Is Your Church “Willing to Respond” in a Disaster?
Does your congregation desire to be more prepared for disasters, both to protect yourselves and to extend love to your neighbors in time of crisis? Then Willing to Respond is for you!
Equip your congregation to love your neighbor in time of disaster This free, new and rapidly growing network is providing congregations with practical tools, training and relationships, including online resources and connection to your Conference Disaster Coordinator and to denominational, ecumenical and other disaster response resources. It’s simple to access and has an easy three-step process to register.
Willing to Respond is a United Church of Christ collaboration with Disciples of Christ Week of Compassion, and Houston Responds. Willing to Respond is not a one-size-fits-all program. The way you serve is up to your congregation, as God is leading you. Your congregation may already be serving disaster survivors by assembling CWS Kits and Emergency Clean-Up Buckets, contributing to UCC appeals, preparing work teams to disaster rebuilding sites or helping people in your community clean up after a flood or storm.
Willing to Respond will help your congregation review its experience, available resources and community context; discern your growing edges, and get ready to respond when disaster strikes. The Willing to Respond network helps your congregation get connected to collaborate. Join Us Today!
Below are the promotional items for congregations to use. This is a lot of information so please review closely and provide any necessary changes. If there are specific instructions you feel would be important to add, please let us know. Thank you.
Items 1 & 2 are Word documents. The background graphics are part of the header/footer of the document. This keeps them from intentionally being moved around. In Word the graphics look muted, but when printed or saved as a PDF the will appear normal.
1. Editable Ways To Serve Handout
This is an editable Word document that lists many ways that congregation members can serve when preparing and responding to a disaster. Church and denomination logos can be added.
2A. Editable Generic Handout - Half Page For Print (2-up)
This is an editable Word document that is meant to be printed and cut in half. The text at the top is generic and the space below that is meant for the congregation to add specific details about how to serve or get involved. Church and denomination logos can be added.
2B. Editable Generic Handout - Half Page For Digital
This editable Word document that is the same as 2A but is designed to be saved as a PDF for digital use versus printing. Church and denomination logos can be added.
3A. Generic Announcement Slide
This is a slide to be used during in-person or online services for promoting the congregation's disaster preparedness and response activities. Church and denomination logos can be added.
3B. Background Announcement Slide
This is a slide to be used during in-person or online services for promoting the congregation's disaster preparedness and response activities. This version can be used along with 3A and provides blank space for specific information and instructions to be added. Church and denomination logos can be added.
This is a PDF for reference that shows the social media images available for congregations to use when posting on social media about their preparedness and response activities. The images on the document are just for reference. When added to the website, this Word doc and the six images (4B) will be combined together into a zip file. The bottom of the document has sample text to use in a social media post both before a disaster and after.
4B. Social Media Post Images (six files compress as one .zip file)
There are three primary images to choose from, in two different sizes depending on the social media platform being used. The three images are intended to provide options to congregations to the image best fits their demographic.