Faithful in spirit.
Prepared in practice.
Build a household plan, equip church leaders, and practice a coordinated response. No speculation. No panic. Practical care for your people.
Readiness at a glance
Three practical next steps
Prepare your home
Choose meeting spots, emergency contacts, essential supplies, and support partners.
Organize your church
Assign leaders, assess your building, define service capacity, and organize member care.
Practice the plan
Run a realistic tabletop exercise during your first 30 days and track gaps.
Local help starts with your ZIP code.
Enter a U.S. ZIP code to find nearby resource searches, national assistance directories, and emergency-planning links for your area.
More situations worth planning for
Accessible communication, child reunification, volunteer safety, money and records, extreme heat or smoke, and recovery planning need attention too.
Preparation without fear
Family readiness plan
Complete ten practical actions, record your household arrangements, and estimate drinking-water needs. Begin with a 72-hour plan.
Your 10-point checklist
Check off each action as you finish it.
Household communication plan
These details stay in this browser. Avoid entering medical details or highly sensitive records.
Keep a separate, protected paper record of medications and health needs, if appropriate.
Water supply calculator
Minimum planning baseline: one gallon per person per day. Add more for pets and special needs.
Essential supplies to gather
Everyday basics
Shelf-stable food, manual can opener, bottled water, flashlights, batteries, radio, chargers, first aid, sanitation, sturdy shoes, and copies of key documents.
Individual needs
Medication and medical-device backup plans, infant feeding supplies, pet care, accessibility equipment, hygiene needs, and seasonal warm or cool clothing.
Church response plan
Set clear boundaries, appoint leaders, organize care, and work with local emergency professionals.
Ten leadership priorities
Assign one owner and a backup to every essential responsibility.
Church emergency team
Enter designated leadership roles. Keep protected care and medical records in a separate secure system.
Emergency supply inventory
Record shared supplies and rotate items before they expire. Avoid placing personal member details here.
Choose your service level
A congregation's services should match its building safety, staffing, insurance, and local approvals.
Communication & Care
Check-ins, verified updates, prayer, and referrals.
Supply Distribution
Controlled distribution after safety and staffing review.
Daytime Support
Charging, warming, or cooling with adequate utilities and approvals.
Formal Shelter
Only with required agreements, permissions, trained personnel, and appropriate facilities.
Response basics
Communications outage
Keep printed contact trees. Name primary and backup communicators. Establish check-in times, trusted information sources, and safe alternatives to online messaging.
Utility interruption
Assess water, toilets, heat, food storage, accessibility, security, and closure triggers. Use qualified electrical professionals and safe generator locations.
Cybersecurity event
Require multifactor authentication, least-privilege access, verified offline backups, phishing training, and a named incident-response owner.
Evacuation and family reunification
Identify safe routes, accounting procedures, visitor assistance, children’s ministry reunification, and directions from emergency officials.
Your 30-day rollout
Begin any day. Follow four phases, check off assignments, and revisit your plan regularly.
Success by Day 30
Every participating church should have an assigned response team, a verified contact tree, a confidential member-care workflow, an initial facility assessment, an inventory process, and one completed exercise. Families should have a contact plan, a supply plan, and a trusted support connection.
Church tabletop exercise
Use this non-alarmist scenario to practice decision-making. Assign a facilitator, a recorder, and a follow-up owner.
48-hour community outage
A widespread power outage disrupts electrical service and some cellular networks. Forty people are attending a church event, including children and older adults. The building has no verified backup power.
Facilitator questions
After-action notes
Record decisions and gaps, not sensitive member information.
Often-overlooked essentials
Ten additional decisions strengthen your family and church plans. These are reusable checks, not predictions or one-time deadlines.
Close the readiness gaps
Mark each action only after assigning a responsible person and establishing a practical procedure.
Keep preparedness current
After each exercise
Review decisions, revise written procedures, name action owners, and set clear deadlines. Repeat when leadership or the facility changes.
Quarterly care and review
Check supply expiration dates, batteries, contact details, accessibility needs, vendor partnerships, and key account access.
Find help in your area
Use your ZIP code to identify your city and state and open resource searches near you. This directory does not report live availability, dispatch assistance, or designate shelters.
No address or account needed. ZIP lookup sends the ZIP to the independent Zippopotam.us lookup service while you are online. The ZIP is not saved with your checklist progress.
Enter a ZIP code to personalize local resource links.
Resources near your ZIP
211: food, housing and utility help
Search United Way 211 by ZIP code or call 211 to speak with a resource specialist where service is available.
Open 211 resource finder ↗Food bank and pantry assistance
Feeding America's locator searches its national food-bank network by ZIP. Partner pantries' schedules and eligibility vary.
Open food bank locator ↗Open shelters and disaster services
The American Red Cross shows currently listed emergency shelters and assistance sites. Search there using your ZIP.
Check Red Cross sites ↗State emergency management
Find your state's emergency management agency for preparedness links, alerts, and official directions.
Find state emergency agency ↗Search services near your ZIP
These links open location-focused map searches. Call before traveling to confirm hours, services, accessibility, and availability.
Keep these national numbers in your paper kit
211 — community support
Housing, food, utilities, and social services. Local coverage and hours vary.
Call 211Poison Control — 1-800-222-1222
U.S. poison emergencies and questions. For an unconscious person or severe emergency, call 911.
Call Poison ControlYour planning toolkit
Official guidance and practical tools to keep your preparedness program organized.
Save your planning progress
Export a JSON backup for this device. Keep backup files private. You may import a saved backup later to restore the checklists and planner fields.
Print or share a copy
Print all sections, including your completed checklists, or save to PDF from your browser. The companion Google Doc offers editable forms for church leadership.
Find resources by ZIP code
Search local support options through national directories, including 211, food banks, Red Cross shelters, and state emergency services.
Jewels of Wellness®
For program questions or collaboration, contact info@prepared.shelbyfrederick.com.
This inbox is for general program contact, not emergency dispatch. For immediate danger, call 911 and follow local officials.
Trusted references
Check official public information. Do not base church alerts on rumors or unverified posts.
Privacy and limitations
For immediate danger call 911. This planning aid does not send emergency alerts, monitor threats, determine building code compliance, or replace directions from emergency responders. Service workers provide offline access after a first successful visit on a supported HTTPS-hosted site.