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Churches
need to do Crisis Planning.
The first church that I designed was a Lutheran Church in Strasburg,
Illinois. Their original building, a beautiful and historic one, burned
to the ground when an electrical problem sparked a fire.
Their congregation had 400 members. There was another Lutheran Church
in the same town, who also had 400 members, who was kind enough to allow
them to meet in their building while the new one was being constructed.
Because the town was very small and in an isolated rural area, there
would have been nowhere else for them to go in the 18 months that it
took to get the new building finished.
Many businesses, especially large ones, have practiced crisis planning
for many years, and now smaller businesses are beginning to do the same
thing, albeit at a smaller scale.
Regardless of the size of the business or the scale of crisis planning
that is done, being prepared and knowing what to do when a crisis occurs
is vital to the survival of the business.
Churches need to do the same crisis planning as a business, because
in many respects they operate just as a business would.
Crisis planning involves a lot of if-then thinking. To be effective,
as many if-then scenarios must be imagined, then the response to the
problems each crisis will pose must be prepared in advance.
For example, if a tornado destroyed your church building, do you have
an alternate location or locations selected to immediately resume worship,
educational and fellowship functions?
Do these locations have sufficient parking? Do they meet building codes
for the safety of your congregation? Will you have access to the proper
equipment and furnishings available?
Some of these problems could be very simply solved by having an agreement
in advance with another church to use their facilities. But what if
you were to wait until the disaster occurred to make these arrangements?
Would you be able to find another church or other facilities on short
notice? Many churches conduct multiple services for their own congregations,
so it might not be so easy to find one able to offer space on Sunday
as one might presume.
Other problems could be even more difficult to solve.
Do you have the means to contact everyone to let them know where the
alternate location will be? Do you have the proper insurance to cover
the damages so that reconstruction could immediately resume? Do you
have the construction drawings and specifications to your original building
so that time need not be wasted in having new ones drawn?
Do you have photos of the exterior and the interior of your building?
Do you have an inventory of assets inside and outside the facilities?
Where will your staff offices be? Where will you get
equipment and furniture for your offices? Are your computer files backed
up regularly with copies kept offsite? Were copies of your valuable
papers kept offsite?
Perhaps disaster might come in the form of a flood or a fire, or even
as unlikely as it might be in Oklahoma, an earthquake that is powerful
enough to cause significant damage. Being unaccustomed to earthquakes,
would you know what to do if one occurred? Remember – the “big one”,
the New Madrid Fault at the southeast corner of Missouri is long overdue
and is predicted to be larger than earthquakes experienced in California.
The last time it shifted, it caused church bells to ring as far away
as the Atlantic coast, so it is not inconceivable that we will feel
some of its effects here.
Crisis planning should not be limited to just major disasters. The failure
of a heating and air conditioning system could cause a disruption in
operations. A clogged sewer or a water main break could also cause serious
problems.
Crisis planning should consider how to deal with situations, not just
the physical facilities.
For example, how would you handle a bomb threat? What would you do if
a staff member or Sunday School teacher were to commit a sexual offense?
What happens if someone embezzles church funds? How will you defend
yourself against a civil suit if you fire someone who feels that they
have been wrongfully terminated? How can you discipline a church member
without exposing yourself to civil suits?
Crisis planning means looking for any danger that poses a threat to
your congregation, and being prepared for it. This is not something
that can be solved in one or two committee meetings, nor will it be
useful if it is committed to a filing cabinet, never to be seen again.
To be effective, someone in each congregation needs to be placed in
a responsible and accountable position in order to keep the process
in place and running. Regular review and evaluation will also make it
more effective, especially for items that are dependent upon changing
laws or other changing conditions.
The benefits of conducting crisis planning may well be that you may
prevent a crisis from ever occurring.
The Lutheran Church that burned might have prevented the fire if they
had, as a part of their crisis planning, thought about the possibility
of an electrical fire, especially in an old building. Part of their
response would have been to conduct an electrical inspection that might
have prevented the problem that caused the fire.
Now some might say that crisis planning means not relying on God in
faith that He will provide for all of our needs. I have no doubt that
He will provide, but it is also clear in scripture that we are not to
be blind to hazards. Proverbs 22:3 says, "A prudent man sees danger
and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it."(NIV)
Is it time-consuming? Absolutely. Is it expensive? Some things will
be, but others things won’t. Start with the simplest things and work
your way up. For example, I never leave the office without a backup
of my computer files and I keep a separate computer in my home. If I
were to lose my office to a disaster, I know that I can be back to work
the next day.
Can you say the same thing about your church? Guard your church from
unnecessary problems. Invest in crisis planning and consider it to be
as vital as insurance.
©2007 Randy W. Bright
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