I’d like you to do a thought experiment with me: imagine sitting at your desk (or stuck in traffic or grabbing take-out before heading home) and the phone rings. Before you answer it, I’d like you to think of the worst possible scenario that could be on the other end of that line.
A beloved family in your church just lost a child? There was an accident involving your church van and several members were killed and many others injured. One of your minister’s is accused of sexually assaulting a member of the youth group. You learn a family member just completed suicide.
What is your response? What do you do now?
Whatever your “worst-case” scenario,
do you have a vetted and trained
ministry team ready to respond?
Tragedy is not an issue of if, it’s an issue of when. Providing effective support is not about hope and luck, it requires training, practice and planning.
Not all training is created equal. As much as I loved my pastoral care class in seminary, it did not prepare me for responding to agents and officers in crisis. Crisis training is different from any other training because crisis response is different from any other support.
Return to your worst case scenario. As the call comes in, training prepares you to ask the necessary questions, assess reactions, identify critical concerns, draft a plan of action and “deploy” team members to those in need.
Training prepares your team to know what to do and how to help. Training prepares your team to move towards people (instead of waiting for hurting people to come to you). Training prepares your team to recognize boundaries and refer to next-level care.
Training offers knowledge and builds skills
that lowers liability and instills confidence.
Now, imagine the phone rings and you are confronted with your “worst-case” call. Instead of freaking out (on the inside), because of training, you’ll know exactly what to do, where to go, who to deploy and how to help. Instead of thinking, “it’s all up to me”, you’ll have a team of vetted and trained responders ready to share in ministry and provide stabilizing support.
Is your ministry team prepared for any tragedy? Is your church prepared to care for those experiencing emotional and spiritual crisis? When the call comes in…do you want to feel capable?
We’ve developed a 6-part protocol as a guide for helping anyone, at any time, dealing with any difficulty. We want to be your source for team training.
Click here to learn about our Shared Ministry Training Program.
Click here for free download: Prepare to Care (PDF).
We’d love to connect. Send us an email to set up a free call: info@crisissupportsolutions.com.
This arch represents strength & support. - -
We teach teams how to provide effective mental, emotional, and spiritual support to those in need.