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Please
read the following article and give some response using the "Your Response" button at the bottom.
Transforming Communities for Christ By Bob Crowe - President - BreakThrough To People Network, Inc.
The purpose
of this article is to create thoughtful discussion and development of new methods for creating churches (the Body of believers)
and seeing evangelism with discipleship in cultural and national settings globally. My concern and heart is for the Russian-speaking
world where I have worked for 15 years. Please understand that this article is ‘wet cement' and will need more input,
perhaps from you, to make this thought into practical vision.
What does it take to truly transform a community
for Christ? What is Jesus' vision for His church in this regard? Is such transformation practical and achievable in our present
church and missionary format?
There are many questions in the area of transformation ministry. Increasingly there
is the sense among many Christians that there must be an indigenous, spontaneous method to accomplish this in settings where
‘normal' institutional church and missionaries can not go. So, in this article we will begin a conversation to see if
this is achievable.
Let's start with the Scriptures to consider what Jesus had in mind for his church to be involved
in doing. Consider Luke 4:
18
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the
brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are
bruised, 19 To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. 20 And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and
sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 And he began to say unto them, This
day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.[1]
Please
notice that Jesus is setting to tone and direction for His ministry. In this is also found the basics of His church - what
we are to do as His church. When Jesus says ‘poor' does He mean financially or only spiritually poor? The word used
is financially poor. Jesus is directing His comments to a group who need more than simply the gospel message - they need to
receive a gospel of changing of a person's life.
Jesus set as His focus transforming communities in every way.
He speaks of a movement through a community which turns that community's norms upside down making the community fertile soil
for the gospel message. When people are hungry, or unemployed, the needs overcome the hearing of the gospel. Daily concerns
impact so much that the gospel is limited in effectiveness.
A simple reading of the gospels shows us that Jesus'
focus and ministry was pointed toward the marketplace. Marketplace ministry today is simply a return to the ministry of the
first century church. Of the 133 public appearances of Jesus found in the gospels, 122 of those appearances are found in the
marketplace. Of the 40 miracles in the book of Acts, 39 miracles are found in the marketplace. Think of the average person
today and realize that 70% of their awake hours are spent in the marketplace. The church of Jesus Christ was founded to impact
the marketplace ... something we have seemingly forgotten.
The day of sending a missionary into a country to start
work in that place is slowly coming to a limited setting. Exchange rates on finances and the costs of training to send people
are growing at a pace where in a few years such work will be the exception instead of the rule. It is time to come up with
a method to accomplish this work that is different than the methods of the last few centuries. In fact, we may need to return
to Jesus' words and readopt a forgotten format of missionary endeavor.
There are four primary approaches to development
of a transformational method in missions:
- Economic Growth
- a structural approach with funding from outside the community.
- Political
Liberation - a structural approach with help coming from within the community.
- Relief - a needs approach with funding and help coming from outside the community.
- Community Development - a needs approach which comes from the community.
The
only approach which I believe will have long-term significance is the community development approach. The other approaches
either rely too much on outside support or are extremely political in nature. Only the community development model can be
spontaneous and reproducible.
Transformational Development Transformational development
addresses poverty with a long view in a local way. In deeply impoverished areas in remote rural areas and, increasingly, in
urban slums, the problems are usually quite complex. There may be a lack of infrastructure, such as passable roads or working
vehicles, to bring crops to market or supplies to the community. Basic health care is often unavailable. A lack of a steady,
clean water supply can devastate entire regions. Fuel is essential, but in very scant supply in some areas.
Approaching
the complex of difficulties requires long-term local attention at the community level. Local people need to take leadership
to bring about sustained changes. The work of Christian development workers is to facilitate change from within the society
for an entire community or area. The core transformation is at the point of values and vision. - Concerning vision, people come to see that their community can be made different, that they are not locked in an
unchangeable despair.
- Concerning values, people come to see afresh that they
are valuable. Christians who labor at this kind of development have a clear advantage of working toward the values of the
kingdom of God.
Principles of Holistic Christian Transformational Development I see ten fundamental
principles and values of holistic transformational development.
Each of them has a rich biblical foundation. Samuel J.
Voorhies has for the past 18 years worked in international relief and development in nearly 30 countries. Voorhies has 10
fundamentals of transformational ministry. Consider these: - Recognize
the value of people. Respect and value people in the context of their local culture.
- Understand
and respect local culture. Yet discern that while each person is intrinsically valuable, every culture has both positive and
negative aspects that may or may not be compatible with biblical teaching.
- Believe
in the person's capacity to contribute and determine his/her future. Help people meet their basic needs with dignity and self-respect.
No matter how poor, every community and every individual has something to contribute. Identifying and starting with local
resources is a key to people's sense of ownership and self-dignity.
- Make people, rather than
technology, the focal point. When local people are involved in making decisions they ultimately take responsibility for determining
their future.
- Realize that poverty includes physical, material, spiritual and social
dimensions. Involve the whole person-mind, body and spirit, in any development effort. Avoid segregating these and design
programs that address the whole problem and the whole person.
- Approach development in
a way that seeks to communicate Christ through word-communicating the gospel of Christ; deed-serving as Christ would, bringing
healing and exemplifying righteousness; and sign-working with God's help so that Christ's kingdom life is demonstrated.
- Realize that all interventions into a group of people (social, technical, economic or educational) carry a message
that must be understood and interpreted from the recipient's world view.
- Recognize
that God is already at work in the community. Part of the external facilitator's tasks is to discover what God is doing and
support what may already be happening as a bridge to how God wants to use the external resource and revelation.
- Believe that transformation in a person comes through a relationship with Christ. There is no substitute for such
a living, growing faith.
- Recognize churches as foundational for sustained and abundant
transformation. To strengthen existing churches, or to plant new ones where none exist, forms a powerful community of transformed
lives empowered by God with hope and kingdom values.
The Church (the Body of believers) is the real agent of the Holy Spirit
for cultural change in any society. The Church is the salt working through the whole dish. It is that part of the society
which has a new relationship to God yet reacts in terms of the attitudes and presuppositions of that society. The Body of
Christ understands intuitive, unanalyzed motives and meanings in a way the missionary cannot. The Church must make the decisions.
What I would like to see develop is a model of church development and community development that can be both spontaneous
and indigenous. I am actively looking for like-minded individuals who see effective Christian missions needing a return to
Jesus' model in a 21st century context.
Bob CroweBlairsville, GA USA[1]The Holy Bible :
King James Version. 1995
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