Imagine a church that has for several decades dedicated babies, married the young, buried the old, and has outreach ministries in between Sundays, yet its community problems remain escalated and unresolved. This is a reality for many churches, especially in the inner city. I remember a pastor from South Central Los Angeles who was overwhelmed by relentless demands on him and his church in spite of their community response after the civil unrest, earthquake, and fire in 1992. The neighborhood was changing (again) and was experiencing all the symptoms associated with transition. He commented, “I wasn’t trained to deal with all these problems. I know how to preach, baptize, and offer the Sacraments. But I don’t know what to do with abandoned buildings, gangs, drugs, and prostitution overrunning our community.” After calming his nerves, he told me he had heard about something called “Community Development in churches” but did not understand nor know how to go about it.

The concept of community development in churches is sometimes referred to as “social ministry” or “community outreach,” the other side of the coin of a holistic outreach that addresses both spiritual and physical needs, and caters to a whole person: body, mind and soul. While the church proclaims the knowledge of salvation from eternal damnation (Matthew 28:19), it also recognizes evil’s presence in the community which can manifest itself in hunger, poor housing, unemployment, gangs, and drugs.

It is not difficult to find churches with a wide spectrum of community outreach ministries from feeding the hungry to finding jobs for the unemployed and building lowincome housing. However, most of these efforts are rather task-oriented and ignore the process of true community development. While many people are served to the glory of the church, the community remains helpless even after years of church involvement. When church leadership changes, or resources run out, the ministries are usually doomed.

For community development in churches to be successful, we must see the process and task of the effort as mutually inclusive. The latter will help us to accomplish tangible (quantitative) goals like the number of homeless people served and units of housing built, while the former emphasizes the abstract but important goals of deliberately equipping and empowering the community we serve. The process and task together will bring about community transformation along with quantitative change.

We must also be inclusive in our community development efforts, taking the values and character of the people into consideration. We recognize that any developments that exploit people morally and economically are not acceptable.

Some helpful steps to accomplish community development goals include:

A good knowledge of the community – set a manageable boundary, have a good understanding of the needs as expressed by the people, know and position the community resources (asset mapping).

Assess capacity and interest of the church –take a critical look at the capacity and interest of the people and other resources of the church.

Engage the church - overlay the community needs and resources with the church capacity and interest to determining the “what” and “how” of the church’s involvement.

Consider potential partnerships and collaborations – there is no need to reinvent the wheel; it may be most effective and efficient to join existing efforts than to invent another.

Mobilize the community –bring the community to the table and encourage collective participation and decision-making to promote community ownership.

Engage stakeholders – involve the public officials, business leaders and other community stakeholders in the overall process.

Finally, we must understand that community development is not a quick fix, but requires a solid foundation that takes time to plan, implement and build. Quick fix development is a prescription for failure and disappointment.

by Dr. Jolly A. Beyioku
Chair of the African Strategy Committee