March 23rd, 2025 - "Mitigated Disaster: Preparation" - Rev. Dr. Michelle Morris

Matt Nelson: Welcome to the Sermon podcast from First United Methodist

Church in downtown Bentonville.

If you have questions related to what you hear today or just want to find

out more about the ministries at First United Methodist Church, please visit us

online at FUMCbentonville.org or check us out on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok.

This week's podcast begins with a clip from a short video that

was aired during Sunday service.

Barry and Cindy Moehring: I will tell you I have very good people

who work here at Benton County, and the mayors who I work with have very

good people on their teams as well.

Frankly, they train us.

Without them, I wouldn't have the slightest idea how to

react to a disaster like this.

But they are, um, nationally trained and accredited.

Uh, but they also do tabletop exercises.

They also learn from what's happened in other areas.

Uh, they're very networked.

What was also amazing, very interesting is that when a disaster hit here,

how many emergency operations people will just say we're, we're ready

to help out from around the state.

The training could be very broad in disaster management, or very specific

in our, uh, you know, for example, our road crew is entirely trained up.

As, as the sheriff's department on how to use chainsaws on trees

to clear roads in the dark when there could be active power lines.

I mean there's, there's that kind of training that's really important right

on down to, is that the tree that I want to take off that road right now?

Or do I need to wait for the utility company?

So there's actually a lot of training that kicks in and uh, and I would

say from the standpoint of the first 48 hours of the disaster.

I was amazed at our emergency response across all of the agencies in the

county, whether they're Benton County agencies or city agencies.

Um, one of the things that we're working on here in Benton County is we're doing a

lot of after action meetings and reports.

In fact, we've got a grant from the Walton Family Foundation to help us with.

Understanding best practices in recovery.

We're going to benchmark around the country with that and hopefully be

better prepared on the recovery piece.

Not that first 48 hour piece, but that 30, 60, 90 day piece afterwards.

We could certainly do a better job there.

We hadn't gone through this before.

We learned a lot, and unfortunately going through it once makes you a lot better

prepared for going through it again, uh, if and when that should happen again.

On the personal side, I have a bag packed.

So the next time there's any time in the future, there's a tornado

warning, I'll already have, just have to take my bag and go down to the,

the basement and uh, and be prepared.

So I am very prepared from a personal perspective going forward, the faith-based

organizations and their reaction, I guess, I don't know if benevolent is

the right word, but they just acted.

It didn't matter.

I mean.

What neighborhood, who was in need, somebody's race or color, ethnicity,

their religion, uh, a lot of religious organizations kicked in right away.

And, and that's one of the things that we're gonna do a better job of in

Benton County, is understanding their capabilities beforehand because we

sure learned about their capabilities after afterwards, and that's all

rooted and founded in their faith.

And that was very heartfelt to see because without that.

That was really the safety net for a lot of people is how our faith-based community

reacted, whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, they all reacted, everybody

did, and it was incredible to see.

Roy and Shelly Lee: And also, uh, volunteers, uh, it's um, just

get out and volunteer, be ready to help, uh, go to the training.

Uh, get certified because you can't, you can't help us unless you have a badge.

You have to be certified before you can do any volunteer work for us.

And it's lovely to want to help.

Yes.

But, uh, we have a saying in the disaster field.

I. You don't want any SUVs.

That's a spontaneous unaffiliated volunteer.

Someone who shows up and says, put me to work.

But you have to know people know what they're doing and that they

can be trusted certification to become an early response team.

Volunteer is a one day class with a background check, and after that, when

all the, all the tests are taken and if you, you've passed, then you get a

badge and you're able to go and that badge is good for three years and after

that, then you can get a recertification.

Some misconceptions about.

Disasters and how folks can help.

They think volunteers may think, well, I don't know how to hold a hammer.

I don't know, uh, how to use a chainsaw.

Well, the truth is I don't use a chainsaw.

Roy uses a chainsaw, but I can be very helpful.

I can drag the limbs that he cuts and put 'em by the sidewalk.

I can stay at home and not go anywhere and donate to Umcor or to the Arkansas United

Methodist Church's disaster response.

I can pray.

I can pray for those who are not only impacted as a survivor of a disaster,

but the volunteers who are gonna go out and risk their, their life and

health and safety, but also take a week out of their lives to go and help.

There's a lot people can do and don't let age, uh, stop you.

Rev. Dr. Michelle Morris: Good morning everyone.

Uh, my name is Michelle Morris and I'm the lead pastor here at First United

Methodist Church in Bentonville.

It is a joy to welcome you in worship today.

We are in a series in which we are looking at what's called mitigated

disaster, and we are using our experience of going through the tornadoes to

understand how our faith prepares us.

To handle all kinds of life's disasters.

We're in a part of the series where we're looking at specifically how

disaster recovery is understood.

Last week we did mitigation.

This week will be preparation.

Next week will be response, and then the week after that we'll be recovery

as we then move into Holy Week.

So we are glad to have you as part of this service to prepare ourselves

for this, uh, sermon on preparation.

We're gonna hear from Luke chapter six.

We're gonna hear a little bit longer than what's noted in the bulletin.

It says 37 through 38.

Sorry.

You gotta put up with 27 through 38.

Uh, so a little bit longer stretch here.

So as we prepare our hearts to receive Christ, let us prepare ourselves also

to hear the word, but I say to you, who are willing to hear, love your enemies.

Do good to those who hate you.

Bless those who curse you.

Pray for those who mistreat you.

If someone slaps you on the cheek, offer the other one as well.

If someone takes your coat, don't withhold your shirt either.

Give to everyone who asks and don't demand your things back from those who take them.

Treat people in the same way that you want them to treat you.

If you love those who love you, why should you be commended?

Even sinners love those who love them.

If you do good to those who do good to you, why should you recommend it?

Even sinners do that.

If you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, why should you be commended?

Even sinners lend to sinners expecting to be paid back in full.

Instead, love your enemies.

Do good and lend expecting nothing in return.

If you do, you will have a great reward.

You'll be acting the way children of the most high act for.

He is kind to ungrateful and wicked people.

Be compassionate, just as your father is compassionate.

Don't judge, and you won't be judged.

Don't condemn, and you won't be condemned.

Forgive and you will be forgiven.

Give and it will be given to you.

A good portion packed down, firmly shaken, and overflowing will fall into your lap.

The portion you give will determine the portion you receive in return.

This is the word of God for the people of God.

Thanks be to God.

Let us pray.

Lord, open our hearts, our minds, and our eyes that we might see and know

the word you have for us this day.

In your holy name we pray.

Amen.

So I want to know, and this may be a, may be a generational thing,

although it didn't end up being as generational as I thought it was

gonna be, last worship service.

But how many of you know what I mean if I say stop, drop, and roll.

Okay.

A, a good number, a good number of folks.

Got that.

Okay.

So, um, of course, stop, drop and roll is what you do if

you happen to catch on fire.

Right?

If you catch on fire, you are supposed to stop, drop to the ground and roll

around in hopes that you'll put out the fire and, and if you're lucky,

someone around you has a blanket that maybe they can throw on top of it and

help put out the fire right as well.

I was a brownie scout scouts.

You know, were supposed to be prepared.

I never made it to Girl Scout, but I was a brownie scout.

And when I was a brownie scout, my mom was the Brownie scout leader and at

the end of every meeting that we had, we practiced stop, drop, and roll.

Yes, I do think it was my mom's attempt at just killing time while she was waiting

for the parents to pick the kids up.

But we loved it.

Right.

Stop dropping.

Roll is great and I feel like.

I would be really ready if I or one of my friends burst into flames.

I was good to go.

And you know, back in those days, children's pajamas were still flammable.

So it was maybe a possibility that that would happen.

So it was good that I was prepared for that.

That's a drill, right?

Drills matter.

Drills matter because practice matters.

We have this expression that practice makes perfect, but I think that puts

a lot of pressure on practice, right?

I think it would be more helpful if we said, practice makes predictable

or practice makes prepared.

It makes us ready, right?

It takes what would require conscious effort and turns it into something

that you're unconsciously competent at.

You don't even have to think about it anymore, and the result of such practice

is a reduction in your own anxiety.

If there's an emergency and you're ready for it, you're not as anxious

about it, and it grows your confidence that you'll be able to respond and

use whatever it is that you have practiced at a moment's notice.

The other thing that it does is once you get something really down,

then you have a chance to sort of step back and you can innovate.

You can make the changes that need to grow and happen once

you've gotten the basic part down.

And then in faith, it deepens our connection to God and to each other.

There's a reason that we do ritual as people of faith.

It is so that those things sink into us.

I can recite the communion liturgy now.

For the most part, I still have the book just in case, right?

It's become part of who I am.

You all can do the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles Creed.

These are things that you know, they're, they're in your heart.

They have shaped you and mold you because you have practiced them so often.

What is needed to practice?

We need two things.

Primarily, we need instruction.

And we need an example.

Instruction is being taught the thing you are trying to learn, the

thing you are trying to practice.

Someone has to teach you that, and that teaching has to build from

an already existing framework.

For instance, let's say I just learned to add if a teacher then sat down next

to me and tried to teach me calculus.

We're not gonna get very far, right?

But a teacher can sit down, oh, you've learned to add.

Now let me show you how to subtract.

Okay?

You've learned to add and subtract.

Now we can talk about multiplication and division, and eventually

we'll get to calculus, right?

That's what is meant by you can't jump from here to here.

You have to walk all the way through, start from a place of understanding

and move forward from there.

We also as humans do really well in having an example.

We need to see how it's done.

We need a concrete expression that models for us.

The thing that we're trying to learn, my Linton discipline this

year, is to watch one little episode of a masterclass every day.

So I'm gradually making my way through different masterclasses,

and right now I'm in the middle of Steve Martin's Masterclass on comedy.

Oh, see, everybody laughed.

It's working.

Okay.

So one of the great things about the masterclass is that he will talk

about comedy and what's involved in it, and then he will show you part

of his act so you can see how he's applied, what he's trying to teach.

By that same token, when you train as a volunteer in mission or as an umcor

volunteer, you will spend some time being instructed, but then if you're

training to, to run a chainsaw, they're gonna take you out and, and show you

with a chainsaw, and then they're gonna hand you a chainsaw, right?

Because you need to see it demonstrated in order to then

be able to practice it yourself.

This is how Jesus prepares us to follow.

Jesus gives us instruction and Jesus starts with what He knows we already know.

And interestingly through much of this passage that I just read for

you, he's gonna start with the opposite of what he wants us to do.

'cause he knows we know the opposite and he's gonna use that understanding.

To move us to the practice he wants us to have.

Jesus knows, we know judgment because either we have been judged

or we have judged, so he knows.

We know what judgment is like.

He encourages us not to judge.

The opposite of judging is to understand or to empathize.

He knows we know condemnation.

Again, either because we have felt condemned or because

we've condemned others.

So he says, don't condemn.

Instead do the other thing, which is to forgive.

Jesus knows we know what it's like to have things taken from us.

Humanity is really good at taking from each other, aren't we?

And he says, don't be the ones who take.

Be the ones who give.

Now, I do wanna stop right here and especially address the forgiveness

and give pieces because so much of those relate to this idea that where

Jesus says if they take your cloak, give them their shirt also, and if

they slap your face, turn your face and be slapped on the other side.

And so often those verses have been used to justify abuse and that is actually

exactly what Jesus is talking against.

Don't be that people.

Don't abuse and take advantage of each other.

Instead be the people that forgive and give and build a different world,

but you don't have to stay in places where that abuse is perpetuated.

He is just using that as an example to show you what you should

not do and who you should be.

And then the last one he knows, you know how to love your friends.

We know how to love our friends.

Now, love your enemies.

Now, he has given us this instruction, but Jesus will not leave it there.

Jesus will show us how to live these out, and I'm gonna give just

one example from each of those.

When it comes to empathy, I always remember the story of the rich young

ruler, and in particular the story as it's told in the gospel of Mark.

So the rich young ruler has come forward and said, what must

I do to inherit eternal life?

And he basically says, you know, do the commandments, the rich

young ruler's, like, I've done all those great, I'm in good shape.

And in the gospel market says, Jesus looked at him and loved

him and said, you lack one thing.

Give all your possessions away and come follow me,

and the man walks away grieved because he had so many possessions.

When Jesus looked at him and loved him, he knew how hard of a thing he was

being asked to do, and just following those words, Jesus says, it's harder.

For a rich man to get into heaven than a camel to get through the eye of a needle.

And we a lot of times read that as a condemnation.

But what if it's a statement of empathy?

What if it's Jesus recognizing how hard it is to face the temptation

of wealth and turn away from that?

What if Jesus knows how hard that is and stands in empathy

with that man in that moment?

That's more true to the Christ that I follow.

And then let me think about forgiveness.

I think of the woman caught in adultery.

Nevermind the man.

We don't know what happened to him, but we've got the woman, right?

The woman caught in adultery that bring her forward.

They put her before Jesus, and they all have stones.

They're ready to stone her.

That's what the law says.

We should stone this woman.

What?

Say you, Jesus.

And Jesus is drawing in the sand and everybody's always wondered

what he wrote in the sand.

And there's all kind of conjecture around that.

I like to think he was just doodling.

'cause he's like waiting for we're we're gonna get there.

And he says, let he who has no sin cast the first stone and one by one they

each drop their stones and leave so that it is just him and the woman left.

And he says to her, has no one condemned you?

And she says, no, sir. And he says, neither do I. He showed us not

to be the people of condemnation, to be the people of forgiveness

when it comes to giving his life.

He's the son of God and he could have responded.

To the crushing blows of the Jewish authorities and the Roman

Empire in any number of ways.

And he chose to answer that violence and that anger with giving his life, laying

it down, not responding with violence, and instead showing us a better way,

offering us that salvation through that peace and coming out on the other side.

That is true generosity to give to us all.

And when it comes to loving his enemies, while he was hanging on that

very cross where he would give over his life as he was being chided and

taunted, he says, father, forgive them.

They don't know what they're doing.

He doesn't just tell us what to do.

He shows us.

How to do it.

He invites us to see in him a model that will allow us to

practice a better way of living.

But practice takes preparation.

Practice takes some drills.

So we're gonna talk about some drills in here.

Some of these are very practical drills.

That we're gonna talk about.

Did you know that in the Book of Discipline, it suggests that

every year we should do basic safety drills in the church?

Anybody ever done one?

Ah, see.

So we're gonna at least talk through some things and then I'm gonna give you

some instruction on how to practice.

Okay.

So we're gonna talk through three major practical drills.

So if there was a fire, which let's be honest, this

building is burned down twice.

So you know, we're very careful about our candles around here.

So if there is a fire get out, exit right out there.

There's an exit to the side here through the pantry.

There's an exit right behind here through the pantry, and then of course

there's exits down the hallways as well.

All right?

So get to your quickest exit, get out the building, that is your main thing.

What you probably haven't thought to do, and I will be one of your

assignments as you leave here today.

If you are a family unit, figure out where you're gonna meet, where are you going to

reunite once you get out of the building?

Okay.

So when you get outta this building, figure out where you're reuniting.

All right.

If there's a tornado, again, not that that hasn't ever happened here either

down this hallway, past the offices, into that t, right by the kitchen before you

go to Hines Hall, outside the kitchen and the hallway just out from there.

That's our official tornado shelter location.

Okay?

We also on Sunday mornings now leave the office suites open because the office

suites would also suffice as a place where you could take cover, especially, 'cause

there's a lot of us, so it might get kind of crowded in that little T there.

So you can go in the offices as well.

So you gotta figure out where you're gonna be in after a fire.

I'll invite you at some point to walk down the hallway, figure out where

you would take shelter in a tornado.

All right, now the drill that our children are used to.

That many of us are not, but we need to talk about it, which

is if there's a shooter, right?

Okay.

Best knowledge for how to respond if in case of a shooter on property get out.

If you can get out of the building, do so.

However you need to do so go out with your hands up in case the

authorities are coming in so they know that you are not a threat.

Okay, so go outta the building.

Hands up as quickly as you can.

If you can't get outta the building barricade into a room, that's your

next best defense is to barricade.

This is not a great room to barricade in.

I'll just be honest.

We're doing much better to get out.

Okay?

But if you can't, if, if there's a way we can figure out a barricade, we can.

All right.

If you can't get out and you can't barricade, your best bet is to fight back.

Now, this is a great room for that.

You all have hymnals.

Throw them at the person.

It really, it, it, it causes a distraction.

It makes, um, making any kind of accuracy, uh, very, very, very difficult.

So throw and run.

Okay.

As fast as you can.

I will also tell you that there are security measures in place

that you don't know about.

And I will not talk about, because this is being broadcast and, and the

trustees and other people in the, in the church do know what some of

those safety measures are in place.

But we won't share those because part of the value of them is that

people don't know what to expect.

But just understand that we have taken measures.

Alright, that's some basic drills.

Drills that we're used to doing.

Now let's talk about discipleship drills.

So over the next week, expect there to be some drill warnings.

If you're signed up for the text, you'll probably get at least one

during the week at some point.

That will tell you a discipleship drill has been called.

If you're avoiding social media right now, God bless you, continue in that way.

But if you are on social media and you happen to see something

pop up from the church, it may say discipleship drill has been called.

All right?

And there may be a couple other surprise locations where

discipleship drills will be called.

If you get a notification, if you see a discipleship drill has been called,

it is your responsibility to as soon as possible, find a way to express

empathy or work on forgiveness or give, show some sign of generosity to someone

or find a way to love your enemies.

That's what you're called to do.

That will be your drill.

These are the things that we have to practice as the people call

ourselves followers of Jesus Christ.

So watch for those drills to happen throughout this week because

really what we're trying to do is get ready, right to be prepared.

And I'll say this, in all my years, it's been 40, more than 40 years that I have

known how to do stop, drop, and roll.

No one has ever burst into flames around me, except maybe with the Holy Spirit,

but that's a whole different deal.

But I feel like I'd be ready because it was so ingrained.

That's what we're working to do.

So as you leave this place today, look for your meeting place.

Figure out where you're taking shelter, and then prepare your heart.

Prepare your heart to be the people who understand.

Who forgive, who give, and who love their enemies.

Because that's what it means to be ready to follow Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Matt Nelson: Thanks for listening to the Sermon podcast from First United

Methodist Church in downtown Bentonville.

If you would like to let us know you were here, follow the link below to connect.

To participate in worship through giving,

you can give online at FUMCbentonville.org or on Venmo @FUMCBentonville.

FUMC Bentonville welcomes all.

Because we believe the communion table is God's table, we invite

everyone into our church family.

We welcome and celebrate every race, gender, gender identity, sexual

orientation, marital status, age, physical and mental ability, national origin,

economic station, and political ideology.

We come together in action and outreach, aspiring to follow Jesus' example of

radical hospitality, love, and grace as a transformative movement in our community.

Please join us for worship on Sunday mornings at nine and 11:00 AM, both

in person and on Facebook Live.

All are welcome and we'd love to have you with us.

Grace and peace.