Changing Views of Community Development

As people began to take more of an interest in reducing and eliminating poverty around the globe, community developers initially used a very predictable method of planning their work. They would enter a community, look for what seemed broken or missing, and work to fix the problem or meet the need. Development workers created a variety of programs designed to meet various needs. A needs-based approach to learning about a community immediately leads to a programs-based plan for development. Many of the best-known community development organizations originated under this strategy, and they are still around because their approaches are easily recognizable.

After a while of doing these programs for the poor people in their communities, community development workers began to realize that their efforts did not seem to be helping people as much as they expected them to. Poor people still stayed poor, and it seemed like the same people came through their programs over and over again with little change. Moreover, they began to realize that the poor viewed their own situation of poverty in different terms than they did. The poor themselves seemed to define their own situations in terms of psychological and social brokenness, often referring to their own sense of brokenness on a deeper level than simply lacking some necessary thing. Critics of community development and of their “liberal” values showed evidence that the poor were simply becoming dependent on the handouts they were receiving. Community development workers could not argue with this evidence. What was occurring was a collision of two very different perspectives: the materially-rich had a “god-complex” while the materially-poor felt shame, and when the two came together, the perspectives of both sides were exacerbated. A new perspective on community development would be necessary to avoid this problem.

As community development workers began to see that their attempts at helping were really hurting, they came to realize that their very approach to the communities was causing the shame. When viewed from the perspective of the poor, handouts and programs designed to help became demeaning and embarrassing. A prideful father could not bear to watch a well-meaning and nicely-dressed church worker deliver a meal that he could not provide himself, so he would withdraw, further weakening the family. The community development workers had emphasized the family’s needs, increasing their shame. If they could find a way to reduce this sense of shame, they could work more closely with the family.

As this realization became more apparent, people began to look for the assets in a community. They realized that all communities had something of value to offer, and that sometimes it only took a little encouragement to bring it out. As community developers began to hunt for the assets in a community, they realized that it took much more work to discover them and then required a great deal of personalized attention to bring them out. For example, a single mom might struggle to provide for her kids, but after some conversations, a community worker realizes that she secretly loves baking and decorating desserts of all kinds and frequently scrapes together change to bake for her kids. The worker offers to pay her to provide desserts for a community meeting, where other community members watch in amazement as a lady they have known surprises them with a hidden talent. It isn’t long before an unemployed businessman decides that he can become an entrepreneur, and with some startup capital that the community worker helps him secure, he hires the single mom and a community bakery opens. In this scenario, two jobs have been created along with a new business that will both benefit the community and keep money in the community (a cake bought from Walmart will send money to Arkansas). This work, however, could not have been done with a program – it required a great deal of individual attention from a development worker.

Development and the Missional Church Convergence

Community development and missional church are both buzzwords today, although they are usually found in separate spheres of work. Even Christian community development workers rarely talk about missional church concepts or new models of church ministry, and even missional church workers rarely engage modern understandings of community development. In the early 20th century, Christians divorced spiritual ministry and so-called “social” ministry. The two spheres developed independently, but today they are beginning to listen and speak to each other, and there is a great opportunity for collaboration. After the split happened, community development began to grow and change as a field of work, continually incorporating new concepts and theories. The field of community development began to undergo some radical changes in basic perspective as secular development workers practiced and learned. Today, there is some interest in reconnecting the church with the field of community development, but in many situations, the church is attempting to reconcile with the old model of community development. My thesis is that as the understanding of community development changes from a needs- and program-based approach to an asset- and relationship-based approach, the church must also adapt its approach, for the missional church movement and the new views of community development fit together well.

As churches cultivate a developmental and Kingdom view of communities, they will realize their missional goals. There are three applications that come out of this type of view that should influence the missional church. First, God is already working in the community. He has been there since the beginning, and will be there long after we are gone. Therefore, the missional church must be humble about its presence in a community. Second, God is in the process of transforming all communities, including our own. We are just as much in need of community development as the people with whom we are trying to work, it’s just different types of development. Therefore, the missional church must be humble about asking God to transform it as well. Finally, it’s the Kingdom of God that brings transformation, not us. The Kingdom of God is defeating all of God’s enemies, and it is already present in part. Therefore, the missional church must be humble about its role in the work. In short, the missional church is called to do precisely as Micah 6:8 instructs: find the balance between justice and mercy while walking humbly with God.

Relationship-Based Development and the Missional Church

The new view of community development emphasizes that the proper response to poverty is not programs, but that it is relationships. Relationships provide the development worker with the proper posture from which to do his or her work, and for the missional church, relationships serve the same function. They provide the church worker or member with the basis for evangelism or holistic ministry. Missional churches recognize that holistic disciple-making is a relational process. It is only through relationships that truly holistic ministry can happen, because without relationships with individuals, many of the root issues cannot be addressed. For community development workers, while the old view of development would suggest that providing material goods is the solution to material poverty, the new view shows that it is often deeper issues that cause the material poverty. On the surface, an individual who can’t pay an electricity bill may be seen as someone with a problem of lacking money. Without a relationship, the solution would likely be seen as paying the bill. However, a relationship might reveal that the individual has never kept a job for more than a month because he compulsively steals from his employer at every opportunity. The answer to this is challenging and multi-faceted and does not involve paying the bill. Helping him walk through these issues can only be described as discipleship – the ultimate goal of missional churches.

Holistic disciple-making involves dealing with development on all fronts: across all domains of community development, up all levels of social justice, and in all areas of identity. A professional counselor once told me that her work had to involve all areas of my self: the spiritual, intellectual, emotional, physical, and social natures of my being were all interrelated. All of these fronts cannot be touched by large programs and large-group gatherings. As missional churches avoid programs and go for smaller-group and individually-tailored ministry opportunities, they have the ability to join the new views on community development and realize a holistic ministry that stretches across all fronts of poverty alleviation and spiritual nourishment at once.