By Bob Hulteen
I remember sitting at a retreat center the first time I went through a training on crisis communications. I remember worrying that just using the word “crisis” would stir a whole bunch of emotions. Weeks like the last one can put a communicator on edge.
How do you respond when you find yourself in a crisis situation – like our collective experience of the COVID-19 pandemic? Is your gut instinct to be highly anxious and take e9, ery precaution possible? Or, rather, is t to completely downplay the situation and become skeptical of every red flag and precaution taken? Do you find yourself scrolling endlessly through web pages for information about Coronavirus or trying to shut the laptop off entirely and watch Netflix instead?
It’s helpful to check in with ourselves and know our primary way of coping with all the new, hard, and life-shifting information being thrown our way on a daily and hourly basis. Our own stress is real. Suddenly a normal day becomes full of hundreds of individual choices that now not only impact your own health but the health and safety of others.
“Do you find yourself scrolling endlessly through web pages for information about Coronavirus or trying to shut the laptop off entirely and watch Netflix instead?”
Now, this all becomes even more complicated when you need to not only deal with your personal responses and the disentangling of information and unfolding collective situation, but are also the person making and/or communicating decisions to a whole community (that you are called to love and care for). That is no easy task.
Pastor Andy Romstad sagely quoted Michael Leavitt in this week’s notice to his congregation about worship plans: “Everything we do before a pandemic will seem alarmist. Everything we do after will seem inadequate.”
THERE IS NO magic bullet during a time such as this. But, we can provide is calm leadership (even when we don’t feel calm) grounded in our values, and walk with folks as we deal with this crisis together in community.
Tone is the first communications consideration in stressful times. Urgent appeals must sometimes be made, but they don’t need to be made urgently. Once our reptilian brain is engaged by another’s heightened energy, our response can become antithetical to the best outcome possible. Communicators, even while relaying challenging information, can provide a context that allows for deeper understanding and less aggressive instincts to take over.
“We can have social connecting even as we have physical distancing.”
Can you hear a difference in tone and do you respond differently to these two quotations: First, “Effective immediately, due to the Coronavirus epidemic, all services are cancelled until further noticed.” As opposed to this: “Our leadership has been in regular conversation and has decided that, out of concern for our neighbor both near and far, we will suspend public worship and events at our congregation for the foreseeable future. We will regularly update you to unfolding plans, and hope that you will contact us with concerns and prayer needs so that we might stay in contact with you.”
The second iteration invites into the process. The first simply pronounces, which can lead to suspicion and apprehension.
As a side note, keep this in mind when you as a communicator are on social media. Be a presence that builds understanding more than extinguishes it. Even as you deal honestly with your own fears and concerns, find wording and images that invite rather than divide. Perhaps, after you have typed your post or your tweet, take two disciplined breaths and consider if your words will create the impact you desire.
WORDS, OF COURSE, ARE also important. We want to reflect clearly our values in the way we talk about crises. As Christians, we can talk about our call to love neighbors. Normally that call drives us into social relationships that includes opportunities to be present together – in worship, in service. But, in this moment, loving our neighbor likely means staying home from those activities, at least some of them. And, we should be very intentional about the precautions we take if we do gather with other people.
We are being told by professionals that maintaining physical distance from other people is the way we will be able to suppress the spread of the virus. It is, in fact, loving the neighbor. And, such intentional distancing is also the only way that our health care system can build the capacity to stay on top of the pandemic.
And, we can have social connecting even as we have physical distancing. Through our encounters with people, we can encourage them to maintain their social connection in other ways – phone calling, letter writing, emailing, texting.
“Even as you deal honestly with your own fears and concerns, find wording and images that invite rather than divide.”
We also need to be explicit in our talk about generosity in times of communal challenge. We are community together/ church together. As the Body of Christ, we incarnate our hope by living into our call to live for the sake of the world. That includes supporting financially our own congregations, as well as our ministry organizations like Lutheran Disaster Response. And, it requires awareness of those neighborhood partners – nonprofits and social service agencies – that must also continue to serve the needs around our congregations.
Last week Bishop Ann has said, “In a health crisis, we may need to find and create new ways to share the good news, to practice communal prayer, to provide mutual support, and to build beloved community.”
For a time such as this, we are all called to be agents of good communication. We embody our aspirations by speaking words that are honest and true, but also confident and calming. We, all of us, professional communicator or not, can be tangible signs of hope in our communities.