Good morning, Five Minute Families. Has your family ever faced a crisis? A major medical diagnosis? A death in the family? A financial disaster? No matter what family trouble you may be experiencing, you will find that communication in the crisis is vital to your family identity and vitality.

You’ve heard us discuss communication skills before. Having good skills already practiced in and among the family members is important when everything else around you seems to be in chaos. Businesses and organizations will create “Crisis Communication Plans” in order to make sure that everyone in their group understands the problem, works together to resolve the matter, keeps lines of communication open so that everyone is validated in their efforts, establishes and maintains trust, and effectively manages their part of the solution.

Families are not businesses, obviously, but we can learn a lot from the research businesses have done in knowing how to rightly apply communication skills when our family is in trouble.

Business crisis communication plans include what is referred to as the 5C Model; these five elements are concern, commitment, competency, clarity, and confidence. These five elements “provide a well-organized framework that guarantees communication will be clear, timely, and empathetic.” Not only are the five elements researched and proven effective by secular society, but it turns out they are biblical. Let’s discuss them as we think would apply to a family crisis situation.

Concern. Each family member needs to show proper concern for the crisis the family is facing. Obviously, sharing the details and expressing the proper amount of concern must be age-appropriate. As Luke 6:27-28 tells us, “But I say to you who listen: Love your enemies, do what is good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”

Commitment. In crisis, we must be mindful to explicitly communicate our commitment to one another as Ruth did to Naomi in the book of Ruth chapter 1 verses 16 and 17, “But Ruth replied: Don’t plead with me to abandon you or to return and not follow you. For wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you live, I will live; your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord punish me, and do so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.”

Competency. In times of trouble, especially if we are experiencing something for the very first time, we need to remember the competency that comes only from the Lord: 2 Timothy 3:16-17, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” We need to turn to God’s word together in order to be best equipped to face these challenges.

Clarity. Likewise, we need to seek and express clarity. In crisis, we need to be doubly sure that we fully understand each other’s thoughts and feelings, and make sure that include each family member in major decisions. Before we move forward, we need to seek clarity as 1 Thessalonians 5:21reminds us, “but test all things. Hold on to what is good.”

Confidence. And, last, but not least, we need Confidence. First, we must have confidence in the Lord as Proverbs 3:26 reminds us, “for the Lord will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being caught.” And we need confidence in the process that God brought us through to follow up on the decision or decisions we have made through prayer and fasting. Hebrews 10:35-36 “So don’t throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you need endurance, so that after you have done God’s will, you may receive what was promised.”

Remembering to discuss BEFORE a crisis what crisis communication looks like is important. In school, we plan, draw, and practice fire drills. Why? The majority of us have never experienced a fire. But, because there is still a risk, we practice dropping low to the ground. We discuss sleeping with our doors closed. We make sure to change the batteries in the detectors every six months. So, just like fire prevention or fire management is important, we must remember that our loved one’s heart in the midst of a crisis is important too. If we already have a plan in place, then we will whether the storm of the crisis much better.

Thank you for joining us today. We hope you will check out our website at clearviewretreat.org, and comment on our social media accounts so that we can hear from you. Be blessed!