Religious leaders swap stories, talk grant funding during house of worship security forum

Three religious leaders — bonded only by acts of violence — took to a North Braddock church pulpit Thursday night to share how they’ve shepherded their congregations past being defined by those who attacked them.

The Rev. Glenn Germany knew the space best.

Just three months ago, the McKees­port man and father of three was preaching — his sermon being livestreamed on social media — when a stranger entered the nondenominational church in this working-class Mon Valley town.

The man pointed a gun at the pastor and squeezed the trigger. The gun jammed. A church deacon tackled the assailant and held him down until police arrived.

Today, Germany doesn’t scream for justice. Instead, he prays for the shooter and visits him every week in Allegheny County Jail.

“We didn’t expect something like this to happen,” Germany said. “But, once it did happen, there was no going back.”

Improving security at houses of worship topped the agenda of Thursday’s forum that the U.S. Department of Justice led at the site of the May 5 attempted shooting.

The event was organized, officials said, to promote state and federal grants that fund security improvements at houses of worship.

Jesus’ Dwelling Place, which Germany founded in 2010, is one of several area congregations seeking a nonprofit security grant through the state Commission on Crime and Delinquency. The application window for the $10 million fund closed Tuesday.

He expects a verdict in about a month.

Germany’s church needs more than $60,000 in upgrades: installing cameras, new doors, an intercom system and fencing. He also needs to build barriers to protect the church’s steps from passing cars.

“You come to the church and it looks beautiful,” Germany said. “But, when you look at it from a security viewpoint, it’s way past vulnerable.”

State Rep. Abigail Salisbury, D-Swissvale, rushed to the church’s aid. In addition to attending Sunday services there after the attempted shooting, she’s helping Jesus’ Dwelling Place raise $20,000 for a $40,000 state match.

“We want to prevent this from ever happening again,” she said.

But more than grant checks, faith fueled conversation on this hot summer night, as men wiped sweaty brows with handkerchiefs and others waved handheld fans bearing the Lord’s Prayer in front of their faces.

Nearby, two air-conditioning units mounted in stained-glass windows and three black fans hanging from the church’s sloped wooden ceiling worked overtime.

“By all rights, I shouldn’t be here, I shouldn’t be alive,” said event speaker Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, who survived a 2018 shooting at his Tree of Life synagogue that left 11 worshippers dead. “I should be dead. But I’m not. And that’s thanks to Pittsburgh’s finest.”

Myers thanked the four Pittsburgh police officers who rescued him during the Oct. 27, 2018, attack, and called on others to collaborate more with police.

“You shouldn’t enter a house of worship like it’s the TSA — it should be a safe place,” he quipped. “But anyone saying, ‘I am safe’ — you are a fool.”

Another speaker, the Rev. Brenda Gregg, shored up security at Destiny of Faith after two teens opened fire during a October 2022 funeral at the Brighton Heights church, hospitalizing five people.

“All of us are so connected — and we cannot overlook that,” Gregg said. “When someone is traumatized in a North Side church or one of our other neighborhoods, it affects all of us.”

Germany is no stranger to adversity.

A native Pittsburgher, Germany dealt drugs as a teen in Phoenix during the height of the crack epidemic. At one point, he was making $40,000 a month.

Authorities, though, nabbed him on drug trafficking charges. A judge sentenced him to 15 years in federal prison. In his third year there, he found God.

“God strengthens me, and he helps me to relate to people in similar circumstances,” Germany told TribLive.

Though he declined to elaborate, Germany said May 5 wasn’t the first time someone pointed a gun at him. But he thinks the malfunctioning gun has driven him down a new path: helping make other churches safe.

“I’m making sure that every church knows this funding exists,” he said. “When God has a purpose for you, it’s done on God’s time.”

Germany has wasted little time.

Jesus’ Dwelling Place submitted its grant application to state officials after Germany and others worked alongside the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh.

That Oakland-based nonprofit has trained nearly 43,000 people of all faiths about security issues and the funding to tackle them since 2020. They also have netted more than $6.5 million in state and federal grants to help 96 organizations improve security during the same period.

“Because of the synagogue shooting, we know what plans and what target-hardening worked,” said Shawn Brokos, a retired FBI vet and the federation’s director of community security. “This is our obligation, to share what we’ve learned.”

For the Germany family, much of this work is personal. Debra Germany, Glenn’s cousin, lost her son, Raymond, to gun violence two decades ago. He was 23.

“My prayer now is to give another man or woman the chance I couldn’t give Ray,” said Debra Germany, who today leads a prison ministry group. “My job is to stop the devil. He tricked Ray. But, I won’t let him trick the others.”

Debra said she draws inspiration from her cousin.

Glenn Germany, she laughed, is a juggler of schedules. He’s been driving Pittsburgh Regional Transit buses — often the 51 to West Mifflin or the 61C to McKeesport — for eight years now. He works ride-sharing gigs in the evening.

He does this while preaching to, guiding and counseling his church’s 70 active members.

But, the jail counseling he provides each week to one man — the stranger from May 5, who tried to shoot Germany after voices in his head told him to do so — speaks loudest, Debra Germany said.

“Tell me that ain’t God,” she said. “That’s who Glenn is.”