Last year, I had the opportunity to attend a disaster simulation where newbies can get a taste and consider getting trained further. We experienced a hurricane in the a.m. and a tornado in the afternoon. What was new for me, having followed up both of those kinds of disasters, was being part of the second wave of responders that does assessments (we usually arrive during the relief phase, addressing what was already assessed) and finding injured actors from the tornado. When we found injured people in the woods, we would report by radio to the Georgia Army National Guard on site. HRM does this because ongoing home repair is complimentary to disaster response. We find that it is easier for churches to respond to a critical need if they have a home repair team organized.

This response has spiritual application because we’re usually helping people that 1) either don’t have insurance, or 2) need to cover up until insurance adjusters arrive. We are often their only option for help. God wants us to approach Him with the same attitude as those picking up from a disaster - broken, helpless and looking for a savior and helper. And God, being rich in love and mercy, responds not because we are entitled or have accomplished something, but always by His mercy and grace. In Him we find salvation and grace to endure the hardships of a fallen world. We pray that people will see God’s grace in our help and embrace eternal life in Jesus Christ.

Since the gospel has freed us and heaven is ahead let’s serve Him with all we’ve got and bring a little taste of heaven to earth!

If you have been following the ministry for a while, you know that our heart is to extend the gospel, our outreach and the ministry as far as we can while uniting the church together in service. Last year’s strategy was built around providing a toolkit and resources for churches to launch their own ministries. This year, we are making an adjustment and adding an element we lacked last year - one that we believe will help more churches start teams and more projects get done.

We have been blessed with some very gifted volunteers but until now, have not organized them to act together. We are convinced that we can use volunteers more effectively for leadership roles on projects and in assisting in all aspects of running the ministry. The last couple months, we have been meeting with some faithful people that have been involved and committed to the vision of HRM and are now stepping up to use their time and expertise in critical focus areas. These areas include project site visits & leadership, networking to professional resources, fundraising, planning, supporting existing church teams, and ministry expansion into other areas of Metro Atlanta. We are currently calling the group The Core Team. It will act both as an advisory board and an implementation team.

If you're in Atlanta and you, or someone you know, have a heart for this kind of thing, please let me know. We think this is an excellent strategy to increase our impact and number of projects in 2013 from around 50 to 75 and the number of churches participating from 15 to 23.

We have been working with a local church on a grant request to fund some accessibility projects. One of the things we have learned in our years of ministry is that volunteers love to build wheelchair ramps. Why? Because they get to turn a big pile of lumber into a critically needed structure in one day, and the need and benefit is obvious.

As we’ve gone through the research process for the grant, we’ve found that accessibility is also a huge opportunity for outreach and missions. Want some stats to back that up?

According to the U.S. Census Bureau*, almost 19% of the civilian non-institutionalized population had a disability in 2010. About 12.6% had a severe disability. Over twelve million people (over age six) are disabled to the point of needing personal assistance for everyday activities. In aggregate, disabled people are the largest minority group in the country, coming in at around 56.7 million. 38.3 million have a severe disability.

As the population ages, these numbers should increase. That means more homeowners who no longer having full access to their homes. Imagine if, suddenly, you could no longer easily get out of your house or into the bathroom. Or that you couldn’t easily get out of the house to see friends and family or even do the everyday tasks we so readily take for granted. These scenarios will likely become increasingly prevalent.

There are probably many ways to serve the disabled, but a home repair team in your church is one of the most obvious and beneficial. And what a beautiful picture - the (formerly) spiritually disabled, redeemed by Christ, helping show the physically disabled the love and grace of God! We’d love to help you get started. So if you’re looking at starting a ministry team in your church or thinking about it, please check out the resources for new teams on the HRM website.

*Statistics sourced from Census Bureau report "Americans with Disabilities: 2010 Household Economic Studies” - http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/p70-131.pdf

In Monday's blog post, we shared a bit about how we get project referrals and set guidelines and expectations with homeowners. This is necessary because one of the risks that we face, as mercy ministries, is getting scammed. So how do you put some safeguards in place to minimize this risk and vet the people you serve?

Some ideas that will help, but none are foolproof:

• Request recommendations from someone that knows them and their situation, e.g. their local church, social worker, hospital staff, senior services agency or even their medical professional.
• Get their last 3 payroll stubs or Social Security receipts, etc.
• Make sure they own the house, get copy of utility bills.
• Take a look at the house, cars, furniture, etc. Do the pieces fit into a familiar pattern of hurt or is something awry?

If you take a volunteer into the wrong house that sends all of the wrong signals, your volunteer may be busy the next time you ask for help.

A word of caution, however. We feel like we are being the hands and feet of Christ in the community. People in some communities have been practicing “survive any way you can” for generations. There are also many who, entirely legitimately, are hurting for reasons beyond their control. We sometimes talk about people hurting for three reasons: their own sin, someone’s sin against them and disasters/situations beyond anyone’s control. If the latter two cases are the reason, it would be terrible to have God’s resources available but withhold them because you heard about an outright scam by someone else. If my God owns the cattle on a thousand hills (real meaning: God owns everything), then I think He’s more concerned about my heart than being absolutely sure about the people that ask us for help. I’d much rather get scammed than not help one who has been sent by the Lord – it really helps to be listening to God’s Spirit to understand what to do.

It reminds me of a couple of passages of scripture: Matthew 10:16 - "Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves." Deuteronomy 15:11 - " . . . I command you, 'You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’" Matthew 5:16 - "In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven."

It isn’t easy, but it is God’s will that we are the conduit of his grace and mercy.

My co-worker Jim and I were talking to a representative of Habitat for Humanity in Atlanta about being available to help those living in homes built by their chapter. We explained that two ways we get referrals are 1) from agencies that have pre-qualified the person needing help, and 2) those that hear about us or find out about us and initiate the contact. #1 is by far our preference because someone else has determined that the family is eligible for help.

#2 raises some challenges. The first can be found in me: Tell me that someone has something for nothing and I might just get into the line. The same kind of thing happens with very nice citizens in the community. “Oh, HRM does home repairs for nothing? Well, put me on the list for new exterior paint job, break up and replace my old driveway, repaint all of my rooms with faux marbre columns and a Trompe L'oeil Mediterranean window scene, replace my dark granite countertops with lighter ones, . . . Oh, this is for people who cannot afford to make repairs, often to keep the home from being condemned, or under threat of paying a fine for not keeping the property up?“

This past weekend, we were at someone’s house when they heard what we do and were more than happy to let us help them until I used “dire circumstances” to describe what we do and he realized that he’d misunderstood.

Here's a real-life example of why we need to have some discernment. About a year and a half ago, we got word, from several sources, about a family that was homeschooling, closely connected to a home school group, and lived next door to someone from my church. The mother was fighting a losing battle with cancer, in and out of the hospital, getting meals brought in by many families, and having respiratory problems due to old carpet in the house. Six months after getting carpet donated and installed by HRM volunteers, we were called by a police detective to find out about what we’d done to help. It seems that the husband and wife had been scamming people for a long time, she was in jail, and there were many people who considered her to be a friend, really angry with her.

So, you want some suggestions on how to vet those you serve and how to balance love and discernment? Come back Friday for Part Two.

A church's home repair team exists to serve it's own homeowners in need and as an outreach to your community's homeowners in need. In both cases, we have found those most needing our services to typically be widows, single mothers, the elderly and disabled. If outreach is a priority for your church, a home repair ministry is an opportunity to share the gospel in Word and deed with these people.

If this sounds like a good opportunity for your church, the next question becomes "is it right for us and can we do it?" Finding the answers for your church will be helped by sharing what a home repair team is and what it is not.

1) A home repair team is typically not led by staff or leadership (at least, that's been our experience). A home repair team can be viewed as an opportunity to extend your congregation's involvement and outreach. In fact, the guys who run a home repair team can be the people in your church who aren't sure how and where to plug in and serve.

Find your handymen (and women) and the folks your leadership calls when you have a single mom with a repair need and you've found your candidate to lead you local church's home repair team. We think that these guys exist in many churches.

2) A home repair team is scalable in scope. The size of your church should not be an impediment to starting a team. A simple home repair team can be two guys who help people out occasionally on weekends. Or, in a larger church, or one with a lot of handymen, you can have several projects going on a month.

3) A home repair team does not have to raise a lot of money to fund projects. Your church can certainly choose to fund projects, but we try to either have the materials paid for by the homeowner (where feasible) or donated from local businesses or other non-profits.

4) A home repair ministry is a natural partner to a disaster response/recovery team. If your church participates in disaster recovery projects, a home repair ministry can help your team impact their community all throughout the year. More than likely you've already got similar skills on your team and are doing similar types of work. Instead of sending volunteers out a couple times a year, you can keep them busy every month, even weekly, if you have the people for it!

5) Starting a home repair ministry does require some forethought. Fortunately, our ministry and several churches have been through this before. In fact, we've been doing this for many years and learned a lot of good ideas and not so good ones.

We've collected that information and made it available to churches at no charge on our website (you can make a suggested donation but it is not required). As we get more churches joining through our website, we will build a community that can share and learn with each other.

The short version of our ministry's Mission Statement is "Repairing Homes and Hearts as Churches Serve Together". The second part of that statement is very important to us because we believe serving together (assuming common essential core beliefs) is a strategic way to advance the Kingdom. Why?

• Church teams begin to see each other serving in the community and realize they are not alone in their concerns. Relationships are established between teams.
• Church teams become “iron sharpening iron” (Proverbs 27:17), recognizing that each church has individual gifts that contribute to the whole Body.
• The community has the opportunity to observe what the followers of Jesus are doing to bless them, leading them to realize that the Church is an indispensible part of the community.
• Movements similar to Unite! are strengthened at a grass roots ministry level. Pastors and leaders pray and plan together to address other common concerns.
• Pastors are encouraged to connect with other pastors as they realize their Home Repair Teams are serving together.
• Combined church efforts reflect Christ more visibly than smaller, single church efforts.
• Working together reflects the unity we read about in Ephesians 4.

What about you? Do you have experience working across multiple churches and/or denominations? What has been your experience? If you've had some good successes, let us know and we'll share your story, if appropriate.

We've talked quite a bit in the blog about the need for home repairs for our primary service constituencies inside and outside the church - widows, single mothers, the elderly and disabled - but aside from the primary blessings of serving Jesus and our brothers, sisters and neighbors, there is also a practical reasons for your church to consider a home repair team.

In almost every church there is a group of handy people that are called upon for their skills. Some help maintain the church building, some go on construction-related mission trips, and some help with the occasional odd job presented by a needy congregation member. Most of the time these previously mentioned groups serve when called upon, but they are not actively looking for projects. Did some faces and names come to mind?

Men (and women) on the periphery of the ministry are found in many churches but cannot figure out how to serve in the church if they don’t sing, teach, direct traffic, or participate in childcare. But, they can use their hands! When these people are engaged, there is an army of handymen ready to jump in and “get it done”.

So, what might move a church like yours toward starting a home repair ministry team?

• An existing handyman group needs organizing or refining for effectiveness
• There are interested men in the church
• There is someone in the church with a need
• The pastor or staff have the idea of starting a team for outreach purposes
• To build a Men’s Ministry
• There are needs in the community close to the church

So, one of the best ways to form a home repairs team is to identify these handy people and get them behind, and committed to, an effort to launch your home repairs ministry. Or, put another way, encourage them to do what they were already doing, only in a more organized and effective manner.

We can help you get started with a library of resources to help you start and run a team.

Today we finish the blog series on guidelines for a home repair ministry. While this is probably not an exhaustive list, it should help you understand the questions you will want to consider as you start or grow your team. It may also help you to understand the best size and scope of your ministry.

Did we miss anything or leave anything out? Want to add a question or issue we missed? Send us an email with additional questions that home repair ministries should consider.

To access to the full article (including information not present in the blog), you can get it at no cost by registering for the site.

Photo courtesy of Jonathan Ogilvie - http://www.eyebrightdesign.co.uk/

XV) What tools should you have on hand?

Depending on the size and complexity of your ministry, you may want to maintain either a set of tools or rely upon the volunteers to bring their own. See blog for recommended tools to have available

XVI) How will you determine repair priorities?

The ministry should establish a protocol determining who is served first when there is a waiting list.

XVII) How will you evaluate the work performed by volunteers?

It is very helpful to consider what criteria you will use to evaluate the work done by your volunteers. How will you communicate with the homeowner to determine if their needs were met? See the document “Success indicators” under the Project Completion section for suggestions on how to evaluate your team’s work.

XVIII) What procedures will you have in place to respond to project emergencies?

Although most repair efforts involve limited risk, even using a ladder or fixing an element in a hot water heater can pose potential threats of harm or injury to volunteers or homeowners. By having emergency procedures in place, ministries can have a rapid response in the event of problems. At a minimum, ministries should maintain emergency contact telephone lists for all volunteers. Because some homes may not have working telephones, volunteers should be encouraged to carry a cell phone with them.

XIX) What will be your confidentiality standard?

Home repairs ministries should take special care to protect the confidentiality of homeowners. Regardless of the state of the home, gossip should never be tolerated in a Christian ministry. It is best to develop a written statement reminding volunteers of their obligation not to share private information about homeowners with others who do not have a need to know.

XX) How do you handle cases of suspected abuse or neglect?

Unfortunately, it may become apparent to volunteers that abuse or neglect is present in a home being repaired. Volunteers should be trained to spot signs of abuse and report their suspicions to the appropriate authorities.

See Part One    See Part Two

Today's blog continues the discussion on what questions your team should be asking when considering or starting a home repair team in your church. See Part One

We'll continue our look at some practical questions you and your team will want to consider to help you increase your ministry impact and avoid potential unpleasant surprises. To get access to the full article, you can get it at no cost by registering for the site.

IX) How will you find homeowners to serve?

Once you have identified who qualifies for services offered by the ministry (e.g. by age, income etc.), you will need to connect with homeowners in need.

X) How will the homeowner be screened?

Defining a process and methodology will help you ensure that each applicant is qualified and that your team can handle the scope of the job.

XI) Who will assess the home repair request?

It is helpful, when a request comes in, to have a preliminary assessment done by a member of your team. This will help guide your decision and next action steps.

XII) How will you track requests and their resolution?

Having a process or plan will help you to make sure requests are finished and also allow you to show your team's impact on the church and/or community.

XIII) Who will pay for the cost of repairs?

Generally, volunteers should not be expected to pay for the cost of repairs. That being the case, who and how will these projects be paid for? We have a blog article focused on this topic - So, how exactly do we pay for this? The website also has additional information on this topic for registrants.

XIV) What building professionals are available if needed for help and/or advice?

It is a good idea to create and maintain a list of building professionals who are available to provide free or reduced price advice on particular home repair requests.

The third and final blog in this series will be released next Monday, December 17.