One of my favorite TV shows this season is Designated Survivor. Kiefer Sutherland plays Tom Kirkman, a low level cabinet appointee who is the designated survivor during the President’s State of the Union address to congress. When an explosion kills the President, Vice President and all other cabinet members, Kirkman is immediately sworn in as the new POTUS.
It’s a great show. One of the reasons I like it is because I’ve personally met a real “designated survivor.” James Watt was Secretary of the Interior during President Reagan’s time in office. Mr. Watt and his wife, Leilani, both Christians, graciously invited me to their home here in the Denver area to talk about my ministry to the widowed and single parents. During our discussion, Mr. Watt told me the story of how he was the designated survivor during one of President Reagan’s State of the Union addresses. He said he watched the speech on TV from a military base here in Colorado. He even had an exact duplicate of “The Football” – the briefcase holding the codes and communication for launching nuclear warheads – with him.
Something else I learned while visiting with the Watts was that Mrs. Watt had experienced a catastrophe herself. While carrying laundry, she tripped and fell down a flight of stairs. Her injuries resulted in paralysis and confinement to a wheelchair for life. As I sat in their living room talking about churches using teams of men to serve the widowed and single parents, she kept interrupting me with this question: “What about someone like me?”
What about someone like her indeed! The widowed and single parents aren’t the only ones with long term needs in our churches. Sometimes churches have members who suffer genuine catastrophes like Mrs. Watts. I call these types of needs catastrophic long term needs that result in total dependence. In these situations, God has appointed the church as the true “designated survivor.” “Let our churches learn to engage in good deeds, to meet pressing needs,” Paul writes to Titus, “that they may not be unfruitful” (3:14).
My two favorite illustrations of churches responding to catastrophic long term needs are Northwest Hills Community Church in Corvallis, Oregon and Valley Community Baptist Church in Avon, Connecticut. I repeat these examples quite frequently because they are worthy of repetition.
When Jack Glubrecht, the youth pastor at Northwest Hills Community Church, fell and broke his neck while water skiing during a youth outing, his church raised the funds to build a five bedroom parsonage so that he could move in along with his best friend and his best friend’s wife. They help with his care in return for free housing and Jack volunteers at the church with their benevolence program.
When a single mom with ten children started attending Valley Community Baptist Church and then died, ten couples from the church each took in one of the children. Some assumed the role of foster parents and some adopted the children. They see their siblings on Sundays at church and the families celebrate their birthdays and some holidays together.
In both of these situations, the church became a true “designated survivor;” a reservoir of love, compassion and resources that were activated in a time of great tragedy.
One of the things I love about men’s team ministry is that it really does prepare a church for these types of extreme situations. By focusing on the immediate needs of it’s widowed and single parents, the church develops a mindset of trusting God to meet whatever pressing needs come its way.
This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.
Has your church ever had a member suffer a catastrophic long term need? How did your church respond?
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Learn how to form teams of men for every widow, single mom
and fatherless child in your church at NewCommandment.org.
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