why I had this urgent. I got to get a keith on, we got to get a warning out there. But we're coming up on Christmas, uh, that symbolizes the birth of Christ. We're coming up on New Year's. We already know in law enforcement that Christmas Eve, Christmas, it's the deadliest days in law enforcement. We could dive into why that is, but we already know that when you look at all the days of the year, we already know it's the deadliest days, the most violent day. That probably means it also is for the general public. Tell talk to us about why Christmas itself uh into the new year could be so dangerous for Christmas.

Keith Graves:

All right, so obviously because of the birth of Christ, and you also have Hanukkah, and then you also have the Middle East, you have everything going on in the Middle East right now. You got all the Hamas lovers in the United States right now that are just cheering on these criminals. You have people on the left after after the Minneapolis uh shooting where a man murdered children at mass and just shot them up through the stairs.

Travis Yates:

And what's so nuts, Keith, is most people listening to this go, I vaguely remember those stories. Like it goes away so quick when it happens.

Keith Graves:

It does. Oh, Bondi Beach is leaving people's memory already, right? After immediately after the Minnesota shooting, a bunch of left-wing commentators and left-wing influencers came out and said, for you people that want to do after-shooter events, do what this guy did. Go hit the Christians and leave us normal people alone. Bro, they hear that. Because our biggest threat, like I'll put out a threat intelligence analysis. Like I did one for Christmas a couple weeks ago. And I do like, you know, law enforcement style, CIA style, threat intelligence. Like, here's what we know. And I've got good cops that are still that I've trained over the years that still send me information of like, here, here's what we know, here's what's going on, so I can stay in the loop. And then I share that to Christians and and to Jews that basically it's like, look, here's our key judgments. Christmas is coming up. Here's what the left-wing influencers have said. Here's what ISIS and Al-Qaeda have said, and here's what's going on in the Middle East that would drive this, and what's going on at home with the protests and stuff like that. And so with these celebrations coming up, if you want to make a splash, certainly you can do it at Easter. But there's nothing like Christmas. Because you have, we call them creasers, right? They go to Christmas and they go to Easter, and that's it, right? And we hope that they start coming in between that, right? But the creasers come out and they really come out on Christmas.

Travis Yates:

I mean, how many churches and the houses of worship are packed?

Keith Graves:

They are full of people, right? And it's just not the mega church. I mean, Sulfur Springs was a tiny church of just like 70 people or something. I mean, and Sulfur Springs has like a thousand people in it, 3,000, something like that. Super small city, right? And you know, so people are like, oh, you know, it's only gonna be the mega churches. No, it's not. Here's the other thing. I put out information earlier this year where there was a series of incidents. JTTF dismissed it and they should not have. But it started with an incident in Irvine where three men, I got I got photos of it. I do it in my debriefing while I do a live live sessions where these guys go into a church, a mega church, and they're doing this at the children's area. And a church security team member filmed him filming the children. So it's not like he's he's got an excuse for anything. When they stop him, they do the we don't speak English. So they call Irvine PD and they stop him. Well, it turns out the uh one of the guys came from Afghanistan, they're all Afghani or from Afgh they're all Afghan nationals. And one of the Afghan dudes came over on the airlift last minute in California gave all of them ID cards. Okay. Well, one of the church security team members, they have we always tell churches, if you have a security team, you should have an intelligence officer. Somebody that takes the intelligence and deep dives this. So one of the guys just does deep dives on this guy's Facebook page, and there's a picture of him in Nuristan, Afghanistan, posing with a Taliban member, and the Taliban, or he made a comment to the Taliban guy, you chose in Af in Afghan language, says, uh, you chose the Taliban, I chose to come fight abroad. Something like that.

Travis Yates:

Well, that leads me, that leads me to what I want to get to, and I apologize for interrupting, but it's a great the immigration in this country under Joe Biden and then before. And it's really wild to see you mention the left earlier, how the left doesn't they they do understand it, but how they're trying to make everyone think that well, they're not committing a crime, they're not criminals, yeah, they're all over here illegally, millions of people. And the I don't I I I think people are scared to think about it, the danger that this country is under with what you just talked about. That you talked about one example. There are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of potential terrorists walking the streets of America. And I I I mean, it is mind boggling, and the president, President Trump, has done the only thing that he he can do to try to make it a little safer, but he's never going. To touch an inkling of what's here, you can never get them out. And so, I mean, there's there's a lot to talk about with this issue like why would a political party purposely destroy this country because that's what is going to happen. I mean, we could just talk about how many people the truck drivers have killed, more or less violent attacks. But I guess it's just stay in this lane of as an American citizen, um the dangers that they're actually in. Obviously, not from everybody, but if you bring in millions of people and you haven't vetted them and they didn't vet them, the story you just told is magnified by thousands.

Keith Graves:

Well, when I put that out, I put that out to everybody. Hey, heads up, this what looks like a Taliban guy was doing pre-attack surveillance of a mega church down south. I know the questions the guy, the suspect asked. He asked, Do you have video surveillance or video? Do you or do you live, do you have a live feed? Um do you have security team? Do you have like all like that? Like I like they're so open about it. I knew the questions, but I didn't really publish all of them. And I sent this out to like at the time, you know, 30,000, 40,000 people. And I immediately heard from four separate people, one of them a police commander who's in charge of a church in the South. And he said, bro, I had that too. He not only that, he's a commander of the intelligence division of his agency. And he goes, bro, like I had the same thing. These are the questions they asked. Dude, that's the same questions they asked in this Southern California incident. And then I heard from a church in Virginia, and then I heard from a church in Texas. All the same questions, all the same everything, right? And it was, and we put that back down in Christian Warrior, like multiple churches are now reporting. There was a day of pre-attack surveillance. And JCTF totally dismissed it. You know, to the people that reported it. And the one in Virginia, the police commander made it a point because they'll look at my social media and go, whoops, we should contact this guy, right? And uh, and they go, Hey, we just want to let you know we clear this. I'm like, bro, this is not cleared. What the excuse he told me was, oh, it's this, it's a Middle Eastern male that owns a security company that was just checking to see if they needed a security team for the church, like something like that. I'm like, dude, are you listening to yourself talk? Like, I'm I wasn't looking, I know I was just a sergeant, but which means you were one of the smarter ones in the department for sure. Well, what I have found is that the the leap from sergeant to commander, I mean, you're still supervising people, and it's just what I found sergeants actually supervise more, right? You just lose brain cells making that jump, that's all. I know, right? And so I um I internally I was screaming, and I was like, bro, I want to make a River City post about you, but I can't, you know, like like we can't, but this is where I always tell I always tell people a Christian warrior, nobody is coming to save you. And it's not disrespect to law enforcement. I will die blued. I mean, when you look up here, that's four generations of first issue service pistols. Okay, I'm third generation cop. My son was fourth. And like I I am so blue, like you can't, no, the right blue, not the bad blue. I am so blue, you know, it'll make a head spin. But what I'm seeing lately is I'm seeing cops that are afraid to act because you we keep prosecuting them. We keep we keep trying to make them superhuman when they're not. And the problem is it now affects the church. We need men, we need men and women that can that have the warrior mentality, that uh that also have discernment, they can sit down and greet somebody. I always tell people you're an enhanced greeter. Is they come in, have a smile on your face, welcome to the church. It's so wonderful to see you. And if you see trouble, you have a plan to deal with it, and you have a plan to deal with it now. If the cops come and it's not handled appropriately, you can still keep your church safe. If the cops handle it and they do everything, which 99% of the time, they're gonna show up and they're gonna take care of it appropriately. Life is good. We protected the church, we're all good. But God forbid we have some incident like Uvaldi at our church.

Travis Yates:

Well, God forbid we have an incident that happened in Joel Osteen's church where the cops did show up, but it was it was the biggest clown show you can think of. And and I know you're hearing the same thing, Keith, but listen, we're not gonna badmouth all of new law enforcement officers, but it's not a secret within law enforcement, it's a dirty little secret that the cops that there are cops that say, I don't want that new kid coming to the call with me. I don't want to be around what you're hiring. The that they're hiring kids that grew up under, you know, in the last 10 years that get offended by words, right? That have been growing up in that education system. And that is going to affect every community in America. Maybe it hasn't reared its ugly head yet, but that's going to affect everybody. And um, so you can't even assume that the response is going to be appropriate.

Keith Graves:

No, and I'm not trying to make I'm not trying to make church security teams SWAT teams by any stretch of imagination. Okay. I'm just trying to get men and women with the heart of a warrior to come up. I like looking at the book of Nehemiah and the book of Ezra. You're a safety ministry, okay? You have the warrior heart of uh uh of Nehemiah, where I'm gonna rebuild the walls, I'll have a weapon in one hand, rebuilding with the other, but you have the heart of Ezra, where you're also you know, taking care of people spiritually and trying to make sure that they, you know, understand the word and bringing people to Christ. You you need to be your ministry, you should be doing both, right? And I think former law enforcement, current law getting current cops to serve on a security team is really rough, man, because they really they don't want to. I get it, but they need you, right? We have the best discernment that I've ever seen. We can like we can see something. I'll give you an example. My church security team, they were like, hey, this suspicious guy came in and nobody contacted them, and they're following him around. He's doing this, he's doing that. And I saw the guy and I'm like, he just looks like he's on the spectrum. And I walk over and I'm like, hey, welcome to the church. I'm Keith. I haven't seen you here before. And he's like, Oh, I'm new. And I'm like, Oh, welcome, man. Can I help you find anything? You find everything you need. And he goes, Hey, I work nights and I just wanted to come worship before I went to bed. Awesome, come sit with me, right? That's it. The dude's tired. He's been working all night, a little bit on the spectrum. He's not a threat. You can dismiss this right away. And cops, we deal with so many bad people. You can tell right away who's gonna do harm and who's not. You're the best person to protect the church, hands down, right? And we just need more of you to just stand and watch, observe, greet. Honestly, it's the best job ever in a church. You just you have no responsibility unless something bad happens and you get to talk to your friends all day and like just go around and greet people with a smile and help people. It's wonderful, man.

Travis Yates:

Well, I I think the I tell you the other thing I wanted to discuss with you, Keith, is yes, we just we talked about the Danes, we talked about the immigration that's caused some of this. Yeah, you've given these real life stories, but there's also this very disturbing trend where a political party and the media, which is also the political party, are all telling everybody there's nothing to worry about here, no reason to. I mean, Keith, you get you get hammered because the name of this, your website is Christian Warrior. I mean, I mean, they're scared of the word, right? And so you almost have this softening of the American public to make them feel at ease when actually it's quite the opposite. Does that concern you?

Keith Graves:

It does. So it's funny. I I've been interviewed twice recently by national news reporters talking about they're actually calling it Christian Warrior Training. Like, like that's just the name of the group, but now they're calling it Christian Warrior Training. They're like, there are people out there training church people like we're like this right wing, you know, Christian nationalist, right?

Travis Yates:

And this is scumbags is what we're dealing with here. I mean, listen, we can we can have a discussion of of what's the most more dangerous in America. It is the media. The media's job as an important job in a democracy, is to hold power accountable, it's to let the citizens know what the dangers lie around the corner, and they are complicit and even on the side of evil. It's just it's just the way it is. You can you can get all upset at me. It is if you're if you're paying attention to the three little words out there or the four little words that we call the news media, they are not for the American people, they're not for your safety, they're not for any of that. And thank God we have you, Keith, too, because you are the the voice of the media for issues like this.

Keith Graves:

Thank you. Yeah, I tell you, it's super important people know for Christmas. We need to go to church, we need to worship Christ, we need to uh celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior. If you don't go, I mean that that's Christians are under persecution all over the world. It it's it, yes, something will probably happen. What I'm worried about is not so much a coordinated attack that state sponsored by like Iran or Venezuela or Russia or whoever. It's not ISIS and Al-Qaeda finally popping off 9-11-2.0. I mean, certainly that's a concern. I think the biggest thing that we have to worry about for Christmas coming up is a lone wolf actor. They're being told by everybody. They're being told by left-wing activists, they're being told by ISIS and Al-Qaeda, they're being told by some politicians that you know it it's okay to attack Christians. And they the the the mentally ill, the possessed, whatever you want to say, are gonna they're gonna hear that and they're gonna take action. And that's our biggest threat, right? And so when we leave here, the best thing that you can do, you yourself, is to stay up on all the current trends of threats to the church. Every every Friday, sat Friday or Saturday, I release a newsletter of all the crime that happened the previous week. There is so much terrorism information in the bulletin that went out yesterday. It's the most I've had in one in one issue. It's the Bondi Beach attack. It's another attack in Nigeria where ISIS Al Qaeda are just committing a genocide against Christians. It's stuff in the United States, it's the Brown University issue, right? And then you come down to violence against churches. I do crimes against persons, arson, sexual assault. I break it down like part one crimes. When I go to crimes against persons, there were two murders at churches this week, you know, where either was a body dump, one was killed in the church. And it's like there is at least one every week, right? And a lot of people are like, oh, it's probably you know, like the inner city church. No, man, like it's like on a dirt road in Mississippi, that kind of a church, or it's a 20-person church in Texas, or it's a mega church in California. I mean, it it's across the spectrum, but you have to keep track of the threats. Listen to what's going on. If you're legally authorized to carry in that church, you should be carrying in that church and you should worship and pay attention. When you pray, there's nothing in the Bible that says put your head down and close your eyes. I mean, you can put your head down and sub in submission and pray and keep your eyes up and look. I mean, the other day I was in a men's Bible study, and we're sitting in this room, and when we go to say our prayer, everybody puts their head down and closes their eyes, and not one person is walks in the door, you know, while we're sitting there. And there was just a couple weeks ago a men's group that met in a uh met in a uh church, they left the doors unlocked and they were gonna watch a football game and have some fellowship. And a masked man comes in with a handgun, walks around until he finds everybody, lines them up on the wall, right? And I'm sorry, man, if a masked man with a gun comes into my church and lines us on the wall, like that's bad news.

Travis Yates:

And thank God maybe and don't forget, Keith, you've got to be vigilant, you have to be paying attention. I forget the name of the city, it's unfortunate, but it happened several years ago where the all black church is having a small little fellowship group, and this white kid that looks like he's lost comes walking in completely out of place, and nobody decides to sort of go, Who is this kid? Oh, come on in, because we we sort of Christians lean towards that, and it's just it's just horrible, right? Don't if you're getting a gut instinct feeling, God actually put that in you, and we won't get into those details on pre-attack indicators of intuition. The intuition you have is not something made up in your head. God placed that in you because we would have survived the prehistoric days if we didn't have it. I mean, yeah, we we were living, we were having to survive each and every day. That's why intuition. So when you get those sort of the hair on the back of your neck rising and you get that weird feeling, follow up with that feeling, don't blow it off because you're a so-called Christian. That's more reason to do it. And just I had your fanboy moment, Keith. I had to tell you as we're talking, I get the article on your 10 most violent attacks 2025. It just went out. So, yeah, very, very surreal for me. But listen, man, I it's incredible. And if you're just now, if if you haven't done it, go to ChristianWarrior Train.com, sign up for the newsletter. Keith, you give free training. I mean, you're not making anything off this. This is the most selfless thing that I know in this profession. Um, you know, the we just announced our Hall of Fame and duckies in the profession yesterday, and I shake my head every year. I go, how is Keith Graves and a few others I think of not mentioned here? Well, you're not, you know, you know, I guess you're not a celebrity enough, but I digress. But I think it's just incredible what you're doing. Um, I would say you're the best unknown seeker, but everybody I talk to knows knows you. And uh you're doing incredible work. But I I just want to give you the final word, and I want to come back and say something to our audience right after that. So I'll give you the final word.

Keith Graves:

Dude, first off, all glory to God. He is the one that is putting us. He I, you know, he's the one that put me here, you know. And if he is ultimately, he put us in the best country in the world. He has taken care of us all through our careers, he has given us so much. And I just want to put all glory to him, and I want to thank him for everything that he's done for you, I, and keeping our churches safe across America. And I just want to, just one last thing because I know a lot of police leaders follow you. Um, I just want to ask them to go back to the old days, ignore the chatter around the public, and just do what is right. Just do do what what we're what we were supposed to do, which is protect the public and act selflessly in everything that we do, and everything will be okay.

Travis Yates:

Well, Keith, I appreciate that because we need to get a lot into leadership. This obvious thing we talked about is actual leadership because mission-oriented is what leadership is. But if if they need to be convinced, look around, look left, look right, look on your phone. What has happened in the last decade has not worked, it's made this environment more dangerous, it's made your community more dangerous, it's hurt your recruiting, it's hurt your retention, it's hurt the profession. So just look around. And and those of you, I don't know why uh I felt compelled to bring Keith on right now, but it's because some of you, there's somebody or more than somebody listening that needs to hear this and needs to act. You either need to act by having that warrior mindset that Keith talked about, or you need to understand that Christmas is more than just gifts. Jesus Christ came down to earth, the perfect man, the only perfection we've ever seen. He walked this earth fully man and fully God. Okay, he died as a innocent lamb, completely innocent. He didn't die to just be a story in a book that you heard as a kid, he died for each and everyone listening to this. Now, you knowing that is not good enough. You have to actually act. Keith's been talking about acting on this entire you have to act, and the Bible has made it clear. I know there's a lot of nonsense that's said out there. I know in law enforcement we get jaded by a lot of this nonsense, but the act is this it is, it may be it may sound simple, but simple doesn't mean it's easy. You have to repent and you have to believe. Repent, you need to turn away from your sins. Doesn't mean you have to be perfect, but you have to have a conscious that can always turn from what the Bible says you should turn from, which is sin. That means putting your feet on the floor every day and you look back and you go, Man, I messed up a few times yesterday. I don't want to do that today. And it's not because it's the act that saves you, Jesus Christ is what saved you, but that act of obedience, repentance, and belief. That belief is not just a head knowledge. We all have a head knowledge. You had a head knowledge of Santa before you were six years old. No, it's an actual belief that you will live your life for. That's what Keith Grays is doing. And when that occurs, things will change. Not always for the better. You may not always have the same friends, you may not always be in the same clish, but you will lead better, you will lead your family better, you will lead your community better, you will lead your agency better. And when you look around, you may you will see that change. And that's what it's all about. That's why Keith Grace sets here today for no reason other than the Lord has put him here and the Lord has led him to do that. And I can't, I appreciate you so much, Keith, for coming on.

Keith Graves:

Thank you, brother. I appreciate it. It's wonderful seeing you again.

Travis Yates:

You as well. And if you've been watching, if you've been listening, have a Merry Christmas, have a safe Christmas, be vigilant, follow up with what Keith talked about, get his resources. God bless, lead on, and stay courageous.

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