How can you encourage preparedness in the members of your church congregation? These suggestions apply primarily to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints but can be adapted to any religious denomination.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints counsels its members to be self-reliant in 4 areas – Spiritual Strength, Physical and Emotional Health, Education and Employment, and Temporal Preparedness. Those 4 areas can be further broken down until you have 6 areas of self-reliance – spiritual strength, physical health, emotional health, education, employment/career, finances, and home storage.
Here are some ways by age group and organization:
YOUTH
- Seminary attendance.
- Aaronic Priesthood Quorum camp
- Young Women Camp
- Joint activity – The 3 Aaronic Priesthood quorums and the Young Women’s classes teach to each other about the different areas of personal and family preparedness
- Career nights – speakers and field trips
- Class activities – sewing, cooking, first aid, budgeting, self-sufficiency for missions and college, ironing, laundry, etc.
- Incorporate For the Strength of Youth: A Guide for Making Choices into lessons, classes, and activities.
- Activity days to include physical activities and basic skills of self-reliance.
- Encourage the use of the Children’s Guidebook.
SUNDAY SCHOOL
- Encourage use of the Come, Follow Me curriculum
- Personal and family preparedness classes
- Preparedness spotlights in Relief Society
- Dinners that teach healthy eating, low-cost cooking, and use of food storage
- Relief Society sponsored exercise classes
- Preparedness information posted on a ward Relief Society Facebook page and on the Gospel Living app
- Service projects that teach or reinforce skills such as carpentry, plumbing, and car repair
- Projects that encourage preparedness as a group i.e. rototilling everyone’s gardens in 1 or 2 weekends, cutting firewood, etc.
- Ward sports day
- Ward campout – teach survival skills
- Ward dinners that teach skills and that food storage can taste good
- Firesides and joint priesthood\Relief Society meetings on personal and family preparedness
- Ward temple day/night
- Encourage purchasing food storage at the Home Storage Center
- Purchase a “ward” impulse sealer for dry packing in mylar bags.
- Have monthly and yearly goals that can be met by a plan such as the “72-hr emergency kit installment plan”.
- Encourage enrollment in BYU-Pathway .
- Encourage participation in the Self-Reliance courses.
- Add preparedness information to the ward bulletin or newsletter.
- Have activities that teach and encourage effective home evenings
HOME
- Teach children to work.
- Involve the family in planting and caring for a garden and fruit trees and in the harvest and preservation of the produce.
- Teach the gospel.
- Help children set spiritual, social, physical, and intellectual goals in the Children’s Guidebook
- Help children and youth follow the guidelines in For the Strength of Youth: A Guide for Making Choices
- Use home evening to teach skills and preparedness such as:
- emergency drills
- utility shut off
- put together and rotate supplies in emergency kits
- basic sewing
- cooking skills
- use of tools
- basic home repairs
- basics of financial management
- exercise
- gardening
- music appreciation
- directing music
- table manners
- social etiquette