PEORIA — When a gunman opened fire at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, last November, witnesses in the congregation said it was “unimaginable.”

That mentality was the target for Peoria County and city police’s House of Worship Safety Training seminar Tuesday evening.

“We’re trying to change you from sheep to sheepdogs,” Lt. Steve Roegge of the Peoria Police Department said. “You’re responsible for your congregations, so we have to make you sheepdogs, watching over everyone.”

Northwoods Community Church hosted the seminar to “educate everybody in this community at the same level that we’ve been educating our families,” Peoria police Chief Jerry Mitchell said.

More than 200 people attended the event from churches throughout the Peoria area. Peoria County Sheriff Brian Asbell said the idea for the training came from community concern following the Texas shooting.

“I started fielding a lot of phone calls from different pastors throughout our community about their concerns for their own parishes,” Asbell said. “That’s what pushed us.”

Roegge, along with Peoria County’s Sheriff's Office Lt. Jon Quast, led the seminar, having instructed active assailant training together in schools, businesses and hospitals.

The officers’ message was based around changing the audience’s mindset so they can better prepare for an active assailant situation.

Mindset plus preparedness and prevention plus action equals success, Roegge said.

“It’s one thing to physically be able to do something, but if you’re not mentally prepared, you’re not going to do anything,” Mitchell said.

Prospect United Methodist Church member Pat Campbell said she attended because the shooting in Texas inspired her congregation to rethink its safety procedures.

“We’re just in the initial stages of really looking at safety issues in our church and what we’re doing, what we are not doing, what we should be doing, and so this is just a good start for what we’ve already been looking into,” she said.

Roegge said churches are “soft targets” because they are open to the public and are often gun-free zones with little to no security. He offered suggestions including utilizing members of the congregations who have had military training and forming safety teams that would focus on containment in case of a dangerous situation.

“In the church, you have to balance openness and security,” Roegge said.

Kelsey Watznauer can be reached at 686-3194 or kwatznauer@pjstar.com. Follow her on Twitter @kwatznauer.