NAMB Launches Recovery Programs for Gulf Coast Ministers, Churches
The North American Mission Board has launched programs in the Gulf Coast to help ministers and churches recover from last year’s devastating hurricanes.
The North American Mission Board has launched programs in the Gulf Coast to help ministers and churches recover from last year’s devastating hurricanes.
NAMB, which serves as the mission arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, is extending its traditional post-disaster response of feeding and clean-up relief to include the long-term agenda of helping pastors and their congregations recover emotionally and spiritually from “compassion fatigue.”
One program, entitled, “Recovering Hope,” seeks to help comfort pastors, church staff and chaplains who some say are often the most difficult to console after the disasters. Facilitators, people who will help conduct seminars, were trained on Jan. 4 and the first seminar was heldp on Jan. 5.
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“The mentality of the pastors is ‘I’m strong. I have to be strong for everyone else. I don’t need help,’” Chaplain Joe Williams told NAMB. Williams is recognized for his work for NAMB in New York City following the 9/11 attacks and in Oklahoma City after the 1995 bombing.
“Pastors are hard to help because we think if we express weakness, it’s a sign of a lack of faith,” he said. Williams has been asked by NAMB to lead a series of seminars on “Compassion Fatigue” from January to May 2006 in Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Alabama.
According to Jim Burton – the director of volunteer mobilization at NAMB headquarters in Alpharetta, Ga. – Southern Baptist churches hope to eventually use the “Recovering Hope” program routinely following disasters.
In addition to the minister-focus recovery program, NAMB is extending a program directed at Gulf Coast churches. NAMB announced that it is extending a $10 million program to provide low-interest loans – up to $100,000 – to Southern Baptist churches in the four Gulf States damaged by Hurricane Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. The extended deadline for loan applications is Mar. 31, 2006
“We want to help churches get back on their feet as quickly as possible,” said NAMB President Robert E. “Bob” Reccord, as reported by NAMB. “The loans – which will require a minimum of paperwork – are just one way we can help them do that.”
Church disaster relief loans are offered to affected SBC churches in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas for the repair of church facilities, replacement of equipment or materials, or to cover the expenses while a church is displaced, explained Karl Dietz, director of NAMB’s church finance ministry team.
No interest will be charged during the first year of the loan and the interest rate will be NAMB’s preferred rate minus 1 percent fixed from second through fifth years, Dietz explained.
To quality for a NAMB disaster relief loan applicants must:
• own the damage facility
• be a cooperating Southern Baptist church as verified by the local association and/or state convention
• have demonstrated history of supporting the Cooperative Program and other Southern Baptist mission causes
• be a valid legal corporation able to provide evidence concerning who is authorized to borrow money on the church’s behalf
More information is available at: churchfinanceministry.com
