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May 26, 2011

Using Social Media During Disaster Relief

How one church leader became a believer in Twitter.

 by Jenni Catron


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Editor's Note: Relief efforts continue in Joplin, Missouri, following Sunday's horrific tornado, which killed at least 117 people and left extensive damage in its wake (the area remained on edge during the early parts of the week as predictions of more explosive storms rolled in). Churches and ministries are looking for ways to help. Aside from When Disaster Strikes and Serving as a Disaster Relief Team, two helpful church training resources from ChurchSafety.com, we offer this interesting blog post from Jenni Catron, who uncovered the power of Twitter during her church's response a year ago to flooding in Nashville:

I swore I wouldn't sign up for Twitter. It seemed like a nuisance. I had already given in to Facebook and started my personal blog. I didn't need one more thing!
But I quickly realized that as a leader in a church with a population of primarily Generation X and Y, I needed to engage this medium if I intended to influence them. Little did I know that less than a year later Twitter would become a key tool for responding to one of the greatest tragedies our city has ever faced.
Sunday, May 2, 2010, is a day that will be etched in my memory forever. I'd never seen so much water in my life, and it just continued to rain and rain and rain. I had spent nearly two hours trying to get home, but there was simply no way. My neighborhood and several of those around it were completely surrounded by water. Since going home was not an option, I found my way to a friend's house and camped out in front of the TV, paralyzed by the continuous news footage. Soon I received word of not one, not two, but three of my staff members whose homes were submerged in water. Tears began to flow when one of my staff texted me a picture of the roof of her house—everything else was under water. "God, please make it stop," I begged.
Nashville was devastated and we needed to respond. That evening, Pete Wilson, lead pastor for Cross Point Church, and I brainstormed ways our church might bring the love and hope of Christ to our flooded city. We had no idea what we could do, but we knew we needed to rally Cross Point volunteers and begin to help. Sunday evening Pete and I began tweeting our plans to our combined 60,000 followers and several thousand Facebook friends, asking them to meet Monday morning to help with flood relief.

Continue reading "How I Became a Twitter Believer" on our sister site, GiftedForLeadership.com.

Jenni Catron first shared this story in the book @StickyJesus. She serves as the Executive Director of Cross Point Church in Nashville, TN, and is a contributing editor for GiftedforLeadership.com. Jenni started the women's leadership community, Cultivate Her. She blogs there and at www.jennicatron.tv.

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Posted by Matt Branaugh on May 26, 2011 8:00 AM

Related Tags: Communication, computers, disaster, Facebook, social media, technology, Twitter, websites

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