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The American Community Organizing Tradition And Its Potential
Application To The German Protestant Church and European Context
Rev. Paul
Cromwell
paulallancromwell@hotmail.com
July 1,
2005 (revised March 1, 2006)
Written
with the support of a study stipend provided
by The Evangelische Kirche in
Deutschland
Contents
Preface
Part I: The American Community Organizing Tradition
Community Organizing as Practiced in the United States
A. Historical Roots and Uniqueness
B. Basic Values, Concepts,
Strategies, and Characteristics of Community Organizing
C. American Churches as Active Participants in Community Organizing
Specific Examples of Community Organizing
A. Building an Organization
B. Solving Community Issues
C. The Role of the Community Organizer
Community Organizing, Christian Values and Traditions
A. Christian Values of Compassion, Justice, and Vision of
the Shalom Community
B. Power and Values
C. Human Relationships and the Presence of God
D. The Church and the Broader Community
A Spirituality of Community Organizing
A. Opportunities and Challenges
B. Attitudes and Perspectives: Food for the Soul and Bread for the
Journey
C. Spiritual Practices and Disciplines
Part II: Potential Application of the Community Organizing Tradition to
the German Protestant Church
German Protestant Church – Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland: An
Analysis and Recommendations
A. The German Protestant Church/Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland (EKD):
B. The German Church in Transition
C. Potential New Ways of Thinking About the Church
D. Potential Revitalization Strategies
Attempts at Applying Community Organizing in the German and European Context
A.
Overview of Activities from July, 2005 to February, 2006
B. Descriptions of Local Projects
Applying Community Organizing in the German and European Context
Conclusion
Appendices
I. Germany/Europe Contact List of Rev. Paul Cromwell
II. Community Organizing Bibliography
III. A Brief Bibliography For Church-Based Community
Organizing
IV. “How the American Community Organizing Tradition Can Inform the
European
Strategy to Combat Social Exclusion”, by Rev. Paul Cromwell and
Peter Szynka
About the Author
I am an American minister in the United Church of Christ who has served in
his ministry for twenty-five years as a community organizer. The majority of
this work has been done with faith-based (or church-based) community
organizations in the United States.
For twenty months (July, 2004 – February, 2006) I have been living, working, and
studying in Germany as a result of receiving a twenty-two-month stipend from the
Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland (EKD) in cooperation with the Forum on
Community Organizing (FOCO). During this period of time I have held
conversations with approximately 270 persons from 40 German cities and given
presentations on 56 occasions involving approximately 830 people. I have also
been a member of the Qu/A/Si Project of European social workers (Quality &
Accessibility of Social Services for Social Inclusion, a partnership of 16
social service provider organizations including German Diakonisches Werk and
Eurodiaconia). This involvement has taken me to 7 other European countries and
permitting extensive conversations with approximately 75 non-German Europeans.
My contacts have been primarily with church leaders, pastors, and members, along
with social workers and other professionals.
This report is written in two parts. The first part contains four chapters
and attempts to explain the American community organizing tradition, including
its guiding concepts, values, and strategies. It provides a few concrete
examples drawn from the author’s direct experiences as a community organizer. It
also attempts to explain the values, which connect community organizing to the
values and traditions of Christianity. The final chapter in this first part
contains the author’s reflections on a potential “spirituality of organizing.”
The second part contains two chapters. The first chapter grows out of the
author’s first year of work and study in Germany and contains a description of
the German Protestant Church and community organizing strategies that may apply
to help strengthen the life and practices of the church. The second chapter was
written in February, 2006 after the author had more time working with parishes
and organizations seeking to use community organizing strategies in concrete
German and European situations.
The different parts and chapters of this report have been written as “stand
alone” pieces. In other words, the author has found it helpful to share the
different chapters with different persons during the past eighteen months.
Hence, the reader of this full report will find that some concepts and ideas are
repeated in different chapters.
A few words need to be said about the methodology utilized in the author’s
conversations with persons here in Germany and Europe, along with the guiding
values of the author’s research and findings. One-on-one visits are described in
the first chapter of this report. This method was developed by the founder of
community organizing, Saul Alinsky, and persists to the present day. The two
primary purposes of these visits are to build relationships and discover
persons’ concerns, visions, and talents. These visits differ from more
traditional “interviewing” methods utilized in academia, social sciences,
government, business, and elsewhere. No standard or written questionnaire is
utilized. The formality of a questionnaire inhibits the goals of building a
relationship and allowing the visit to be open-ended; i.e. following the most
important concerns and visions of the person being visited. As I have visited
with people using this one-on-one method, my goals have been to get to know them
and to ask them open-ended questions such as, “What is your perception of where
the German Protestant Church is today?”, “What do you see as its greatest
strengths and biggest challenges?”, and “If there is one thing that would make
your parish or the surrounding community better, what would it be?” Such
open-ended questions lead to responses as diverse as the people with whom one
visits. From initial responses to these questions, further questions and
conversation follow. And when one displays a genuine interest in someone and
gives them an opportunity to speak about their most heartfelt concerns and
visions, a relationship of respect is fostered upon which further work and
cooperation can be developed.
One final note should be made regarding methodology and values. The author of
this report works from the values premise that love, justice, and democratic
participation are fundamental to the development of healthy individuals and
society. These values are a major tenant of the Christian and other faith
traditions. The author also believes that the church has an important role to
play in fostering these values in individuals, families, and societal
institutions. These background values have shaped the one-on-one visits,
research, findings, and recommendations of this report.
The author wishes to acknowledge that many of the ideas contained in this
report are not uniquely his own. The chapters on the American community
organizing tradition draw heavily upon the trainings conducted by community
organizing networks such as the Direct Action Research Training Center (DART),
Gamaliel Foundation, and Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), in which the author
has attended and/or served as a trainer. The chapter relating to community
organizing and Christian values draws significantly from the writings and
workshops of Dr. Robert Linthicum. The reader will find in the attached
bibliography many sources for further information.
This report is written by someone who has a very deep appreciation and sense
of gratitude for the significant role that the church and Christian faith has
and continues to play in my life. I have also been richly blessed by the
American community organizing tradition and the many fine organizers and leaders
I have met over the years. Without the mentoring and sharing of the following
colleagues and friends, this report could not have been written: Rev. Charles
Baldwin, John Calkins, Jim Capers, Rev. William Sloan Coffin, Rev. Jim Drake,
Don Elmer, Greg Galluzzo, Choe Hyondok, Jean Levis, Rev. Robert Linthicum, John
Musick, John Norton, Catherine Peterson, Jerry Silbert, Shel Trapp, Herb White,
and James Wiles.
I am extremely grateful to the EKD for the study stipend, which has allowed
me to be in Germany, and to FOCO, the Qu/A/Si Project, and members of the German
church for having warmly received me and introduced me to so many wonderful
colleagues. My thanks to all whom I have met these past twenty months. The
“Gastfreundlichkeit” (hospitality) I have been shown has been overwhelming.
Finally, this report is dedicated to my son, Jesse Levis Cromwell, the light
of my life, and to my family of origin that nurtured me in unconditional love.
Thanks be to God!
Community
organizing as practiced in the United States has as its roots the
work of
Saul Alinsky (1909 -1972). Alinsky’s work, begun in Chicago
and then moved to other American cities, can most simply be described
as the transferring of concepts and strategies used in the American
labor movement for greater worker justice, to poor and ethnically
diverse large urban neighborhoods in order to improve city services
and the quality of life in these residential neighborhoods. Near the
end of his life, Alinsky’s associates sought to
institutionalize this work in the form of systematic trainings for
community organization leaders and staff, and by creating an
institutional structure that would help sustain and spread these
efforts. The legacy of Alinsky’s work can now be found in
hundreds of American cities, towns, and rural areas through the work
of individual membership-based organizations, as well as,
organizations of organizations where religious congregations, labor
unions, and others band together.
Community
organizing differs significantly from the work of social service
providers, single-issue social movements, and political parties.
While social service providers deliver needed services to persons in
need, and who are often the victims of unjust social policies,
community organizing works to empower people to change and hold
accountable those institutions which often create the victims in the
first place. Unlike single-issue social movements often lead by
charismatic leaders, community organizing is multi-issue oriented
with a broad collective of leaders. Community organizing is
political work in the very broad sense of this term, meaning that it
engages people in the civic and political affairs of their
communities. Community organizations, however, are never affiliated
with any political party, nor do they campaign for persons running
for office. Rather, they seek to hold accountable these and other
civic leaders to the needs and visions of the entire community,
especially its low and moderate-income residents.
1. Power and Values
Two
basic values govern and guide the work of community organizing. The
first is
that of democratic participating and broad inclusively. All people
have the right to actively participate in the civic decisions, which
govern their individual and collective lives. Community organizing
embodies the value of democratic participation both internally,
within the organization itself, and by engaging the organization with
the broader community and decision-making processes. The
organization’s members are systematically listened to and
actively engaged in the selection, research, and solving of
community problems. The organization's leadership is democratically
elected and its governing structures and decisions are held
accountable by the membership to insure the will of the people is
being followed. The organization then engages in the broader
community and democratic procedures. It negotiates with and for
people who are often excluded from the political mainstream due to
their lack of power on the basis of income level, or racial and
ethnic composition.
The
second governing value of community organizing is justice and
compassion. Community organizing works to see that all people and
areas of the city are treated with dignity and respect, and that a
degree of fairness is being lived out in a community’s
distribution of goods and services.
Power
is needed to see that values of fairness and compassion are
implemented in the community. In this regard, community organizing
makes an important distinction between private and public
relationships. In our private relationships of family, friendships,
and small voluntary associations, the individual can often exert the
needed power and influence to see one’s needs are met and that
one is treated fairly. If not, the individual has a good deal of
freedom to leave these relationships and select new ones. In the
public arena of involuntary relationships (i.e. with large
institutional structures such as city hall, the police, banks, school
system, and the like) the individual is more often than not powerless
to negotiate one’s needs and interests.
Community
organizing points out that power and influence are manifested in
society in two major forms: organized money and organized people.
When the millionaire developer wants something from city hall, they
often get their way due to their organized money. When individuals
of modest income and wealth want change, however, they must band
together to see that their interests are met. In community
organizing, power and influence are exercised in large public
assemblies where elected officials and other civic leaders see that
the threat of public embarrassment or the loss of prestige or votes
in the next election are worse than responding positively to the
needs and demands of the organization.
Community
organizing follows three primary steps to achieve its purposes of
citizen empowerment and community improvements. The first step is to
systematically listen to the needs and visions of the people
involved, and to democratically prioritize them. One example of this
“listening process” will be subsequently described. The
second step is to conduct research to see what solutions can address
these needs and visions, and what public or private institutions and
leaders have the power and resources to carry out the needed
solutions. Third, a large public gathering is held to which the
media and key civic leaders are invited. The community problems are
graphically described, the solutions are presented, and the agreement
of civic leaders is sought in the form of specific steps they will
take to address these problems. Smaller negotiating meetings of the
organization’s leadership with civic leaders take place before
and after such public assemblies where the details of solutions can
be fully developed.
2. Strategies for Democratic Participation and
Powerful Community Problem Solving
Why
People Participate
When
people acknowledge that the power they need to positively change
their communities
comes in the form of organized people, the challenge arises how to
best mobilize them. Community organizing works from the premise that
people become involved in activities for one of two primary reasons.
First,
people engage because they have a direct self-interest in something.
Human self-interest can revolve around many factors, ranging from
self-survival to self-esteem. One can witness in community
organizing people’s involvement based upon the direct impact a
community problem has on a person’s life and family (the most
common), the offense to one’s values a community problem has
(for example, a person may say, “I am not homeless, but I
become involved because I believe that there should not be the
conditions of homelessness in our city.”), or the satisfaction
one gains from working closely with a diverse group of committed
people.
The
power of self-interest is captured well in the following quote from
former American politician Mario Cuomo.
You
cannot have been in politics as long as I have and be blind to the
fact that for most of us, most of the time, self-interest is a
powerful motivator – perhaps the most powerful one. If we hope
to reestablish our strength, confidence, and balance as a nation, we
need to help one another see that our self-interest is not identical
with our selfish interests, that self-interest is inextricably linked
to the common good. We need to understand that apart from the
morality of recognizing an obligation to our brothers and sisters,
common sense by itself should teach us that we are all in this thing
together, interconnected and interdependent. - Mario Cuomo, Reason
To Believe, 1995
It
is very important to point out, as Mr. Cuomo does, that self-interest
is different than selfishness. Wanting the best for one’s
life, family, and community only becomes selfish when these desires
are sought at the exclusion of others. When they are sought in
relationship and cooperation with others, when overlapping and common
self-interests are recognized and affirmed, the nature of power to
achieve them is transformed from an oppressive “power over”
others to a liberating “power with” others.
The
second primary reason people engage has to do with relationship of
trust and goodwill one has with a person who invites them. When
asked, “Why did you attend this meeting?” or “How
did you become involved in this group?”, it is very common to
hear the response, “Because a friend invited me.”
Long-term involvement ultimately comes back to self-interest.
Relationships, however, often determine initial involvement.
One
final note can be made regarding participation, especially regarding
involvement in public and civic affairs. Often people blame apathy
for the lack of people’s civic involvement. The word “apathy”,
or “a-pathos”, implies a lack of passion and concern.
Very few people truly lack in passion or concern for themselves,
their family, or their community; but they often do feel powerless to
make a difference. Community organizing awakens a realistic hope
that things can change through one’s involvement with others.
One-On-One/Face-To-Face
Visits
One
of the most effective strategies used in American community
organizing is the
one-on-one or face-to-face visit. Its purpose is to discover a
person’s self-interests and to initiate a relationship of trust
and respect. While it is very rare during a first visit that the
person visited will be invited to participate or become involved in
something, a foundation is laid to do so in the future.
A
one-on-one visit is an intentional conversation, always arranged
ahead of time, and lasts for approximately 30 to 45 minutes. It
begins with the person doing the visit establishing the reason for
visiting. The following example is typical within the context of a
faith-based community organization where one lay person is visiting
another from their own congregation.
Thank
you for taking the time and allowing me to visit. As I mentioned
when I called
to arrange this visit, I am part of a team of twenty persons from our
church who are each visiting five to ten other members as a way of
strengthening the fellowship of the church and understanding our
members concerns for the church, our neighborhood, and our city.
Before we talk about visions and concerns, however, I would enjoy
getting to know you better. Please tell me more about yourself.
Visitors
ask about the background, family, work, hobbies, and future
aspirations of the person they are visiting. Questions such as, “How
did you choose your job and what do your really like about it?”,
and “Were there any key people or events in the past that
really helped shape who you are today?” lead the conversation
to a deeper level. Eventually the visitor will ask about the
community and church with such questions as, “If there was one
or two things that would make our church a better place than it
already is, what would that be?”, and “What makes you
angry and what would you like to see changed in your neighborhood or
our city?” The visit ends with the visitor saying something
like this.
Thank
you for taking the time to visit and share. Next month our church
team will report back to the full congregation what we have found.
Then we will invite the membership to take part in developing
strategies to address the visions and concerns we have heard. I will
call you when this occurs.
Persons
conducting such one-on-one visits consistently report how rewarding
they are, how it expands the number of people they know, and
amazement at how much people are willing to share about themselves
during an initial conversation. Upon reflection, this final
conclusion should not be surprising. It is a wonderful experience
when someone truly listens to and takes a genuine interest in us, all
the more so in our increasingly busy and impersonal culture.
As
alluded to in the one-on-one example just cited, these visits often
occur in the context of a “listening process”, an eight
week period when a trained group of people will each visit five to
ten others. After the visits are completed, the visitors will share
with each other what they have heard, look for a pattern of repeated
concerns and visions, and then report back to the membership their
findings and preliminary recommendations for next steps. Within a
faith-based community organizations of thirty congregations working
together, it is not uncommon for 2,000 people to be visited and
listened to during this eight-week period. Each parish listening
team, in addition to reporting back to their own membership, will
also share the community concerns they heard at a meeting with
listening teams from other congregations and parishes. Such a joint
listening process generates great energy, excitement, and hope that
community problems will be effectively addressed. What helps
guarantee success, however, is that the listening teams can now
invite the 2,000 people they visited to participate in the
organization based upon the self-interests they have discovered and
the relationships they have begun to establish.
From
Unmanageable Problem to Solvable Issue
In
addition to being able to mobilize large numbers of people as a means
of exerting
power on behalf of the values of fairness and compassion, community
organizing helps people translate vast community problems into
specific and winnable issues. The quality of education, crime in
neighborhoods, or the poor delivery of city services are vague and
vast community problems. Working to see that Lincoln High School
implement an after-school reading tutorial program for 100 struggling
readers by the start of the new school year is a specific and
winnable issue. Demanding that the police add extra patrols for
three months to eliminate drug dealing in ten identified drug houses
is concrete. Requesting that the city fix the potholes on twenty
named streets, transforms a vast community problem into something the
organization can take to their public leaders. Community organizing
trains citizens to demand from civic leaders precisely what they want
and by when.
Such
demands allow for concrete negotiations and specific accountability.
At large public meetings, civic leaders are asked questions such as,
“Will you implement a tutorial program for one hundred
struggling readers, beginning October 1st?” Such
questions require a “yes” or “no” answer from
the public official. Details of the final solution and needed
modifications of the original request can be further developed in
subsequent negotiations. The specific nature of the request,
however, will keep the negotiations on track and prevent civic
leaders from diverting attention from peoples’ true concerns
and visions.
3. Additional Characteristics
Three
additional characteristics of community organizing help distinguish
it from other forms of community and social work: the nature of its
financial income, leadership, and staff. Community organizations
need money for staff, leadership training, and basic office expenses.
This money comes from a variety of sources and, as much as possible
from the membership. Membership-raised money is important for two
reasons. First, people feel greater ownership over that which they
personally pay for and invest in. Second, membership raised money
equals independence. It is difficult to hold city hall accountable
if a large portion of an organization’s budget comes from
government sources.
The
membership and leadership of community organizations are its most
valuable asset. Leaders in community organizations come with
different styles and characteristics, but they hold in common that
they are people with an identifiable following, and they are able to
mobilize this following when the organization needs to exert its
power. Community organizations place great emphasis on training
leaders with the skills they need to become effective players in the
democratic public arena. Formal leadership trainings include
teaching specific skills on how to conduct one-on-one visits and
productive meetings, how to research and tackle community issues,
fundraising, and effective negotiating. They also teach theoretical
skills like how to understand power, the key differences between
public and private relationships, and the importance of clearly
understanding our own and other’s self-interests. The real
training of leaders, however, occurs “in the field” when
these skills are put to use.
Finally,
the staff of community organizations are paid professionals who play
multiple roles. Community organizers spend the majority of their
time, especially in the beginning stages of building an organization,
conducting hundreds and hundreds of one-on-one visits, drawing people
together through the common self-interests he or she has heard from
the people themselves. The community organizer serves as leadership
trainer in the context of formal trainings, meetings, and all aspects
of the organization. A final prominent role of the community
organizer is that of agitator. Often the organizer is an outsider
who comes into a community asking, “Why do things need to be
this way?” He challenges people to act upon their stated
beliefs and values. As an outsider and in the role of facilitator,
the organizer plays a behind the scenes role, never doing for others
what they can do for themselves. So it is the organization’s
leadership, not staff, that run meetings, hold accountable and
negotiate with civic leaders. The organizer, however, helps prepare
and reflect with the leadership how these actions can be most
effective.
A
recent study by “The Interfaith Funders” found that there
are over 3,500 religious congregations in the United States that
participate in community organizing. These congregations contribute
money in the form of membership dues, church space for meetings, and
their pastors and members as the active participants of the
organizations. In addition, regional and national religious bodies
have contributed millions of dollars of financial support to
community organizing efforts.
There
are three primary reasons for this extensive church participation and
support for community organizing. One reason is that community
organizing fits the values of justice and compassion found in the
Judeo-Christian tradition and scriptures. Second, community
organizing offers churches an effective mission strategy to
powerfully address community concerns directly impacting their
membership, neighborhoods, and city; a strategy that goes beyond more
traditional church charity or social service approaches.
Finally,
community organizing serves the institutional self-interests of
pastors and their congregations. One-on-one listening processes help
foster fellowship within the church and is often used to reach out to
inactive or potential new members. Listening processes are also
often used by congregations and parishes to clarify their own
internal programming and ministries. Pastors and lay leaders also
learn valuable skills that help their own church run more
effectively. For example, church leaders often learn in the context
of community organizing how to run effective and efficient meetings,
and then bring these strategies back to church committee and ministry
meetings.
Thus
far, we have spoken of the basic concepts and strategies of community
organizing. We turn now to some concrete examples in order to paint
a fuller picture of community organizing in practice. While many
examples could be selected, I will draw from my own experiences since
they are ones with which I am most familiar. Examples will be given
of the process used in building a new faith-based organization of
organizations; work done in selecting, researching, and solving two
community problems; and the day-to-day work of a community organizer.
I begin, however, with a brief self-description.
Since
there are no schools that formally train community organizers, the
question is often asked, “How does one become involved in this
profession?” The personal stories I have heard which answer
this question are as varied as the number of community organizers I
have met. In my own case, it was a combination of influences that
lead me into organizing. Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio during
the times of the civil rights and anti-Vietnam war movements, I was
made aware of the power of citizen activism in shaping public policy.
My upbringing in the church helped connect these struggles for
justice to the values of the Christian faith. I remember at the age
of fifteen feeling a call into the ministry or politics as a way of
contributing to these efforts for greater societal fairness and
compassion, but feeling unsure how to connect them. It was during my
university studies that I was introduced to people doing a range of
organizing activities.
My
first professional experience as an organizer began in 1979 with the
Southern Woodcutters Assistance Project, working with predominately
African-American pulpwood cutters in rural Mississippi. Our work
combined a self-help, social service approach with organizing. The
woodcutters formed local chapters of a buyers’ cooperative
(allowing them to purchase saw and truck parts at a wholesale price)
and credit union (helping to break the credit trap many of them were
in with the those who purchased their wood). These services also
formed the backbone of the organization. Attention was then turned
to organizing for a state law establishing a fair process for
measuring their wood when sold to buyers and getting a higher price
for their labor.
After
completing my Seminary studies and being ordained a minister in the
United Church of Christ, I worked for an individual membership based
organization in Duluth, Minnesota that focussed on neighborhood
improvements and fair lending practices of area banks. My work
evolved in Duluth to that of building an organization of
organizations consisting of churches, labor unions, and an assortment
of women’s, senior citizen’s, and tenant organizations.
Seven years in Minnesota was followed by four in St. Petersburg
building a faith-based organization before serving as the Head
Organizer of the Interchurch for Coalition for Action,
Reconciliation, and Reconciliation (ICARE) in Jacksonville, Florida.
The following concrete examples will be drawn from my nine years with
ICARE; an organization of 35 churches dedicated to powerfully
addressing the needs of low and moderate-income residents.
1. Sponsoring
Committee 1993 – 1995
Prior
to my work in Jacksonville, an organizer from the Direct Action and Research
Training Center (DART) spent one to two days a month for two years
building a Sponsoring Committee. DART is a twenty year old network
of twenty five community organizations in Florida, Ohio, Kentucky,
Michigan, and Virginia. They have three full- time staff persons,
provide leadership trainings twice a year, organize an annual
three-day meeting of pastors, and provide monthly consultant visits
to each organization that is part of the DART network. During the
past three years they have systematically recruited recent university
and seminary graduates for a twelve-week organizing internship, and
the twelve DART-affiliated organizations in Florida have worked
together and won common issues at a statewide level.
The
Sponsoring Committee in Jacksonville, built between 1993 and 1995,
had fifteen church leaders (Bishops, District Superintendents, etc.)
representing seven different faith traditions. During these two
years they learned about community organizing, raised seed money, and
then hired a full-time community organizer.
2. Head
Organizer’s First Nine Months in Jacksonville 9/1995 - 5/1996
I
began my work as the Head Organizer in Jacksonville in September,
1995. For the
first six months my primary task was to visit with area pastors,
mostly in one-on-one meetings. During these visits I was building
relationships, listening to the pastors’ visions and concerns
for their congregations and the broader community, and explaining the
purpose and strategies of community organizing. In February and
March of 1996, 35 of the 120 pastors I had visited met together for
three meetings and made plans and commitments to build a faith-based
organization with their congregations. The also began to introduce
me to lay leaders in their churches. I met with these church members
individually and in small groups. Then on a Friday night and
Saturday morning in late May, 1996 we held a joint training. 125
persons from 25 churches came and learned what faith-based
organizations had accomplished in other communities, potential
strategies that would build an organization in Jacksonville, and
became acquainted with one-on-one visits. They were then asked to
spend the next month recruiting other members of their church to a
training on how to do one-on-one visits.
3. One-On-One
Listening Process 6/1996 - 9/1996
In
late June, 1996 ICARE held a three-hour training for 200 lay people
from 20 churches
on how to do effective one-on-one visits and to plan a visiting
process in their congregations. During July and August these 200
persons conducted 1,300 visits and returned to a meeting in
September, which we called an “Issues Assembly.” Each
church reported how many visits they had completed and what three
community problems their members most wanted ICARE to work on. Ten
community problems were identified, but a vote by the persons at the
Issues Assembly selected public education, drug and crime problems,
and infrastructure improvements as the three priorities ICARE would
address during the coming two years.
4. Issues
Research 10/1996 - 12/1996
Three
weeks after the Issues Assembly ICARE held an Issues Training
attended by
95 persons. We discussed how these three priority community problems
could be researched and approached, and asked these 95 persons to
volunteer to be part of one of the three Issue Committees. Between
October and December, 1996 these Issue Committees conducted research
and developed potential solutions and recommendations. Also during
this time the Sponsoring Committee developed organizational by-laws
and a list of nominees to serve on the newly created Board of
Directors.
5. Convention
1/1997
250
people attended the Founding Convention of ICARE in January, 1998.
They voted
to approve the new by-laws, they elected a new Board, and they
received the reports and recommendations of the three Issue
Committees. They also approved plans to hold ICARE’s first
Public Meeting one month later, and made commitments to bring others
from their churches to this Public Meeting.
6. Public
Meeting 2/1997
On
February 6, 1997 ICARE held its first Public Meeting. Nearly 1,000
people and
the media attended. ICARE pastors and leaders from each Issue
Committee explained the three community problems and then asked key
public officials if they would work with ICARE to solve these
problems. The School Superintendent and Police Chief both attended
the meeting and responded, “Yes, I will work with you to solve
these problems.” The Mayor, however, did not attend but
instead sent a representative who could not speak on his behalf. The
next morning the Mayor called ICARE pastors and apologized for not
coming. He also told TV and newspaper reporters that it was a big
mistake that he did not attend. Three weeks later the Mayor came to
a meeting of 125 ICARE members. He brought his 18 top government
leaders and said he would work with the organization.
7. Negotiating
Solutions 3/1997 - 5/1998
Between
March and May, 1997 ICARE leaders met with the Mayor, Police Chief, and
Superintendent of Schools. The Mayor committed to make 125
infrastructure improvements presented to him by ICARE including
street and sewer repairs, the tearing down of abandoned buildings,
cleaning up of neglected parks, and installing new street lights in
areas where crime was occurring at night. The Sheriff ordered new
police patrols in areas of high crime and arrested known drug
dealers. The School Superintendent agreed to set up a new “In-School
Suspension Program” for misbehaving students that would keep
them in school rather than send them home to unsupervised
environments, and would help them with their homework so they would
not fall behind in their school work. The pledges of all three
leaders were fulfilled.
8. The
Work of ICARE Continues 6/1998 – Present
During
the two or three years ICARE was beginning, some of the pastors and
lay leaders asked why we were taking so much time before we began to
work on community problems. Later they saw that this work was
necessary. Without this initial groundwork, ICARE would not have
been able to bring a thousand people together, and it was this large
Public Meeting that made the political leaders positively respond to
the community problems. The preparation work also allowed the
pastors and members of the different and diverse churches to
understand, respect, and trust one another. Finally, the preparation
work allowed us to build a multi-issue and long-term organization
that would not die after the first or second issue was solved.
ICARE
has a Convention every two years. Before this Convention, ICARE
member churches conduct the “community issue listening process”
during which they have listened to between 1,300 to 2,300 persons on
each occasion. Issue priorities and the twenty-five member Board of
Directors are selected and elected at the Convention. The Board
meets monthly to direct and coordinate the work of ICARE. New Issue
Committees are formed after each Convention to address the three or
four issues selected at the Convention. During the past nine years
these issues have included education, drugs and crime, infrastructure
improvements, youth activities, health care, public transportation,
affordable housing, and health care. At least one time a year, ICARE
holds a large Public Meeting with important government and other
community leaders in order to solve community problems.
Example #1: Public Transportation for
Low-Income Workers
As
was stated earlier in this report, community organizing follows three
basic steps
in solving community problems: democratically selecting the
community problems to be addressed, research, and negotiating with
public officials. During ICARE’s second “community
issues listening process” conducted in the Fall of 1998 many of
its members complained that public transportation for low-income
workers was inadequate. A typical bus ride took as long as three
hours from Jacksonville’s Northside residential areas (where
unemployment was the highest in the city) to the Southside industrial
and commercial parks (where job growth was most prominent).
ICARE
leaders learned that efforts in other parts of the country had
successfully addressed this issue through a variety of strategies.
ICARE invited staff from the national Center for Community Change to
Jacksonville to conduct a 50 person training to see which of these
strategies might work. The approach used elsewhere that seemed most
appropriate for Jacksonville was the creation of a bus hub in the
Northside that would gather bus riders at one central location and
then transfer them to an express bus line to the Southside. ICARE
leaders had learned from conducting local research visits with area
business and governmental leaders, as well as with residents, that
the ideal location for such a hub would be the Gateway Mall. Gateway
had been built as Jacksonville’s first suburban shopping mall
in the 1950’s but had fallen on hard times as the neighborhood
transitioned from middle to low-income residents. A bus hub at this
location would bring potential customers back into this area and
assist in its economic revitalization.
ICARE
leaders and staff prepared a seven-page report of its research
findings and recommendations. 25 ICARE leaders met with officials of
the Jacksonville Transit Authority (JTA) to present the report and
begin a dialogue. Two weeks later, ICARE held a meeting of 600 of
its members, explaining the findings of its report, presenting
testimonials of bus riders who wanted solutions, and asking the JTA
President to act upon ICARE’s recommendations. The JTA
President agreed to all of the recommendations. Within two months
the bus hub was established at the Gateway Mall, direct bus lines
were established to the Southside, and transit time was reduced from
three hours to fifty minutes. Within a year, the Gateway Mall began
attracting new businesses and has now become a flourishing shopping
and service center in Jacksonville’s Northside.
ICARE’s
work on this issue continued in two primary ways during subsequent
years. ICARE continued its relationship with the JTA, providing
citizen input for future transit reforms, and helping JTA receive
three separate one million-dollar grants from the Federal government
to establish additional bus lines for low-income workers in other
parts of the city. Ridership on all of these new lines has been
successful enough to allow the JTA to profitably continue them beyond
the initial seed funding provided by the Federal government. ICARE
leaders also became active in the Transportation Equity Network, a
special project of the national Center for Community Change that
gathers leaders from community organizations from around the United
States in order to share strategies and help shape Federal government
policies and spending on transportation issues.
Example #2: Early Literacy Education in the
Public Schools
If
ICARE’s work on public transportation serves as an example of a
truly cooperative
partnership between grassroots citizens and public officials, ICARE’s
work on early literacy education in the public schools illustrates
its efforts with an entrenched bureaucracy, resistant to change.
The
history of public education in Jacksonville, Florida is one of low
quality and numerous struggles. During the 1960’s
Jacksonville’s public school system was dis-accredited due to
its poor quality. During the 1970’s many white students left
for private schools as the public schools were forced by court order
to integrate African-Americans. Twenty years of struggle over
integration still left many low-income and African-American students
in substandard classrooms and receiving a poor-quality education.
ICARE’s
membership continued to select the quality of public education as its
highest priority issue during the organization’s successive
biennial listening processes. The education issue most important to
ICARE’s membership was the quality of literacy education.
ICARE’s members knew from their own experiences what research
has continually found to be true – that the key to a student’s
ongoing academic success begins with their learning to read fluently
during their first three years of school. Research and years of poor
test scores have also shown that low-income children are far less
likely to become successful readers. The challenge for educators is
that low-income children often have less literacy training in their
homes than their middle and upper-income peers. Whether it is that
their parents have less time to read to their children, or that their
parents themselves are illiterate, many low-income children are in
need of more foundational reading and communication skills at the
beginning of their formal schooling. Public education, however, too
often uses the same teaching strategies and curriculum materials with
these low-income children as they do with middle and upper-income
children who often begin school already knowing how to read.
A
typical “social service” approach to this issue of early
literacy education, and one used by a number of ICARE member
congregations, is that of setting up after-school tutorial programs
for struggling students. The limitations of this approach, however,
are numerous. In particular, an ambitious tutorial program may
assist fifteen to thirty students, whereas in the city of a million
people like Jacksonville, thousands of children fall behind every
year.
ICARE
learned through its initial research that there were teaching
strategies and curriculums that took into account these significant
differences in the literacy backgrounds of children. In April of
1997, eighteen ICARE leaders traveled to a low-income, inner-city
school in Columbus, Ohio that was using these alternative teaching
strategies and were amazed with what they saw. Low-income and
African-American children were reading fluently and with great
self-confidence by the end of first grade. The vast majority of
students at all grade levels were outperforming their middle and
upper-income peers in other parts of the city. The curriculum used
by this school started with foundational literacy skills in the early
years, like phonemic awareness and lots of repetition, before then
moving the students into more complex critical thinking skills. For
ICARE members who had seen their own and so many other children in
their neighborhoods struggle academically, seeing with their own eyes
children like their own succeeding at such high levels was a
revelation. They became determined to bring these strategies back to
Jacksonville.
ICARE
asked the Jacksonville School Superintendent to send principals from
the city’s low-income schools to Columbus, Ohio. He agreed to
send five, and ICARE paid for seven other principals with whom the
organization has begun to build relationships through research
visits. Twelve of the thirteen principals who traveled to this
school reported back to the Superintendent that if they were given
permission and support from the School District, they would begin
using these teaching strategies immediately. Two months after this
visit, ICARE held a 700-person meeting and a series of workshops
involving 150 community leaders. Four outside educators were invited
to speak about their alternative teaching strategies. At the
700-person assembly, the Associate Superintendent agreed to begin
developing a play to implement these strategies. Three months later,
in February of 1998, ICARE members packed the Jacksonville School
Board room to witness final approval of a three year pilot program
involving twelve schools, the creation of a District trainer, and
allocation of $ 1.5 million in order to hire an outside consulting
firm to provide teacher training and to buy curriculum materials.
Little
did ICARE realize at the time that this initial victory was to be
only the beginning of a long battle to maintain these efforts. One
month (August, 1998) before the 12 schools began implementing the new
reading strategy, the School District hired a new Superintendent who
was determined to implement new reforms that left no room for
anything he did not see as a priority. ICARE and an outside
evaluator hired by the District both gathered test scores and
conducted stakeholder satisfaction surveys from educators, parents,
and students. Despite test scores improving dramatically and
overwhelming satisfaction from all persons directly involved, the
Superintendent and high level administrators used numerous behind the
scene and public tactics to undercut these reform efforts.
Speculation regarding this administrative resistance ranged from the
controlling ego of the Superintendent, to the resistance of the
education bureaucracy in general to change suggested from the
outside. ICARE continued its support of these reforms in numerous
ways. ICARE raised money to pay for over 100 teachers, parents, and
community leaders to visits model schools that were successfully
utilizing these alternative strategies. ICARE held numerous large
public meetings, press conferences, and wrote two major reports
documenting successes.
ICARE’s
efforts, like the debate over and attempts to reform American public
education, are not over. The organization and its members, however,
have taken deep satisfaction over the thousands of children who have
thus far benefited from its efforts.
1. Building Relationships
Community
organizers perform many tasks, but first and foremost they are relationship
builders. Especially in the early stages of an organization, the
majority of an organizer’s time is spent visiting one-on-one
with potential members and leaders of the organization. It is not
uncommon for an organizer to conduct twenty to thirty one-on-one
visits a week. Through these visits an organizer is becoming
familiar with the community’s passions, concerns, and visions,
as well as, looking for persons willing to act on these concerns and
the talents they can bring to the organization’s efforts.
The
organizer then brings these people together, assisting them in
creating an agenda and leading a meeting, which will allow common
concerns to be shared, and for new relationships to be formed.
Preparing for a meeting of thirty people, for example, requires that
the organizer revisits key persons individually, a small group
planning meeting, issuing invitations, and doing reminder calls a day
or two in advance of the meeting. A well-run meeting will conclude
with clear follow-up steps and an understanding of who will do what
in order to move the organization and work forward. Building
relationships with face-to-face visits is an ongoing task of the
organizer if the organization is to continue to grow and be vital.
2. Training Leaders
Community
organizers are constantly training leaders and members of the organization
in skills required to make the organization effective. One key area
is in training organization members in doing one-on-one visits so
that it is not simply staff creating the network of relationships
vital to the organization, but many others doing the same.
Organization members get their first “training” in
one-on-one visits through the visit the organizer has done with them.
Formal trainings then occur in workshops where members learn new
skills and practice with each other. Then, like all skills one
learns, members practice and get better by doing.
Through
formal trainings and the process of doing and evaluating, organizers
train members in many other practical skills. Members learn to lead
meetings that start and end on time, have a clear sense of purpose,
and accomplish intended tasks with carefully planned agendas and
effective group facilitating skills. Members learn how to take large
community problems and translate them into manageable and winnable
issues. They learn research skills and then how to negotiate with
public officials. For many persons, being able to speak confidently
with public officials and other powerful people is a passage to a new
and transforming self-esteem. Witnessing this empowerment process is
one of the most rewarding aspects of being a community organizer.
Members also learn how to raise money. In doing so they learn to
speak effectively about the organization and how to ask for funds
with confidence. Fundraising by members not only accomplishes the
obvious goal of bringing in money, it also provides leaders with new
self-esteem and a feeling of ownership over “their”
organization.
The
community organizer also helps train members in new ways of thinking
that reinforces the practical skills they are learning. Reflecting
with members upon how political power operates, and how our behavior
in the public arena needs to differ from our behavior in the private
arena in order to be effective, gives leaders new understandings of
themselves and their communities. In faith-based organizing,
trainings often devote time to a scriptural and theological
foundation for doing justice, which allows members to see their
actions in the context of their heartfelt beliefs and values.
The
organizer plays the role of trainer in formal workshops, during
meetings, and through reflecting with individual members. The
organizer insists that every meeting and action taken by the
organization is evaluated. Not only does evaluation help us reflect
upon and learn from what we have just done, it also allows the
organization’s members to plan what needs to be done next.
3. Two Other
Primary Tasks
Community
organizers assist the leadership of the organization in doing
strategic planning.
This planning may be long-term in nature. ICARE, for example,
conducts Summer leadership retreats proceeded by one or two monthly
Board Meetings where overall goals and an organizational timeline for
the coming year are discussed and ratified. This provides an overall
context within which particular meetings and activities are seen as
part of a larger plan, as well as, allowing for the coordination of
different issue work and other functions of the organization. Again
as with all other aspects of the organization’s work, the
organizer carefully listens to and discusses strategic options with
individuals and small groups of primary leaders before larger groups
discuss and decide upon key strategic directions. Strategic planning
is also necessary for every meeting and action along the way, seeking
to answer questions such as, “What do we hope to accomplish
with this meeting or action? Who needs to do what? What will be the
necessary follow-up steps?”
Every
organization requires raising money and conducting administrative
tasks like preparing mailings, maintaining databases, and paying
bills. Most grant writing is done by organizational staff, but all
other fundraising involves significant member participation. In
ICARE this takes the form of members seeing that their congregation
pay their annual dues, and conducting visits during an annual
fundraiser, seeking the financial support of individuals and business
leaders. A Finance Committee of the Board, with the help of the
organizer, develops and monitors the organization’s budget.
For all other administrative tasks, the organizer seeks volunteers or
part-time staff to carry out these functions so that the organizer
can keep focussed on the primary job of organizing.
4. Qualities of an
Organizer
A
community organizer must have a talent for relating to and
fundamentally respecting
a wide-range of people from diverse backgrounds. An organizer must
have a passion for fairness and democratic processes, and willingness
to work hard to undo the injustices of a community. He or she must
be a good listener, carefully discovering the visions and passions of
the people. An organizer needs a strong ego, capable of suggesting
strong direction but without needing to be front-and-center. An
organizer must be willing to take calculated risks, as well as, be
able to give and receive criticism. An organizer must be curious
about people, institutions, and the political process. Finally, an
organizer needs a sense of humor and ability to laugh at oneself.
1. Compassion, Justice, and Righteous Anger
The
foundational values of compassion and justice found in the American community
organizing tradition are not only central to, but can be said to be
derived from, Jewish and Christian scripture and tradition. The
following Biblical passages are just a few examples regarding the
centrality of love and justice in scripture.
Let
justice roll on like a river, righteousness
like a never-failing stream! – Amos 5:24
He
has showed you, O man, what is good. And
what does the Lord require of you? To
act justly and to love mercyand
to walk humbly with your God. – Micah 6:8
'Love
the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with
all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.
And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. –
Matthew 22:37-40
And
now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of
these is love. – I Corinthians 13:13
God
is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. –
I John 4:16b
Whereas
love can be seen as the guiding value in private relationships,
justice and fair treatment is the living out of love in the public
arena. An examination of the Great Commandment of Jesus (Luke 10:27,
Matthew 22:37-40) helps make this clear. Jesus tells us that we are
“to love neighbor as ourselves.” Implicit in the command
to love our neighbor is that we are to also love ourselves. A key
element of self-love is the expectation that we are to be treated
fairly and with respect. This is especially true regarding the
relationships we have beyond our private relationships in the public
arena. I may hope for lavish love from family and friends, but in
the broader world it is unrealistic to expect that the police
department, financial institutions, or politicians will love me.
However, I can and should expect their fair treatment. And “loving
my neighbor as myself” implies that I should expect my neighbor
to be treated fairly as well.
Our
emotional reaction to unfair treatment and injustice is anger. Two
Biblical examples illustrate this point. The 5th Century
BC prophet Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem to assist his fellow
Hebrews as they sought to rebuild the city walls and temple following
the Babylonian exile. In the fifth chapter of the Old Testament book
of Nehemiah, the prophet hears the complaints of the people. In
addition to the outside threat of invasion from neighboring peoples,
the Jerusalem elite are mistreating their own people. The people
complain, “We are mortgaging our fields and have had to borrow
money in order to buy grain during the famine and to pay the king’s
tax…we have to subject our sons and daughters to slavery.”
(Nehemiah 5:4-5) The prophet’s reaction is described in
Nehemiah 5:6: “When I heard their outcry and these charges, I
was very angry.”
Anger
is an important emotional indicator of when injustice and unfair
treatment are being enacted against self or neighbor. What we do
with this anger is equally important. In Nehemiah’s case, we
are told in Nehemiah 5:7 that he stepped back for a moment from his
anger. “I pondered them [the people’s outcries and
complaints] in my mind, and then accused the nobles and officials.”
Through reflection, Nehemiah transformed his hot anger into a cold
anger. He directs his anger toward ending injustice. (Nehemiah
5:8-14)
The
story of Moses is also instructive regarding anger over injustice and
our subsequent action. Moses’ first reaction to the injustices
being done to his fellow Hebrews is one of violent or “hot”
anger.
One
day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people
were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian
beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Glancing this way and that
and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. -
Exodus 2:11-12
His
second reaction was to flee and withdraw to the land of Midian.
(Exodus 2:15) But then “the Lord appeared to Moses in flames
of fire from within a bush.” (Exodus 3) Moses’ anger
over the injustices inflicted on his people is now a burning passion,
but one that does not consume him as he follows God’s command
to free the Hebrews from Egyptian slavery.
The
anger we feel over injustice can be dealt with in three ways. At one
extreme we can choose to ignore it, bury it inside ourselves or flee
to another land so that the injustice is out of sight. At the other
extreme we can react irrationally and violently out of our anger.
But a third reaction is that we can momentarily step back from our
anger, ponder the situation, and channel our anger into constructive
actions that seek to remove the injustice around us.
2. Vision of the Shalom Community
In
addition to the values of compassion and justice, Christian
scriptures lay out a broader,
more encompassing vision of God’s intentions for community
life. It is a vision that runs throughout Scripture, called by many
different names: the kingdom of God, Mount Zion, the new Jerusalem,
the peaceable kingdom. American theologian Robert Linthicum refers
to this vision as “the shalom community.”
It
is often difficult, however, for us to see this communal vision
because of the eyes of individualism with which our Western culture
has taught us to view the world and scripture. An example of this is
the famous “Shema.”
Hear,
O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God
with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your
strength. - Deuteronomy 6:5
How
many of us hear these words as a command to us as individuals to love
God, when in fact it is addressed to the entire nation – “Hear,
O Israel…” It is the nation that is to
love God and to center its economic and political life in God’s
values of love and justice.
God’s
plan for human community and its various institutions and systems is
laid out in the Deuteronomic laws. These laws were to serve as
guides as the Hebrews prepared to enter the promise land and begin a
new nation (Deuteronomy 6:1-5). The religious system was to bring
people closer and closer to God.
So
now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? Only to
fear the Lord
your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord
your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the
commandments of the Lord your God and his decrees that I am
commanding you today, for your own well-being. – Deuteronomy
10:12-13
The
guiding value for the political and governing systems was justice.
You
shall appoint judges and officials throughout your tribes, in all
your towns that
the Lord your God is giving you, and they shall render just decisions
for the people. You must not distort justice, you must not show
partiality, and you must not accept bribes, for a bribe blinds the
eyes of the wise and subverts the case of those who are in the right.
Justice, and only justice, shall you pursue, so that you may live
and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you. –
Deuteronomy 16:18-20
The
hallmarks of the economic system were that of stewardship, and a fair
distribution of goods and services to insure that there is “no
one in need among you.”
Every
seventh year you shall grant a remission of debts. There will,
however, be no one in need among you, because the Lord is sure to
bless you in the land that the Lord you God is giving you as a
possession to occupy, if only you will obey the Lord your God by
diligently observing this entire commandment that I command you
today. – Deuteronomy 15:1,4-5
Within
these systems, the people themselves were to obey God and keep God’s
commands.
It
was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the
Lord set his heart on you and chose you – for you were the
fewest of all peoples. It was because the Lord loved you and kept
the oath that he swore to your ancestors, that the Lord has brought
you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of
slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. Therefore, observe
diligently the commandments – the statues and the ordinances –
that I am commanding you today. – Deuteronomy 7:7-8,11
Finally,
there were to be the prophets who would occasionally step forward
when the institutions and societal systems needed to be held
accountable to their God-given purposes.
The
Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your
own people; you shall heed such a prophet. I will put my words in
the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak to them everything that I
command. Anyone who does not heed the words that the prophet shall
speak in my name, I myself will hold accountable. – Deuteronomy
18:15,17b-19
Seven
hundred years later, as the people of Israel were exiled in Babylon,
the prophet Ezekiel gave a scathing critique of what went wrong with
the various communal systems and institutions. In Ezekiel 22:25 we
learn that instead of practicing justice, the politicians and rulers
oppressed the people.
Its
princes within it are like a roaring lion tearing the prey, they have
devoured human lives; they have taken treasure and precious things;
they have made many widows within it. – Ezekiel 22:23-25
The
economic leaders practiced dishonest gain and exploited the people
rather than practicing equality.
Its
officials within it are like wolves tearing the prey, shedding blood,
destroying lives to get dishonest gain. – Ezekiel 22:27
Instead
of leading the people closer to God, the religious leaders mislead
them.
Its
priests have done violence to my teaching and have profaned my holy
things, they have made no distinction between the holy and the
common, neither have they taught the difference between the unclean
and the clean. – Ezekiel 22:26a
The
prophets, who should have stepped in to demand accountability,
instead were seduced by the other societal leaders.
Its
prophets have smeared whitewash on their behalf, seeing false visions
and divining lies for them, saying, “Thus says the Lord God,”
when the Lord has not spoken. – Ezekiel 22:28
And
the people themselves no longer followed God, but rather oppressed
and exploited each other.
The
people of the land have practiced extortion and committed robbery,
they have oppressed the poor and needy and have extorted from the
alien without redress. – Ezekiel 22:29
This
contrast between God’s vision for healthy and just human
community as found in Deuteronomy, compared with its opposing values
and consequences as found in Ezekiel, can be found in so many other
stories in scripture. The foundational story for the Hebrew people
and many Jews today is the liberating story of Moses and the exodus
from Egyptian slavery. I Samuel 8-10 contains contrasting views of
kingship, with its warnings of the potentially oppressive
consequences that having a king will bring. The descriptions of King
Solomon’s excessive wealth and his use of forced labor (I Kings
5, 9, 10) illustrate these consequences. There is the story of King
Ahab’s confiscation of Naboth’s vineyard and Elijah’s
prophetic condemnation (I Kings 21). Jesus consistently condemned
the Jewish religious elite for their unjust practices (Matthew 23).
Paul spoke of the struggles with the “rulers, authorities, and
powers of darkness” and the need to “take up the whole
armor of God” to face these opponents (Ephesians 6:10-18). And
the Book of Revelations speaks of the contrast between the “city
of God” and the “city of Satan.” (Revelations 18,
21)
The
apostle Paul’s writings have been sited throughout the history
of the church as a primary source for the importance of individual
salvation and redemption. What is often overlooked, however, is
Paul’s much more encompassing vision of God’s plan of
redemption and salvation for the community and the entire creation.
Just as the Gospel of John speaks of God’s love for the entire
created order, not just the individual soul (“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son.” John 3:16), so
Paul repeatedly speaks of Christ’s reconciling work in such all
encompassing terms.
All
this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and
gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the
world to himself in Christ. – II Corinthians 5:18-19b
For by him all things were
created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible,
whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things were
created by him and for him. For God was pleased to have all his
fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all
things, whether things on earth or things in heaven. - Colossians
1:15-16, 20
Our
God is indeed the God of all – the individual and communal, the
institutional and all of creation.
1. Power Misunderstood and Avoided
Community organizing places great emphasis upon
the need to build power in order
to see the values of compassion and justice more effectively lived
out in the world. But as Martin Luther King stated in the following
passage, the concept of power, especially in its relationship to the
values of love and justice, is one of the most misunderstood among
Christians and others.
Power,
properly understood, is the ability to achieve purpose. It is the
strength required to bring about social, political, or economic
changes. In this sense power is not only desirable but necessary in
order to implement the demands of love and justice.
One of the greatest
problems of history is that the concepts of love and power are
usually contrasted as polar opposites. Love is identified with a
resignation of power and power with a denial of love…What is
needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and
abusive, and that love without power is sentimental and anemic.
Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice.
Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against
love.
Martin
Luther King, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?,
1967
Three
primary reasons can be given why people, especially Christians, are
so often ambiguous about power. First, our stereotype of power is
often shaped by persons who have abused power, by those who have used
a tyrannical and oppressive “power over” us or others in
the service of values we find offensive and contrary to the values of
compassion and justice. Second, having power implies having
responsibility. The human tendency to often avoid responsibility
means that we often avoid seeking or gaining power. Finally, through
our growing up as children in loving families, most of us are
educated in the private arena values of compassion and love.
Learning the public arena values of justice and fairness, however,
along with building and using the power needed to implement them,
requires a passage out of childhood innocence that some adults never
make.
2. Power and God
To
overcome misconceptions of power, it is important to see that Jewish
and Christian
scriptures describe power as an important attribute of God.
One
thing God has spoken,
two things have I heard:
That
you, O God, are powerful
and that you, O Lord, are loving. - Psalm
62:11-12
There
are 117 references to power in Hebrew Scripture alone. God’s
primary powerful action in Hebrew scripture is the exodus story,
where the power of God is used to liberate the people from slavery
and bondage. Indeed, we do not worship a God who is ineffectual, but
rather a God who is powerful and acts in history.
As
Catholic theologian Karl Reiner has said, “Of itself, power is
good. Power is a gift bestowed by God.” He goes on to say,
“Power and sex – both are created good, but can be
misused.” When we use power according to God’s purpose,
we underscore power’s goodness and are vehicles of God’s
will in history. If we do not recognize, however, our loving and
just God as the source of our power, we risk conceit (that we, rather
than God, are the reason for our success), as well as, the misuse and
abuse of power.
An
examination of Jesus’ experience and temptations in the
wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11, Luke 4:1-14) is instructive regarding the
potential use and abuse of power. While in the wilderness Jesus
resisted Satin’s offer of false and abuse expressions of power.
Jesus’ refusal to turn stones into bread is his rejection of
the use of power to betray spirituality for the sake of material
needs. Jesus would not organize his followers with bribes and the
satisfying of material needs over the integrity of their spiritual
freedom and commitments. His rejection of Satan’s dare to
throw himself from the pinnacle of the temple and for God to save
him, was Jesus’ rejection of power as reliance on miraculous
intervention and an abandonment of the cross. Jesus would not
organize his followers with magic tricks and mystery, but rather
through faith freely given. Finally, Jesus’ rejection of
Satan’s offer to rule the world if Jesus would worship Satan
was Jesus’ way of saying, “No, I will not rule the world
by becoming like it.” Worshipping our God demands the use of a
different form of power. When Jesus left the wilderness and returned
to Galilee, he did so armed “in the power of the Spirit.”
This same Spirit he also promised his followers when he ascended
into heaven. “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my
Father promised…you will receive power when the Holy Spirit
comes on you.” (Acts 1:4,8)
The
power displayed by Jesus, and available to us as his followers, is a
power characterized by healing, humility, shared wealth, and
nonviolence. The power of Jesus and the Holy Spirit is not an
abusive or imperial power, which walks over and uses people in
pursuit of selfish and oppressive gain. Rather, it is a relational,
shared, and prophetic power, which develops people, instills hope,
and creates anew. When we come together with an understanding of
each other’s concerns and visions, and when we form
relationships based in trust and respect, one-plus-one no longer
equals two, but two to the nth degree. “Where two or three are
gathered together in my name” (Matthew 18:20), we can do almost
anything!
It
is important to note that God did not exercise power in the great
historical events of scripture independent of human actors. Without
Moses, there is no exodus; without Nehemiah, no rebuilding of
Jerusalem and the temple; without Jesus, no healings or disciples;
without Peter and Paul, no spread of the church. In this regard, God
limits his own power to permit human freedom. God makes his power
available to us, however, in two primary forms: in the form of a
faith, hope, and love which truly enables us to move mountains, and
in the form of gracious and compassionate support in our times of
deepest grief, suffering, and oppression. “Emanuel! God is
with us!” God is with us as a powerful presence in our times
of joy and sorrow, empowering us to work for the Shalom community
“here on earth as it is in heaven.”
3. Paul’s Understanding of the Spiritual
Dimensions of Power
The
New Testament writings of Paul provide additional insight into the
workings of
power by adding a deeply spiritual understanding. Paul held a
worldview that saw a spiritual battle occurring within all created
things; not only individuals but societal institutions as well;
between the dark forces of evil and light forces of God and the good.
For
our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers,
against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and
against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. –
Ephesians 6:12
According
to Paul, God is the creator of all things on earth, including
“thrones, powers, rulers, and authorities” (Colossians
1:16). But they have been corrupted by the dark forces of evil. The
church has an important role to play in holding accountable the
institutions of this world to their God intended purpose.
His
intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God
should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly
realms. – Ephesians 3:10
God
works to redeem the principalities and powers of this world, and
restore them to their rightful, God-given purpose (Ephesians
1:19-22). Paul, however, also advises us “to be strong in the
Lord” as we battle these dark spiritual forces (Ephesians
6:10-18), and assures us that no power can separate us from God.
(Romans 8:31-39).
Paul’s
spiritual analysis of power gives community organizing and all
struggles for greater justice new insights. Societal institutions
have God intended purposes. Schools, for example, are created to
educate all children. But when these institutions deviate from their
mission; for example, when schools no longer educate all children,
but only some; they have lost the purpose for which they were created
and need to be held accountable. Paul’s analysis also helps us
see that when we are negotiating with or attempting to reform an
institution, we are dealing with something more than a collection of
individuals and policies. We are also dealing with an institutional
“ethos” or “spirit” that shapes the actions
of those working there. Without a clear understanding of this
institutional spirit, our efforts at reform may be limited.
4. Nehemiah’s Exercise of Power
Not
only does scripture help us understand power from a theological and
spiritual perspective,
it also gives us multiple examples of its practical use in service of
greater justice and compassion. One example that clearly illustrates
the strategies used in community organizing, is the story of the
prophet Nehemiah.
In
Nehemiah 1-4 we learn that Nehemiah is a Hebrew working as the
cupbearer, or high ranking official, for the Persian king. He is
approached by fellow Hebrews and learns that the return from exile to
Jerusalem has not gone well. Nehemiah asks the king if he may return
to Jerusalem himself in order to help rebuild the city. After
helping to organize the Hebrews in rebuilding Jerusalem’s walls
while fending off outside enemy attacks, Nehemiah learns of a new
challenge. Nehemiah 5:1-13 begins with Nehemiah hearing complaints
about the internal oppression that is occurring within the Hebrew
community. His anger over this injustice leads him to call a “great
assembly”, during which the Hebrew leaders are called to
accountability. The power of organized people, a basic premise of
community organizing, forces the Hebrew leaders to return property
and money that was unjustly taken from the people.
Community
organizing places great emphasis on the importance of building relationships
in order to build greater justice. While there is overwhelming
evidence in scripture and the Christian tradition of the importance
of an individual and personal relationship with God, in the context
of Western individualism we too often overlook the importance and
power of God’s presence in the context of community and human
fellowship. This point was well made by Jewish theologian Martin
Buber.
When
Martin Buber, the great Jewish philosopher and theologian, was asked
“Where is God?” he was wise enough not to give the cliché
answers: God is everywhere; god is found in churches and synagogues.
Buber would answer that God is found in relationships. God is not
found in people; God is found between people. When you
and I are truly attuned to each other, God comes down and fills the
space between us so that we are connected, not separated.
– Rabbi
Harold Kushner, Living a Life That Matters
Christian
scripture also speaks eloquently about the presence of God being
found in relationships. The visitation of the angel to Joseph in the
gospel of Matthew announcing the coming birth of Jesus states “they
will call him Emmanuel – which means ‘God with us.’”
(Matthew 1:23b) Indeed, Jesus proclaims that “the kingdom of
God is among you.” (Luke 17:21)
In
the community organizing practice of doing one-on-one visits, one is
reminded that since we are created “in the image of God”
(Genesis 1:27), we have an opportunity to encounter God anew in the
midst of this encounter with another person. German theologian
Dietrich Bonhoeffer articulates how visiting with and listening to
our neighbor can imitate our visiting with and listening to God.
The first service that
one owes to others in the fellowship consists in listening to them.
Just as love to God begins with listening to His Word, so the
beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to them. It
is God’s love for us that God not only gives us His Word but
also lends us His ear. So it is God’s work that we do for our
brothers and sisters when we learn to listen to them. Christians,
especially ministers, so often think they must always contribute
something when they are in the company of others, that this is the
one service they have to render. They forget that listening can be a
greater service than speaking.
Many people are looking
for an ear that will listen. They do not find it among Christians,
because these Christians are talking where they should be listening.
But he who can no longer listen to his brother or sister will soon be
no longer listening to God either; he will be doing nothing but
prattle in the presence of God too. This is the beginning of the
death of the spiritual life, and in the end there is nothing left but
spiritual chatter and clerical condescension arrayed in pious words.
One who cannot listen long and patiently will presently be talking
beside the point and be never really speaking to others, albeit he be
not conscious of it. Anyone who thinks that this time is too
valuable to spend keeping quiet will eventually have not time for God
and one’s brother or sister, but only for oneself and for one’s
own follies.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
Life
Together
(Gemeinsames Leben, 1938)
One-on-one
visits can be viewed as evangelism with the ears, rather than with the
mouth. As the pastor and lay leaders visit others in the parish and
surrounding community, strengthening relationships and discovering
self-interests, the church’s fellowship is strengthened and the
church’s program and mission can be shaped around the needs and
visions of the people. God’s presence and kingdom is renewed
“among us.”
1.
The Church In, To, and With the Community
Community
organizing helps churches rethink their role in relationship to the
broader
community. Theologian Robert Linthicum has described three
fundamental ways that parishes and congregations can do ministry in
relationship to the neighborhood and city within which they are
located. “The church in the community” describes
a parish solely focussed on its membership, but having no real
connection to the needs and visions of the neighborhoods and people
surrounding the church building itself. Worship, bible study, the
sacraments, and other important traditional functions of the church
are conducted for the nurturing of the members.
“The church to
the community” describes the congregation or parish that
recognizes the needs and visions of its neighbors, and responds with
acts of charity. Social services like food pantries, clothing
shelves, counseling services, and day care centers are established
and run by the church, often under the guidance of paid
professionals. The clients of these services, however, rarely engage
in the traditional functions of the church, nor do they have
relationships with the church membership other than the persons
staffing the charity services.
“The
church with the community” is a congregation or parish
that consciously seeks to build relationships with residents in the
surrounding neighborhoods. Persons are invited to engage in all
facets of the church’s life, making them equal decision-makers
in determining the way the church can best minister to the needs and
visions of the people.
The
following words of the prophet Micah well describe these three paths
of the church.
He
has showed you, O man, what is good.
And
what does the Lord require of you?
To
act justly and to love mercy
and
to walk humbly with your God. – Micah 6:8
The
church in the community nurtures our “humble walk with
God.” The church to the community is the social service
approach and emulates Micah’s command to “love mercy.”
The church with the community is the community organizing
approach of “doing justice.” Jesus leveled harsh
criticism at the religious leaders of his day who ignored any of
these three paths.
Woe
to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give
a tenth of your spices – mint, dill and cummin. But you have
neglected the more important matters of the law – justice,
mercy, and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter,
without neglecting the former. – Matthew 23:23
2.
Developing the Skills of the Church’s Lay
Leadership
Community
organizing places great importance on the development of leaders through
training workshops and the ongoing process of
“planning-acting-evaluating”, where persons put new
skills into practice and then evaluate their performance for the sake
of self-development and future action. Christian and Hebrew
scriptures show that Jesus, Paul, and others were constantly
developing the skills of their followers.
Jesus
displayed essential characteristics of good leadership. He was a visionary;
a man of passion, anger, and power; a risk-taker, not afraid to
offend, make enemies, or shy away from confrontation and controversy;
and one who was not easily diverted from his mission. But Jesus also
developed leadership skills in his followers.
Jesus
spent approximately two-thirds of his time with his disciples and
other potential leaders, not ministering to the people as a whole.
He often followed a four-fold pattern of presenting a teaching or
parable, doing further and in-depth reflection with his disciples,
calling his disciples to a specific action, and then evaluating with
them. A series of such patterns can be found in Mark 8:1-9:29 in the
stories of feeding the crowds, healing a blind man and epileptic,
questioning Peter, and the transfiguration. Jesus fostered close
relationships with his followers, discerning and then calling forth
their potentials and talents. He consistently sought opportunities
to teach, working alongside those he mentored. He combined action
and reflection as his primary teaching strategy, and was willing to
confront his disciples as well as his enemies, speaking truth in
love. And perhaps most important, Jesus trusted God and believed in
the people he was developing. He knew that his vision of God’s
kingdom and the shalom community would not persist and grow if he did
not develop many others beyond himself.
Being
a community organizer is both a deeply rewarding as well as
challenging profession.
The rewards are numerous. An organizer has the opportunity to
devote one’s working life to the pursuit of deeply held values.
The organizer meets wonderful and diverse people, gaining
satisfaction by witnessing their growth and empowerment, as well as,
the positive transformation of neighborhoods and communities.
Because one is working with people and changing environments, a
community organizer is constantly learning. As a profession,
community organizing has developed a wealth of experience and
knowledge that has transformed it into a learned craft. It remains,
however, an art as well, given the creative opportunities that are
consistently posed in and with new neighborhoods, people, and
community challenges.
The
challenges facing a community organizer are also very real and
numerous. Organizing is hard work involving long hours. Balancing
the demands of work, family, and personal interests is challenging in
this job where the work is ‘never done.’ In bringing
together diverse people and being involved in the political process
of negotiating and compromise, it can become easy to lose one’s
own sense of self amidst the chorus of voices and opinions with which
one works. In their fight for more just living conditions, community
organizations come up against powers of indifference and evil that
seek to thwart one’s efforts. Organizations, their members,
and community organizers themselves are verbally abused and attacked
by these powers.
After
doing this work for twenty-five years, I am having some sustained
time to reflect upon how I, and other organizers I know, have
maintained themselves in this blessed and challenging profession, and
how we can better prevent “burnout.” I am recording
these reflections in hopes that they may be valuable to others, and
in our efforts to support and sustain one another. While they are
written primarily with other community organizers in mind, I sense
and hope that they may be valuable to leaders and members involved in
community organizations as well.
1.
Attitudes:
Powerfully Shaping Our Reality and Action
We who lived in
concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts
comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may
have been few in numbers, but they offer sufficient proof that
everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the
human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given
set of circumstances… - Victor Frankl
People
are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t
believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are
the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want and if
they can’t find them, make them. - George Bernard Shaw
It
does seem to be true that whatever we focus on tends to increase.
Have you ever noticed that if you learn a new word you suddenly hear
it everywhere? Or your friend introduces you to blue lobelia and you
suddenly notice it blooming all over? Exactly why this happens is
something of a mystery, but I believe it’s because everything
is around us all the time. We are choosing, mostly
unconsciously, to notice certain things and not others because we
just cannot pay attention to everything. As we change what we pay
attention to, we notice that more. Scientist have proposed
that something more amazing is at work – that reality is open
to the mind’s causal influence and is, in the words of David L.
Cooperider, “often profoundly created through our anticipatory
images, values, plans, intentions, beliefs and the like.” This
suggests that we actually participate in creating what happens to us
by the power of our positive or negative imagery. - M.J. Ryan
These
three passages speak to the power of our attitudes in shaping our
view of reality and our actions within it. So while there are
spiritual practices and disciplines that will be discussed later that
can sustain and improve the quality of our lives and community
justice work, it is important first to reflect upon our thinking.
In
addition to realizing the vital nature that attitude plays in shaping
our world view, is the realization that we do have the power
to select and nurture attitudes of our own choosing.
The more you do it
[consciously fostering an attitude], the easier it is to do. In
fact, I’m convinced that this is the difference between an
optimist and a pessimist. A pessimist is someone who has exercised
the muscles of negativity and lack till they are strongly habitual,
while an optimist is a person who has developed thankfulness and a
can-do attitude until these are second nature. We all have the
choice of which muscles we want to strengthen. - M.J. Ryan
Incredible
inner power comes from concentrating our focus and then taking daily
actions to achieve that focus. Being clear in our attitudes about
what we want empowers the brain and spirit to find answers and
overcome obstacles.
2.
Love, Compassion, and Caring
The
primary values driving the work of community organizing are justice,
love,
and
democratic participation. Community organizers must feel deep
compassion and respect for the people with whom they work. Caring
implies genuinely getting to know the people with whom we work.
Compassion (“com” – “passion”) implies
our willingness to share in the joy and pain of others.
While
we cannot afford to be loveless critics, we do need to be critical
lovers, willing to agitate and challenge the people we work with to
help them grow. This agitation, however, simply becomes irritation
unless it arises from a relationship of trust and respect, built over
time.
Our
compassion also needs to extend to those with whom we do battle.
Jesus’ command to “love your enemies, and pray for those
who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44) contains deep wisdom on at
least two levels. First, he assumes that living a life of faith
indeed will create enemies – if not, our life and love are
probably sentimental and anemic. Love of and prayer for enemies
extends to another level that deeply impacts our own souls. St.
Augustine wrote, “Imagine the vanity of thinking our enemy can
do us more harm than our enmity.” Hatred and resentment
distorts and pollutes our own souls, and concedes a power to our
enemy over us that we need not grant. Such hatred also precludes the
potential for conversion on the part of our opponents. While we need
and must not wait for our opponent’s conversion in order to see
that justice is done, attitudes of hatred and resentment do prevent
us from thinking about win-win situations that may appeal to our
enemy’s self-interest.
The
great commandment of Jesus, that we should “love our neighbors
[friends and enemies alike] as we love ourselves,”
points out the importance of self-love. Such self-love is not
selfish, ignoring the concerns and visions of others. Nor is it a
selfless love, allowing others to step all over us. Rather, it is a
love of the authentic self within, created in the image of God. Such
self-love means being clear about our own short and long term
interests, and aware of the unique gifts and talents we bring to our
vocation.
Organizers
I know that have stayed in the profession over the long-term have
come to a deep awareness of what Emerson and Cummings state in the
following passages.
There is a time in every
person’s education when one arrives at the conviction that envy
is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that one must take oneself
for better or worse as his portion…It is harder because you
will always find those who think they know what is your duty better
than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s
opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great
man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness
the independence of solitude. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are.
-
e.e. cummings
While
imitation may be necessary in the beginning of our professional
development as we initially learn the craft of organizing, the art
and creativity of organizing will never come forward until we
discover that which we uniquely bring to the profession.
3.
Prophetic Hope
Old
Testament scholar Walter Bruggeman has pointed out that the great
Biblical prophets
always brought a dual message, one of radical critique of the way
things are, and one of hope for what God’s promise will bring.
Maintaining hope in challenging times is vital but not easy.
The
first important point to make about hope is to distinguish between
hope and optimism. The opposite of hope is not pessimism, rather it
is despair. Despair is like the vast ocean surrounding a small craft
– it cannot do any harm unless it gets inside. Therefore, we
can be hopeful even when we can’t be optimistic, faithful when
our efforts appear unsuccessful. Hope criticizes and resists what is,
while hopelessness rationalizes and adopts to it. There are two
reasons to resist and fight evil – to change it and to make
sure it doesn’t change you. So we keep the faith and maintain
hope, often despite the evidence, knowing that in doing so does the
evidence have any chance of changing. And amidst challenging
circumstances, we are well reminded by G.K. Chesterton that,
“Cheerfulness is a more difficult form of asceticism than
melancholy.”
It
is also worthwhile to reflect upon the notion of exile. The Old
Testament story of the Hebrew people shows that when they were bound
in Egyptian slavery, wandering in the wilderness, and exiled in
Babylon, they were homeless, landless, and without a country. They
did all by faith and their religion flourished. One can argue that
the greatest and most inspired passages of Hebrew scriptures were
written amidst these trying times of exile. As they lived in the
Promise Land, however, they gained prosperity and their prosperity
seduced them. Greed overcame gratitude, selfishness overcame
compassion, and they forgot God. “You corrupted your wisdom
for the sake of your splendor,” wrote the prophet Ezekiel
(28:17)
Exile
need not be physical and forced, it can also be chosen and voluntary.
We can be geographically at home, but spiritually in exile, not
withdrawing from the injustices of our day but becoming the prophetic
voice and actors that put into practice the exilic hope of what can
and should be.
St.
Paul places hope alongside faith and love as one of the three
cardinal virtues (I Corinthians 13:13). Maintaining, fostering, and
sharing hope in the face of seemingly hopeless circumstances
demonstrates a faith in a power greater than ourselves, that can
truly move mountains, and that refuses to stay dead and buried even
when crucified on a cross.
4.
Gratitude
If
the only prayer you say in your whole life is “thank you”,
that would suffice. - Meister
Eckhart
Saul Alinsky often told the story that the
Chinese word or character for the term
“crisis”
consisted of two characters, one that represented “danger”
and the other “opportunity.” In a crisis we can choose
to recoil, or we can look for an opportunity while being cautious of
the inherent dangers. This perspective can be applied to the many
challenges we face in our life and work. By adopting and applying an
“attitude of gratitude” we more readily uncover the
opportunities in everything we face. M. J. Ryan in her book by the
same name, Attitudes of Gratitude, makes this clear in the
following passage.
If we expect someone or
something outside ourselves to make us happy, we lose our power. The
truth is we can’t count on anything except our ability to
choose how to respond to what happens to us. One way to counteract
the tendency to look outside ourselves for happiness is to practice
No Matter What. Before you go into a situation, ask yourself, “What
is it that I can learn, accomplish, or experience here, no matter
what happens?” Let’s say you have to give a speech and
are nervous about how it will be received. Your No Matter What might
be, “No matter what, I want to experience a sense of peace
while talking. As I look out into the audience, I’ll remember
to breathe and notice that at my core there is peace.” -
M.J. Ryan
She
goes on to write,
The
more we are grateful, the more we will have to be grateful for. Even
if nothing more or better happens, our eyes are opened to the gifts
that were always there. As Susan Jeffers notes, “When we focus
on abundance, our life feels abundant; when we focus on lack, our
life feels lacking. It is purely a matter of focus. - M.J. Ryan
Far
from being a Pollyannaish world view or resignation to the way things
are, an attitude of gratitude creates new opportunities to further
unleash the possibilities that already exist but that are often
overlooked.
5.
Recognizing the Demonic Within
I
know of no other profession that holds such an optimistic view of the
potentials of
human nature than that of community organizing. We believe in the
inherent worth of the human person and subscribe to what Shakespeare
wrote,
What a piece of work is a
man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form and
moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In
apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon
of animals! - Hamlet II, II
We
believe in the words of the Psalmist,
What
is man that you are mindful of him,
The
son of man that you care for him?
You
made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
And crowned him with glory and honor. –
Psalm 9:9
Community
organizers subscribe to the Swedish Proverb that states,
In
every man there is a king and in every woman a queen. Speak to their majesties
and their majesties will come forth. – Swedish Proverb
Yet,
we see daily sufferings of people around us and hear on the news of
tragedies and evil around the world. While community organizing
places its primary focus on injustices manifested in their
institutional forms, we run the risk of arrogance and hubris if we do
not recognize the potential presence of the demonic within the
individual and ourselves. In reflecting upon the individual person,
Martin Luther King had the following to say.
Each of us is something of a
schizophrenic personality, tragically divided against ourselves. A
persistent civil war rages within all of our lives. Something within
us causes us to lament with Ovid, the Latin poet,
‘I
see and approve the better things, but follow worse,’
or
to agree with Plato that,
‘Human
personality is like a charioteer having two headstrong horses, each
wanting to go in a different direction,’
or
to repeat the apostle Paul,
‘The
good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I
do.”
-
Martin
Luther King, “Loving Your Enemies”, 1957
Rabbi
Lawrence Kushner tells the following story to illustrate this same
point.
I
recently ran across a story about a Native American tribal leader
describing his own inner struggles. He said, ‘There are two
dogs inside me. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is
good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time.’ Someone
asked him which dog usually wins, and after a moment’s
reflection, he answered, ‘The one I feed the most.’ - Lawrence
Kushner, Living a Life That Matters
So
as we turn to spiritual practices and disciplines that can sustain
and enrich us in our vocation and struggles for greater justice, it
is wise to reflect upon these practices as a means of keeping us
honest, true to our democratic and compassionate ideals, and feeding
the good and authentic self within.
1. Prayer
and Meditation
A
separation has often occurred in the Christian tradition between
struggles for justice and practices of prayer and spirituality. My
own life experience for many years mirrored this separation. Raised
in a family and tradition that emphasized the social gospel, my
prayer and spiritual life did not take on significant meaning until a
number of years ago. The occasion was a consultant visit by someone
for whom meditation had become a daily way of life. Being curious
and feeling in need of strengthening my own inner resources I asked
him, “So what do you do when you meditate?” What he
described was a process of deep breathing, slowing the mind down, of
being quiet, withdrawing from the world, and simply being. When
thoughts enter this period of quietude, he stated that it is
important not to judge but simply to observe them, take note, and
then let them go.
As
I began to create time in my own life for this quiet mediation, the
more I realized the importance this time played in reconnecting me to
my authentic self. M.J. Ryan describes it well.
The practice of gratitude
requires that you slow down long enough to notice what is right in
front of your nose. If you are speeding through the day, chances are
you are overlooking the blessings that are all around you. –
M.J. Ryan
As I read more about prayer and meditation, I added new
practices. For example, John Maxwell in his book Partners in
Prayer describes using the following ten steps during one’s
meditation and prayer: preparation, waiting, confession, scriptural
reading, meditation, intercession, petition, application, faith,
praise and thanksgiving.
Biblical scholar Marcus Borg states that one of the
chief characteristics of Jesus was his ability to tap into “the
Spirit world”, available to us all, that provides ongoing
sustenance and renewal. Marion Williamson well describes why
connecting to this Spirit world is so essential.
The only way we can see each
other truly is if we see through the eyes of God. Prayer and
meditation are the fuel for the missile that takes us to enchanted
realms. We spend an average of sixteen hours a day with our minds
bombarded by the thinking of the world, and the thinking of the world
does not glorify spirit. It glorifies personality, and in that
dimension we inevitably fall short of the magnificence of
enchantment. We have issues, we have weaknesses, we make mistakes,
we fall short, we give up, we get caught, we fall down, we are human.
And all of these make us, to the ego self, less ideal, less
wonderful, less attractive. – Marion Williamson
Add to these typical daily bombardments those
encountered when we struggle for justice, and the need for personal
retreat becomes more apparent. In the following passage, Martin
Luther King dramatically describes such a life saving and sustaining
time in his life.
More than ever before I
am convinced of the reality of a personal God…God has been
profoundly real to me in recent years. In the midst of outer dangers
I have felt an inner calm. In the midst of lonely days and dreary
nights I have heard an inner voice saying, “Lo, I will be with
you.” When the chains of fear and the manacles of frustration
have all but stymied my efforts, I have felt the power of God
transforming the fatigue of despair into the buoyancy of hope.
[At a critical and
demanding time of the early civil rights movement] it seemed that all
of my fears had come down on me at once. I had reached the
saturation point…In this state of exhaustion, when my courage
had almost gone, I determined to take my problem to God. My head in
my hands, I bowed over the kitchen table and prayed aloud. The words
I spoke to God that midnight are still vivid in my memory. “I
am here taking a stand for what I believe is right. But now I am
afraid. The people are looking to me for leadership, and if I stand
before them without strength and courage, they too will falter. I am
at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I’ve come to
the point where I can’t face it alone.”
At
that moment I experienced the presence of the Divine as I had never
before experienced him. It seemed as though I could hear the quiet
assurance of an inner voice, saying, “Stand up for
righteousness, stand up for truth. God will be at your side
forever.” My uncertainty disappeared. I was ready to face
anything. The outer situation remained the same but God had given me
inner calm.
Admitting
the weighty problems and staggering disappointments, Christianity
affirms that God is able to give us the power to meet them. He is
able to give us the inner equilibrium to stand tall amid the trials
and burdens of life. He is able to provide inner peace amid outer
storms. This inner stability of the man and woman of faith is
Christ’s chief legacy to his disciples. He offers neither
material resources nor a magical formula that exempts us from
suffering and persecution, but he brings an imperishable gift:
“Peace I leave with thee.” This is that peace which
passeth all understanding. - Martin Luther King
2. Daily Triggers
While
nurturing our authentic self and our connection to the Spirit world
occurs in
times
of meditation, prayer and retreat from daily life, connecting to this
reality can occur at any time of day and within an instant. Within
my work, I have developed the habit before doing a one-on-one visit
of taking a deep breath and saying, “Oh Lord, I am about to
enter sacred space with the opportunity to encounter You through the
person I am about to meet. Guide my thoughts, words, and actions so
they may be pleasing in your sight.” Such a trigger helps me
quickly transition out of what I have been doing into what I am about
to do, better enabling me to bring the values of compassion and
justice to this new situation. Utilizing such triggers helps us
focus but also deepens appreciation, enjoyment, and gratitude of
life’s daily occurrences.
3. Planning and
Strategic Reflection
Organizing
is in large part a self-directed profession. Without time to plan
our actions,
we become reactive rather than proactive, spinning our wheels rather
than deliberately shaping our reality. “Have intentions but no
expectations”, expresses well for me the flexible attitude we
need in directing our actions, but not being so rigid that we cannot
respond appropriately when we need to.
From
what I have seen, successful organizer are those who take time every
morning to purposefully plan their day, time at the end of the day to
reflect upon and evaluate what has happened, and a longer period
every week and month to look strategically at the longer and broader
picture.
4. Time Off,
Vacations, and Sabbaticals
Organizing
is hard work and involves long hours. We all know, however, that all work
and no play over the long term damages the spirit. So how do we make
the most of our time away from work so that it can truly nourish us?
In
my experiences one of the biggest challenges is how to quickly
transition from the world of work to the world of personal time.
When we “bring our work home with us”, when we continue
thinking about our work during our free time, then this free time
does not truly nourish. For me, children help with this challenge.
The playfulness and spontaneity of children can quickly take us from
the world of work to the world of play and relaxation. I have also
found that having a plan for our free time, activities that we love
to do and are part of our daily and weekly schedule helps. For me,
this includes playing the piano and listening to music, especially
because of its contrasting nature to the world of organizing.
Organizing involves us in the world of politics and compromise,
whereas music and the arts involve a pure and unadulterated spirit
and activity that helps balance our lives. I have also grown
conscious of how our daily routines of cooking, cleaning, and the
like can have a spiritual nature as well. Rather than seeing them as
chores that must be performed, they can provide therapy for a weary
soul. And simple solitude in the right doses is essential, as the
following passage points out.
Our
equal and opposite needs for solitude and community constitute a
great paradox. When it is torn apart, both of these life-giving
states of being degenerate into deadly specters of themselves.
Solitude split off from community is no longer a rich and fulfilling
experience of inwardness; it now becomes loneliness, a terrible
isolation. Community split off from solitude is no longer a
nurturing network of relationships; it now becomes a crowd, an
alienating buzz of too many people and too much noise. - Parker J.
Palmer, The Courage to Teach
Periodically we need to get away from our work for
longer periods. Making sure that we have at-least one full day a
week of rest and relaxation is important, but finding a longer period
every year is also vital. If such vacations or holidays are too
brief, we often spend two or three days transitioning out of work and
then a day or two mentally preparing for work once again. Trying to
find two or three weeks together truly allows us to relax, be
nourished, and grow. Finally, like many pastors and professors,
organizers need periodic sabbaticals, one or two months every five to
seven years totally away from their local work where they can relax,
study, and visit other organizers and projects that will stimulate
their thinking and nourish their spirit.
5. Nurturing and Being
Nurtured by Others
Most
community organizers I know have time with other organizers during periodic
staff meetings and consultant visits. Such contacts are essential to
help stimulate and challenge our thinking and work. In my
experience, however, too often we discuss the workings of our
organizations, but infrequently allow time for discussions about the
workings of our souls. The following passage holds true for
community organizers as well as teachers.
Teaching, like any human
activity, emerges from one’s inwardness for better or worse.
As I teach, I project the condition of my soul onto my students, my
subject, and our way of being together. The entanglements I
experience in the classroom are often no more or less than the
convolutions of my inner life. Viewed from this angle, teaching
holds a mirror to the soul. If I am willing to look in that mirror
and not run from what I see, I have a chance to gain self-knowledge –
and knowing myself is as crucial to good teaching as knowing my
students and my subject. - Parker J. Palmer, The Courage to
Teach
The consulting visits that are most memorable to me
and produced the greatest growth in my professional development
included conversations not only about my work but also about what was
occurring within me. These visits gave me the opportunity to look
into the “mirror of my soul,” giving me radically new
insights into the people with whom I was working. And like the
following passage indicates, they remind us of the interconnectedness
between what is going on inside with what is going on around us.
Everyone
thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing oneself. -
Leo Tolstoy
6. Laughter,
Celebration, and Awe
Organizing
is a profession of great intentionality – we plan, we act, we
evaluate,
and we plan again. We work to make things happen. We
set goals and seek to achieve them. Our thinking is linear, our
actions purposeful. We are pragmatists to the core. An occupational
hazard of such work and thinking is the presumption and temptation
that we can “figure it all out”, and then develop
a strategy to get us from here to there. What the following two
quotations remind us of is that there is an equally important aspect
to our lives and short time here on earth.
Life
is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be experienced. –
Unknown
The
beginning of awe is wonder, and the beginning of wisdom is awe. -
Abraham Joshua Heschel, Between God and Man
Taking
time to laugh, to celebrate, and to stand in awe of the mystery
contained in our lives, our work, and creation is vital. Like John
the Baptist, community organizers work to “prepare a way”
for the spirit of justice and compassion to work. But least we focus
solely on the future at the expense of the present, let us laugh,
celebrate, and stand in awe of mystery. Such nourishment sustains us
for the continuing work ahead, but also contains those transcendent
moments that truly make life worth living.
The discussion below is drawn from the following sources:
“EKD:
The Evangelical Church in Germany, An Introduction”,
Evangelische Kirchen in Deutschland, First Edition, November 2002
“Church
in Germany: Facts, Pictures, Aspects”, Association of
Churches and Missions in South Western Germany, 3rd rev.
edition April 1994.
“The
German Evangelical Churches: An Introduction Following the Meissen
Agreement”, Colin Podmore, Council For Christian Unity of the
General Synod of the Church of England, 1992.
“Konflickte
in der Kirche – kompetent und kreativ losen”, Dieter
Pohl, Neukirchener Verlag, 2003.
Numerous
interviews conducted by Rev. Paul Cromwell, 2004.
1. Preface
Thirty
percent of Germany is Protestant (27 million of Germany’s 84
million people).
Thirty percent are Catholic and the remainder are a mix of faiths
including a growing Muslim minority with the recent growth of
immigrants from the Middle East. The current form and expression of
German Protestantism has been shaped by numerous historical factors
including the particular 500 year evolution of church-state relations
since the time of Martin Luther, events leading up to the Second
World War and its aftermath, and the recent reunification of East and
West. The German Protestant Church (Die Evangelische Kirche in
Deutschland – EKD) is distinguished by its extensive system of
social services, religious education in the public schools, and
support of worldwide ecumenical relations and mission. Its system of
revenue collection in the form of the “church tax” is
unique in Europe. Finally, its leaders site numerous present-day
challenges in an age of growing secularism and consumerism throughout
Europe and the Western world.
2. Historical Background
The
worldwide Protestant movement has its birth in Germany. Prior to
Martin Luther,
German church life found expression in the Catholic Church organized
under the Holy Roman Empire and the hundreds of feudal kingdoms that
made up the lands of German-speaking peoples. Christianity arrived
in Germany in the 600’s, with the rapid growth of monasteries,
cathedrals, and chapels occurring between 1000 and 1500 AD.
Martin
Luther’s calls for reforms in the church were forced to take
form outside the Catholic Church after his excommunication in 1521.
The 1555 Peace of Augsburg granted German princes and independent
cities full religious sovereignty to choose between Lutheranism and
Catholicism as the official religion of their territory. Reformed
and Calvinistic creeds were fully incorporated in this arrangement
nearly a century later with the 1648 Peace of Westphalia.
The
two significant factors emerging from these and subsequent historical
events on the current German church are its “territorial”
nature and unique relations to the state. The present German
Protestant Church (EKD) is organized into 24 Landekirchen
corresponding to the 24 states which composed Germany following the
Congress of Vienna in 1814-1815. This means that these 24
territorial/regional churches differ somewhat from Germany’s
current 13 states (Lander) and 3 independent city-states (Freistadte)
(Hamburg, Bremen, and Berlin). Each of these regional churches is
made up of congregations deriving primarily from three strands of
Protestant traditions: Lutheran, Reform, or United. Because Luther
and other Reformation leaders had to rely on the assistance of the
feudal princes to carry out their church reforms, the state played a
major role in the governance of the German church until 1918 when all
princes resigned under William II and the Second Reich. For the
first time, German Protestantism was fully responsible for organizing
and governing itself. In 1922 attempts began to form a national
federation of churches. These efforts, however, were dissolved by
Hitler eleven years later and replaced by the Nazi organized and
controlled Reichskirche (National Church) with its ideology of Jesus
seen as an Aryan hero. Some leaders of the Confessing Church who
resisted Nazification of the church were forced into exile, jailed,
or executed.
Following
the Second World War, four significant developments occurred shaping
modern church and Protestant life in Germany. First, German
Protestant leaders gathered and passed as their first order of
business a confession of guilt, which in part reads,
“With
great pains we declare: Through us a lot of suffering has come over
many countries
and peoples…We accuse ourselves because we did not confess
with more courage, pray with more faith, believe with more joy and
love with more ardor…We hope that the God of mercy may use our
churches again.” – From the Stuttgart Declaration in
1945.
By
1948, these leaders formed the EKD.
Second,
the new German Constitution clearly established that German churches
would be independent of the state and that, “There shall be no
state church.” This does not mean, however, that there are no
relations between the church and state. Many working relationships
do exist and will be explained later.
Third,
between 1944 and 1946 a flood of 8 million German refugees from
portions of Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and former German lands;
later to be followed by 3.5 million migrants escaping the old East
Germany between 1948 and 1961; meant that formerly religious
homogeneous states became more diverse. Different forms of
Protestantism, along with Protestant and Catholic, lived
side-by-side. While old religious geographic patterns still exist,
like the Protestant north and Catholic south, they are less prominent
today. The final significant post-War development was the imposition
of communism in the former GDR. In 1949, 90% of East Germans were
members of the Protestant Church. By the 1980’s these numbers
had dropped to 30-40%. Church leaders are quick to point out,
however, the prominent role the former East German church played in
the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall and other recent developments in
modern German church life.
3. German Protestantism and
Church Life Today
Professional
Leadership, Finances, and Mission to the Community and World
The
German Protestant Church (EKD) is made up of 27 million members in 17,000
churches with a staff of 25,000 pastors and theologians, 200,000
other workers, and 400,000 persons employed by the church’s
30,000 autonomous diaconal institutions, which carry out a host of
human services. The EKD describes itself as Volkskirchen (churches
of the people) meaning that “they have a broad membership
within, and see themselves as having a responsibility to, society as
a whole.”
While
many of the church service ministries are financed by separate
contracts with the state (city, regional, and national), revenue for
the church’s core mission is derived by the church tax,
explained this way in the pamphlet “The Evangelical Church in
Germany – An Introduction.”
“Church taxes came into existence in the 19th
century when the congregations
were
granted the right to collect their dues regularly on the basis of
‘civil tax roll.’ For the churches in Germany, the
church tax is their most important source of income. Church taxes
are paid exclusively by church members. All those who are employed
or self-employed and pay income tax also pay church tax. Depending
on the Federal State, the amount of the church tax is eight or nine
percent of one’s income tax. Church tax is collected and
transferred on behalf of the churches by the state revenue offices.
The income from church taxes – at least 4 thousand million Euro
in 2001 – goes to the regional churches. They are responsible
for finances in their region, distribute the money right down to the
congregations and take care of their own budgets.”
In
addition to the social security and social service system operated
directly by the German State, there are five primary social service
providers in Germany which contract with the state to provide
services. These providers include Caritas of the Catholic Church and
Diakonische Werk of the EKD. The Diaconal Work of the EKD includes
the operation of counseling services, youth activities, services for
the elderly, refugees, the unemployed, handicapped, and others.
While
education is under the supervision of the state, religious
instruction is offered at schools by the church as part of the
ordinary curriculum. Parents have the right to decide whether their
child shall receive religious education. This instruction includes a
broad array of topics in the fields of Biblical studies, ethics,
church history, philosophy, and comparative world religions. Public
universities also offer theological education supervised by the
church.
EKD
contacts with the worldwide church are extensive and generous in
nature. Forty percent of the funding for the world ecumenical
movement comes from the EKD. Its work is not only through
church-to-church contacts through groups like the World Council of
Churches and Conference of European Churches, but also in the areas
of hunger relief and economic development through groups like Bread
for the World and the Church Development Service.
Everyday Church
Life
In
a 1998 survey of Protestant Church Members 18% described themselves
as active
church members, seeing church as the center of their community and
spiritual life. 63% described themselves as happy with the services
the church provided to themselves and the broader society, and
feeling that the church is there for them when they need it. The
remaining 19% fell into other categories including searching for
other paths in life and considering leaving the church.
These
statistics manifest themselves in rather low Sunday worship
attendance and active engagement of the laity in the life of the
church. In general, worship is characterized by an organ prelude and
postlude, prayers, hymn singing, and an instructional sermon. As one
church leader told me, however, “Unlike a typical American
church service with its passing-of-the-peace and fellowship oriented
coffee hour following worship, German Protestants tend to view
worship as a time for instruction and individual communion with God.”
Another church leader shared with me, “While only 50 to 75
people may be in worship on Sunday morning, hundreds of people will
attend 10 to 30 different classes and groups held in the church
during the week. But these are not people who can be defined as
‘active church members’ and can be relied on for the work
of the church.” Finally, a school religion teacher described
church participation this way: “Church members are like a
submarine – they come up to the church for key events in their
life; baptism, confirmation, weddings, funerals, etc.; but during the
rest of their lives they are out of sight.”
Challenges Facing the Church
If
current trends continue, due to population decline and persons
leaving the church, it is projected that Protestant church membership
could decline from its current 27 to 19 million by sometime between
2015 and 2020. Some I have spoken with say that the church tax
system has created an anonymity or disconnect between church giving
and church participation. Others have described the German
Protestant Church as a “professional church”, belonging
to the clergy and social service workers, but not to the people
themselves. While most German Protestants are very proud of the
church’s outreach to the community, they do not see the church
as central to their everyday spiritual affairs or fellowship life.
Others
see the growing secularism and consumerism in the Western world as a
major contributing factor to declining participation, and are most
concerned that young people are not being drawn in large numbers into
the church. For others, sheer numbers are not seen as the ultimate
sign of the church’s vitality and faithfulness. Some point to
the every other year Protestant and Catholic Kirchentag (Church Day)
festivals that attract over 100,000 mostly young Christians from
around Germany to a week of festivals and seminars as a sign of
renewal and growing vitality.
Based
on what I have learned, so many more questions have emerged that I
hope to answer as time progresses. While the challenges facing the
German Protestant Church appear very real, I sense from the people I
have met and the history I have learned that this is very resourceful
place and people – that this nation of the Reformation will
discover new strategies of church renewal as they move into this new
century.
1. Transition or Crisis
Some
in the EKD tell me the German Protestant Church is in “transition”,
other say
it is in “crisis”. The choice of words is important in
as much as it influences the future directions church leaders and
members select in guiding the church through its current challenges.
“Crisis” implies the need for urgent action, but often
can lead to reactive rather than well thought out, pro-active
solutions. “Transition” implies the importance of
maintaining the past and present practices that are rich in meaning
and significance, and that should be retained into the future.
To
this outsider, the positive elements of the EKD are striking. Among
those I have witnessed during the past nine months include a rich
liturgical and musical tradition; an educated, professional, and
caring clergy and staff; an impressive array of Diakonia services for
those in need; and a Volkskirche tradition that accounts for a large
portion of the population feeling some connections to the church.
The most striking impression about Germany and the European Union for
this American who left a George-Bush-lead-America nine months ago,
and I am certain that the EKD “just-peace” beliefs and
actions have significantly contributed to, is the following: the
multilateral and peaceful resolution of conflicts adopted by the
European Union. After 500 years of war, the fact that there has been
no violent conflicts in Europe (with the exception of the 1990’s
Balkan wars) and the fact that economic benefits and membership in
the European Union have been the incentives to improved ecological,
human rights, and other progressive policies throughout Europe are
impressive accomplishments. The German contribution and leadership
within the European Union is undeniable and should be celebrated.
Challenges
to the EKD, however, do exist and seem well known to EKD leaders and
members. This is so much the case that my academic advisor at the
Kirchliche Hochschule Wuppertal advised me, “Paul, since the
challenges are so well known, I advise you spend less time describing
them in your report, and spend more time on potential solutions.”
I will let the reader be the judge as to whether I have adequately
followed my Professor’s advice. Perhaps this “outsiders”
perceptions and articulation of these challenges, however, may
provide new insights to the reader.
Finally,
it should be noted that some of the challenges currently facing the
EKD are not unique to the church alone. Participation in political
parties, labor unions, and other organizations has declined in recent
years. Television, the internet, and other technologies compete with
the church and all organization for people’s time and interest.
Financial challenges are facing the state and other organizations as
globalization and other factors shape the German economy. German
policy makers are rethinking public education, public welfare, and
other institutional practices. Thus, the time of transition for the
church is happening within the context of a larger socio-economic
transition.
2. Primary Challenges: Loss of
Membership and Finances
As
stated earlier, one German church official shared with me that the
church estimates
membership in the EKD will decline in the next ten years from 27 to
19 million members. Another estimated the loss of membership at 1% a
year. Given the direct connection between membership and payment of
the church tax, income for the church continues to decline.
The
results of this loss in membership and income has been apparent with
everyone with whom I have spoken. It has been common for me to hear,
“We used to have three pastors in this parish, but we now have
two, and it may be that within a few years we will have one.”
Others have shared their discouragement about exciting new programs
being planned, only to be cancelled at the last minute due to a lack
of financial resources.
3. Other Challenges
Everyday
Church Life - Decline
of Spiritual Practices
While
matters of spirituality are not a primary focus of my report, or an
area of my expertise
(I have served as a community organizer for the past 25 years, not as
a pastor), I would like to share a few observations and reflections
on this theme for two reasons. First, in my work for social justice,
I have come to see spirituality as a vital practice necessary to
guide and sustain such work. Second, in my understanding of the
church and Christian faith, prayer and spirituality are central.
They serve as a key experiential element of our individual and
communal life as Christians.
I
share the following examples of what I mean by a decline in spiritual
practices.
A
pastor shared with me the following story: “When I ask my
confirmation class what they think is unique about the Islamic
faith, they respond, ‘Muslims pray a lot.’ When I ask
my confirmants whether they pray at home, almost all of them
respond, ‘No.’” He continued, “Paul, we’ve
lost an entire generation, the 20 to 40 year olds, who have no daily
experiences with spiritual practices.”
I
was asked to speak at a clergy gathering recently. While a homily
was delivered on the coming Sunday’s lectionary text, no
opening or closing prayer were offered.
Two
pastors shared with me, “It is easier to talk about sex in
Germany than about matters of faith and spirituality.”
A
social worker friend shared the importance that meditation plays in
her life. She discovered and continues to nurture these practices
by going to a Buddhist retreat center at-least once a year. It
never occurred to her to see whether any local parish offered
opportunities to learn meditation, and doubted whether they do.
I
have been reminded on numerous occasions that differences in
spiritual practices
exist between American and German Christians. Often I’ve been
told that it is unimaginable for Germans to have someone like Gerhard
Schroeder close a speech to the German parliament with the words,
“God bless Germany,” especially in light of the Nazi
history which perversely connected church and state in the
perpetuation of ethnic cleansing and other horrid practices. In this
regard, I am in full agreement and find some American practices of
public piety offensive and dangerous. But I will offer the following
two reflections that I hope will be received with the gracious spirit
in which they are offered.
The
Protestant Reformation and European Enlightenment appear to have
deeply influenced each other. Finding and identifying with a faith
and religious practices which can be reconciled with God’s gift
of rationality and intellect has been an ongoing search within
worldwide Christianity. In addition, increased travel and
communications have magnified our awareness and appreciation of other
faith traditions. Within these contexts, theologian Marcus Borg has
pointed out that we can unabashedly affirm the importance of our
Christian faith without declaring its exclusive nature. For
Christians who believe in the importance of thinking and wish to
think in their believing, one can affirm with Borg, “Here, in
Jesus Christ and Christian scripture, I see more clearly than
anywhere else what God is like.” And in doing so, we can
follow Jesus’ example of regular pray and mediation as a way of
connecting to that Spirit which animated His prophetic and healing
words and actions.
Secondly,
I’ve been made aware of a split within German Protestantism
between “the pietists” and “the liberals.”
According to the stereotypes, pietists pray but see little connection
between the Christian values of charity and justice and the church’s
mission in the world. The liberals adhere to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s
model of “the church for the world”, but find traditional
spiritual practices outmoded and unimportant. As one pastor put it,
“The pietists have come to own spiritual practices in the EKD,
and the liberals gave them away.” I will speak later upon this
theme of diversity within the EKD, but suffice it to say now that
perhaps this diversity can come to be seen as a source of strength
and mutual learning rather than as a source of division and
separation.
Everyday
Church Life - Lack of Regular Participation
As
mentioned earlier, a high school religion teacher described German
church life as a submarine. “Church members come up for air
and back to the church for key events in their life – baptisms,
confirmation, weddings, funerals, and the high holidays like
Christmas and Easter. But then we rarely see them.” A number
of pastors have described their parishes as having 2,000 to 3,000
members, but with 50 to 150 regular participants and 25 to 75 active
members. Baptisms remain high and surveys indicate that even those
who have formally left the church (i.e. who no longer pay the church
tax) still define themselves as Christians. Regular participation in
the life of the church, however, is relatively low and has declined
during the past 20 to 30 years.
Perceptions
of the Church - Separate
from Everyday Concerns: The Church is “Over There”
Many
have shared with me that the common perception of the church is that
it is a
“set of services” that people pay for with their church
tax and expect professional expertise when requested, mostly in the
form of officiating at key events like baptisms, weddings, and
funerals. Church members also appear to deeply appreciate the work
of Diakonia. Recent surveys indicate that members believe the church
should, 1. Communicate the gospel, 2. Be close to people in crisis
situations, and 3. Identify with the marginalized.
As
one pastor put it, however, “People see the church as separate
from the everyday concerns of their lives. They see the church as
‘over there’. And to be frank, we don’t do a good
job showing people why they should join and participate with us. We
are now in a situation where the people are far from the church and
we need to bring the church to them rather than expect that they will
come to us.” Others who agree with this analysis say, “Too
often people negatively view the church as a place that ‘has
all the answers,’ rather than as a community that is jointly
seeking answers to life’s questions.” Another commented,
“People don’t identify with the church because we never
ask them about their daily lives, their joys and sorrows, their
struggles and dreams.”
Two
other common perceptions I have heard of the EKD in this regard are
the following. First, many see a separation between the church and
Diakonia. The local parish is where one goes for spiritual matters.
One goes to Diakonia to get professional help and good works.
Secondly, the EKD is seen as a middle and upper-class institution
rather than one belonging to lower-income and migrant residents as
well.
Perceptions
of the Church - Lack of Ownership
Many
have shared that it is rare for church members to refer to “my
church.” In contrast to Americans who will often “shop”
for a church before choosing to be a member of a particular
congregation, German church members are “assigned” to a
church based upon a parish or geographic location. The church tax
system contributes to this lack of ownership. The church tax is a
payroll deduction that goes to the national church and is
redistributed to the local parishes. One other often heard comment
is, “the church belongs to the professionals”, indicating
a perception, whether accurate or not, about how decisions are made
about church affairs and who see it as their institution.
P ractices of Pastors - Busy,
But with the Right Things?
From
the pastors I have met, I am convinced that many, if not most, are
well educated,
committed to the Christian ministry, and hard working. I also deeply
empathize with demands that the Volkskirche structure places upon
their time and energy. In particular, one pastor is often
responsible for 2,000 to 3,000 members. He or she may not see these
members very often, but when they have a death in the family or a
baby to be baptized, they expect the services of the pastor in return
for their payment of the church tax. I also have heard pastors say
they have an increase in administrative responsibilities and tasks
with recent financial cutbacks and the laying off of church
secretaries and/or financial administrators. There is work to be
done in preparing and leading Sunday workshops, work with the church
council, church circle, confirmation class, and leading fellowship
and study groups. Two activities I have not often heard mentioned,
however, is visiting potential new active members and systematically
training volunteers to assume greater leadership and responsibility
in the local parish.
Practices of Pastors - Waiting
for People to Come, Rather Than Actively Visiting
I’ve
heard from more than one person that a common attitude of German
pastors
is,
“I am here, people can come to visit.” Pastors I have
met who do visitations with their members speak of visiting older
members on their 70th or 80th birthday, or
members of their confirmation class. When I’ve asked about
visiting persons in the age group 18 to 60, persons who could
potentially fill important leadership roles in the parish, I’ve
received two responses. One is, “But Paul, I have 2,000
members. Where would I begin?” The other response has been,
“Yes, that is a good idea and I’ve done a little of this,
but then other demands upon my time take priority.”
I
will spend much more time later in this report explaining how my
experiences as a community organizer has lead me to the deep belief
that people are the most valuable resource of any organization,
especially the church. It has been my experience that making time
for visiting new people and building new relationships can easily get
lost amidst more pressing and immediate demands. Setting a very
modest goal, however, of visiting two or three new persons a week,
and sticking to this goal, begins to add up over time (100 to 150 new
relationships in a year, in this case) and begins to pay long-term
dividends. As to whom to visit, a pastor can begin with persons he
or she already met in preparing a baptism or funeral, using the
following simple reason for requesting the visit: “When I met
you two weeks ago, you impressed me as an interesting person. Can I
simply come and visit to become better acquainted?”
If
we in the church simply wait for people to come, they may never
arrive.
Practices of Pastors - Trusting
the Competencies, Gifts, and Talents of People
When
the Israelites were in the wilderness and Moses complained to God
that he felt
overwhelmed by the burdens of leadership, God instructed Moses to
share these burdens by selecting elders. But to do so, Moses had to
trust in the gifts and talents those new elders would bring to the
task.
I’ve
heard from a number of persons that too many, but certainly not all,
German pastors don’t trust the talents and gifts of their
members and, therefore, do not share the power and responsibility of
leading the church. One person put it this way: “Too many
pastors see their role with the laity as that of a teacher to a
student. This is good if they are teaching skills and sharing power.
But too often it is a hierarchical relationship rather than one of
peers in the faith.”
I
have never met an untalented person. Rather, I’ve met persons,
each with their own unique gifts. When these gifts are shared with
the parish and larger church, one experiences the church Paul
described as “the body of Christ” – one serving as
the foot, another as an arm, and still another as the hand, put
together as a vital and living organism. And when we discover a
person’s gifts and invite them to use them in the service of
the church, we usually capture their energy, commitment, and time.
Lack
of Long-Range Strategic Thinking
Whether
one calls it a “transition” or a “crisis”,
everyone I have met acknowledges
that serious challenges face the EKD. I am also hearing a lot of
frustration that the current thinking and practice of the church is
reactive rather than proactive. One church leader put it this way:
“I read most of the church’s literature and attend many
key meetings, and I don’t know of any group that is doing
serious reflection about the long-term future of the church.”
Another church leader put it this way: “Our office recently
advertised 25 different educational workshops and seminars. The only
two that people signed up for dealt with the subject of how to merge
parishes in this time of financial crisis.”
No
one I have talked with expects that any one solution will serve as a
sole answer to the perceived and real challenges facing the EKD.
Certainly, I would be grateful if what I am about to share from my
experiences as a faith-based community organizer could be helpful as
one piece to a larger puzzle. I thought, however, one pastor’s
wife put it well. “Paul, the challenges we face are like a big
mountain that stands in front of us and everyone can see. But
instead of trying to climb the mountain, most of us are traveling
around it. Instead, we should begin to climb. So what if we fall?
So what if we take small steps? We can learn from our failures and
mistakes, as well as our successes. But what we need to do is begin
climbing.”
4. German Diakonia
Description
Diakonia stands for the social work of the Protestant Churches. Because
faith in Jesus Christ and practiced charity belong together, diaconal
institutions are committed to various social services. They help people
needing support and living under socially unjust conditions. – “The Social
Welfare Service of the Protestant Church in Germany”, Diakonia
So reads the opening paragraph of a descriptive brochure published by German
Diakonia. Diakonia is a large operation of approximately 26,000 independent
institutions, employing 400,000 persons and utilizing an equal number of
volunteers. Diakonia services are wide-ranging, including old people’s homes,
employment and training services for the unemployed, work with the handicapped,
family welfare (counciling, maternal care, etc.), youth welfare (education in
special homes, kindergartens, youth centers, etc.), psychiatric work, help for
addicts, and migrant work (with asylum seekers, refugees, and emigrants).
Diakonia’s work is organized at a local and regional level within the
twenty-four Regional Protestant Churches of Germany, and a national office
provides specialized assistance, support, and coordination.
German Diakonia is one of the “big five” social service providers in Germany
(including Catholic Caritas and three secular-based providers). The national
Basic Law (German Constitution) defines Germany as a “social state”, needing to
provide fundamental services and protection of human rights for all citizens.
The legally-based “subsidiary principal” stipulates that those services which
can be provided by non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) must be contracted out
by state and supported with government funding, leaving the remaining social
welfare and security services to the state. The vast majority of funding for
services provided by Diakonia and others comes from the state, although the
German Protestant Church also contributes some of its own funding.
German Diakonia is a long established institution. As the above sited
brochure puts it,
150 years ago almost all diaconal work was done voluntarily and unpaid.
Since then social standards have been developed, often by way of difficult
negotiations with the political decision makers. People have a legal right to
reliable and professional help. Thus, the wide field of professional social
work came into being.
Church leaders have shared with me that they see Diakonia’s role as being
two-fold and rooted in its historical origins: 1. To provide high quality
services, and 2. Advocating for and with people in need.
Current Challenges
Church leaders and Diakonia workers with whom I have spoken have cited a
series of recent challenges facing their work. The biggest challenge is a
financial one. As the German economy has faltered in recent years, less
government money is available for social services. In addition, declining church
membership has meant decreasing revenue for the EKD and Diakonia from the church
tax (a payroll deduction paid by church members, the amount of which is based
upon income level).These financial factors have, perhaps, been key in leading to
a second challenge. As one Diakonia worker put it, “Diakonia is becoming some
sort of welfare-enterprise/corporation run on economic rather than idealistic
Christian principals.” If this assessment is true, in addition to reduced
funding, two other factors may be moving Diakonia in this corporate direction.
Based upon the subsidiary principal, service providers compete with each other
to obtain government contracts. “Healthy competition” has its place in economic
affairs, seeking to eliminate waste, duplication of services, and developing a
high quality product or service. But “cut-throat competition” can lead to
diminished client care for the sake of cost savings. An additional factor may be
moving Diakonia to a corporate model - that of an increase in the
professionalization of services. Many have shared that in an attempt to increase
quality, the local work of Diakonia has become more and more separated from the
work of church parishes and volunteers. Finally, these factors combine, leading
to a final challenge often cited – the diminishing role that Diakonia has been
playing in the realm of advocating for and with those in need. If this claim is
true, perhaps local, regional, and national Diakonia leaders are fearful that
they may lose lucrative government contracts to other providers if they
prophetically advocate for and with those in need.
1. The Church In, To, and With
the Community
Faith-based
community organizing helps churches rethink their role in
relationship
to the broader community. Theologian Robert Linthicum has described
three fundamental ways the church can do ministry in relationship to
the neighborhood or city within which they are located. The church
“in the community” describes a church solely
focussed on its membership, but having no real connection to the
needs and visions of the neighborhoods and people surrounding the
church building itself. Worship, bible study, the sacraments, and
other important traditional functions of the church are conducted for
the nurturing of the members.
The church “to
the community” describes the congregation or parish that
recognizes the needs and visions of its neighbors, and responds with
acts of charity. In the United States, social services like food
pantries, clothing shelves, counseling services, and day care centers
are established and run by the church, often under guidance of paid
professionals. In the German Church, this is the work of Diakonia
(Caritas in the Catholic Church). The clients of these services,
however, rarely engage in the traditional functions of the church,
nor do they have relationships with the church membership other than
the persons staffing the charity services.
The
church “with the community” is a parish that
consciously seeks to build relationships with the residents in
surrounding neighborhoods, invites and engages them in all facets of
the church’s life, and makes them equal decision-makers in
determining the way the church can best minister to the needs and
visions of the people.
The
words of the prophet Micah well describes these three parish
approaches.
And
what does the Lord require of you?
To
act justly and to love mercy,
and
to walk humbly with your God. -
Micah 6:8
The
church in the community nurtures our “humble walk with
God.” The church to the community is the social service
approach and emulates Micah’s command to “love mercy.”
The church with the community is the community organizing
approach of “doing justice.”
2. Why People Participate
Community
organizing works from the premise that people become involved in activities
for one of two primary reasons.
First,
people engage because they have a direct self-interest in something.
Human self-interest can revolve around many factors, ranging from
self-survival to self-esteem. In community organizations for many
their involvement is based upon the direct impact a community problem
has on them and their family. People may also be involved because a
community problem offends their values (for example, a person may
say, “I am not homeless, but I become involved because I
believe that there should not be the conditions of homelessness in
our city.”). For others the satisfaction one gains from working
closely with a diverse group of committed people, or the satisfaction
ones gains from contributing one’s gifts and talents leads to
their involvement.
The
power of self-interest is captured well in the following quote from
former American politician Mario Cuomo.
You
cannot have been in politics as long as I have and be blind to the
fact that for most of us, most of the time, self-interest is a
powerful motivator – perhaps the most powerful one. If we hope
to reestablish our strength, confidence, and balance as a nation, we
need to help one another see that our self-interest is not identical
with our selfish interests, that self-interest is inextricably linked
to the common good. We need to understand that apart from the
morality of recognizing an obligation to our brothers and sisters,
common sense by itself should teach us that we are all in this thing
together, interconnected and interdependent. - Mario Cuomo, Reason
To Believe, 1995
It
is very important to point out, as Mr. Cuomo does, that self-interest
is not identical with selfishness. Wanting the best for one’s
life, family, and community only becomes selfish when these desires
are sought at the exclusion of others.
The
second primary reason people engage has to do with relationship of
trust and goodwill one has with a person who invites them. When
asked, “Why did you attend this meeting?” or “How
did you become involved in this group?”, it is very common to
hear the response, “Because a friend invited me.”
Long-term involvement ultimately comes back to self-interest.
Relationships, however, often determine initial involvement.
3. Asset-Based Approach: Looking
for and Developing People’s Gifts and Talents
American
Professors John McKnight and John Kretzmann have developed the
concept
of an “asset-based approach” to the development of
low-income communities. In summary their idea is this. Too often
when government policy makers, sociologists, social workers, and
others look at low-income neighborhoods, they focus on the needs
rather than the assets and talents of people. They view the glass as
half-empty rather than as half-full. This often leads to the
practice of doing for people rather than doing with
people.
The
founder of American community organizing, Saul Alinsky, expressed a
similar concept when he said, “The Iron Rule of community
organizing is ‘never do for others what they can do for
themselves.’” When we do for others, we often
create dependency, often robbing people of their dignity, and do not
help them grow and develop. When we start by looking at people’s
talents and work with them, we unleash new energy and
commitment.
4. Diversity: Strength Versus
Divisiveness
My
experience as a community organizer in the United States has involved bringing
together African-Americans and Whites; Catholics, Baptists,
Methodists, Pentecostals, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and other faith
groups; rich, poor, and those in between; and people from vastly
different neighborhoods. Bringing diversity together poses a danger
and an opportunity. The danger is that differences lead to
divisiveness. The opportunity is that diversity leads to enrichment.
People bring their diverse experiences, perceptions, and talents
together to enrich the whole.
The
key to making diversity a strength rather than a weakness is building
relationships of trust and respect. Within such relationships,
people overcome fear and stereotypes of the other. They begin to see
that what unites them usually far greater than that which divides
them.
Within
the EKD I’ve heard of various subgroups. These include the
liberals or “worldlies”, the pietists or “missionaries”,
those passionate about liturgy, the church growth movement, and those
who advocate structural reform within the church. If what I have
heard about the EKD as being a predominately middle-class and German
membership is true, than lower-income and migrant people are
potential members a just-peace church will also want to include as
active members. Viewing this diversity from an “asset-based
approach”, and as something that can enrich the church, could
help strengthen the church in this time of transition.
5. Money and Ownership
We
have all had the experience of saving our money in order to purchase something
of value. When we have done so, it feels like it really belongs to
us. We worked for it, we selected it, and we paid for it. The
German church tax tends to separate the giver from the activities of
the church. A church member only makes one decision, perhaps only
once in their life, whether or not to pay the church tax, and often
has only a vague idea where their money goes and for what it pays.
In
the next section I will share how community organizing promotes a
sense of money and ownership among its members. I will simply add
here the comments of one church leader who shared with me, “It
is becoming clear that the EKD will not be able to rely forever upon
the church tax as its sole source of revenue. The time is now, while
we are relatively wealthy, that we begin cultivating additional
patterns of stewardship and giving among our members.”
6. Voluntary Church Within the
Volkskirche
I
am not recommending that the Volkskirche be abolished. Nor should
persons be
negatively judged who pay the church tax but choose to remain distant
from the church’s everyday affairs. It does seem to me,
however, that expanding and diversifying the core active membership
by more consciously connecting the message and actions of the church
to people’s everyday personal and community concerns, through
systematic listening and relationship building, will help add new
life to the EKD. Church leaders have shared with me that a
“voluntary church” already exists within the Volkskirche
at the parish level regarding local church governance. My suggestion
is to build a theological understanding and utilize strategies that
will expand the functions and vital energy of this voluntary church.
Pastors
and church leaders who have visited American churches speak of being
impressed by the strong sense of fellowship that exists among its
members. Consciously and systematically developing a “culture
of relationships” within the church is important for two
primary reasons. First, as mentioned earlier, building relationships
of trust and respect is essential in bringing diversity together by
helping us overcome our stereotypes and fears of others. Second,
relationships bring us out of our narrow world of isolation and
fosters creativity, new ideas and energy, and the courage to try new
things. This is especially true when these relationships are rooted
not only in trust and respect, but also in a clear recognition of
overlapping and mutually held self interests and values.
There
are strong theological grounds for fostering a culture of
relationships. Jesus said that, “When two or three are
gathered in my name, there too shall I be.” The eminent Jewish
theologian, Martin Buber, spoke of the “I-Thou”
relationship as an essential cornerstone of faith: “I-Thou”
with my God and “I-Thou” with my neighbor. It is within
relationships, Buber stated, that we most powerfully and profoundly
find and experience God.
In
the next section of this report, primarily I will share the important
strategies utilized by American faith-based community organizations
to foster a “culture of relationships” which leads to the
solving of community problems and assists in the revitalization of
church life.
1. One-On-One/Face-To-Face Visits
One
of the most effective strategies used in American community
organizing is the
one-on-one or face-to-face vision. Its purpose is to discover a
person’s self-interests and to initiate a relationship of trust
and respect. These purposes go back to the comments made earlier in
this report about “why people participate.” If people
participate because of their self-interest or a relationship they
have with the person who invites them, one-on-one visits become a
cornerstone for such participation. While it is very rare during a
first visit that the person visited will be invited to participate or
become involved in something, a foundation is laid to do so in the
future.
A
one-on-one visit is an intentional conversation, always arranged
ahead of time, and lasts for approximately 30 to 45 minutes. It
begins with the person doing the visit establishing the reason for
visiting. The following example is typical within the context of a
faith-based community organization where one lay person is visiting
another from their own congregation.
Thank
you for taking the time and allowing me to visit. As I mentioned
when I called
to arrange this visit, I am part of a team of twenty persons from our
church who are each visiting five to ten other members as a way of
strengthening the fellowship of the church and understanding our
members concerns for the church, our neighborhood, and our city.
Before we talk about visions and concerns, however, I would enjoy
getting to know you better. Please tell me more about yourself.
Visitors
ask about the background, family, work, hobbies, and future
aspirations of the person they are visiting. Questions such as, “How
did you choose your job and what do your really like about it?”,
and “Were there any key people or events in the past that
really helped shape who you are today?” lead the conversation
to a deeper level. Eventually the visitor will ask about the
community and church with such questions as, “If there was one
or two things that would make our church a better place than it
already is, what would that be?”, and “What makes you
angry and what would you like to see changed in your neighborhood or
our city?” The visit ends with the visitor saying something
like this.
Thank
you for taking the time to visit and share. Next month our church
team will report back to the full congregation what we have found.
Then we will invite the membership to take part in developing
strategies to address the visions and concerns we have heard. I will
call you when this occurs.
Persons
conducting such one-on-one visits consistently report how rewarding
they are, how it expands the number of people they know, and
amazement at how much people are willing to share about themselves
during an initial conversation. Upon reflection, this final
conclusion should not be surprising. It is a wonderful experience
when someone truly listens to and takes a genuine interest in us, all
the more so in our increasingly busy and impersonal culture.
2. Systematic Listening Process
As
alluded to in the one-on-one example just cited, these visits often
occur in the context of a “listening process”, an eight
week period when a trained group of lay people will each visit five
to ten others. After the visits are completed, the visitors will
share with each other what they have heard, look for a pattern of
repeated concerns and visions, and then report back to the membership
their findings and preliminary recommendations for next steps.
Within an American faith-based community organizations of thirty
congregations working together, it is not uncommon that 2,000 people
will be visited and listened to during this eight week period. Each
parish Visitation Team, in addition to reporting back to their own
membership, will also share the community concerns they heard at a
meeting with Visitation Teams from other parishes. Such a joint
listening process generates great energy, excitement, and hope that
community problems will be effectively addressed. What helps
guarantee success, however, is that the Visitation Teams can now
invite the 2,000 people they visited to participate in the
organization based upon the self-interests they have discovered and
the relationships they have begun to establish.
As a way of further developing a
“culture of relationships”, community organizations often
begin regular meetings with a 15 to 20 minute period for one-on-ones.
The simple instructions for such an exercise might be, “Please
find someone you don’t know or don’t know very well, and
get to know them better.” Or the instruction may involve a
more specific question like, “Spend the next 15 minutes sharing
with each other a little about yourself and one thing that you really
like about our church,” or “one thing you would like to
change in our city.”
3. Modifying the Listening
Process to the German Cultural and Church Context
Some
Germans, both within and outside the church, with whom I have shared these
ideas about one-on-one visits, have responded by saying, “Paul,
this may work in America, but I’m not sure that it will work
here.” They site reasons such as greater formality in
relationships and less willingness to share on a personal level.
Other Germans I speak with dispute these claims and have had direct
and successful experiences doing one-on-one visits.
My
first response to such comments grows out of my own personal
experience. I first learned about doing one-on-one visits when I
attended a seven day workshop on community organizing 25 years ago.
We spent one full day in the workshop learning about and practicing
one-on-one visits. I found these ideas and strategies fascinating
and very engaging, but thought, “When I return to my work in
the rural South of the United States and try doing this, it will
never work People will think I am being too personal and will throw
me out of their houses!” What I found was just the opposite.
I think the reason is very simple – people like being listened
to and heard! Dietrich Bonhoeffer stated this idea well when he
wrote,
The first service that
one owes to others in the fellowship consists in listening to them.
Just as love to God begins with listening to His Word, so the
beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to them. It
is God’s love for us that God not only gives us His Word but
also lends us His ear. So it is God’s work that we do for our
brothers and sisters when we learn to listen to them. Christians,
especially ministers, so often think they must always contribute
something when they are in the company of others, that this is the
one service they have to render. They forget that listening can be a
greater service than speaking.
Many people are looking for an ear that will listen. They do not
find it among Christians, because these Christians are talking where
they should be listening. But he who can no longer listen to his
brother or sister will soon be no longer listening to God either; he
will be doing nothing but prattle in the presence of God too. This
is the beginning of the death of the spiritual life, and in the end
there is nothing left but spiritual chatter and clerical
condescension arrayed in pious words. One who cannot listen long and
patiently will presently be talking beside the point and be never
really speaking to others, albeit he be not conscious of it. Anyone
who thinks that this time is too valuable to spend keeping quiet will
eventually have not time for God and one’s brother or sister,
but only for oneself and for one’s own follies.
-
Life Together (Gemeinsames Leben, 1938), Dietrich
Bonhoeffer
Most
people I have trained in doing one-on-one visits have the same
initial fear that I had, but also come to the same conclusion after
they do such visits. When we do systematic listening processes with
congregations and parishes, we take steps that will assist the
visitors in setting up their visits. For example, the church
newsletter and a letter from the pastors to the persons being visits
will announce such a process is about to begin, explaining the
purpose of the visits, and hope that persons will agree to be
visited.
It
is also important to point out that to be a good visitor, a persons
must be genuinely interested in and curious about people. They must
also be a good listener. So in this regard, the pastor and leaders
of a parish should give careful consideration to whom they will
invite to be a part of the Visitation Team. Training should be
provided that includes giving visitors the opportunity to practice
with each other. Finally, persons who initially feel less secure
about doing the visits may want to begin with people they already
know, using it as an opportunity to get to know them better. There
will be others, however, who are excited about and feel comfortable
with visiting new people from the start.
4. Moving from Listening to
Acting
In
addition to developing peoples’ relationship building skills,
the American community
organizing tradition has developed numerous strategies to help people
take large community problems or grandiose church visions, and narrow
them into manageable, realistic, and doable strategies. People like
to see results within a reasonable period of time. Success builds
individual and organizational self-confidence and self-esteem, and
leads to further success. So starting small where people can see
very practical results in a short time is always preferable to
tackling something too large and then getting caught in endless
debates and discussion.
Community
organizing refers to this process as moving from a “problem”
to selecting an “issue.” It trains leaders to think
about whether the issue is specific, winnable, and whether it will
help build the organization. Leaders also consider who else may be
concerned about the issue, and then to ask for their participation in
solving it. Researching the issue will including asking whether
successful examples exist from elsewhere that can be used in our
situation.
When
solving a community problem or issue involves a change in public
policy or new direction by an influential institution (for example,
the government, school system, or corporation), the concept and
exercise of power must be considered.
For
many in the church, power has negative connotations and seems alien
to the gospel message. American civil rights leader and minister,
Rev. Martin Luther King, however, counters this notion in the
following passage.
Power,
properly understood, is the ability to achieve purpose. It is the
strength required to bring about social, political, or economic
changes. In this sense power is not only desirable but necessary in
order to implement the demands of love and justice.
One of the greatest
problems of history is that the concepts of love and power are
usually contrasted as polar opposites. Love is identified with a
resignation of power and power with a denial of love…What is
needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and
abusive, and that love without power is sentimental and anemic.
Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice.
Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against
love.
-
Martin Luther King, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or
Community?, 1967
In
other words, power is necessary if we want to see our Christian
values of love and justice more fully lived out in the world around
us.
Community
organizing views power in two societal forms: organized money or
organized people. Few of us are millionaire developers who alone can
influence policy through our financial wealth. But our churches have
many people who, when meeting together with key decision makers, can
impact decisions that effect the everyday concerns of families and
neighborhoods.
When
speaking of power, a common question asked of community organizing is
this: “Will our work together be political?” The answer
is “yes” and “no.” “Yes” in the
sense that community organizing moves churches and others into the
arena of public decision making that impacts all our lives. “No”
in that community organizations never become affiliated with any
political party or endorse any political candidate.
5. A Potential Institutional and Financial
Arrangement for Community Organizing Involving German Parishes and Diakonische Werk
Faith-based
community organizing; i.e. developing a culture of relationships by conducting
systematic listening processes and then solving community problems
and implementing new church visions; requires staff and volunteer
time, planning, training, and money. Very practically, how could
this be done in the context of the EKD?
From
what I have been learning, one potential solution lies in a
partnership between Diakonia and approximately 10 EKD parishes at a
local or city level. I will try to describe this from three
perspectives: the roles and responsibilities of key staff and
volunteers, a potential income and expense budget, and why it may be
in the self-interest of Diakonia and EKD parishes to undertake such a
venture.
Roles
and Responsibilities
Pastors:
With all their other responsibilities, pastors alone cannot build
or sustain a community organizing process. They do, however, play a
very important role. Pastors provide overall guidance and vision,
they help select and invite members of their church to be part of a
Visitation Team, and they attend key meetings as the community
organizing process unfolds.
Church
Lay Leaders: Church lay leaders conduct one-on-one visits as a part
of their church’s Visitation Team. They, along with the
pastor, help shape new visions for their parish. Finally, they
along with the lay leaders and pastors from other parishes and
persons from Diakonia, shape and solve community problems.
A
Community Organizer: The role of a full-time community organizer is
to help facilitate and provide assistance at all stages of an
organizing process. In the beginning, the organizer works
individually and in meetings with pastors and Diakonia leadership in
shaping the vision and process of the organization. The organizer
also assists the pastors in recruiting members of the parish to be
part of the Visitation Team. The organizer becomes acquainted with
the Diakonia staff, their work, and their clients. A community
organizer does an average of 15 one-on-one visits a week with parish
pastors and members, as well as, with Diakonia leaders, staff, and
clients. As the organizing process continues, the community
organizer provides training, helps organize meetings, and then
assists the organization in research and solving community issues.
The community organizer always plays a facilitating, not leadership,
role. Parish and Diakonia leaders, staff, and volunteers lead the
organization with the help of clearly defined and democratically
accountable organizational by-laws and structures.
Diakonia
Staff: Diakonia staff are the persons most in direct contact with
the area residents most in need. Diakonia staff would play a role
similar to that of the lay leadership in the parish; i.e. that of
building relationships with and listening to the clients’ self
interests, concerns, and visions. Diakonia staff would then invite
the clients to play a role in the larger organization as it solves
and addresses those concerns and visions.
An
Outside Consultant: An experienced community organizer would
provide guidance and training on a one-day-per-month basis. This
outside consultant would work closely with the community organizer
and key parish and Diakonia staff and volunteers. The
once-per-month visits would include training events, meetings, and
individual consultations.
Finances
The
three primary expense items for a local community organizing process involving
approximately 10 parishes and Diakonia would be a full-time community
organizer, an outside consultant, and office expenses (some of which,
like office space, telephone, use of a copy machine, etc. could be
in-kind donations).
Income
can come from at-least five sources: local parish “membership
fees”, Diakonia, government grants, foundations, and
fundraising events that ask for contributions from individuals,
businesses, and others. Government money should not make up a large
portion of the income to help insure the organization’s
prophetic independence.
Why
An EKD Parish and Diakonische Werk Partnership
Community
organizing would help local parishes connect to the everyday concerns
of their members, area residents, and persons in need. By sharing in
the costs and staff time of a community organizer, parish members and
pastors would have staff assistance in reaching out to new persons
and developing a culture of relationships within the parish.
Community
organizing would help Diakonia reconnect to local parishes and their
human resources. This would assist Diakonia in providing services
and advocating for area residents in need.
While
the foundation of a local community organization, as outline here,
would be this EKD parish and Diakonia partnership, other area
organizations (such as Caritas, Catholic parishes, Lions’
Clubs, etc.) could be invited into the organization around solving
specific community problems or as permanent members of the
organization.
6. Other Processes
Until
now I have used this portion of the report to share a process with
which I am
most familiar from my experiences and somewhat modified to meet a
German church context. I am fully aware that this process may not be
appropriate in all situations and that other valuable strategies
exist that can help the EKD constructively face its current
challenges. I confess and regret that I have either not found the
time or had difficulty getting appointments thus far with more
persons in the EKD who have developed and are implementing parish
renewal processes. I have had, however, a few conversations with
persons that have shown me such booklets as “Visionen Erden:
Der Vielfalt Gestalt geben mit Profil, Beteiligung, Begeisterung and
Qualitaet” and “Arbeitsbuch Oekumenische
Gemeinde-erneuerung” that in some ways mirror and augment my
American community organizing experiences. I have also heard that
there are church leaders advocating the use organizational models
drawn from the world of business. My experience with such models in
the United States is that they contain many helpful suggestions, as
long as we remain aware of the fact that our goal is not to turn the
church into a for-profit corporation.
What
I find in common to so many of these processes for organizational
development and improvement are the four following elements. 1.
They all stress an ongoing process of planning, acting, and
evaluating. Evaluation is perhaps the most important step, because
it is the place where we grow professionally and personally, and
helps guild our future planning and acting. 2. People’s gifts
and talents are the most valuable resource of any organization. Put
these to good use and your organization will thrive. 3. Good
organizational leaders always start by listening to their
stakeholders and constituents, share power in key decision making,
and are constantly working to develop the skills of those around
them. 4. Finally, good organizations utilize the resources of
outsiders who can help them look in a fresh way at what they are
doing and the progress they are making. For those of us working in a
profession as deeply involved with people as the church, good outside
consulting not only helps us reexamine the organization, but also
helps us reflect upon our own personal and professional growth and
development, struggles and joys.
7. Principles of Raising Money
There
are persons much more qualified than I who have experience in church stewardship
campaigns. Besides writing grant applications and collecting
membership dues, my experience in raising money for community
organizations is in training members to gather donations from
individuals and local businesses. Perhaps these experiences can be
helpful to the EKD.
Most
people don’t like asking for money, so when we start a training
on fundraising we begin by talking about three reasons we need to
raise “our own money.” The first is necessity. We have
personnel and office expenses that the organization must pay in order
to do our work. And while foundation grants will often help us get
started, it is our membership dues and once-a-year appeal t0
individuals and companies that will pay our expenses over the
long-term. Second, we raise our own money because of ownership. We
more highly value what we, and not someone else, pays for. Third, we
raise our own money for independence. When we get money from others,
there are usually strings or limitations attached. If it is our
money, we spend it on what we think is most important.
After
openly sharing our budget and reviewing what we’ve accomplished
during the past year and plan to do in the coming year, we speak in
our trainings about four principles of successful fundraising. The
first principal attempts to directly address why people don’t
like asking for money – because if feels like begging! So
instead of asking for a “contribution”, we use the term
“investment.” We are asking for an “investment”
in something that will help the community, including the person from
whom we are asking. The second principal for raising money is
“asking is winning.” In other words, if you never ask,
you will never receive. If you ask, of course some will say “No”,
but others will say “Yes.” We have to ask! The third
principal is “lead by example.” It is always much more
successful when you preface your request with, “I gave 100
Euro, and I would like to ask you for the same.” Which leads
to the fourth principal, “ask for the amount you want.”
If one simply says, “Can you make a contribution?”, you
are likely to get the loose change in someone’s pocket. But if
you ask for 100 Euro, you are likely to get the 100, and if not,
perhaps 50.
Having
large numbers of members involved in fundraising efforts not only
accomplishes the obvious task of raising money, it also promotes
ownership and is a good leadership development tool. When one asks
for money, one is forced to think about and then explain why the
purpose and activities of the organization are important to you.
American church-based community organizations customarily raise
$30,000 to $150,000 from individuals and corporations during an
intensive ten-week period, with 30 to 75 volunteers doing the asking
and staff providing training, and arranging the visits with
corporations. These efforts often start small, but grow over time.
8. Delegating Responsibilities
and Teaching New Skills
I
once heard a community organizer describe community organizations as
“schools
which teach democratic participation.” Among other things,
through the organizing process people gain opportunities to learn
listening and relationship building skills, how to negotiate their
interests with each other and key decision makers, how to run and
facilitate meetings, fundraising skills, and how to effectively live
out their Christian values in the public arena. Community organizing
trainings teach both democratic theory as well as practical skills,
often using role plays as a way of preparing leaders and members to
put this “classroom learning” into practice. Normally
every training, meeting, and action involves an evaluation that helps
us realize what we’ve learned, what could have been done
better, and guides our future planning and action. Leaders begin to
delegate more and more responsibilities as they see the competencies
of their members grow. And structures of accountability; including
electing the organization’s leadership, voting on all key
decisions, and open methods of communication; are built into the
organization to insure the proper checks and balances necessary for
any democratic process.
During my first twelve months (July, 2004 to June, 2005) in Germany and Europe,
I was engaged in three primary activities. First, through readings and
conversations I was learning about the German and European church, social
providers, culture, societal structures, and approaches to solving issues of
social exclusion and injustice. Second, I was sharing and receiving feedback
about the strategies and theories of community organizing, particularly focused
upon its potential applicability in the German and European context. Third, I
was building relationships and exploring with persons whether the interest and
resources exist to either apply community organizing approaches with existing
organizations or to create new community organizing projects.
The past eight months (July, 2005 to February, 2006) have involved a
continuation of these same activities along with the development of concrete
plans for community organizing projects. This chapter attempts to describe this
work and further reflect upon community organizing’s applicability in a German
and European context.
Concrete planning for community organizing projects has been discussed in
thirteen German and three other European locations. Of these sixteen total
projects, three have begun, eight are in an advanced planning stage, one is in
an early planning stage, and four were stopped but may resume at a later
date. In addition, in three locations community organizing strategies were
applied to particular situations but no long-term planning was involved. The
sixteen projects reflect three different approaches, or a combination of
them. One approach is that of existing social service providers who wish to
expand their work to included greater citizen engagement and empowerment, with
the hope of more powerfully influencing local and regional policy decisions. A
second approach is that of an individual parish that wants to engage larger
numbers of their members in the ongoing life of their church. A third approach
is that of coalition building between various local stakeholders (service
providers, religious parishes, clubs, etc.) in order to build greater influence
in solving community challenges and visions. Within these approaches, the
targeted constituencies include one or more of the following groups: low and
moderate income residents, migrants, parish and other organization members, the
unemployed, multicultural groups, the homeless, and those living in low-income
housing complexes.
The plans and projects in Germany have emerged from conversations among three
primary groups: the Forum on Community Organizing (FOCO), persons at the
national office of German Diakonia, and a diverse set of stakeholders at the
local level. FOCO is a twelve-year old organization of forty-five individual
members living throughout Germany. FOCO was formed following two events. In the
late 1980’s, university students in Freiburg wrote their final report (later to
be published under the title Let’s Organize) after investigating community
organizing in the United States and comparing it to German community-oriented
social work practices. In 1993 and 1995, two American community organizers
conducted weeklong community organizing trainings in Germany. Since FOCO’s
formation, its members have sought to promote the use of community organizing
strategies through trainings, publications, and other means. German Diakonia is
the over 150-year-old social service arm of the German Protestant Church with
approximately 26,000 independent institutions, employing 400,000 persons and
utilizing an equal number of volunteers. They work in a wide-range of areas
including youth and family welfare, counseling, and migrant work. German
Diakonia is currently reexamining its overall social work approach, with a
special interest in the use and effectiveness of more community-based
approaches.
Conversations between FOCO and the leadership of German Diakonia began in the
Summer of 2005. The dialogue between Diakonia and FOCO has evolved into a plan
to secure financing from a large German foundation, in order to provide ongoing
community organizing consulting and training services to at-least six local
German projects over the next three years.
The three non-German projects emerged from conversations that occurred among
participants (including the President of FOCO and myself) of a European social
workers project called Qu/A/Si (Quality and Accessibility of Social Services as
a Factor in Empowering Social Inclusion). A national service provider in
Slovakia and regional service provider in the Czech Republic have joined
together with FOCO and German Diakonia in order to secure financing to support
four community organizing projects each in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, and
to share experiences and best practices along with the German projects. A
Lutheran parish (and possibly a church circle at a future date) in a Swedish
city has begun an extensive outreach process with the goals of parish renewal
and greater parish involvement in the life of the surrounding neighborhood.
The goals and interests of a representative sampling of the sixteen local
projects will be described in the next section of this report under two
headings: “Citizen Engagement, Empowerment, and Coalition Building for Policy
Influence” and “Parish Development.” But it may be helpful to the reader to
understand the steps used in bringing these projects to the current state of
development.
Like all community organizing, the first step involved building relationships of
trust and respect, and listening for concerns and visions of local stakeholders
(usually in the context of one-on-one visits). This first step also included
sharing the goals and strategies of community organizing, and reflecting whether
they could be of help in the particular local situation. The second step was
that of holding a community organizing orientation meeting, often two to four
hours in length, with a larger group of local stakeholders and further
reflecting on community organizing’s applicability to the local situation. If
this local group concluded that a community organizing approach could assist
their work, the third step was to think more specifically about its
implementation. For example, the local stakeholders began thinking about which
targeted constituencies to include (neighborhood area, particular parish
members, potential coalition partners, etc.) and developed a specific timeline
that would include training and a systematic outreach process. If additional
financial resources are needed to make a community organizing process occur,
these plans were incorporated in a written fundraising grant request. After
these preliminary steps are taken, the three-step process of community
organizing begins (described in the first chapter of this report as that of
listening for, researching, and solving community problems and visions) with the
assistance of outside and ongoing training and consulting support.
1.
Introduction
The following description of local projects does not attempt to include all
sixteen, but rather to give a representative sampling in order to reflect their
diversity, goals, interests, and constituencies. Since a number of the projects
are still in planning stages and are applying for funding, organization names
and cities are not mentioned. The use of the two broad headings, “Citizen
Engagement, Empowerment, and Coalition Building for Policy Influence” and
“Parish Development”, is not meant to be mutually exclusive. That is to say,
some of the organizations seeking to engage citizens for policy influence are
themselves church-based service providers and some are building coalitions with
local religious parishes, and some of the parishes seek to have greater policy
influence as part of engaging more members in the life of their church.
2.
Citizen Engagement, Empowerment, and Coalition Building for Policy Influence
A first example comes from a large urban neighborhood in northern
Germany. The initial project leaders are members of a nearly ten-year-old
citizen’s organization that has exerted influence upon government
policies. These members, however, are aware of three primary limitations in
their current efforts. The first is that while their neighborhood consists of
forty- percent migrants, the membership of the organization is exclusively
German. Second, the limited budget of the organization has prevented them from
hiring a part-time or full-time staff person, which has limited their capacity
to grow and operate as effectively as they would like. Third, the organization
has sought to make decisions by consensus, which worked well early on, but in
recent years this process has made it difficult to prioritize and effectively
solve community problems.
Over the past six months five meetings have been held by a multi-cultural group
of fifteen area residents and supporters from outside the neighborhood, called
together by the initial project leaders. During these meetings, each individual
has shared their experiences and perceptions of neighborhood problems and
challenges, as well as, their vision of building a powerful and effective
multi-cultural organization that could solve these problems. Among the
neighborhood themes mentioned have been the inferior nature of public education,
high unemployment, the lack of job training and opportunities for young adults
especially among the migrant population, and an ongoing frustration at getting
government leaders to seriously address these themes. They are all aware of
government established and lead advisory groups in the neighborhood, but the
discussions in these groups rarely lead to concrete and substantial solutions.
In addition to discussing community challenges and visions, this group has
learned about community organizing and has begun to develop substantial plans
for building a powerful and independent organization with paid staff. A one-year
organizational development plan has been developed and written into a grant
application. Early in the group’s discussions it was decided that two half-time
staff (community organizers) should be hired, one of whom would be German and
the other from a migrant background, in order to reflect the multi-cultural
organization they seek to build. These staff will spend two to three months
doing approximately 150 one-on-one visits with diverse neighborhood
residents. Those visited who share the groups vision of building a powerful,
multi-cultural community organization will be trained to do additional
one-on-one visits with family, friends, and fellow-residents as a key step in
identifying a few initial community themes which the organization will then
research and seek to solve with the help of government, schools, businesses,
service providers, and other neighborhood stakeholders and resources.
As this group of fifteen has been meeting, two other important activities have
been occurring. Outreach has taken place with and support gained from religious
leaders, both area pastors and the church circle. Secondly, a clear sense of
growing trust has developed across cultural and religious communities as sharing
and a common vision developed.
A second example is drawn from a western German city that is home to seven
different community social work projects in low-income and migrant
neighborhoods. Discussions initially focussed on the possibility of involving a
number of these projects from the start. But this was felt to be too ambitious,
so a decision was made to start with one of the organizations and possibly
expand later. Staff of this one project has felt frustration over the lack of
significant and meaningful participation by area residents, and the limitations
of their work without such participation. From their frequent contacts in the
neighborhood, staff identified almost a dozen themes that concern residents
including the limited operating hours of an area swimming pool, children’s
recreational needs, garbage clean-up, and ways school teachers interact with
migrants. Plans are currently being developed to train these staff in doing
effective one-on-one visits with residents, some of whom would then be trained
to do additional one-on-ones in their neighborhoods.
In a low-income and migrant neighborhood of a south German city, the staff and
volunteer leaders of a fifteen-year old neighborhood project began imagining how
a coalition effort with the neighborhood’s Catholic and Protestant parishes,
along with the area’s community center and other organizations, could be
mutually beneficial, as well as, increase their ability to effect local and
regional policy decisions impacting their neighborhood. A set of one-on-ones and
joint meetings with leaders of these different groups, along with an open
neighborhood forum on community organizing attended by thirty people, indicated
deep interest in pursuing the idea further. Plans for an organizing process are
beginning to be developed.
The staff of a service provider in a northern German city has been feeling
frustration over financial cutbacks by local and regional government officials
for programs that improve the lives of ex-offenders and homeless persons. While
the service provider’s personnel have had some success, as they and staff from
other area providers negotiated with government officials, something
significantly different began to happen when the community organizing process of
having the ex-offenders and homeless people themselves testify at government
hearings and appear in large numbers outside government offices. Photographs of
these testimonies and gatherings have been printed in local newspapers, making
government officials much more responsive to calls for change. And the
ex-offenders and homeless themselves have been growing in self-esteem as they
engage as active citizens in the democratic, civil society process.
In a south-German city, a service provider working with refugees has grown
increasingly frustrated by discriminatory government policies. Recognizing the
real danger posed to refugees if they attempt to speak out on their own behalf
against these policies, the service provider staff has had past successes on
policy issues when they, along with other advocates, have spoken on the
refugees’ behalf. But they want to do more, in particular two things. First,
they want to build a strong and ongoing network of individuals and organizations
that can work for policy changes, as well as, provide a safe forum within which
refugees can share their concerns and visions. Second, they want to build
networks with schools, doctors, and others in the neighborhoods where refugee
camps exist as a means of both improving the lives of refugee families and
overcoming social exclusion. This provider has begun training their staff in
doing one-on-one visits with potential supporters and developing a strategic
plan for building these two support networks.
In a central German city during the past two years, a government-sponsored
project of an area service provider has achieved a large number of housing and
neighborhood improvements, along with providing a range of services for young
people, migrants, and women. However, as the two service provider staff persons
reflect on what will happen two years from now when they leave this area of 300
residents, they fear that these improvements and services will stop. Their goal
is to develop a process of greater resident engagement and to build a democratic
resident’s organization that can decide upon and oversee continued activities
with minimal staff support. Planning has begun for a one-year process to achieve
this goal.
The last example presented here of developing community organizing plans draws
from two rather similar efforts in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. In both
cases, large and multi-city social service providers want to add a citizen
participation and empowerment component to their work, that will lead to
beneficial policy changes. Both want to begin by training staff and volunteers
in four cities in a full-range of community organizing strategies. Both also
believe that the listening and relationship building techniques, that are the
essential elements of one-on-one visits, can also help insure that the services
they provide are ones their clients need and want, as well as, improve internal
communication within their own organizations.
The biggest cultural difference between these efforts and ones developing in
Germany can be summarized in the following brief story. When I conducted a
community organizing orientation with the Slovakian social service provider’s
key staff from five cities, I told a story from my American organizing
experience of organizing a 500-person citizens meeting with the city’s
mayor. When I described how the citizens made specific requests for neighborhood
improvements to the mayor, one of the Slovak staff interrupted and said, “We
cannot do that! People here are scared. It has only been fifteen years since
communism.” What followed was a serious conversation about democracy and civil
courage. By the end of the meeting, all of the Slovakian staff saw a strong need
for community organizing, and wanted to begin the organizing process as soon as
possible.
It would be inaccurate to leave the impression that all of the community
organizing conversations, orientations, and planning that have occurred in the
past twenty months are leading to future projects. I now will give two examples,
and one more in the next section, where planning was stopped, although it may be
resumed at a later date. One such effort involved plans in a south-German city
to work with older unemployed workers with the goals of assisting them in
acquiring new job skills and employment, helping them find other meaningful ways
of using their skills and talents in socially beneficial ways, and advocating
policy changes to help achieve these ends. The detailed plans (including the
hiring of staffing) for conducting this work were included in a grant
application to regional and federal government officials. Unfortunately, the
grant was not funded. While community organizing relies heavily on the
involvement of volunteers, efforts that do not involve at-least one paid
community organizer suffer from numerous limitations including a lack of
long-term sustainability, along with a limitation on the number of people which
can be involved and community themes which can be addressed.
Another example of a discontinued potential project involved a
coalition-building effort in a southern-German city. Following preliminary
one-on-one visits with two interested individuals, members of five organizations
were invited to participate in a three-hour community organizing
orientation. This led to a ten-hour weekend organizing training and
brainstorming session. At the end of this weekend event, the participants
concluded that building a coalition, or organization of organizations, was not
feasible for two primary reasons. First, there appeared not to be enough
overlapping organizational self-interests (due to diverse geography,
constituencies, and community themes) to bring the organizations together in a
sustained fashion. Second, few of the participants felt they had the time for
further meetings to develop project plans and to raise the money to make such
plans a reality.
3.
Parish Development
The pastor of a moderate-income parish in central Germany became very
interested in community organizing strategies as a means of engaging more
members in the life of the church. Ten of his active members also became
interested after a two-hour orientation session. A training on one-on-one visits
increased interest and planning began for doing a listening process with other
parish members. One challenge, however, surfaced. The members asked, “What if we
call people, asking them for a one-on-one visit, and they will not meet with
us?” As they discussed this further, their fear was that people they called may
think that the visitor would either want to preach to them (“They may think that
we are like Jehovah Witnesses.”), or that they would think the visitor wants to
come and sell them something. So the following solution was developed. A letter
was written, signed by the pastor and visiting team, and sent to persons they
wanted to visit. The letter began by explaining the purpose of the visits: to
become better acquainted and to ask about parish and neighborhood concerns and
visions. Then the letter said, “Please be assured, we will not preach to you or
try to sell you anything.” About two-thirds of the people called accepted the
invitation for a visit.
The visiting team made approximately fifty visits during October and November of
2005. In early December and late January, two meetings of approximately 30
people each were held. The visiting team, persons who had been visited, and a
few additional parish leaders attended these meetings. Thus far, the results of
the visits and meetings have been positive. Both visitors and persons visited
reported how much they enjoyed these encounters. As one person visited put it,
“This is the first time I felt the parish really cared about me.” Second, at the
two meetings a report was made about which parish and community concerns were
expressed by members. These included youth activities, social events for adults,
and traffic improvements. Through a vote, it was decided that committees would
be formed to develop strategies to address three of these concerns.
Fifteen years ago a parish in a central German city became inspired by a model
of doing church “for others” from the Netherlands. Since that time, the church
remodeled their worship space to create more room for neighborhood meetings and
transformed their parish hall into a multi-service community center. As the
pastor and parish council members reflected upon the ways a parish can relate to
the community (ideas developed by American theologian Robert Linthicum and
described in Part II, Chapter I of this report), the leaders see themselves as a
“church for the community.” They now want to become more of a “church in and
with the community” as well. Their current challenges include gaining greater
clarity about “who we are as a church?”, and engaging more people in the active
running and oversight of the parish’s many activities and programs. Beginning
plans include an initial time for strengthening the sense of fellowship among
the approximately 150 currently active parish members and staff, and then
training many of these 150 to reach out to inactive parish members and other
community residents.
During a five-day period in the Fall of 2005, I had the opportunity to spend
time with the staff, board, and other active members of a parish (along with the
leadership and pastors of the church circle) in a mid-sized city in Sweden. In
many respects the structure of and challenges facing Swedish Lutheran parishes
are similar to those of German Protestant parishes.
Community organizing orientations with this Swedish parish staff and leaders
included practicing one-on-one visits and listing hopes and visions for their
parish and surround neighborhood. These hopes and visions included creating
stronger connections between the parish and surrounding neighborhood, being able
to better respond to peoples’ needs, and creating a more multicultural
atmosphere. The approximately thirty staff and members involved in these
orientations unanimously agreed to do a one-on-one listening process during the
Lenten Season of 2006, and asked the parish staff to begin planning this process
in January. Interest in community organizing was also expressed by the two
Superintendents and a number of the twenty-five pastors and lay leaders from the
city’s church circle who attended a three-hour orientation. Plans for future
orientations with the church circle are currently being discussed.
During the Winter and Spring of 2005, following one-on-one meetings and two
orientation sessions, plans began to develop in a central German city for five
parishes and local Diakonia to begin a community organizing process. The
Superintendent made a commitment to provide funding for a half-time community
organizer if five parishes participated and a full-time organizer if ten
parishes were involved. Interest in this process included the desire to engage
more church members in active parish life, the desire to connect the work of
Diakonia and the parishes, and to more effectively solve community problems
where high unemployment and its associated problems have persisted in recent
years.
A number of challenges arose during the Summer and Fall of 2005, which have
suspended work on this project. Long-term illness hampered two of the project
initiators. A major structural reorganization, involving combining the two
separate Diakonia and Superintendent structures into one, along with a number of
parish merges, overwhelmed other project initiators. And one of the pastors
reported having difficulty explaining and getting her church council excited
about the community organizing process.
During the past twenty months I have grown firmly convinced that
community organizing is applicable in the German and European context. This
conviction is rooted not only in the many positive comments made to me by
persons in one-on-one conversations and workshop settings, but also by the fact
that in fifteen locations plans are either being developed or community
organizing strategies have already been successfully utilized. This concluding
section will reflect upon reasons for this positive reception, as well as, a few
of the challenges involved in applying community organizing in this different
cultural context.
Earlier in this report I characterized the German Protestant Church as a “church
in transition”. From what I have learned, I think the word “transition” can also
be applied to many German institutions and German society as a whole. I would
like to briefly describe this societal transition as I have come to see it,
because I believe this is creating objective factors that have contributed to
community organizing’s positive reception.
A German national politician shared with me that Germany is currently facing
three primary challenges. The first is changing demographics, a population that
is growing older, causing strains upon health care, retirement, and other
provisions. A second challenge has been reunification and the costs associated
with rebuilding the former East Germany and addressing its higher unemployment
rate. And a third challenge is that of globalization, including the recent
expansion of the European Union from fifteen to twenty-five nations, leading to
the loss of jobs throughout Germany. These challenges have raised serious
questions about the German government’s financial capacity to maintain its
impressive but costly social welfare system.
To this list of challenges, I would add two more that I have frequently
heard. One is that of the growing migrant population and learning to positively
embrace a multi-cultural society. And the second is that of diminishing
participation in organizational life; such as religious parishes, political
parties, and clubs; due to a variety of factors but certainly including the
increased competition for people’s time from such technologies as the internet
and home entertainment centers.
Amidst these challenges, there is also much conversation in Germany and Europe
regarding the need to strengthen civil society, increase citizen participation,
and overcome social exclusion. These themes take on heightened importance in a
time of social and institutional transition if policy and other decisions
impacting the long-term future are to be made democratically and with
stakeholder involvement.
It is within this context of objective factors that I have found many Germans
and Europeans receptive to the theories and practices of community
organizing. Four reasons seem to account for this.
Community organizing offers a fundamental way of understanding why people
participate and concrete strategies for involving them. Earlier in this report
it is described that community organizing views self-interest and relationships
as the two primary reasons why people participate, and that one-on-one (or
face-to-face) visits are a key way to build relationships and discover persons’
self-interests. Also described was how an organization or parish can utilize
this understanding and one-on-one visits in a systematic “listening process” as
a way of engaging more people in the life of their organization. Repeatedly,
persons I have met who hold citizen participation and the strengthening of civil
society as important values (as well as, those who want to strengthen their
organization through greater member involvement) have told me these community
organizing ideas and strategies make sense. Eight of the developing projects
have made a one-on-one listening process a cornerstone of their future plans.
Community organizing is a means of overcoming cultural divisions. The act of
carefully listening to other’s self-interests through one-on-one visits is also
an important first step in embracing a multi-cultural society. Through careful
listening stereotypes are overcome, commonly held self-interests are discovered,
and cultural differences are better understood and often appreciated. At-least
seven of the developing projects have as a primary goal that of bringing
culturally diverse groups together into working partnerships.
Community organizing recognizes the need to build power in order to see that the
interests of socially excluded people are heard, respected, and implemented in
policy. As in the United States, many I have met in Germany and Europe have
negative stereotypes of power – usually because they associate power with
persons and actions that run contrary to their values of love and justice. But
they appreciate the community organizing understanding of the necessity of
building cooperative rather than oppressive power through organized people in
order to see that socially excluded people have an effective voice in policy
making.
Community organizing offers a systematic, transparent, and pragmatic approach to
building democratic organizations and getting things accomplished. Persons I
have met constantly share that what they like overall about community organizing
is that rather than dwell forever in a theoretical realm, it constantly seeks
pragmatic solutions within the context of democratic and transparent
processes. These comments have occurred in orientation presentations, but even
more so in project planning meetings when such topics as decision-making
structures, membership activation, action timelines, and community problem
solving have been discussed and planned.
While community organizing offers valuable strategies and approaches to
a number of objective challenges facing German and European institutions and
societies, there are also a number of challenges in adopting it to these
settings, four in particular.
The first is a cultural attitude that is certainly present in the United States,
but appears to me stronger in Europe and especially in Germany. This is a
reluctance to take risks and to move from a reactive to a proactive approach to
objective challenges and transition. Community organizing requires local
initiators with vision, courage, patience, and the willingness to try something
new. Implicit in my previous description of emerging local German and European
projects are the dozens of persons who want and are willing to try something
new. Among these persons I have found a very healthy approach to the concept of
potential failure, i.e. “So if we fail, we will learn from our mistakes and try
something else. But maintaining the status quo or simply reacting to current
challenges will get us nowhere.”
A second challenge in applying community organizing, especially in Germany, is
the prevalent attitude, “Why should I become involved? That is the government’s
responsibility.” I will not undertake a long description of the very different
roles played by the state in the United States and Germany in the areas of
social welfare and its accompanying attitudes toward personal
responsibility. Rather I wish to observe that people I have met who are drawn to
community organizing believe that in this time of socio-economic transition, the
government will feel less responsibility toward socially excluded people unless
these people are powerfully organized.
A third challenge I have often heard, especially in the context of discussing
one-on-one visits, regards cultural differences between the nature of human
relationships in the United States versus Germany. I do not deny that such
differences exist, and that this may change the style and nature of a one-on-one
visit. But I have now met many Germans who have successfully done one-on-one
visits and who see the important value of relationship building in the process
of involving people. And as is the case in the United States, the style of a
one-on-one visit will vary according to the personality and style of the person
conducting the visit and person visited.
The last challenge in adapting community organizing to Germany and Europe is
finding the money to make it happen. Indeed, the development of almost all the
projects mentioned in this chapter depend upon finding money for staffing,
training, and consulting costs. As discussed in a previous chapter, the three
primary sources of money used for community organizing in the United States are
membership dues, membership-lead fundraising events, and foundations. There are
approximately two-dozen foundations in the United States that financial support
community organizing. It should be noted, however, that this is an extremely
small percentage of the total number of American-based foundations, and that
this foundation support of community organizing has developed during the past
thirty years as community organizing has become more successful. German
foundations need to be persuaded that community organizing is an effective
approach to strengthening civil society and social inclusion. Membership dues
and member-lead fundraising events are also less developed in Germany, but are
now growing in importance.
Many German social work organizations utilize government money. This is seen by
many Germans as a key obligation of the state. In the 1970’s and 1980’s American
community organizing also relied heavily on government funding to support
organizing efforts. Beginning with the election of President Ronald Reagan in
1980, however, much of this government funding for community organizing was
eliminated, resulting in the collapse of hundreds of organizations. Since then
community organizations speak of the need for “independent money”, i.e. money
that is not eliminated if government leaders or others become displeased with
requests or demands placed upon them by community organizing. Indeed, I have
heard in Germany from many whose organizations are funded by the government that
they feel limited in their ability to speak and act in a truthful, powerful, and
prophetic way.
Some say that the German Protestant and Catholic Churches, along with their
service organizations Diakonia and Caritas, are limited in their ability to fund
community organizing amidst this present time of diminishing membership and
financial cutbacks. The words of a prominent Protestant regional church leader
with whom I spoke, however, contradicts this notion. “Paul, despite the recent
cutbacks, the German church is still a very wealthy institution. It is really a
matter of priorities. If the church thinks something is important, they will
find the money.”
Indeed, those who wish to make a priority greater citizen and membership
participation, the strengthening of civil society, and the building of power for
the sake of policy changes that reflect the values of social inclusion, justice
and democracy will find ways to overcome obstacles and challenges. Community
organizing can be a valuable tool to achieve these ends, and in the process will
undoubtedly be adopted and transformed to reflect the German and European
cultural reality and uniqueness.
Saul
Alinsky, the founder of American community organizing, used to
regularly point
out that the Chinese word for “crisis” consists of two
written characters: one that means “danger”, the other
that means “opportunity.” Whether one refers to the
EKD’s present and future as a time of transition or crisis, I
will leave to the reader. My sense, however, is that its current
challenges present unique opportunities to shape an exciting new
future while retaining the best of a very rich past. As home to the
Protestant Reformation and countless geniuses in so many human
pursuits; including theology and church practice; and based upon the
concerned, committed, and talent EKD leaders and members I have met,
I believe the future of the German church is one of hope and great
promise.
I
tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you
can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’, and
it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you. -
Matthew 17:20-21
Appendix I:
Germany/Europe Contact List Of Rev. Paul Cromwell
June
30
2005 (revised March 1, 2006)
Germany
Hamburg
- Professor Michael Rothschuh,
FOCO,
- Frank
Duchting, YMCA (CVJM: ChristlicherVereinJungerMenschenzuHamburge.V.) (KraftwerkMitte)
- VereinZukunftElbinselWilhelmsburge.V.: Dr.
Manuel Humburg, Astrid Christen, AngadSwinderski, Joerg Von Prondzinski, Claudia Roszak,
Hans-JuergenMaass, Thomas Ortmann, JoergvonProndzinski, Luis Repsold, Ruth
Lenz, Helger
- Peter
Bremme, Verdi Labor Union (VereinteDienstleistungsgewerkschaft, LandesbezirkHamburg)
- Sabine
Stovesand, University of
Applied Sciences (Hochshule fur angewandteWissenschaften) and
St. Pauli Neighborhood Organization
- Andrea
Vent, CarolaDiallo, One
World Foundation
- Karin
Haist, StiftungKoerber
- Sabine
Tengeler, StadtteilinitiativeLurup
- TimmKunstreich, EKD Fachhochschule
- JuergenBollmann,
Propst, Ev.-Luth.KirchenkreisHarburg
- Susanne Kienzler, DiakonischesWerk, Ev.-Luth.KirchenkreisHarburg
- AngelikaOhland, ChrismonDasevangelischeMagazin
- Claudia
Leitsch, GWA St. PauliSud
- 10/5/05
Wilhelmsburg Meeting: BayramInan, SonguelGuenel, GregorWaschkowski, InciMiyase, OezdenKaya, SamiSenguel,
JuergenDege, Hanna Hollstegge, TimmKunstreich, Manuel Humburg, Ruth
Lenz, SemraGuelender
- MunaAbd El-Salam, Student
- DraganaPrgomelja, YouthCenter
- MetinHarmanci, Business Advisor
- Barbara
Rose, EKD Fachhochschule President
- Esther
Pheiffer, SwantseKoldewey, EKD Fachhochschule
Students
- 10/4/05
Migrant Conference/Organizing Workshop: Martina Elter,
Doris Nack, Alice Boller, MeikeHeyne, Christian Trede, Ellen Marx, Nadine Rose, GesaBecher
- Martina
Elder – Diakonia, migrant work
- Rev.
Frank Engelbrecht, Hauptkirche
St. Katharinen
- Steffen
Kuehnelt, Veddel Pastor
- Rev.
Corinna Peters-Leimbach,
Pastor in Wilhelmsburg
- Katharina
Seiler-Neufert, DiakonieHarburg
- Frau
FrederikeRaum-Bloecher, GemeindeKirchdorf
- Harburg
Convent: Pastor Claus Scheffler, Vikar Lea Langenbeck
Bremen
- Joachim
Barloschky, ProjektsgruppeTenever-Quartiersentwicklung
- Heike Binne, ProjektsgruppeTenever-Quartiersentwicklung
Oldenburg
- Peter
Szynka, FOCO, Diakonie
- Gisela
Broers, FOCO, Diakonie
- Wolfgang
Bartels and Joachim von derOsten,
Vorstand, Diakonie
Oldenburg
Delmenhorst
- Birgitt Pfeiffer, NachbarschaftbueroDuesternort
- Daniel
Woefle, NachschaftsbueroWollepark
Hannover
- Rev.
Peter Weigand, EKD: Secretary for America Ecumenical Relations and Ministries Abroad
- Rev.
Heike Spiegelberg, EKD
- Wolfgang
Prauser
- HeinerBuschmann
- Frederick Groeger-Roth, Geschaeftsfuehrung, BundesArbeitsGemeinschaft
(BAG), SozialeStadtentwicklung
und Gemeinwesenarbeite.V.
- Gerhard
Elsner, Senior Organization
- Rosemarie
Lueters, Professor
- SozialwissenschaftlichesInstitutder EKD (Si-EKD): Gerhard
Wegner, UweLindloge, VeronikaDrews, Matthias Zeeb, JuergenRinderspraches,
Harry Jablonowski, Heinrich Grosse, ElkeNeuhausen
Hildesheim
- Professor
Michael Rothschuh, FachhochschuleHildesheim
- Dr.
Marcus, Caritas-Direktor
- Christa
Paulini, Professor
Osnabrueck
- Ralf
Brand, Former FOCO
Essen
- Oliver
Fehren, FOCO
- Wolfgang
Hinte, Professor
- Rev.
Annegret & UlrickHelmer, Pastor, South Essen Church Circle
- Wilfred
Nodes, FOCO
- Maria
Luettringhaus
Wuppertal
- Andreas
Bunge, FOCO
- Diakonie
- Elberfeld: Martin Hamburger, Andreas Bunge, Kirsten Wiedemeyer
- Michael
Klessmann, Seminary
- Sabine
Muench, FOCO, Sozialdieustkatholischer Frauen (OrtsvereinWuppertal-Barmen)
- Rev.
Manfred Rekowski, Superintendent
- Pastors
Meeting 4/21/05: Rev. BaerbelKrah, Marinna Fischer, Ulrike Peschken, Rev. IlkaFederschmidt, Rev. Korin Weber,
Ulrich Liebner, Rev. Manfred Alberti,
Rev. Dieter Albat, Wolfgang Flasche,
AnnelbeSchmid
Bochum
- Ralf
Getschmann
Duisburg
- Burkhard
& Sabine Biella, Pricewaterhouse Coppers
Dortmund
- SilkeMarzluff, Umbruch (BildungswerkfuerFriedenspolitik und gewaltfreieVeraenderung)
Duesseldorf
- Rev.
Dieter Pohl, EKiR-LKA: GemeindeberatungOrganisationsentwicklung
- Claudia
Zimmer, EKiR-LKA: GemeindeberatungOrganisationsentwicklung
- Rev.
Christine Busch, EKiR-LKA: Abteilung
III Oekumene – Mission – Religionen
- Rev.
Joern-Erik Gutheil, EKiR-LKA migrant work
Moers
- March
7 Pastors Meeting: Rev. Ulrike Krakow, Rev. Thomas Witt-Hoyer, Rev. TorstenMaes, Rev. Wolfgang Doering, Rev. Wolfram Syben, Rev.
Carl Goerdeler, Rev. Wolfgang Mueller, Rev. Dirk
& Christina Fiedler, Rev. Kurt Heyser, Rev.
Tobias Boehn, Rev. Marcus Held, Rev. ReinhardSchmeer, Rev. Barbara
& Ulrich Weyand
- Brigitta
Mueller-Osenberg
- Superintendent
Ferdinand Isigkeit
Hamm/Sieg
- 5/5/05
Pastors Meeting: Rev. Heinz-GuenterBrinken, Birgit Sommerfeld, Hans-Juergen Volk, Joachim Triebel-Kulpe,
Bernd Henrich, Volker Hassenpflug,
Gerhard Koslowsky, Markus Aust,
Marcus Tesch, JuergenSchaal, Hans-Joerg Off, Hans-Joerg Weber.
- Rev.
Michael Klein
Koeln
- MareikeMangold & ChristophMulders
- Rev.
Dorothy Schaper, Interfaith Work
Leverkusen
- Rev.
Bernd-EkkehartScholten (Zewdi Daniel), Pastor
Dueren
- Gemeinwesenarbeit: Hermann Schaaf, BirgittaKamman, HilleRichers (Tom
Fues, Julian, Jacob), Andreas Bohm, Ute Fischer, SilkeStrunk (Zeno & Leah),
Tilman Berger (Britta, Linda, Lorenz), BurhanCetinkaya
- Protestant Parish: Rev. Dirk Siedler, Rev. Martin Gaevert, Rev. Vera
Schellberg, FriedhelmSchreckenberg, Alexander Muller, Frau Zimmerbeutel, Frau
Buelter, GertraudEberius, Frank & MargaretePliestermann, Dr. Peter Johannsen,
Rev. Wolfgang Hindricks, KirstinSyster Hansen, Rob Maris, Sigrul Hermes,
Rosemarie Beier, Elisabeth Anorge, GertraudEberius, Helga Jansen-Mohn
Bonn
- Dr.
Adrian Reinert, StiftungMitarbeit
- Dr.
EdzardRohland, Retired
Pastor
- Iris
Martin
Neuwied
- 1/05
Pastors Meeting: Rev. Werner Zupp, Rev.
Reinhold Heinemann, Rev. Ulrich Baeck, Rev. Michael Ruf
Herborn
- Rev.
Peter & Rev. Gabriele Scherle, Seminary Professor
and Trainer
Hunsrueck
- Angela
Engelmann & Martin Adams, Diakonie, OberKostenz
- Rev.
Andreas & Anne Nehls, OberKostenz
- Klaus
Hahn, Retired Seminary Professor, Bad Muenster
- 9/30/05OberKostenz
Training: Ingo Bensch-Venner, Annette Stambke, Joerg
Lehmann, Sabine Woike,
Christine Kreischer, Klaus Engel
Gelnhausen
- Stefan
Gillich, Buckhardthaus
Wetzlar
- HaraldWuerges, EvangelischeKirchengemeindeNiedergirmesNachbarschaftzzentrum
- Rev. Marion Kunz, Ursula Mueller, Ingeborg & GlovisFugensi, EvangelischeKirchengemeindeNiedergirmes
- Simone Maeckler,
Quartiersmanagerin
Worms
- Juergen Maier, Iris Foerster; WormserSuedenSozialeStadtEntwicklung, DiakonischesWerk Worms-Alzey
- DoadimGirrbach, Diakonia Regional Director for Hessen
- Hans Seydel, Diakonia Frankfurt
Mainz
- Rainer
& Michaela Neubauer, FOCO
Saarbruecken
- Anne-Marie
Marx, FOCO, BuroStadtteilMalstatt
- BuroStadtteilMalstatt; Frank
Schmitz, PetraLeidiuger-Weisaug, Sabine Hammes, Gabriele
Ames, Claudia Fischer
- Burbach; GabiDincher, DagmarBrueck
- Brebach; SigrunKrack,
Ulli Hess
- Werner
Hubertus, Caritas
- Rosie
Divivier, FOCO, Diakonie
- ArminKuphal, PadsakGemeinwesenarbeit (Wackenberg),
Professor Universitaet des Saarlandes
Mannheim
- Rev.
Martin Huhn, KDA
- Klaus
Peter Spohn, Industrie-
& SozialpfarramtNordbaden
Wuerzburg
- Professor
Franz Kohout
- 6/28/05 Political Science Students: Julia
Weidner, Bastian Boehm, SandiaStaub,
Wolfgang Otto, Christian Gotz, Barbara Worshech, Mark Scheer, SimoaanPolreich, Nikolai Blaumer, Daniel Giruenauer,
Tobias Krafft, Stephanie Wenzel, JulianeKoenen, Carl-Joseph Kolb, Matthias Gauger
Stuttgart
- Walter
Haecker, FOCO
- Unemployed
Workers Organization (Myself)
- Marcus
Herzig
- Dr.
Michael Kienzle, StiftungGeissstrasseSieben
- Conny
Krieger, FOCO
- JuergenLand, Morgenrot Moderation
- Verdi:
Werner Bessert, Ursula Schorlepp,
SibylleWacker
- 5/05
Training in Wasserburg: Sabine Wandelt-Voigt, Renate Haefner,
Dieter Koschek, Martin Geser,
Helmut Roeck, KatrinBalzer
- Beate
Blank, Empowerment Consulting
- Helmut
Brandt, mypegasus
Schramberg
- Roland
Saurer, FOCO
Freiburg
- BurgerburoHaslach: Gerald Lackenberger,
Judith Brand
- Professor
Guenter Rausch (Stephanie), Evang.
Fachhochshule fur Sozialarbeit
- Uli
Pfeifer-Schaupp, Evang. Fachhochshule
- Forum-Weingarten-2000
e.V.: Elmar Weber, ChristelWerb, Elisabeth Lauck-Ndayi, Maria, Constanza
- Rev.
Dirk Schmid-Hornisch, Wolfgang and RheinhildeStahlberg, Chula Leypoldt-Harluig: Evangelische
Dietrich-Bonhoeffer-GemeindeFreiburg-Weingarten
- 6/8/05
Social Workers Class: Kerstin Arnold, Stefan Aannen,
Anne Binder, Bastian Wienands, Oliver Ernst, Daniel Strumfal, Gippert Eva, Stefan
Zimmermann, NataschaJek, VerenaFiederling, Ulrike
Fischer, Anton Jausch, Claudia Scharschmielt,
AntjeKirschenlohr, Leon
Wagner, Nicole Buehles, TabeaWieseke, Manuela Hecker,
Bettina Langemann, StefanieSaladino, Melanie Bader, Sarah Schmelzeisen,
Christina Kees, Julia Geeb,
Sven Muske, JochenKirchle, Samson Woldu, Anna Berwing, Marina Schaetzle,
Dominique Bach, Anne Weininger, Felix Glaesser, KatharinnaNanmann, AmalMainharoll,
Michael Kollahowski, CorinnaSchiel, MeikeRubesch, Natalia Jordan,
Dominique Wagner, Stephanie Wolf, Philipp Stemmer,
Julia Wormer, Ramona Koppe, Mantin
Ricker, InsoLangner,
Marina Feierabend, Regine
Pfeifer
- 6/10/05
Social Workers Meeting: Bettina Fieltsch,
Mathias Staenke, AnjaWenz, Particia de Santiago,
Judith Graff, Arnold Lueffler, Nina Kuhn, Sebastian Klus, JaninWerb,
ChristelWerb, Beate Blank, Gerald Lackenberger
- Sandra
Schrader, Caritas
- TanjaRosalowski and Lars
- Tobias
Speck, Father Heinz Vogel, Marianne Holm: St. Andreas Catholic Church
- KundFeierabend, EBW (ErwachsenenBegegnungsstraette Weingarten), Clemens Rietmann
- Matthias
Staenke, Nachbarschaftswerke.V.
- Joachim
Maier, MobileJugendarbeit Weingarten-Ost
- Clemens
Back, Professor
Munich
- Wolfgang
Goede (Luz Obesso), FOCO,
PM Magazin
- Anxiety
Self-Help Group (Monica, Gerta, Gabriella, Veronica, BrigittaGollmitzer)
- Center
for Applied Policy Research (Centrum fuerangewandtePolitikforschung):
Wolfgang Faenderl, Helmut Volkmann
- Dr.
Susanne Elsen, MunichUniversity of Applied Sciences (FachhochschuleMuenchen)
- Caritas
Migrant Work: Hester Butterfield, (Social Work Professor), Bettina
Pereira, Sabine Hodek, Angela Hartl,
Felix, Brigitta, Katrin, Twan, Teresa Fink, Martina, PatriziaLawani, TariqSyed
- ChristianeZubel, Caritas-ZentrumMuenchenOst/Land
- Senior
Citizens Organizing: DagmarBoedicker,
Margit Waterloo-Koehler
- Coalition
to Renew Democracy: Gunda Krauss, Fritz Letsch
- 4/18/05
Meeting with Wolfgang Faenderl: Winfred Leisgang, Christl Reimer-Metzger,
Dieter Skiba, Gunter Schneider, Manfred K. Veits, KnutHueneken,
Hans GeorgKlee, DagmarKoeniger, Michael Kroll
- 6/10-11/05
Training with Wolfgang Faenderl: KnutHueneke, DagmarKoeniger, Michael Kroll, MiloszMatuschek, Bernadette Raschke,
ChrislRiemer-Metzer, Heidi
Schulan and Sylvia Seib (WaldperlacherBuerger IG), Dieter
Skiba, Marianne Steffen, Manfred Veits,
Margit Waterloo-Koehler, Wolfgang Goede,
AntjeHoehler, Wolfgang Faenderl.
- 4/18/05
Catholic Social Work Students: Christine Tropmann,
Simone Dias, CorinnaObermaier,
Thomas Freisleder, Karin Metzger, GertrauaHeilmeil, Monika Riegler,
Louise Hudson, HeinerGroephe,
SigiRabenstein, Barbara Buettner, Benjamin Huettenrauch,
Madeleine Bayer, Birgit Kassuer, ConstanzeSeidenberger, VeronikaZieres, Annette Korntheuer, Julia
Jell, Elisabeth Ziesel, Lisa Stebner,
Simon Friedt, Elisabeth Ploessl
- Dr.
Peter Barrenstein, McKinsey & Company
Ravensburg
- IrmgardTeske,
Professor
Berlin
- Father
Leo Pentra, CatholicSocialWorkSchool
- Dr.
Wolfgang Vogele, EvangelischeAkademiezuBerlin
- MilenaRieda, FOCO
- Thomas
Behrendt, FOCO
- Birgit
Weber (Susanna Besch), Social Service Consultant
- Susanne
Sanders
- Markus
Runge (Harold), Nachbarschaftshaus
- Stephanie
Scholz (JohanneHeisig), DiakonischesWerkder EKD
- Professor
Doctor JuergenGohde,
President German Diakonia
- MatthaisBruckdorfer, Diakonie, Referent
fur AllgemeineSozialarbeitderDiaknonia (ProjektskizzeDiaVitA) (Secretary
Claudia Dubois-Reymond)
- Rev.
Karl-Heinz Drescher-Pfeiffer, Diakonie
- GoetelWildt, German Diakonie
- ReinhardThies, German Diakonia
- Rainer
Baake, Politician
- Bernhard
Heeb, Professor
- Peter
Bleckman, Youth Empowerment Partnership Program
Braunschweig
- Kate
Burchhart
Magdeburg
- Klaus
Skalitz, Caritas
- Michael
Spott, Diakonie
- Michael
Lorenz
Leipzig
- Lothar
Stock, FOCO, Professor
- Rev.
Karl and Sabina Albani (Sara-Lia,
Sophie, Rahel, Karl)
- Tobias
Habermann, QuartiersmanagementLeipzigerWesten
- Klaus
Hinze, Kontakt- und Selbsthilfezentrum fur SeelicheGesundheit
- Rev.
Michael Markert, Michaels-Friedensgemeinde
- Rev.
Christian Fuehrer, St. Nikolai
- Rev.
Martin Henker, Superintendent
- Frau
Friedrich, Vorsitzend, BuergervereinLeipzigerOstvorstadtImGrafischenViertel
- Leipzig
Social Work Students 4/14/05: Judith Wild, LennartTute, AntjeKertzcher, Dorothea Kretschmer,
Jana Lux, Eva Kiesewetter,
Thomas Goldmann, Sebastian Gruss,
Elke Holtz, Annett Mueller, Birgit Kliem, Sandy Roy, ConstanzeBurkert, KatjaKoge
Dresden
- Sabine
Schwerin & Dr. Peter Muller
- Professor
Harald Wagner, EvangelischenHochschule fur SozialeArbeit Dresden
- Grit
Gabler & Elisabeth Naendorf,
OekumenischesInformationszentrum
- Andreas
Malessa & Petra Reihke,
Chance auf Arbeit und Ausbildung
- Wolfgang
Bartel, adult education work
Gorlitz
- Prof.
Joachim Schutze, University of Applied Sciences Zittau/Gorlitz
Zittau
- Horst
& Rosemarie Schiermeyer, FOCO
- Gisela
Sprenger & Marian Melde,
LandfrauenkreisvereinLoebau-Zittau
- Winfried
Bruins, PDS
- Manuela
Wichary, Weitladen
- Rev.
Katharina Koehler
Czech Republic
- Rev.
CeslavSantarius, Director
of Silesian Diacony
- Rev.
Jan Kaclavek, Silesian Diacony
Board President
- Silesian
Diacony: Jana Adameova, ZuzanaKmentova, Svatopluk & Martina Chlapek, SarkaPivonkova, ZuzanaFilipkova, Andrea Calova
Bratislava, Slovakia
- JurajBarat,
Director, Caritas Slovakia
- Jana
Matejkinova, Diocesan CharitaNitra
- MargitaKulinova, Caritas Slovakia
- Peter
Malucky, SpisskaCharitas
- Pavol
Demes, German Marshall Fund
- Caritas Slovakia 10/20/05
Meeting: MilenaBeresecka (Nitra), Lubica/LubaMichalivkova
(B. Bystrica), MarekKrajnak (Spisska Nova Ves – north of Presov), Roman Lesko (Kosice), Margita, Juraj
Brussels, Belgium
- Albert
Brandstatter, Secretary General, Eurodiaconia
- Annegret
Kroger (StephanosAnastasiadis),
Eurodiaconia
- Heidi
Martinussen, Secretary General, Eurodiaconia
- Susanna
Heinasmaki, Eurodiaconia
- Martina
Liebsch, DeutscherCaritasverband
- Ulrich
Tiburcy, EU-Vertretung
BAGFW
- Dominic
Verhoeven, Caritas Belgica
- GerdaGoeman, Caritas Belgica
- European
Association of Service Providers for Persons with Disabilities (EASPD): KatrijnDekoninck, Mineke Hardeman, Joke Visser, LukZelderloo
- KathrinBodin, EuropabueroDiakonie Regional
- MechthildHauers, EuropabueroDiakonie Regional (Rheinland, Westfalen, Lippe)
Salzburg, Austria
- Julia
Becher, Fachhochschul- Studiengan fur SozialeArbeit
Vienna, Austria
- Barbara
Reiterer, OsterreichischeCaritaszentrale
- Marko
Iljic, Professor
Freistadt, Austria
- Gottfried Kern,
Professor
Zurich, Switzerland
- Edi
Martin, Professor
- UeliTroxler, Professor
Norrkoping, Sweden
- Maria
Bard (Sandra), St. Johannes Parish
- Irene
Linden, Mayor
- DittNyaHageby: Bernt
Schneider, Tony Eglund
- Tomas
Lindquist (Moa) – organizer of Your New Hageby and
other projects
- Jenny
Kollberg, organizer, NorrkopingAttetord (VartNyaAttetorp)
- Norrkoping Lutheran Superintendents: Rev. Bo-Lennart
Nilsson, Rev. Marie Amneus Hagman
- LisbetPaulsson, Director of Planning Office
- St.
Johannes Parish – Staff: Kristina Hallstrom, Helen Calner, PiaEklund,
Gerth, Lars,
Britt Inger, Rev. VivekaTjalve, Rev. Anna Toivonen, Per,
Rev. Irene Swartling, NiclasAndreasson, Karin Cederquist,
Vibeke Nordstrom
- St.
Johannes Board and Volunteers– Lars-Grunnar Holmen,
Mona Olsson,
Roan Andersson, Aqueta
Strom, Lena Rudelius, OveOhrberg, Anna Sannerud, Karin Skold, AmalYousif,
Ghalixa Al-Jara, EbbaBjorkman, Ruth Carlsson, Alicia Ekvall
- Kristina
Nedell, Diacon
Cork, Ireland
- Cork
City Council: Donal Guerin, Niamh
Murphy, James Molloy, Derry O’Donovan
- Peter
Herrmann, European Social Organization and Science Consultancy
Athens, Greece
- PetrosTsantilas, European Roundtable of Charitable Welfare
Associations
Budapest, Hungary
- Hungarian
Red Cross: Alice Szel, GyorgyiPolacsek, GyorgyiKopasz
Riga, Latvia
- Welfare
Department of Riga City Council: UvisKalnins, GunaEglite,
Inese Tone, Christoph,
John, Ava
- Santa
Cilevica, Evangelisch-LutherischeKircheLettlands
Pori, Finnland
- Pori Congregation: Mika Nokelainen,
MinnaHeinonen
United States of America
- Don
Elmer, Center for Community Change
- Ed
Shurna & Michelle Saddler, Chicago Coalition for the Homeless
- Marion
Mohrlock, FOCO
- UCC:
President John Thomas, Rev. Peter Makari, Rev. Lydia Veliko
Alinsky,
Saul, Reveille for Radicals, 1946
Alinsky,
Saul, Rules for Radicals
Bellah,
Robert, Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in
American Life, Harper & Row, New York, 1985
Borg,
Marcus, Jesus A New Vision: Spirit, Culture, and the Life of
Discipleship, Harpers, 1997
Borg,
Marcus, Reading the Bible Again for the First Time,
HarperCollins, 2001
Boyte,
Harry, Commonwealth: A Return to Citizen Politics, The Free
Press, 1989
Branch,
Taylor, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63,
Simon and Schuster, 1988
Brueggemann,
Walter, The Prophetic Imagination, Fortress Press, 1978
Carville,
James, We’re Right, They’re Wrong: A Handbook for
Spirited Progressives, Random House, 1996
Coffin,
William Sloan, Once to Every Man: A Memoir, Atheneum, 1977
Coffin,
William Sloan, Credo, Westminster John Knox Press, 2004
Cuomo,
Mario, Reason to Believe, Simon & Schuster, 1995
Freedman,
Samuel, Upon This Rock: The Miracles of a Black Church,
Harper, 1993
Hamilton,
Madison, Jay, The Federalist Papers, No. 10
Hordern,
William, A Layman’s Guide to Protestant Theology,
Macmillan Publishing Company, 1968
Horwitt,
Sanford, Let Them Call Me Rebel: Saul Alinsky-His Life and
Legacy, Alfred Knopf, 1989
Jacobsen,
Dennis, Doing Justice: Congregations and Community Organizing
Kidd,
Sue Monk, When the Heart Waits: Spiritual Direction for Life’s
Sacred Questions, HarperCollins, 1990
Kirshner,
Robert, Living a Life That Matters
Klaybill,
Donald B., The Upside-Down Kingdom, Herald Press, 1978, 1990
Linthicum,
Robert, Biblical Foundations for Community Organizing: A
Curriculum, 1999
Linthicum,
Robert, City of God City of Satan: A Biblical Theology of the
Urban Church, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids,
Michigan, 1991
Linthicum,
Robert, Transforming Power: Biblical Strategies for Making a
Difference in Your Community, InterVarsity Press, 2003
Maxwell,
John C., Developing the Leader Within You, Thomas Nelson
Publishers, 1993
Maxwell,
John, Partners in Prayer: Support and Strengthen Your Pastor and
Church Leaders, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1996
Moyers,
Bill, “World of Ideas: Interview with Ernie Cortes”,
Video
Niebuhr,
Reinhold, Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and
Politics, Charles Scribner & Sons, 1932
Nyberg,
David, Power Over Power, Cornell University Press, 1981
Paris,
Peter, Black Religious Leaders: Conflict in Unity (Insights from
Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Joseph Jackson, and Adam Clayton
Powell, Jr., Westminister/John Knox Press, Louisville, Kentucky,
1991
Pierce,
Gregory, Activism That Makes Sense: Congregations and Community
Organization, ACTA Publications, 1984
Rogers,
Mary Beth, Cold Anger: A Story of Faith and Power Politics,
University of North Texas Press, 1990
Ryan,
M.J., Attitudes of Gratitude
Sheehy,
Gail, Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life, 1976
Thucydides,
The Peloponnesian War, Book Five, Chapter 7: Sixteenth Year
of War. The Melian Debate
Walsch,
Neale Donald, Friendship with God: An Uncommon Dialogue,
Random House, 1999
West,
Cornel, Race Matters, Beacon Press, Boston, 1993
Wink,
Walter, The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium,
Doubleday, New York, 1998
- Compiled by Paul
Cromwell, 4/04
Church-Based Community Organizing
An
excellent introduction to the strategies of community organizing with
theological and personal reflections from a Lutheran Pastor who has
involved his church in a church-based organization.
Church-Based Community Organizing and the Bible
Linthicum,
Robert, Transforming Power: Biblical Strategies for Making a
Difference in Your Community, InterVarsity Press, 2003
Linthicum,
Robert, Biblical Foundations for Community Organizing: A
Curriculum, 1999
Dr.
Robert Linthicum is a Presbyterian Pastor who served three churches
in the USA Midwest that were involved in church-based community
organizations. His book describes the Biblical foundations for such
work. The “Curriculum” is a fifteen part study that can
be used with pastors and lay leaders. Each part is intended to take
one-and-a-half hours and covers the same themes as contained in his
book.
Jesus and the Bible from a Liberation Theology
and Historical-Critical Perspective
Borg,
Marcus, Jesus A New Vision: Spirit, Culture, and the Life of
Discipleship, Harpers, 1997
Borg,
Marcus, Reading the Bible Again for the First Time,
HarperCollins, 2001
Marcus
Borg is a theologian who uses an historical-critical method of
looking at Jesus and the Bible for thinking people. He does not make
direct connections to community organizing, but his view of scripture
is that of a liberation theologian.
Additional Biblical Perspectives
Klaybill,
Donald B., The Upside-Down Kingdom, Herald Press, 1978, 1990
Wink,
Walter, The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium,
Doubleday, New York, 1998
Walter
Wink examines the writings of St. Paul and his views of the
principalities and powers. Donald Klaybill examines the
socio-economic-political background and setting within which Jesus
lived and performed his ministry.
Collection of Sermon Quotes from an American Activist and Pastor
Coffin,
William Sloan, Credo, Westminster John Knox Press, 2004
William
Sloan Coffin served as the Chaplain of Yale University during the
civil rights and anti-Vietnam war era. He then served as pastor of
Riverside Church in New York, followed by a time as president of the
SANE/FREEZE anti-nuclear and environmental movement. This book
contains highlights from sermons and writings during his life.
-
Compiled by Paul Cromwell, 7/04
A
Paper Submitted to the Qu/A/Si Project
(Quality
& Accessibility of Social Services for Social Inclusion)
By
Rev.
Paul Cromwell and Peter Szynka
January
15, 2005
I.
Introduction
European people and nations are currently engaged in an important debate around
the themes and practices of citizen participation. This debate is
found within such terms and under such headings as the “European
strategy to combat social exclusion”, “civil
society”, “accessibility”, “principles
of governance”, the development of “national and
local action plans”, etc.
Growing out of the 1930’s Great
Depression and continuing through the War on Poverty, civil rights
movement, and numerous other historical and societal developments, a
tradition of community organizing has developed in the United States.
The American tradition of community organizing is multi-faceted and
continues to evolve as it works to increase powerful citizen
participation among low-income, minority, migrant, and other
vulnerable peoples (like persons with disabilities and single-parent
families). American community organizing has increased access for
these people to needed services, jobs and economic security, and to
the governmental decision-making processes themselves. It has also
helped persons become full-democratic participants and stakeholders
in their neighborhoods and cities. The American community organizing
tradition can help inform this European debate and practice of social
inclusion in a theoretical and practical way.
II. Key Concepts and
Practices of American Community Organizing
1.
Viewing
“Clients” as Talented and Democratic Participants
In
contrast to many social service and government approaches to socially excluded
and dispossessed people, community organizing looks at the talents
and rights of all people. Instead of “clients” with
needs and deficits, socially excluded and dispossessed people and
neighborhoods are viewed from an “assets-based” approach.
In addition to their individual gifts and talents, these persons are
viewed as the best source for identifying what community problems
need solving, and helping to identify the best solutions. In
addition, community organizing affirms the fundamental rights that
all persons have to shape their life and the life of their
neighborhoods and communities.
An
American theologian, Dr. Robert Linthicum, has articulated this
community organizing approach in reference to a church’s
relationship to its surrounding neighborhood. He speaks of three
basic ways the church can relate to the community: the church in
the community, the church to the community, and the church
with the community. The church in the community serves
its members but has no connection to the vast majority of the people
in the immediate neighborhood and their daily lives. The church to
the community provides services the church feels the community needs
(counseling, tutorials, food, clothing, etc.), but has very little
engagement with the people it is serving. The church with the
community begins its work by forming a partnership with area
residents, actively listening to them, and sharing its power in
shaping a plan to address community challenges. (“The Urban
Church: in, to or with the City” by Robert Linthicum, Theology,
News and Notes, 10/91).
While
Dr. Linthicum speaks of the church in relationship to the community,
his model of “in, to, and with the
community” can be used to evaluate governmental bodies and
social service providers. Three fundamental flaws exist in the
traditional “to the community” approach. First,
by not actively listening to the “clients” of services
and policy decisions, the services and policies themselves may not
address the true needs of the people and/or provide the wrong
solutions. Second, social services can often create unhealthy
dependency rather than healthy independence (thereby violating the
so-called “iron rule” of community organizing: “never
do for others what they can do for themselves”). Finally, the
“to the community” approach fails to acknowledge
the fundamental right that people have to participate in the decision
making processes that shape their individual and collective lives.
- Problem Identification Through Active
Listening in the Community
Community
organizing begins the citizen participation process by actively listening
to those who are socially excluded. Such listening can take the form
of face-to-face visits, house meetings, or community-wide forums.
These “listening processes” are conducted in a democratic
fashion by prioritizing community problems to be solved through
voting by a broad cross-section of the residents involved. The
listening process also accomplishes the task of bringing people out
of isolation by networking them with others who face the same
challenges.
- Engaging People in Identifying Community
Solutions
After
individual and community problems have been identified and
prioritized, the excluded
population is included in the research process of identifying and
evaluating potential solutions. The assistance of policy experts,
government representatives, university personnel, and successful
examples from elsewhere are sought and welcomed. The dispossessed
community in negotiating with policy makers, however, must have the
final word in determining what solutions will best work for them.
- The Concept and Use of Power
American
civil rights leader, Rev. Martin Luther King, recognized the basic misconception
and lack of comfort many people have with the concept of power when
he wrote the following:
“Power, properly
understood, is the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength
required to bring about social, political, or economic changes. In
this sense power is not only desirable but necessary in order to
implement the demands of love and justice.
One of
the greatest problems of history is that the concepts of love and
power are usually contrasted as polar opposites. Love is identified
with a resignation of power and power with a denial of love…What
is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and
abusive, and that love without power is sentimental and anemic.
Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice.
Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against
love.” Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?,
1967
Community
organizing recognizes that without such an understanding of power,
debates and actions taken on behalf of citizen participation and
civil society are often meaningless for socially excluded and
dispossessed people. Without such an understanding of power,
symptoms are often addressed rather than root causes of social
exclusion. Even if those who are excluded are listened to, if they
do not have power, their input is often ignored. Organizing the
socially excluded for power helps to insure that governmental bodies
and social service providers are held accountable for their
decisions, policies, actions, and services. It also often results in
greater openness, transparency, and effectiveness.
Power
manifests itself in democratic societies in two primary ways:
organized money
and organized people. Excluded communities lack the money of such
persons as wealthy developers to assert their will in policy
decisions, but when they are organized they possess the people power
to insure that their concerns will be listened to and seriously
considered by policy makers. Community organizing often holds large
public meetings with policy makers and the media as a way of
initiating effective negotiations to see that policy changes will
solve community problems.
- An Example of Community Organizing in
Practice
Rev.
Paul Cromwell, one of the authors of this article, worked as a
community organizer
in Jacksonville, Florida from 1995 to 2004. The organization of 35
member churches conducted a “listening process” every two
years to identify important community problems within low and
moderate-income communities. During an eight-week listening process
in the Fall of 1998, 200 members of the organization personally
visited 2,000 persons. One of the key problems sited by the persons
visited was the inadequacy of public transportation for low-income
workers in Jacksonville’s high unemployment Northside of town
to the Southside of the city where new jobs were more plentiful. A
typical bus ride, with many transfers, from the North to Southside of
the city typically took three hours.
The
organization’s membership and staff discovered that other
cities in the United States had solved this challenge by creating
centralized “bus hubs” and more direct bus lines. Staff
from a national organization that had worked with other citizen
groups conducted a local training for about fifty people. The local
organization believed that if a new bus hub were located in a
deteriorating shopping mall in a centrally located Northside
low-income neighborhood, it would not only help solve the
transportation problem, but would also bring potential shoppers to
this mall.
Twenty-five
of the organization’s low-income and minority members met with
the city-supervised transportation authority to share their ideas.
The organization also held a meeting of 600 of its members with these
same transit leaders and the media in order to gain commitments to
take action. The transit leaders agreed to establish the bus hub and
direct bus lines within the next two months. Transit time from the
North to Southside was reduced to less than one hour, the bus lines
were so popular that within six months they paid for themselves with
rider fares, and within a year the shopping mall where the bus hub
was located had attracted many new businesses and services.
- Independent Organizations and Money
Building
and sustaining citizen participation for excluded and dispossessed communities
requires independent organizations and money. In the United States a
full-time professional staff person (“community organizer”)
is required to help build the network of relationships and to provide
the technical expertise to actively engage 200 – 700 residents
of a neighborhood or city. If the majority of money for these
efforts comes from local government, the risk of losing funding
occurs if the citizens seek to hold the government accountable. If a
single-issue “movement” rather than an organization is
built, two problems can occur. First, movements tend to depend upon
charismatic leaders rather than on a collective of leadership, which
helps insure internal accountability and democracy. Second,
movements tend to dissolve after their single issue has been
resolved.
III. Conclusion
The
importance of social inclusion of dispossessed persons for the common good
of the entire society cannot be over estimated. Societal problems
related to social exclusion (such as ethnic and racial tensions,
crime, drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence, increased
unemployment and poverty, increased demands upon health care and
other services, lower educational achievement, etc.) impact not only
dispossessed people, but society as a whole. Employers have
difficulty finding trained and healthy workers, taxpayers and
governments are burdened with higher social service costs, and the
threat of social unrest and lack of societal cohesion impacts the
entire population.
The
community organizing tradition of the United States can help inform
the current
European debate and practice of citizen participation and social
inclusion in a theoretical and practical way. The theory of
community organizing views socially excluded and dispossessed people
and neighborhoods from the perspective of what they can contribute to
solving their own challenges, and their inherent rights to powerfully
and democratically do so. The practice of community organizing
offers a wealth of strategies for engaging people in the democratic
process of community problem solving and policy change.
The
authors of this article are members of the Qu/A/Si Project. Rev.
Paul Cromwell is an ordained minister with the United Church of
Christ and has served as a community organizer for twenty-five years
in the United States. He is currently working and studying in Europe
with the financial assistance of the Evangelische Kirche in
Deutschland and in partnership with the German Forum on Community
Organizing (www.fo-co.info). Peter Szynka works for Oldenburg
Diakonisches Werk and has been a member of the Forum on Community
Organizing for ten years and is its past president. Rev. Cromwell
can be reached by e-mail at PaulAllanCromwell@hotmail.com.
Peter Szynka can be reached at
Peter.Szynka@diakonie-oldenburger-land.de.
Rev.
Paul Cromwell is an ordained minister with the United Church of
Christ and has served as a community organizer for twenty-five years
in the United States. He is currently working and studying in Europe
with the financial assistance of the Evangelische Kirche in
Deutschland and in partnership with the German Forum on Community
Organizing (www.fo-co.info).
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