Church Corona Virus Alert II: Running Day to Day Operations

In my last post, I offered tips to ensure the Church could maintain worship services during the Corona Virus International Crisis. In this post, I would like to suggest tips the Church can use to continue its Day to Day operations should the area surrounding the Church is quarantined due to the Corona Virus. 

1. DO NOT put your staff and volunteers in a state of panic, create and disseminate a day to day ciris operation plan:
The Plan
Ensure your teams that as a result of the Corona Virus, the Church realized it needed an emergency crisis plan focused not only on the physical but also Day to Day Operations. Present the plan in hand out format and ensure that every staff member and ministry volunteer leader receives a copy with the intent to place the document in a safe place outside of the Church. (Should the area surrounding your Church become quarantined during non-operating hours, and they won't have an opportunity to retrieve the plan from their office). 

2. Telephone Communications:  
If your Church telephone system has capabilities to forward calls to an outside number, ask each staff member to forward their office phones to their cell phone numbers before they leave each night. This strategy ensures that members and vendors can still maintain daily contact with the Church, and the staff can conduct church business from home, again, if the area by which the Church is located becomes quarantined. Note- Make sure to advise your team that you are only requesting access to their cell phones during their regular work hours while operating within the crisis plan model.

3. Church Staff Meetings:
Stay in touch with your team by hosting daily or staff meetings using virtual conference call platforms. Two of my favorite- are Free Conference Call and Zoom. If you have a large staff, you may want to incorporate in your emergency plan that teams conduct team video conference calls daily.

4. Ministry Meetings & Bible Study
Again, I would suggest your ministry teams take advantage of Video Conference platforms and continue to meet at the originally scheduled times throughout the week.

5. Mail and Delivery
You can always ask the USPS to hold your mail at your local station if your area becomes quarantined as you don't want to have possible sensitive information left at the Church's front door or stuffed in the mailbox. 

6. Realize this is a new normal for a while and plan to operate virtually as you would if you were in the physical space.  

What does NOT have to be an option is engaging discussions about closing the church doors as there are platforms and software available today to ensure that the Church door is always open either, be it physical or virtual.

Blessings!

 PS: If you have not picked up your copy of The Church is Leaving the Building, NOW is the time to do so!!! Preview it here