Asset-Based Development and the Missional Church

The old view of community development begins with seeing a need and ends with creating a program that meets that need. This model builds something that people must come to in order to have their need met. This is strikingly similar to the attractional church model that the missional church movement seeks to move away from. On the contrary, the new view of community development encourages seeing the assets in a community and building relationships to encourage them and holistically meet them. This is very similar to the missional church model of going to meet people where they are. In most churches, people are asked to become members and then serve the church in various roles. The missional church model encourages people to remain where they are and use their skills and passions to serve outside the church. Therefore, the new view of community development and the new missional church model go hand in hand in terms of focusing on assets. The missional church can quickly adapt their model of ministry to a model of community development.

As the missional church goes to people where they are, bringing the Gospel, it can also go to people in poverty, meeting them where they are. Church members can seek to build relationships with people, knowing and understanding them better. As they begin to understand the assets that they have, they can do two things: first, they can encourage those assets and practice community development. Second, they can utilize those assets as a basis for the person’s new ministry in their own context.

Additionally, an assets-based view of development encourages going to the people rather than expecting them to come to us. Rather than seeking to invite people to church, an assets-based view would encourage the people to start a church right in their own apartment complex. It would recognize that they have assets that would be diluted or even discouraged if they joined the large church. A needs-based approach supports a basic modernist church viewpoint that the church has a cherished role in society as a provider of many services and functions, because it views the church as the fulfiller of many needs. That view would expect people to come to the church. However, recent experience has shown that they do not come – the church no longer is viewed in that role. If the church has the view that the community has assets to be utilized, however, the church would instead go to them. This is the heart of the missional shift.