May 2013
Leadership in a Time of Crisis

Resilency

August 17, 1969 and August 29, 2005 brought two incredibly destructive hurricanes to the Mississippi Gulf Coast destroying the Christ Church Sanctuary and buildings on those two dates. But the courage and love of God remains in the Body of Christ Church, the people. Christ Church remains in Bay St. Louis as a symbol of God's indestructible spirit within congregation. On May 30, 2010, the parishioners of Christ Episcopal Church, Bay St. Louis gathered to consecrate and dedicate their new church and parish hall. It was beyond a joyful experience to see the brand new pews filled with church members, their families, and friends of the parish who have supported Christ Church in the aftermath of Katrina. 

As much as we would like to think that it will never happen to us, every parish has the potential of a devastating disaster: a hurricane, tornado, flood, forest fire, earthquake, or having the largest employer in the community close, decimating the local economy as well as the parish budget. While we can only minimally prevent them, we can prepare for them.

Following Hurricane Katrina, I served as Pastor-Missioner for the Diocese of Mississippi supporting clergy and clergy families and consulting with 11 parishes, six of whose churches were leveled to their concrete slabs by this storm. From the worst natural disaster to strike the US we learned a lot that can help parishes prepare for and respond to disasters. While I include an overview of such preparation and response, the resources listed provide more details about each.

Planning
Planning includes assessing potential risks, inventorying and documenting assets, and having plans to protect buildings and remove valuables, computers, important documents, etc. from harm’s way. Of course a plan is successful only if followed. The litany I frequently heard was, “We had sent our Eucharist vessels and vestments to safety during every hurricane warning only to have nothing happen. We just assumed the same would happen with Katrina, and, so, we left everything in the building, only to return and find no building.” Planning also includes having an evacuation plan and assisting members to develop one, knowing where members will be during an evacuation and how to contact them, how to access buildings and members should access be limited to emergency personnel, and how to communicate with members and the diocese when telephone service is not operable. Finally, planning includes disaster recovery participation.

Recovery
Recovery begins as a disaster occurs and continues many years after. New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast continue rebuilding almost eight years after Katrina. Parishes can provide immediate assistance by partnering with Red Cross and other disaster response groups allowing building use as shelters, food and water distribution, or an organization site for volunteers. As the recovery shifts from immediate crisis response to long-term recovery, parishes can assist the most vulnerable. Episcopal Relief and Development provides guidance and grants to assist dioceses and parishes partner with others to identify unmet needs and creates plan to address them. 

While parishes may assist in the immediate and in the long-term recovery, churches offer something no other entities offer: a theological understanding and assistance with emotional and spiritual recovery. Victims struggle with why it happened, why they fared better or worse than others, and why God allowed/caused this. And they get bombarded with terrible explanations. When Katrina hit I lived 275 miles north of the Gulf Coast in a community that had hundreds of evacuees staying in shelters. The Saturday after Katrina, the newspaper religious editor, a local pastor, wrote “God sent Katrina” because of the coastal casinos and our Nation’s acceptance of homosexuality and had wrought vengeance on the most deserving. Clergy and parishes can assist victims, instead, to see God in the midst of the volunteers and neighbors bonding together.

Emotional and Spiritual Resilience
Emotional and spiritual resilience requires tapping into strengths, developing coping skills, and finding meaning and purpose. The religious community serves as the best resource for this. With the beauty of its liturgy, Episcopal parishes can offer worship experiences that bring victims, survivors, and volunteers together to struggle with the questions of why and identify where God’s grace abounds even in the midst of the disaster. When the pain and suffering of the world seems overwhelming we offer the promise of the Good Friday Liturgy, “. . . let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made. . .” 

When disasters victimize parishes, parishioners, and clergy, it creates unique challenges. Katrina leveled six parishes to the ground and destroyed or damaged homes of 50% or more of members of some parishes and some of the clergy. What I observed is that parishes healthy before the disaster recover better than those with preexisting conflict. Thus, more diocesan involvement is warranted in parishes that had issues before the disaster. The risk of clergy burnout drastically increases in disaster areas and self-care becomes extremely important.

Many clergy of parishes with destroyed buildings responded to the members’ laments saying, “The building is not the Church, the people are the Church.” While I understand and agree with this theology, and the members need to understand this, what I fear the clergy failed to honor was the grief for the loss of a thin place: where they married, had a loved one buried and their children baptized, had been nourished in the sacraments, or had gone for individual prayer during times of great need. Those congregations that did not address this sense of loss well suffered the most conflict over the location and design of the new building. 

Thus, parish leaders do well to anticipate and respond to such grief, especially if a disaster has also harmed them personally. Incorporating something from the old structure into the new, even if it has to be salvaged and put to a different use, proves helpful. I saw a beautiful processional cross, created from salvaged wood with embedded shards of stained glass. Christ Church, Bay St. Louis, uncovered its brass altar cross in the sand and debris after Katrina. While they polished and straightened its arms and could have done the same to the badly misshaped base, they did not. Instead a parishioner crafted a beautiful wooden stand the top of which holds the cross erect by contouring to its wounded base. Now, standing behind the Altar of their new, attractive worship space, this altar cross serves as an outward and visible sign of a people whose story includes having passed through the worst natural disaster to strike our nation.

Bill Livingston lives in Brevard, North Carolina. A retired priest, he is often called on to do interim work in special need situations as well as parish and vestry consultation relating to disaster/conflict, mutual ministry review, and strategic planning. Bill serves as a faculty member for CREDO, Journey Partners (a 2-year course for training spiritual directors) and as a member of Partners in Response (a post-disaster team for Episcopal Relief and Development. He has presented on emotional and spiritual disaster resiliency at national and diocesan events and co-authored “From Honeymoon to Disillusionment to Reconstruction – Recognizing Healthy and Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms Within Your Congregation and Community and Encouraging Resiliency,” a chapter of Disaster Spiritual Care: Practical Clergy Responses to Disasters, and “Church Attendee Help Seeking Behavior after Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi and Louisiana,” International Journal of Emergency Mental Health, 2012;14(1):15-20. 

Resources

This article is part of the May 2013 Vestry Papers issue on Leadership in a Time of Crisis