A nearly constant state of mass shootings in America has sprung up a bizarre cottage industry. When someone volunteers at a church, it may mean the church will pay money to an outside firm that claims that volunteer as an employee.

A paper in Texas attempts to explain:

The company incorporates Christian teachings into its courses and more than 90 people at 18 churches have completed the 70 hours of initial training and become state-licensed guards through its program, Riggall said. The so-called sheepdogs are insured and technically employed by the company. But they volunteer doing security at their own churches, which in turn pay Riggall.

On a Sunday in July, Brett Faulkner stood with an AR-15 in hand and his back to the cross in the sanctuary of Fellowship of the Parks campus in Haslet, a community about 15 miles (24 kilometers) north of Fort Worth. He pointed the rifle at a young woman’s back and yelled at the armed men advancing into the room, “I’m going to kill this woman. It’s going to happen right now.”

[…]

“It really just comes down to caring about the people in that building,” Faulkner said of choosing to [threaten to kill this woman in] his small Baptist church.

The article is as weird as that sounds. Really. What part of the Christian teachings says volunteers can’t do their volunteer work unless the church pays money to an outside firm to claim them as employees?

It reads to me like “sheepdogs” are people volunteering to carry assault rifles into churches and threaten to kill their own congregations. However, these churches seem to have so little faith that they set it up by paying an outside firm for liability protection against likely bad sheepdogs.