Welcome to my Christian Social Justice series! In case you missed it: last week, we found out that Millennials are tired of intangible, remote approaches to social justice. Facebook activism and donation-heavy programs simply aren’t cutting it. But how can churches work for justice in a way young adults can understand, connect with, and want to join?
For the rest of the series, I’m going to be discussing examples of effective, tangible, and often personal approaches to social justice issues like immigration and poverty. This week, we’re tackling the Church response to natural disasters.
I’m writing this from a cold parking lot early in the morning, hunched over a dying laptop and a non-functional phone. A hundred of my neighbors and I are eagerly parked around the entrance of our local grocery store, waiting for one precious commodity—ice. Meanwhile, my other family members are at home. They’re filtering water, buying candles, waiting in gas lines, and charging solar-powered batteries.
Sound like a trip back to the Dark Ages? Nope. Just a five-day power outage. Which, in Northern California, is apparently our new reality.
I’m not too upset, honestly. It could be a lot worse. Two families we know personally were evacuated. One nearly lost their house. Thousands of firefighters are spending days breathing in smoke on very little sleep. So, as frustrated and uncomfortable as I am, I know I’m pretty lucky.
And I’m definitely not alone. Wherever you live in the United States, natural disasters have been on the rise. Some places have been beset by frequent tornadoes or monster hurricanes. Others have had several once-in-five-hundred-year floods just a few years apart. Or maybe you’re caught up in blizzards with unnatural ferocity.
Science has connected many of these extreme events to climate change. Which, incidentally, is a cause that Millennials care about in record numbers. Even the conservative ones among us. Creating a church response to natural disasters demonstrates that you are taking actionable steps to acknowledge and mitigate the effects of the climate crisis.
(And even if you don’t believe in climate change, hopefully, we can just agree that it’s important to help the victims of natural disasters.)
Past experiences have proven that extreme weather events disproportionately affect the least of these. Sometimes, it’s those who can’t afford to pay for rebuilding costs. Other times, it’s the elderly and disabled, who rely on power and heat to stay alive.
This means that creating a Church response to natural disasters is no less than a social justice opportunity.
So how do we respond? And how do churches with only a few people on staff provide havens to their communities in times of trouble?
First, a disclaimer: The point of this article is to get your creative juices flowing and help facilitate a vision. This post is not meant to contradict or replace the advice of emergency services professionals. Any idea discussed here should be thoroughly vetted in conjunction with the laws of your city and state and with emergency services experts in your area. And, obviously, certain ideas are more appropriate for smaller churches, while others are feasible only at big ones.
We’ll begin with four different areas to consider when developing your church response to natural disasters. Afterward, we’ll consider how to prepare for your chosen ministry.
1. Church Response to Natural Disasters: Social Media
First off, here’s an opportunity to use social media in the most helpful possible way: turn your feeds into a consolidated source of information.
During our blackout, we received confusing and often conflicting updates from our Sheriff’s Office, City Hall, City Police, and local utility. Each of these agencies also had text and social media alerts. Then there were the rumor mills by word of mouth, NextDoor, and Facebook. It was a veritable swamp of unreliable information.
You can combat this phenomenon by creating one volunteer as a point person. They can spend their time monitoring the information coming from websites and texts and then consolidate it into coordinated Facebook and Twitter feeds. Trust me, people will be grateful.
2. Church Response to Natural Disasters: Maximizing Your Space
Here’s the biggest resource you have to offer: your building. Most church complexes include a sanctuary, fellowship hall, kitchen, Sunday school/classroom wing, church office, and perhaps a smaller chapel. This is a lot of space. Use it well.
To begin with, the Red Cross offers comprehensive disaster training courses, including one on how to run a shelter, if you want to do that. In the meantime, think through your spaces and how they can become useful.
The most obvious one is the kitchen. Make a cache of food and cooking supplies available so that you can cook for the hungry in the event of earthquake. Buy several industrial freezers filled with ice so you can hand it out and make more if others can’t. Think through how you will cook without gas or power.
Then, there’s the sanctuary. If you anticipate numerous people will be out of their homes, you can turn the sanctuary into a dormitory. Buy sleeping bags, futons, and blankets to put on the pews. String up curtains so people can have some privacy.
You can use classroom space to put up families with babies, disabled people or others who need their own space. If you anticipate people will be there for a long time, you can even have some washers and dryers ready to go.
Maybe people have access to their homes, but the power is out. Turn your chapel or fellowship hall into a day lounge/work area. Buy up power strips and a generator. Make sure you’ve updated your electrical system to accommodate lights, heating, wifi and charging needs. You can even set up TVs or games for kids.
Or perhaps you anticipate that people will need information. Repurpose your church offices into information booths. If people from other parts of the country are concerned about the welfare of their elderly or disabled relatives, you can funnel their concerns to the police department. Or, you can call the loved ones of people who have made it safely to your shelter.
Both before and during natural disasters, you can establish yourself on social media as a rendezvous point for separated families. In case of the loss of cell phone signal and wifi, connect good old fashioned landlines so that people can check in with their loved ones.
Church complexes, for better or worse, are often equipped with lots of space that they don’t use anymore. Here is your chance to use it for good!
3. Church Response to Natural Disasters: Pastoral Care
Here is where you can provide a unique service. The emotional toll of a natural disaster is often as bad as, or worse than, the physical one. Make sure your pastoral staff arrives soon after an emergency happens. Invite other pastors, too. Wear a collar or stole so you’re easily visible.
If you’ve only got a small number of people in your building, wander around and offer support. If you’ve got larger numbers, you can section off the church office or other rooms to create a designated space. Online, you can post prayers, collects, and Bible verses.
Alternatively, it’s never a bad time to offer worship. Set aside a room or a corner for the Eucharist and other sacraments, a healing service, or compline for overnight guests. Nothing needs to be fancy or liturgically correct. It just needs to happen.
Maybe you’re too emotionally exhausted. That’s okay. Reach out to your denomination’s disaster assistance program. Most likely, they will send chaplains to take care of you and the people you’re hosting.
Allow your guests to provide pastoral care to each other, too. If your religious group prays the rosary, meditates, or uses other lay-led prayer practices, find someone willing to lead. If your music staff is around, they can lead those who wish in hymns, secular music, or sing-alongs for children. Even if your music staff isn’t around, chances are, someone will know how to play.
One note: make sure that none of these are forced. Set up areas for these activities in such a way that everyone knows it’s happening, but people are not forced to participate. Otherwise, it may feel like you’re taking advantage of a disaster to evangelize.
This area is your opportunity to shine, to be a unique resource to your city. Go all-out.
4. Church Response to Natural Disasters: The Least of These
Finally, as you consider which services to provide, think about who will be the least of these in your community’s next disaster. For us this week, it was disabled people, who relied on power for medical devices or heat.
Think about what you can do for those most vulnerable groups. Create a list of your congregants who will need home visit check-ins, or who will need to be driven to the church shelter. Create a go-fund me page for low-income members of your community so that other congregations around the country can contribute.
Make sure the homeless know they can come to your church in case of extreme temperatures or rain. Think about how to support and entertain kids (their parents will probably be pretty grateful as well). Overall, just think ahead about how you can help those who will need it most.
Okay, feeling overwhelmed yet? Deep breath. That was a lot. Again, you definitely do not need to provide all of these services. Just talk to your staff and lay leaders to create the most feasible vision for your church response to natural disasters. Once you’ve got an idea of where you’re going, it’s time to think about getting prepared.
5. Before Disaster Hits: Get yourself prepared.
Put your own oxygen mask on first, people. You can’t help those in your community if your church building is barely functional itself. This often means thinking ahead, months before your “season” of bad weather starts.
The day before the power outage, as we just started to grasp the reality of what was coming, my family and I started to scramble for generators, ice, and other resources.
Too late. Everything was sold out—or behind huge, time-consuming lines. Don’t be like us.
Once you’ve figured out what you’ll need in a disaster, it’s time to get prepared with research and classes. In addition to the Red Cross, check out denominational resources for disaster preparedness and relief. Episcopal Relief & Development has a comprehensive guide on church preparedness here. As another example, United Methodist Insurance made a handy little book, which you can download for free.
If you’re near a disaster zone, visit government shelters or power stations and see what they’re doing. Send your volunteers to help out and get trained while they’re at it.
You can also try to reach out to the local Office of Emergency Services or other government agencies.
Then, bring a vision back to your congregation for your church response to natural disasters. This will often involve raising some money. Maybe you need to buy an industrial generator or re-do the insulation so that you’ll be more resilient against extreme temperatures. Perhaps you need to upgrade your electrical system. You may even need a large-scale remodel to make seismic upgrades.
6. Before Disaster Hits: Get others prepared.
Okay, so your church is weather-proofed. Now you’re ready to think about helping others. This is one way that social media, texting, and the Internet can come in.
Connect as many of your congregants as possible to emergency text alert systems, which will let them know that an emergency has occurred and that you need volunteers. Spend time training.
Shortly before your “season” starts, use social media to broadcast your plan. Share your address and the services you will provide. Forward this information to government officials.
You can use more traditional techniques also—staff a booth at your local farmer’s market. Put up flyers downtown. Go to community meetings.
In the days before an imminent weather event, re-hash your publicity campaign all over again. If you’ve got an especially wonderful group of volunteers, you can even try knocking on some doors.
Creating a church response to natural disasters is a huge undertaking. Heck, the people in charge of the government response to natural disasters are often overwhelmed. It’s not something most churches are doing on a large scale yet, except a few megachurches. But it’s what’s needed. Maybe you only do one thing mentioned above. Maybe you join forces with another church.
Or maybe you don’t do any of these services, but instead encourage congregants to volunteer in other shelters. But in the age of climate disasters, you have a huge opportunity to do something.
And, if you do, this is a chance to enlist Millennial participation. As I said, we’re pretty cognizant of climate change, and we care about its effects a lot. When disaster strikes, churches have the opportunity to serve in very clear, tangible, and relevant ways. Which is exactly what Millennials are craving.
As you work to envision your church response to natural disasters, you can use social media, NextDoor, and other platforms to ask Millennials to sign up to volunteer. You can even hire a few young adults to manage the online part of preparation and implementation.
Just don’t squander this opportunity to make young people central in your social justice outreach. And don’t squander the opportunity for social justice itself.
Come back next week for Week 3 in my Christian Social Justice series–we’re tackling immigration justice!