Disaster is an opportunity for the Church to become a movement again by mobilizing into the community to bring blessing and restore families. By mobilization, we mean bringing Christ’s compassion; God’s love to those families who desperately need a tangible experience that demonstrates God is with them and cares for them.
Lies That Keep Us From Mobilizing
We know that there is a spiritual war going on around us (Eph. 6:12) and that the enemy is the father of lies (Jn. 8:44). It is the lies we believe that keeps the Church from mobilizing. The Church is the greatest force for good, a force sidelined by the deception of lies.
Here are a few of the lies pastors and church leaders believe that keep us from mobilizing.
- Our church is too small. My members are too old. Both churches reflected in our example are small, under a hundred active members each. Over a third of the membership couldn’t physically engage in the recovery work. However, our elderly members made meals, wrote encouragement cards, prayed, and more.
- We do not have the funds. The Lord has and distributes every dollar needed to do what He’s called us to. All the funds to support the teams and the building materials for five homes were donated through grants and gifts from other churches. Additionally, in 2018, we gave out about $200,000 in donated monies directly to impacted homeowners.
- We are too busy. Most churches operate on the 80/20 principle, where 20% of the people are doing 80% of the work, so normally a small minority are engaged. We don’t see the capacity to do more because ‘the doers’ have full plates, and we’re experiencing compassion fatigue. But you’re not too busy for the mission God calls you to. If your community has experienced a disaster, it’s time to reprioritize everything and move from 20% engaged to 80%.
- We are isolated, unconnected, alone. Pastors and church leaders often feel this way, but it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. The body of Christ is bigger than your church. Do something good with another church. Get past this isolation, so you can mobilize and be a blessing together.
- We support others to do missions. It is someone else’s responsibility. We can see the fallacy in this logic. Giving some funds towards something doesn’t necessarily engage our hearts or our hands, for that matter. Supporting ‘missions’ can be like an inoculation from the real thing, engaging our community directly with God’s love.
- We are comfortable with how things are. If you’re comfortable with the status quo, you’re not mobilized into a hurting and broken world.
These lies are your choice. They are not what God says about you or your church. Either God is with us, and all things are possible, or we’re believing a lie with the strategy to keep us from mobilizing. As a church leader, you can choose to mobilize your church into your community, spreading God’s love, and one biblical way is through disaster recovery. Nehemiah is a great example of how God uses disaster recovery to mobilize His people, an example of physical restoration leading to spiritual restoration. (See Nehemiah’s model for Disaster Recovery as Mission)
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Implications of Church Mobilization
Here are four things pastors and other church disaster recovery leaders should know as they begin mobilizing their churches to respond to disaster.
- Urgency replaces the ordinary. Imagine going from your normal weekly flow to fielding a thousand calls from congregants, recovery organizations, and people who want to help. For a short time, weekly programming and ministries may be suspended, including Sunday services. Early in the response, pastors need to create a new normal, determine their role, their limitations, and especially delegate to others.
- Urgency replaces the ordinary. Imagine going from your normal weekly flow to fielding a thousand calls from congregants, recovery organizations, and people who want to help. For a short time, weekly programming and ministries may be suspended, including Sunday services. Early in the response, pastors need to create a new normal, determine their role, their limitations, and especially delegate to others.
- Urgency replaces the ordinary. Imagine going from your normal weekly flow to fielding a thousand calls from congregants, recovery organizations, and people who want to help. For a short time, weekly programming and ministries may be suspended, including Sunday services. Early in the response, pastors need to create a new normal, determine their role, their limitations, and especially delegate to others.
- Urgency replaces the ordinary. Imagine going from your normal weekly flow to fielding a thousand calls from congregants, recovery organizations, and people who want to help. For a short time, weekly programming and ministries may be suspended, including Sunday services. Early in the response, pastors need to create a new normal, determine their role, their limitations, and especially delegate to others.
- Urgency replaces the ordinary. Imagine going from your normal weekly flow to fielding a thousand calls from congregants, recovery organizations, and people who want to help. For a short time, weekly programming and ministries may be suspended, including Sunday services. Early in the response, pastors need to create a new normal, determine their role, their limitations, and especially delegate to others.
Church Mobilization: From Imagined to Practice
Most pastors and church leaders respond with compassion and practical help in the face of a crisis, yet most don’t mobilize their churches into their community for long-term recovery. Largely what holds leaders back is how daunting, overwhelming, and confusing the work is. Questions come to mind like: Where will the financial support come from? Will we have the expertise to do the work well? Will we have a steady stream of volunteers? Once we start, how do we finish? But the difference between imagined mobilization and the practice of church mobilization is the capacity to execute the vision. Houston Responds exists to unite, empower, and mobilize churches for long-term recovery and to help you move from imagined to practice. Houston Responds can help you get started and support you by:
- Connecting your church to a coalition of churches in your region that is doing disaster readiness and long-term recovery.
- Providing training, collaboration, and best practices for disaster recovery and readiness.
- Helping raise funds for recovery, especially in under-resourced communities.
- Growing your access to volunteers by building and strengthening coalitions and providing coalition coordinators and volunteer coordinators.
- Coordinating communications for emergency response in the initial days/weeks of a disaster.
It is our hope that this guide strengthens your vision to mobilize your church and that you see how disaster recovery isn’t merely another good work, but an opportunity to live out the gospel in your community, fulfilling our mission as the Church.
Download Full Guide
We have only shared a brief portion of the Pastors’ Disaster Recovery Church Mobilization Guide above. To download the complete guide, click below.