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Disaster Preparation and Response

Personal New York State Disaster Preparedness training at Bayport UMC, Feb 4, 2020
                                       
A Note from DPR Chair, Warren Ferry
Did you ever wonder why some people or organizations seem to most always get things right?  They generally do not have problems doing the job they have to do on a daily basis.  I read a book recently entitled "Spaceman” written by astronaut Mike Massimino a Long Islander who was fortunate to be able to become an astronaut and during his career was blessed to be one of those who serviced the Hubble Space Telescope, twice!  Mike tells in his book about the hours and hours week after week, month after month of the training, practice and process that it took for him and his team mates to be able to accomplish all of the amazing things that they did to repair the Hubble telescope in order to keep it operational.  The book is a really good read and I recommend it.


While we all know the importance of practice, “practice makes perfect”, it is the process and proving out of the processes that enable the team to repeat the tasks.  The Federal Aviation Administration was one of the first organization to document process and develop checklists for flying and now every aircraft crew, air traffic controller and all individuals who are involved in flying the public, utilize checklists for all aspects of flight.  Checklists are the basic tool that enable the airline industry to safely transport millions of people around the world.  As a result of that success even doctors and hospitals are beginning to adopt checklists to be able to make operations and procedures as error free as possible to improve the chance that those operations are successful for their patients and their organizations. 

 

What about the church?  Can the church benefit from written process and checklists?  I believe that for many of the tasks that we do, the church will benefit greatly from having a written process and appropriate checklists.  Because many, if not most tasks that we do in the church are performed by lay persons and volunteers, it is important to capture the basic processes of major tasks, and then provide that process and a checklist to the volunteers to use as a guide for them to do the job. 

What kind of tasks in the church would benefit from process and checklists?  I am sure that many of you will think of lots of areas but some include;

Proposal accepted by District Council on Ministries: