By Jeff Brumley
Leaders of faith-based disaster-recovery agencies say there’s nothing like calamity to invigorate a Christian’s faith. Pastors of churches where disasters strike have noticed a difference in people, too.
“Whether it’s man-made or something from nature, I think it gives people an opportunity to see faith in action,” said Will Baker, pastor of Drummondtown Baptist Church, a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship congregation whose community on the Eastern Shore of Virginia was pounded by super-storm Sandy.
Churches as far away as Alabama offered volunteers, supplies and other donations while local and state Baptists also aided victims, Baker said.
‘Overwhelming response’
Baptist disaster-relief experts say natural and man-made catastrophes create obvious opportunities for Great Commission ministry hard to match back home. When properly harnessed by faith-based and government disaster-response agencies, that surge of spiritual adrenaline can provide immediate and long-term benefits for victims. But it can also become a burden if organizers and authorities are overcome by well-meaning but unneeded volunteers.
That’s what happened in West, Texas, in the hours following the April 17 fertilizer factory explosion that killed 14.
“It’s been pretty overwhelming,” said Terry Henderson, state disaster-relief director for Texas Baptist Men. Authorities told him they were “trying to handle 3,700 volunteers that just showed up, unorganized – that’s a big demand on a small city.”
Those volunteers came from nearby localities and from churches across Texas and even out of state, Henderson said.
“People come and they want to build homes, but they don’t need to do it now,” he said.
Another challenge for the city and its residents has been “an overwhelming amount of stuff and junk,” Henderson said.
As soon as news of the explosion spread, people were driving to West with cars and trucks full of used clothing and furniture. But that wasn’t needed, he said.
“It looks like a landfill – it looks like everybody emptied their houses out in this field,” he said. “They have overwhelmed the community with stuff, and it will have to be taken to the dump because it’s been sitting outside.”
Ministers in and around Newtown, Conn., reported a similar situation following the Sandy Hook massacre. One CBF pastor there called it being “crushed with goodwill, but crushed nonetheless.”
Henderson said he recommends those chomping to get into action wait until faith-based and government agencies issue calls for specific needs and skill sets. And give gift cards instead of material, he added.
“Everybody has good intent, but I tell people: don’t waste your gas right now.”
‘Something extremely powerful’
It’s partly a sense of calling that drives the helpful sort toward disaster zones, said Harry Rowland, facilitator of the North American Baptist Fellowship’s disaster-response network. “There is something extremely powerful about it,” he said.
That’s especially true for those who have experienced such ministry before and experienced the gratitude of homeowners for debris and muck removal. “You can make an immediate difference and … you are an answered prayer to some of these people in these situations,” Rowland said.
Plus there’s something to be said for the sense of adventure that a disaster-response road trip brings, he added. “And we do have to depend on that” as disaster-response managers, Rowland said.
Disaster-response ministry is the way some, including many who had negative church experiences growing up, became Christians, Rowland added. “When there was a disaster, somebody said ‘come,’ and they went … and they felt good and they said if this is what it means to be a Christian, then I can do this.”
Tommy Deal, national disaster-response coordinator for CBF, calls it “compassion adrenaline” that sometimes drives volunteers to arrive at disaster zones without invitations or instructions.
But for others it is the only way they know to express their Christianity, Deal said.
“They’re not evangelists and they’re not the ones who will give the four spiritual laws,” he said. “But they live out their faith and … disaster relief gives another area for people to be missional.”
‘People lock arms’
Whatever you call it, it results in a renewed faith in the basic good of humanity, said Susan Sparks, pastor of Madison Avenue Baptist Church in New York City.
Sparks wrote a column recently expressing her admiration for those in Boston who ran toward the marathon bombings, instead of away. She told ABPnews later that she believes it’s because disaster naturally teases out innate human goodness.
“There is something about the reality of a crisis that makes us see through all the layers of things life has put over humanity,” Sparks said. “All of a sudden we see the commonalities and not the differences.”
Sparks said she’s seen it over and over – during and after Sandy, the Boston bombings and 9-11. “People lock arms and become just human beings – not Hindu, Christian or Buddhist, and not black or white, male or female.”
Seeing the need
People also tend to open their eyes during and after disasters and see life in new ways, Baker said.
Even in everyday ministry “it’s so easy to become calloused and have your heart hardened a little bit by the same tragedies day in and day out,” he said. “Then, all of a sudden, a disaster comes along and just rips those callouses away.”
The resulting softening of the heart, Baker said, occurs to those who travel to disaster sites, and to those living in them. “A calamity can be a powerful opportunity to have the scales fall off your eyes and see the needs of your community that have always been there,” he said.