Katrina Reminds Us of the Need for Crisis Planning

While most of us will take the time to write a check for insurance, few of us want to spend the time or money getting ready for a disaster that will probably not come.

The first church that I designed was a Lutheran Church in small Illinois town. Their original building burned to the ground when an electrical problem sparked a fire. Fortunately, there was another Lutheran Church in the same town who allowed them to meet in their building while the new one was being constructed. But their good fortune had nothing to do with crisis planning, because they had not done any.

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 selected to immediately resume worship, educational and fellowship functions? Does the alternate location have sufficient parking? Does it meet building codes? Will you have access to the proper equipment and furnishings available?

Some of these problems can solved by having an agreement in advance with another church to use their facilities.

There are other things to consider:

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?

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?

Crisis planning should not be limited just to major disasters. Even minor problems can cause major disruptions.

The failure of a heating and air conditioning system could cause an interruption in operations. A clogged sewer or a water main break could also cause serious problems. How would these problems be solved if they occurred on a Sunday morning?

Crisis planning should be done for other problems, too.

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?

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.

That Lutheran Church might have prevented their fire if as a part of their crisis planning they had thought about the possibility of an electrical fire. Part of their planning would have included an electrical inspection that could have detected the problem that caused the fire.

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. It’s not lack of faith or nutsy survivalism, it’s just smart.

The scriptures say, "A prudent man sees danger and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it."( Proverbs 22:3 NIV)