(This article was originally given as an address at a Compassionate Ministry Conference in 2002 while Rev. Jeff Carr was serving as the Executive Director of the Bresee Foundation and is reprinted with permission. Jeff currently serves as the Chief of Staff to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in the City of Los Angeles.)

As a college student on one of our Nazarene campuses in the early 1980's, I was struggling to make real the faith that I had been taught while growing up in the church. While I had been schooled well in the articles of faith and personal conduct, I had not been taught how the gospel was to impact the broader world in which I lived. I was trying to figure out how a just God and a Christian church could participate in unjust systems like the system of apartheid in South Africa, and merely mimic the greedy society and "me generation" that seemed to be prevalent in America at the time.

It was during this struggle that one of my professors challenged me to read the history of the Church of the Nazarene and its founder, Dr. Phineas Franklin Bresee. I never imagined at the time, that this journey would lead me to be responsible for directing the organization that was established in his name in Los Angeles to serve the poor. For more than thirteen years now, I have had the privilege of being a part of this movement we call Compassionate Ministries, serving in what Dr. Bresee called "the neglected quarters of the city" of Los Angeles. My ministry experiences in Los Angeles, as well, as the ministries I have had the privilege of observing around the world during these years, have caused me to reflect on where this movement has come from, and where we are going.

The Church of the Nazarene was born out of the desire of her early leaders to both preach the doctrine of "perfect love" and to live out Jesus' command to "love God and people." Dr. Bresee and other members of Los Angeles First Church of the Nazarene emphasized what John Wesley called "acts of compassion and deeds of mercy." These acts were the "means of grace," by which our own faith in Christ was worked out in the world and a key ingredient in the establishment of God's reign here on earth.

Nazarenes were extremely compassionate people. They were involved in providing food, clothing, and shelter to the Chinese immigrants in Los Angeles, starting homes for unwed mothers, and taking up collections for those in financial need. Even our foreign mission work in those early days was rooted in social action, with the establishment of hospitals and medical services being one of the primary means by which we shared the gospel in other parts of the world. These acts, which some might call charitable, were a natural response for a people who had experienced the grace of God in their lives.

Their acts of compassion and deeds of mercy, however, did not end there. These early, Los Angeles Nazarenes were leaders in the prohibition movement and other public policy debates, and Dr. Bresee was involved in establishing the University of Southern California medical school. They understood that while simple acts of compassion were necessary in responding to human need, broader community development efforts and systemic reform were needed to change the underlying circumstances that trapped people in cycles of poverty and oppression.

During the middle decades of the last century, this emphasis on compassion and social justice took a back seat to an emphasis on evangelistic efforts focused primarily on the spiritual needs of people. In response to the "social gospel" theology that was promoted by more liberal theologians during the 40's, 50's, & 60's, the Church of the Nazarene shifted away from preaching a gospel that liberated people from the perils of sin and transformed the social fabric of the community, to the development of a moralistic code was centered on the personal piety of the individual.

During the early 1970's & 80's, however, a handful of Nazarenes in the United States rediscovered our historical roots of preaching a gospel that had the power to change all aspects of an individual and the communities life, and led to the re-birth of communities of faith committed to personal transformation, community development, and social justice. Leaders like Tom Nees, Paul Moore, Ron Benefiel, and others, began to challenge our paradigms of the Church and point us back to those early days of the Church of the Nazarene.

This movement has spread throughout our country and literally around the world, with the establishment of hundreds of Compassionate Ministry Centers and Good Samaritan Churches. Our movement no longer takes refuge on the fringes of our church, but has been embraced by our leaders and many of our members as an important part of the ministry of the Church of the Nazarene. While much of this is good for us and for our church, I fear that our ministry may fall short of what our church and the world in which we live really needs.

Much of the work we do in Compassionate Ministry Centers and Good Samaritan Churches is what I would call charity, and unfortunately, it affects the way in which we respond to human need and limits the work we do. I would define charity as responses by people in a position of power, who have resources "helping" those in need who are "less fortunate." In fact, we often dress this up by talking about "serving the poor" through our work. John McKnight, in his book entitled, The Careless Society writes:

I wonder whether the human reality is always to make servanthood into lordship. It may be that there is no way to define service so that we will not get it backwards and make it a system of control. With all our Christian devotion to the idea of service, could service be an inadequate ideal---a value so easily corrupted that we should question its usefulness?

At the Last Supper, Christ was telling the disciples those things of greatest importance. It was His final opportunity to communicate the central values of the faith. In St. John's report of Christ's concluding instruction, Christ said, "No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what the master is doing. I call you friends for all that I have heard from my Father, I have made known to you."

Finally, Christ said you are not servants. You know. You are friends.

Perhaps beyond the revolution of Christian service is the final revolution, the possibility of being friends. Friends are people who know, care, respect, struggle, love justice, and have a commitment to each other through time.

Why friends rather than servants? Perhaps it is because He knew that servants could always become lords but that friends could not. Servants are people who know the mysteries that can control those to whom they give "help". Friends are people who know each other. They are free to give and receive help. (reference)

If we are going to move from charity to community development in our ministries, we must move from being servants to being friends. We must become immersed in the lives of people and in the life of our community, to the point where we no longer see a distinction between our well-being and theirs. All of our well-being is tied together through our bond of friendship and faith.

Finally, our work must move beyond simple responses to more sophisticated and broader community development. We must forge community partnerships that help people develop skills to empower themselves and their families. We must organize people and our communities to give us a voice in the larger community. Rather than abstain from the political process and the broader social context, we must engage political systems at the local, national, and international level. Community development must address not only issues that affect individuals, but the broader society as a whole. It is these issues that we hope to explore today in this panel on "Moving From Charity To Community Development."