In a recent post, I mentioned that I would cover some key elements of Arena that will open up many possibilities for the Church as a whole. There is no better evidence than that of experience. Recently, Iowa experienced devastating flooding. CNN marked it as the biggest flood Cedar Rapids, IA has ever seen. I had the opportunity to interview one of the staff members at New Covenant Bible Church in Cedar Rapids, Austin Spooner. Austin is the IT Director at NCBC. Here are five questions I asked Austin about the floods and how Arena helped NCBC come to their community’s aid:
Christopher Rivers: Tell us about the impact the floods had on your community?
Austin Spooner: The flood had a major impact on our community. A good portion of the city was under water. (1,300 city blocks, 9.2 square miles of the city). The city almost lost its entire supply of water and electricity was lost in the downtown area for many weeks. One of our major hospitals was forced to evacuate all of the patients. The Cedar Rapids City Hall, the Linn County jail, the fire department, police communication equipment, most of the downtown public library's collection and 3,900 homes were all under water.
CR: What response did your church take in regards to this tragedy?
AS: New Covenant Bible Church is part of an organization called “Serve the City” which is part of Mission America. Serve the City is an organization of 37 churches and seven non-profit organizations that work together to serve Jesus Christ by serving the needs of our city. New Covenant, specifically, took responsibility for staffing the water distribution site located at Sam’s Club. Bottled water, cleaning supplies and respirator masks were distributed to anyone in need. The distribution of water took place for well over a week. This involved coordinating all of the volunteers to staff the water distribution for twelve hours a day, as well as managing the site set-up and closing. New Covenant also has a ministry known as “SWAT” (Serving With a Tool). SWAT is helping in the recovery efforts. Teams have been going to homes that were flooded- tearing out dry wall, removing furnaces, appliances, as well as personal items for members of our church and the community.
CR: How did you use Arena to coordinate New Covenant Bible’s helping people during this hardship?
AS: We were able to use Arena as an organization and communication tool for putting together our relief effort. Arena’s flexibility, simplicity, and built-in security enabled us to set up a structure of Ministry tags for the flood. We used one tag for needs people had (such as a place to stay, cars to borrow, needs for power washers, or even people to help them clean). Another tag was for resources we had been given (such as people who had places for others to stay, cars for people to borrow, etc). We enlisted a volunteer coordinator (almost full-time) to help us facilitate this effort during the first of couple weeks- and due to the ease of use of [Arena] almost no training was required.
CR: Were you able to use Arena creatively?
AS: The flexibility of the tag structures, and the ability to group people easily, and the robust reporting allowed us to run lists on resources available vs. resources needed. Another strong point was the simplicity of creating bulk e-mail communications to send to ministry teams serving in the flood area. We were able to update them on current status and to send out messages for needs.
CR: In regards to managing and tracking volunteers, how helpful do you think Arena has been for your church?
AS: Arena has been a great tool for managing and tracking volunteers. The daily e-mail agent allows us to see how many people are signed up that are not yet connected to a ministry. The e-mail agent also lets ministry leaders know when someone has signed up for their ministry. This is of great value.
Wow! What a great example of Arena’s flexibility.