#ReimagineEVANGELISM... "ER" ~ Emergency Response
Reignite Your Passion for Preparedness:
Learn How to Get Ready for Anything!
Are you looking to reignite your passion for preparedness and create a plan to get ready for anything? With over twenty years nationally and 12 years locally of experience assisting and educating Christians in emergency preparedness, ReadyIndy will provide you with the essential tools and knowledge to ensure that you are prepared for any situation that comes your way. From natural disasters to financial worries, our sessions will provide actionable strategies on getting ready for anything and everything.
John 14
13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
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ReadyIndy
Operating Plan 2023
Published 01/31/2023 (draft) (Current Version Permalink)
Introduction:
ReadyIndy was founded in September 2010, ReadyINDY is the metro chapter of the
national Christian Emergency Network (CEN). ReadyINDY's motto is: 'Trained to be
aware of what God is doing, Prepared to survive & support others, Ready to pray, care &
give hope to those in crisis’. ReadyINDY's mission is to raise up ReadyChristians &
ReadyChurches in order to better become a ReadyCity. During emergencies,
ReadyINDY will partner with disaster-response agencies and specially serve to
accelerate wholistic compassion efforts by expediting communications among the
Christian community. Visit ReadyINDY.org. Michael Boler, City Leader, will be available
for interviews. Contact Neil Cox, Public Information Officer (317-490-1255).
Christian Emergency Network (CEN) was formed after Sept 11, 2001, originally by
several Mission America Coalition members, to respond effectively before, during, and
after a national disaster through a united pray-care-share media and ministry response.
The CEN mission is to equip every Christian to be ready to respond biblically to
emergencies large or small. CEN assists over 7,000 Christian ministry and media
organizations and thousands of churches nationwide to be ready through its vast
communication and collaboration network. During local, state or national incidents CEN
responders locate each other; post prayer needs, and logistically collaborate through
incident specific online response groups. CEN also works with the Department of
Homeland Security to provide CEN partners with timely, accurate and actionable security
information. Visit ChristianEmergencyNetwork.org. Mary Marr, CEN Founder, will be
available for interviews. Contact Misti McHatton, Public Information Officer
(800-260-5637).
Operating Plan for the year 2023, represents our primary networking, training and
exercises to build toward unified citywide teamwork. Our written annual plan (below)
includes a Situation Report, our Capabilities Report, Our 2023 Objective, and Focal
activities per Quarter to achieve our objective.
(*See End-Notes below.)
Situation Map:
(Click to larger Map)
The Greater Indianapolis Metropolitan
Statistical Area (MSA):
770,000 households
2,000,000 population
9 counties (plus 2 outlying counties)
110 zip-codes
10 adopted zip-codes
93 ReadyChristians
4 ReadyChurches
13% Bible-believing, practicing evangelicals
392 Mapped Contact Churches/Ministries
Situation Report:
God’s purpose in the world (Titus 2 & 3) is about redeeming a people for himself, who not only
worship him, but also reflect his character and good news via deed and word. This includes
providing for urgent needs. Or as Christ summed it: Love God and love your neighbor as
yourself.
Moreover, In terms of readiness, we desire to aid our neighbors as they prepare for family or
community emergencies. And help them prepare spiritually, now and for eternity.
Our community has daily murders or suicides, often among our young people. The opioid crisis
is raging. Families are often divided. Our complex legal system too often prevents justice for the
common person, much less for immigrants and refugees.
Our internal obstacles and hazards: We the Church are too-often disconnected and siloed,
sometimes reflecting racial, age-based, stylistic, or minor theological divides. Divided, the
Church lacks consistency of our core message, and mission accountability for results. Our
sense of urgency has not been commensurate with the level of community need. And in very
practical terms, we fall short in even knowing which households are being prayed-for, feel
cared-for, or have had the Good News* shared with them.
Within our own neighborhoods we have people who need hope. And a friend. And Good News*.
Current (January 1st) #WaffleHouseIndex of ministry locations readily offering that hope.
● 7 Greens -- trained & practicing neighborhood prayer-care-share.
● 27 Yellows -- in process of training & preparation for neighborhood prayer-care-share.
● 358 Reds -- locations which (we hope) will take our call during an emergency.
Capabilities Report:
We are capable of quickly connecting & communicating among our various affiliates to aid in the
development of a ‘Common Operating Picture’ (COP), and our most appropriate response. Our
local (and national) communications serve to help expedite the incident response and
information-flow among the faith community.
Our Team & Affiliates:
● Call-out sheet (database).
○ 93 (Green) ReadyChristians (or equivalent) .
○ 188 (Yellow) Individuals in-process, becoming increasingly ready.
○ 554 (Red) Other accessible contacts.
● Map of key churches, ministries, neighborhood locations.
with 110 zipcode markers linking each zipcode to its collaborative document.
Our Emergency Plan: Emergency Operations Plan (EOP pdf)
Our Emergency Locations: HQ at P30, or Mobile EOC, or Virtual EOC (Zoom-room)
Other Essential Capabilities:
● We have 12 years of experience - Examples: Fairgrounds Stage-collapse incident,
Henryville, Richmond Hill, and various other incidents & activities since our inception.
● Relationships with affiliates, secular & sacred, local & national, eg CERT, COAD.
● Trusted access to secured information -- national and local.
● We can provide quality readiness training. ReadyChristian, ReadyChurch, ReadyCity.
● We can provide coaching, chaplains & trained volunteers during response.
● Communications - Zoom-room, Zello channel, Social-media - Email subscriptions.
● Phone system, emergency texting (Subscribe by texting ALERTME to 877-731-3942
● Maps & Mapping capabilities, incl Metro Ministries Map.
● Satellite equipped mobile unit, and 32’ FEMA Trailer for mobile command.
● Generator. Freezer. Cooking & Water-purification. Hazmat protection suits.
● ...Plus a myriad of collective capabilities via our network of affiliates.
2023 Key Objective: ‘Operations’ are the tactical, tangible ways in which “we reach out and
touch our neighbors”. As a Christian Emergency ‘Network’ chapter, the key network value is its
number of nodes -- ie, ready and communicating locations. So we state our objective in terms
of affiliated ministries who are increasingly ready and tangibly caring for their neighborhoods “in
season and out”.
Currently 27 map-dotted ministries are triage-colored Yellow = In-Process of becoming #ready.
Our 2023 Objective is to effectively double the number of Yellow locations to 55.
Statistically, that would be 1 location in half of our 110 zipcoded geographies.
Future: Our resulting longer-term vision for the coming years is the citywide network of (Green)
ministries effectively blessing 100% of our neighbors... in-season and out.
Unplanned Activities:
● Incidents: We stand ready, willing and able to respond to particular incidents that are
within our scope; that is, our geographic area (or in some cases beyond our metro area,
as practical). While one or more of our affiliated churches or ministries may respond to a
particular incident, our overall ReadyIndy potential response will depend on the nature of
the incident and our resources & capabilities at that moment. We will try very hard to
support our affiliated churches and ministries which may be directly involved in an
incident. (See our Emergency Operations Plan - EOP - linked above.)
● Casual Fridays: We standardly have volunteer staff persons at our P30 Hqtrs every
Friday noon-hour for coffee conversations, meet & greet, consultations and fellowship.
Come join us.
● By Appointment: We frequently meet onsite with church/ministry pastors, staff,
volunteers or other emergency agency reps -- contact us if you’d like to arrange for us to
visit your location.
● Affiliates’ Activities: We participate whenever possible with our affiliates’ key activities.
Planned Activities: We believe the following focal Activities will ensure success toward our
2023 Objective. Bold indicates the focal activity per quarter.
Q1/2023
● Fri. 1/27 - Planning/Networking Meeting at P30.
● Weds. 2/1 - Send February e-newsletter including monthly progress report.
● Sat. 2/18 - Participate in Boxes of Love neighborhood outreaches.
● Weds. 3/1 - Send March e-newsletter including monthly progress report.
● Fri. 3/3 - Begin ReadyChristian Training series.
● Fri. 3/10 - ReadyChristian Training series.
● Fri. 3/17 - ReadyChristian Training series.
● Fri. 3/24 - ReadyChristian Training series.
● Fri. 3/31 - ReadyChristian Exercise, onsite at P30 hqtrs.
Q2/2023
● Sat. 4/1 - Send April e-newsletter including monthly progress report.
● Sun. 4/9 - Easter
● Fri. 4/28 - Planning/Networking Meeting at P30.
● Mon. 5/1 - Send May e-newsletter including monthly progress report.
● Fri. 5/26 - ReadyIndy Luncheon networking event.
● Thurs. 6/1 - Send June e-newsletter including monthly progress report.
● Fri. 6/2 - ReadyChristian Training series.
● Fri. 6/9 - ReadyChristian Training series.
● Fri. 6/16 - ReadyChristian Training series.
● Fri. 6/23 - ReadyChristian Training series.
● Fri. 6/30 - ReadyChristian Exercise, onsite at P30 hqtrs.
Q3/2019
● Sat. 7/1 - Send July e-newsletter including monthly progress report.
● (July 23-29 is FHL Week)
● Fri. 7/28 - Planning/Networking Meeting at P30.
● Tues. 8/1 - Send August e-newsletter including monthly progress report.
● Fri. 9/1 - Send September e-newsletter including monthly progress report.
● Fri. 9/8 - ReadyChristian Training series.
● Fri. 9/15 - ReadyChristian Training series.
● Fri. 9/22 - ReadyChristian Training series.
● Fri. 9/29 - ReadyChristian Exercise, at P30 hqtrs.
Q4/2019
● Sun. 10/1 - Send October e-newsletter including monthly progress report.
● Thurs. 10/19 - #Shakeout - National Exercise
● Fri. 10/27 - (tentative date) Affiliates Retreat - Planning 2024
● Sun. 11/1 - Send November e-newsletter including monthly progress report.
● Fri. 12/1 - Send December e-newsletter including monthly progress report.
● Thurs. 12/14 - Year-end Celebration, Networking & Prayer for 2024.
● Fri. 12/29 - Assist re Boxes of Love (College kids).
Footnotes:
● Good News... Often in disasters, people cry out “Why God?”. And we empathize.
Things shouldn’t be like this, should they? How could a perfect God allow such? But at
the same time, we all want a God who is patient with us, right? The ‘good news’ is that
the perfect God demonstrates his patience & empathy with us. The Bible says He
humbled himself and came into our situation... as Jesus Christ... to give us hope. He
demonstrated his perfect love, through self-sacrifice, paying the ultimate cost, taking our
sins upon himself on the cross. In exchange, the resurrected Jesus offers us his perfect
life... and eternal peace... as a free gift, to those who will entrust their lives to him by faith
-- not unlike trusting the fireman to carry us down the high ladder. Moreover, Christ
empowers the believer via his Spirit to then participate in his loving and active work in
the world. Learn more at ExploreGod.org.
● A ReadyChristian is a believer... who has a GoKit, has done a self-assessment of
readiness, has a buddy, has done the ReadyChristian Study, and practices the readiness
lifestyle of prayer-care-share. The ReadyChristian Participants Guide ($10) is available
via Kindle or Amazon. Another great tool as you care for your neighborhood is to sign
up at BlessEveryHome.com (free) and ‘adopt’ your neighborhood on the map.
Moreover, this great tool aids ReadyIndy as we organize and assess our citywide
operations on an ongoing basis. Here in Greater Indianapolis, a ReadyChristian may
become credentialed after participating in one of our quarterly table-top exercises.
● A ReadyChurch is... one which has a Crisis Team (or similar name) who have been
trained regarding ReadyChristian and ReadyChurch principles. These include learning
the Incident Command System (ICS) -- FEMA’s teamwork protocols, used by
first-responders from various organizations during an emergency/disaster response.
The ReadyChurch Training Guide is available via Amazon. Here in Greater Indianapolis,
a ReadyChurch may become credentialed after participating in one of our quarterly
table-top exercises.
● A ReadyCity will be... a collection of well-trained ReadyChristians & ReadyChurches
carrying out God’s good works in the city. Our ReadyCity training in Indianapolis
includes the ‘Unified Command’ model for shared-leadership. The ReadyCity Training
Guide is available via Amazon. Here in Greater Indianapolis, we will host a September
exercise to practice the ReadyCity collaborative model.
● ‘Unified Command’ (UC)... For any given incident, event or initiative, a small group of
well-trained leaders may share high-level decision-making and responsibility for success
-- albeit without ceding their organization’s autonomy. An incident-response structure
may then be constructed as church-by-church, or by combining responders into other
team formats. This UC model of shared-leadership is advocated by FEMA, for complex
situations. Like all response models, practice and exercise improves effectiveness.
● Affiliates... Churches, ministries, and even secular response-agencies who will ‘take our
call’ during an incident. These churches, ministries & organizations are typically active in
their neighborhoods, and are moving toward some level of readiness for response in an
incident. Please note: In addition to the training we provide, we also advocate many
types of readiness training provided by affiliates. Examples: CERT training, RedCross,
IDHS, FEMA. As well, ReadyIndy participates collaboratively in the activities of a
number of our affiliates. Examples: County CERT organizations, Community
Organizations Active in Disaster (COADs), Amber-Alerts, Silver-Alerts,
Stop-the-Violence Indianapolis, Faith Hope & Love, CCDA Local Network, Unleavened
Bread Cafe, UniteIndy, Ministerial Alliances, National Night Out, Hope Dogs, and City
Prayer Meetings around the metro area. Nationally, we’re affiliated with the Christian
Emergency Network (CEN). And we collaborate among the global Lausanne Movement,
especially their USA partner: Table Coalition (fka Mission America).
● National Incident Management System (NIMS) Compliance... We aspire to
increasingly working toward, maintaining, practicing and teaching NIMS compliant
protocols, including the use of the ICS teamwork protocols. More details soon. See
FEMA NIMS Fact Sheet.
Visit ReadyIndy.org or text 877-Ready42. For up-to-the-minute
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