Community development
Community development as hope PDF Print E-mail

Is it right to raise the hopes of people in disadvantaged community when there is no guarantee they will be able to change their circumstances?

In what way can "promise" and "fulfilment of hope" be guaranteed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ?
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Community development as liberation PDF Print E-mail

Is it right that when some people are helped to greater opportunity that it may enable them to use their new found freedom to the disadvantage of others?

In what way can "freedom in Christ" mean that we are truly free?
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Community Organising: an offer you might refuse PDF Print E-mail
 

Recently I have come across a number of books and articles about community organising . Some are based on visits to the Industrial Areas Foundation (I.A.F.) and similar groups in America.
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From Parishes to Partnership - Where have all the shepherds gone?

I was asked to join a group of clergy, whose ministry is in transition. The Parishes have formed a partnership that includes 7 churches. Some of the clergy are stipendiary and some not. Some are licensed to serve particular parishes, others the whole partnership. One of the many questions raised was about how a meeting of this group of clergy fitted among the parishes and the partnership as a whole. How do they identify themselves and the range of lay leadership? Who are the actors amongst whom they operate?
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Community development as process PDF Print E-mail

Can we be certain that a community development process will integrate the factions of a community rather than fragment them further?

In what way can Christ be all in all, in the creating/redeeming process and does it follow that all things are essentially related to each  other.
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Community Work as Ministry

 "We use the Church Hall. We only moved a little furniture and put up a few posters. You’d have thought they would want a project like this. But at every turn we face long negotiations about the most trivial of issues.”

“They come in here. They take the place over. They’ve no real respect for what we do here or the way we do it.”
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Why these papers?

When I trained as a Community and Youth Worker in the early 70’s , I was employed by the Birmingham South West circuit of the Methodist Church as a Community Development Worker, most of my professional colleagues were working in the inner city areas. Since then Britain’s Council built housing estates have been the target of many Government Programmes; Community Development Projects, Regeneration Programmes, Employment Schemes, and other initiatives that draw upon community development methods.

Estate Churches are often under pressure to engage with these programmes alongside others who represent aspects of the voluntary and statutory  sectors. There is always a danger that funding bodies change their emphasis under the pressures of political expediency. Congregations can find that partnerships work very well, but there are also occasions when the funding tail begins to wag the dog and congregations can loose sight of what they were in it for.

For this reason I want to offer some theological resources that may help us keep our eye on the ball.  The articles on this page do not attempt to resource professional community development skills and objectives, although they make some assumptions about these. What they do is provide some think pieces about what is the church’s equivalent to agency function. What are the values and conduct that underpin a congregation’s involvement in such projects ? How do these connect with the theology of the gospel message?

I hope these brief papers will provide some clues about how community projects have meaning when working from a Christian base.