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.

Social Media

I was told at a seminar the other week that social media is NOT Facebook and Twitter. Okay, now that my head is on straight, let me offer a thought of one area that seems to be ripe for the development of a social media application.

Vehicle maintenance is something that few people really get right. How often do you need to change your coolant again? And what about transmission fluid? Have I really not changed my air filter in three oil changes, or is this maintenance man trying to sell me something I don't need? Tonight I found an online application, www.yourgarageonline.com, that seems to be a nice utility. I can enter every time I have my vehicle serviced, write what I did, and then I can search instantly to see what I've done. Practical, useful - seems good to me.

But what if the social media revolution really hit vehicle maintenance? Every vehicle has a unique identifier - its VIN number. And every maintenance shop has internet access. Why isn't there a database in the "cloud" somewhere that keeps track of your maintenance history? It could be accessible by repair shops, owners, and people interested in buying your used car. It would keep maintenance men from telling me that I need my 120,000 mile maintenance package...they don't know that I already changed the spark plugs! I could pull up my vehicle's maintenance history from the app on my Android and it would give me a notification when it is time to check the brake fluid.

Google seems interested in developing their new application to compete with Facebook. But I wonder if there's not a great potential development in vehicle maintenance history. Just an idea!

What Do We Believe?

Reading the book Reverse Mentoring by Earl Creps for school is fascinating to me. I feel like I'm reading a book that was written for somebody else about me. This book, taglined "How Young Leaders Can Transform the Church and Why We Should Let Them" to clearly show its intended audience, encourages older leaders to look to younger leaders to learn about culture and relevance.

It's fascinating reading as I see the authors write about these surprising insights that they gained from interviewing young people:

• "Rather than relying solely on research, they trust that the information marketplace will deliver items of value to them automatically, often through relationship." - p. 24
• "Things done just for the money are not to be trusted." - p. 25
• "Authenticity...commands much greater respect...than production values, no matter how impressive." - p. 26

These values seem obvious to me, but then again I grew up in this younger culture about which the author is writing. I see them in my own life very clearly. They are me. But what is the implication for the church? After discussing these values, the person that the author is interviewing says that "the average Sunday morning worship service sounds just like radio: homogenized, overproduced, shallow, and obsolete" (p. 26). The young generation that the author describes values realness and honesty, not perfection. Yet we are looking for churches that have all the highest quality music and preaching and the best facilities and smiling faces...no wonder today's young adults are not interested!

This is a remarkable observation even for me. After reading this, I feel like I am guilty of separating my life. In one life, I embody the culture that the author is talking about. In another, I have been raised in a conservative "Boomer" church and have remained there most of my life. I wonder if I have applied a different set of values to my daily life and to my church life. The interviewee's words reverberated so clearly in my head, resonating with what I strongly believe. But when I am at church, I put my culture aside and enter a culture twenty years older than I am. Perhaps I should stop abandoning my core values and be who I am all the time.

One More Thing

After having applied some of the things that I purported to have learned a little over a year ago, I can now say that there is one more thing to add to that list of things I have learned:

• She was worth the wait and the hard work to get here
  

Prayers, Week Ten

Father, I thank you for your love for me. It's humbling to realize that you think of me so highly. It's amazing. I am beginning to realize that your love for me is shown partly in how you make me a priority and focus on me. I always assumed that you loved me, but really wanted to use me to reach the world. You wanted to use me as your hands and feet. And you do, but before you do that you want to love me and make me the first priority. Thank you, God! I am blown away. God, I want to step back and realize that fact and live in the comfort of knowing that you are primarily concerned about working in me before working through me.

Prayers, Week Nine

Father, I have to thank you for the self-discovery that you've worked in my life since my transition began in 2008. I am so grateful to You for helping me to see myself more clearly and to know myself more clearly. Thank you for stripping away false selves and helping me to see who I really am, and more importantly, to accept myself as I really am! Lord, as I recognize my true self more clearly, it is beginning to show me what my long-term calling is. I am grateful to You for beginning to show me bits and pieces of that. I hope to continue growing in that understanding and awareness, and I ask you to continue to help me along in this process. I need Your grace as I learn about myself and Your peace as I accept myself as I am and stop trying to be somebody else. Please show me more and more clearly each day what my vocation is.

Prayers, Week Eight

Lord, I felt very convicted when I read of how our pet peeves often point to the false self that we project of ourselves. The most convicting one to me was despising laziness in others because I too-highly value productivity and discipline. This is true of me, I believe. I highly value personal responsibility and productivity, and get annoyed with others when they do not do what I perceive that they should be doing. God, I want to live out of my being rather than my doing. Thank you for your gift to me of a high level of productivity and personal work-ethic. Help me to maintain that while living out of being rather than doing. Help me to bear with others in their weaknesses and encourage them constructively. Help me to value the beingness of others and see the values that they have. God, help me to recognize my own false selves so that I can cast them at your feet! Grant me the peace to be other than my own self-image!