When Hurricane Harvey hit, there were a lot of people wanting to help. Our church was asked to help and we did. But instead of just putting things together in a rush haphazardly, we did a few things (in no particular order except for number 1):
- We prayed and processed what we could do. This is key because you want to make sure you really process what needs to be done from a staff and church perspective. But you also want to make sure you are doing God’s will for your Church or ministry. So commit time to pray and process with leadership what your next steps should be.
- We connected with people who we knew in the Houston area and asked what they needed. Why start collecting items that the affected areas didn’t need?
- We partnered with organizations in the affected area to help supply financial assistance to churches and ministry on the ground there. We wanted to help and people wanted to help, but we wanted to make sure we were helping and supporting organizations we trusted. So find some groups you know and trust and support them in their missions in that area.
- We had to evaluate the extra time and energy our ministry team needed to invest in these new projects. The reality is natural disasters are hard to “plan” for. They just kind of show up. So for our staff to shift their current focus and spend more time with helping here was fine, but we had to really look at how the extra work we are doing to support and help the disaster relief, our primary jobs were getting done as well.
- We partnered with other local groups in our area wanting to help. A natural disaster is terrible but in a positive way, it can bring people together. When Harvey it, we had a lot of local groups and people talking and asking each other how we can help. While we figured out how we, as a church, could help, we partnered with these local groups and it helped us establish some real good will with people in the community.