THE WORLD AS GOD INTENDED
BUILDING A CHURCH OF POWER
A VIDEO COURSE
FROM THE SERIES,
“BUILDING A PEOPLE OF POWER”
ROBERT C. LINTHICUM
CROWN MINISTRIES INTERNATIONAL
COLORADO SPRINGS, CO., USA
Building A Church of Power: Workbook
© 2005 Robert C. Linthicum
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or be placed in any information storage or retrieval system within the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand or any European country in any manner without prior written permission from the holder of the copyright, except as indicated in the next paragraph.
Material from this workbook may be reproduced by photocopying for classroom or church school use only without prior permission.
Queries regarding rights and permissions should be addressed to:
Robert C. Linthicum
Partners in Urban Transformation
1236 Fairway Circle
Upland, CA. 91784-1784 USA
909-982-3676
Fax: 909-982-3676
e-mail: rlinthicum@
website:
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible (NY: The Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, 1989) unless otherwise noted, and are used by permission.
Published by
Crown Ministries International
A ministry of Youth With A Mission
PO Box 26479
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80936 USA
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Printed in the United States of America
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction to the Course, “Building A Church of Power” 4
Using the Course in a Congregation, Community Organization or Group or
Personal Learning Situation 9
The Workbook
1. “Working for the Shalom of Your Society” 13
2. “The Church’s Call to Mission” 14
3. “The Church’s Call to Power” 15
4. “Essential Principles for Empowering People for Change:
the Nehemiah Solution (Part I)” 18
5. “Essential Principles for Empowering People for Change:
the Nehemiah Solution (Part II)” 19
6. “Avoided Biblical Strategies for Bringing About Change” 21
Bibliography 22
Additional Resources 23
Introduction to the Video Course,
“Building A Church of Power”
Welcome to the video course, “Building A Church of Power”. What is the mission of the church? And how is it to carry out that mission? In this insightful series of six sessions, Dr. Linthicum examines the Bible’s mission call to God’s people, biblical instructions as to how that call is to be lived out by the church in everyday life, and how God’s people are to build and use relational power as God’s specific means to carry out that mission.
This six-session course is one of a set of six video courses available in either DVD or VHS video. The other five courses are:
• “The World As God Intended (and as it actually is)” (5 sessions)
• “What Did Jesus Really Come to Do?” (4 sessions)
• “Building Relational Power In Your Community” (4 sessions)
• “Using Power to Turn Your City Upside Down” (3 sessions)
• “How to Develop Powerful Leaders and Build Values” (5 sessions)
The six courses comprise together a full curriculum on how the church can effectively impact and influence the world. That curriculum is titled “Building A People of Power”, and is available as a single 27-session course, as well as in this six-course format. Whether you are purchasing all of the six sets or are using the full curriculum, the content is the same. Of course, the six-set format was created in order to enable you to “pick-and-choose” the particular portions of the larger video course that you would like to use. But if you purchase the entire six-sets, you will have the same complete curriculum you would have if you had purchased the single course.
So what is the purpose of the full six-set video course? Let’s take a look at that.
What is this course about?
“Building A People of Power” is designed to enable Christians to successfully work for significant change in the world and to do so upon a sound and thorough biblical foundation. Thus, by using the principles, strategies and methodologies of “Building A People of Power”, you will be able to change the world around you and do so in a way consist with biblical truth.
We accomplish this by teaching you and/or your students or parishioners to discover:
• a biblical analysis of how one’s city or country’s economic, political and values-setting systems use their power either to empower or to exploit their poor and middle class;
• the biblical dream of the “Shalom Community” (or “Kingdom of God”) that should inform all that the church and Christians should be about;
• the unique work and witness of Jesus of Nazareth as he both proclaimed and sought to carry out God’s kingdom in the world as it really is, and as he sought to build a people to carry on that work after he had returned to the Father;
• biblical principles of how God’s people can successfully work both for public justice and for personal transformation;
• biblical models demonstrating how God’s people can bring about dramatic transformation of their city’s or country’s systems and structures, as well as its people;
• practical strategies and methodologies of community and broad-based organizing, leadership development and the building of a nation’s values.
Of course, none of the six sets deals with all of these course intentions. You can look at the titles of each of the six courses, and you can see which of the six emphases it addresses. For example, this set, “Building A Church of Power”, deals with the fourth intention. The first course, “The World As God Intended (and As It Really Is”, deals with the first two intentions.
If you order the full 27-session video course, “Building A People of Power”, all of the above intentions are covered in their entirety.
What resources do we receive for this course?
To help you and/or your students or parishioners to enter into this time of learning, there are a number of resources this course places at your fingertips. The primary resource, of course, is this video course itself. It is available in either DVD or VHS videotape. Each class session is about one hour in length. These sessions are not staged presentations. Instead, they were actual classes taught at the School of Strategic Mission, Youth With A Mission in Colorado Springs, CO in the USA. In essence, you and your students are joining in that class – but from a distance.
Along with the DVD or videotapes is this workbook. The workbook is designed to guide you and/or your students through this course, walking you through each step that is to be taken. The workbook also contains a listing of a wide spectrum of resources available to you and to your students to enhance further learning and/or direct involvement in community organizations, and increasing your capacity to teach others.
Finally, there is a textbook for this course, as well. It is Building A People of Power: Praxis for the 21st Century Church (Federal Way, WA: World Vision Press, 2005), and was written by the lead teacher of this course. As well, there are other optional books and readings that are listed that one can study, if so inclined.
Who is teaching this course?
Dr. Robert C. Linthicum, who teaches this course, is a respected biblical theologian, a person directly involved in “hands-on” community organizing in Los Angeles, a former pastor and a retired executive of a major mission agency. He is president of Partners in Urban Transformation and professor emeritus of urban ministry and community organizing at Eastern University, Philadelphia, PA.
Dr. Linthicum has been involved in urban ministry since 1957 in the United States, Africa, Asia and Latin America. He pastored churches in Chicago, Milwaukee and Detroit from 1959 through 1985, as well as working through those churches to create four community organizations, a housing corporation and an economic development corporation. In 1985, he and his wife moved to Los Angeles where he directed the Office of Urban Advance (OUA) for World Vision International through 1995. Under his leadership, the OUA brought 28 urban slum community organizations into existence, created 52 businesses, built over 6,000 homes and strengthened hundreds of churches in 21 cities in Asia, Africa and Latin America. He was Distinguished Visiting Professor at Eastern University from 1988 to his retirement in 2003. Dr. Linthicum left World Vision in 1995 in order to assume the helm of Partners in Urban Transformation.
Partners in Urban Transformation (PIUT) equips the urban church for engagement in public life. Over 17,000 pastors and mission leaders from over 90 cities in 21 countries have participated in urban ministry courses and workshops taught by Dr. Linthicum through PIUT and World Vision. Dr. Linthicum has been involved in “hands-on” congregation based community organizing since 1966, and is currently a leader in the metropolitan-wide broad-based organizing effort of the Industrial Areas Foundation in Los Angeles, known as ONE-LA. From 1995 through 1999, Dr. Linthicum also directed the Hollywood-Wilshire Cluster of Presbyterian Churches in Los Angeles, which combines the mission outreach and organizing efforts of six churches and mission agencies in a neighborhood of 420,000.
Dr. Linthicum is an ordained minister of The Presbyterian Church (USA) and the author of thirteen books, including the text for this course. He is married to his college sweetheart, Marlene, and they are the parents of two adult children and are grandparents to four. His present passion is to help form a new generation of city-committed church leaders who will “pick up the reins” from his generation and build a church that can glorify Christ by working for the transformation of the people and the political, economic, social and values-creating systems of the 21st century. “The church is the last, great hope of humanity,” he states, “if we are able to envision and act out new ways of being Church that significantly engages the issues, structures and people of the world with the power of Christ. But to do so, we must stop doing church work – and learn to do the work of the Church!”
How did this course come about?
When Dr. Linthicum went to work for World Vision in 1985, one of his primary responsibilities was to lead seminars and workshops in order to equip pastors and their churches to more effectively work for the transformation of their cities. When he met with key pastors to plan events, he would ask them what they wanted to study together. He soon discovered that American pastors answered that question quite differently than did pastors from Asia, Africa and Latin America. American pastors wanted to hone their skills in urban ministry. They would say, “How can we increase Sunday worship attendance?” or “How can we raise more money?” or “How can we have a greater impact on our neighborhood?” In other words, they wanted to be taught “tricks” that would improve their performance or would grow a church.
Pastors from Asia, Africa and Latin America wanted something profoundly different. They wanted to do biblical study and theological reflection together. They wanted less to know “how” than they wanted to know “why” to do ministry. They wanted theological grounding for ministries of evangelism, social service, advocacy, and working for substantive change in their city.
Thankfully, this division between American pastors and pastors of the Two-thirds World is less pronounced today. There is a keen interest on the part of American pastors to do biblical and theological reflection. And there is more interest today in Two-thirds World countries upon developing more effective skills of ministry. But that was not true twenty years ago.
Since he began urban ministry in 1955, Linthicum had committed himself to a discipline of daily biblical study and reflection on urban ministry, urban social analysis and a biblical theology of power. But this he had done for his personal spiritual edification. Now, as he worked with pastors throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America, he was being called upon to make that private reflection public, and to begin taking pastors through a similar process of working with scripture.
Slowly, over the years, several short-term courses emerged on biblical foundations for understanding the world as God intended it to be and as it actually is, the mission of Jesus, the work of the church to engage public life, and biblical principles for working for the systemic transformation of cities. Because Linthicum had been involved in congregation-based community organizing since 1967, he naturally integrated his biblical reflection with his organizing work. Over the next eight years, more than 9,000 Two-thirds World pastors participated in these courses – but during this time, he was never asked to conduct such learning events in the United States.
Then, in 1988, he was asked to begin teaching this material as academic courses at Eastern University (then “College”) to graduate students who were committed to doing urban ministry outside the USA. At first, the classes experienced low enrollment, but they steadily increased over the years as the Eastern program expanded and as the demand for urban biblical reflection increased. Finally, by the time Linthicum’s books, City of God; City of Satan and Empowering the Poor were published in 1991 and 1992 respectively, theological reflection on urban ministry became more commonplace in the USA.
The original course, upon which these six video courses are based, was developed in 1999 for Youth With A Mission in order to prepare their mission workers for ministry in strategic urban areas outside the USA. That course was then videotaped in 2000 to be used by YWAM in its School of Strategic Missions throughout the world, and was subsequently picked up by World Vision for the development and training of their urban staff around the world. Eastern University adapted it for use as an individualized distance-learning course for their School for International Leadership and Development. Then over the years, it was used by a number of other academic institutions and a few denominations for training purposes.
Finally, in 2004, the decision was made by the three producers of the original course (Procla-Media Productions, Christians Supporting Community Organizing and Partners in Urban Transformation) to make the course both available to and easily useable by churches, community organizations, small groups and individuals. It was therefore converted into the present six courses, which made it more accessible to the general Christian public.
How Can I Make Good Use of this Video Course?
You have likely gotten this video course for one of two purposes. Either you intend to use it for your own personal learning. Or you have obtained it in order to use it with others.
If you have gotten this course for your own learning, we have good news for you. This course was designed to be used individually. That is, it was created so that you could take this course by yourself. For such use, this workbook is the key to each session. Be sure to follow all of its instructions; it will be your guide through the course.
Or you have gotten this course to teach others. This course was designed with this purpose in mind, as well. It was created to be taught in small groups in which the group views the video and then together does the assignment in the workbook. The workbook is planned in such a way that It is possible to conduct the class either as a single small group (5-14 people) or as a large class (such as an adult Sunday school class of 15-100 people), viewing the video as a single group but then breaking into a number of small groups to work as independent groups with the workbook.
As you take this course yourself or guide your students through this course, you will discover that the same format is used for most (but not all) class sessions. Typically, once the class has been called to order and opened with prayer, the TV monitor is turned on and each session will begin with the video teacher “framing” the session (that is, telling you what he or she is about to talk about), and then teaching the session. This opening video time can be relatively short or quite extended. The video instructor then asks you to stop the video. At that time, you would do so and then turn to that session in the workbook. There, in the workbook you would do the research yourself or (if you are leading a group) lead the students through that exercise. Much of that work will be inductive Bible study. The student(s) would then come to their own conclusions based upon the biblical content they studied, and perhaps draw conclusions. Once that research is completed, the video would be turned on again so that the student(s) can watch the responses of the class who took the course in Colorado Springs (since they worked with the same identical material). Finally, the students would listen to concluding insights from the video instructor, and the session would come to its end.
We hope you will profit from this course – “Building A Church of Power”. We pray to our Lord that it will both richly bless you and will help equip you to be a far more effective blessing to the world around you as a “Christ-one” in your community. Enjoy!
Using the Course in a Congregation,
Community Organization or Group,
Or In a Personal Learning Situation
Building A Church of Power is designed for use as adult education by a church, religious community, clergy association, a community or broad-based organization or in other informal learning situations. It is also designed to be used for individual learning, in which one person takes the course by himself or herself. However, if you do this, it is important that you not simply sit down and view the video. For maximum effective learning, it is important that you do the inductive Bible studies and other work presented in this workbook, and that you read the textbook and other assigned reading.
How can Building A Church of Power be effectively used as a small group learning experience in your church or organization? It begins with understanding the difference between academic learning and a course that is designed for use in a church or volunteer organization.
Academic work differs from popular education in two ways. First, academic work is more intentional, purpose-driven (i.e., the students are taking the course to obtain a degree), and therefore requires intensive study outside of class on the part of the student. Second, the academic course is usually 35-45 hours in length. Those taking a course in a church, association or volunteer organization usually desire a significantly shorter learning experience that is also less academic. However, they don’t want things “dumbed-down”. They still want that learning experience to be intellectually stimulating and are sometimes willing to do limited and undemanding reading outside of class. We have intentionally designed Building A Church of Power to accomplish those objectives.
To teach this course, there will need to be two leaders in the classroom. The first is the teacher – that is, the person who is actually teaching the course on the video. He or she is present in the room through the video screen, but his or her perceptions, ideas and statements will profoundly impact the people physically present there.
The second person is a facilitator. That is a flesh-and-blood person physically present in the classroom (that is – you)! The course will not truly work without at least one facilitator. As facilitator, you play a very strategic role in the learning situation. Whereas it is the teacher’s responsibility to teach the course, it is your responsibility as the facilitator to facilitate each session of the course. The teacher is primarily concerned with the content of the course. You are responsible for the course’s process. Both are absolutely strategic. Without the content taught by the teacher, there is no substance to the course. Without a clear-cut process through which the class moves and the firm hand of the facilitator guiding that process, the class will quickly seek into chaos. And where there is chaos, no learning is going on! So, as facilitator, it is your responsibility to keep the learning process continuing throughout the course.
As indicated in the previous chapter, the same essential format is used for most (but not all) class sessions. Typically, the session will begin with the videotape teacher “framing” the session and providing basic content; this introduction can be either relatively short or quite extended. Then the video will stop and the class will break into small groups.
Using the workbook, the course facilitator (that is, you) would lead the students through the exercise contained therein. Much of that work will be inductive Bible study, done in small groups. Inductive Bible study differs from normal Bible study in that the student(s) look at a lot of biblical evidence and then, out of the accumulated data, come to a common conclusion. Rather than interpreting scripture (which is the way we normally study the Bible), inductive study simply lets the Bible speak for itself. And then, out of that speaking from several biblical passages, one draws conclusions about what that scripture is saying. Thus, the students taking this course would draw their own conclusions based upon the material the facilitator would have assigned from the workbook.
Following the small group (or individual) work assigned by the workbook, the students would gather before the video screen again, and the video would begin where it had previously ended. The students can then watch the responses of the YWAM class to the very same questions and scriptures, as they worked with the identical material. Finally, the students would listen to concluding insights from the videoed teacher.
This format of (1) video presentation, (2) small group work, (3) video-class participation and summarization is designed to be 1½ hours in length, with the video portion occupying one hour of that time. For some congregational and organizational learning experiences, a 90-minute session is ideal. But in other such informal learning experiences (such as a Sunday-morning or Sabbath church school or Bible school hour), actual class teaching time is limited to 45 or 55 minutes. No problem! Because each session’s video is “interrupted” by the small-group work, this allows for an easy division of each session into two 45-minute segments. That will always happen following two patterns.
The most often-occurring pattern is built around an initial 45-minute presentation. That presentation would occupy the first session of the Sunday/Sabbath School or community group class. The second session of this class would then consist of the class starting their session together by doing the small-group work, followed by watching the closing 15 minutes of the video presentation.
A less-frequent pattern is built around a short initial video presentation. That might be no more than five to ten minutes. That would then be followed by the small-group work. Those two elements would take 45 minutes to do. The next 45 minute session would be almost full video watching as the class watches the students in Colorado Springs respond to the material, followed by a more substantive presentation and summarization by the video teacher.
The point, however, is that all the sessions of Building A Church of Power are designed to be subdivided in this way, in order to accommodate these lessons to a 45-minute learning situation in a church school, congregation, pastor’s association, community or broad-based organization
The one thing you need to keep in mind if you adapt the course into 45-minute segments is that by doing so, you have doubled the length of the course. Thus, Building A Church of Power is a course of six 90-minute sessions. If you teach it in 45-minute segments, however, you have lengthened the six-session course to twelve sessions. That’s obvious, when you think about it. But if you haven’t thought of it, it can mess up your planning. So keep in mind this simple formula: if you cut the session in half, you have doubled the number of sessions!
There are a number of creative ways you can offer a course like Building A Church of Power. Obviously, such a course fits neatly into the Sunday/Sabbath or church school schedule of any church. But you can also offer such a course over a single weekend as a workshop or a retreat. The course of three or four sessions fits nicely into a one-day retreat or workshop. And the four- to six-session course can be used for a two-day workshop or retreat. Or these short-term courses could be offered mid-week. For example, in one of the churches I pastored, we made our Wednesday nights the primary midweek gathering time of our busy congregation. We began at 6:00 p.m. with dinner for our families, followed by a brief worship service – all finished by 7:00 p.m. The children and youth then went off to designated areas of our church building for age-appropriate activities and learning experiences. The adults and older youth would each take a 45-minute class (we offered a number of courses simultaneously). After a brief break, each adult and older youth would go to their mission group, task force, committee or even choir practice until 9:00. Thus, virtually all weeknight church activities were accomplished on one evening a week as entire families participated together in shared meals, study, worship and work.
Further, if you have obtained all six video courses, you can “mix-and-match” them, using them whenever you wish to and over whatever period of time you might choose to use them. You could use them following the course of the curriculum, beginning with session one of The World As God Intended and ending with the final session of How to Develop Powerful Leaders and Build Values. But why be unimaginative? You could use Building Relational Power In Your Community to train members of your church or community organization on how to do effective individual meetings (one-on-ones), as the group prepares to do calling in their congregation or community. At the same time, How to Develop Powerful Leaders could be used for the training and stimulation of church or organizational leaders. What Did Jesus Really Come to Do could be used with a communicant’s class or in a course on the person and work of Christ and the doctrine of salvation. Thus, you can use the material, “mixing” up their order and “matching” them to the particular groups with which you are working. Only your imagination limits the uses to which this material can be put.
Finally, let me say a word about “assignments” and “exercises”. Each session in the workbook ends with an assignment, and sprinkled throughout the workbooks are occasional exercises. How can you make effective use of these workbook offerings?
Learning is greatly enhanced by reading beyond the classroom. We who have created Building A Church of Power have attempted to select assignments from material we feel is not academically rigorous, but which we believe gives further (and sometimes even significant) insight into the topic at hand. Such reading is certainly not required at this informal learning level. And no matter what you do, there will be those who will refuse to do anything further outside the class. But it is important to urge the people to do the reading, because that reading normally covers material that there wasn’t time to cover during the class time but which is strategic to the study.
The readings fall into two categories. “Priority Reading” is basic material that adds significantly to the content explored in class or reinforces it at a significant level. “Optional Reading” is additional reading that goes well beyond the class and is often considered classic in the field. Hopefully, you will be successful, as the facilitator, in getting people to read the assignments (one way of doing that is to charge them for the purchase of the books; people tend to prize what they invest in).
Further, there are occasional “exercises” in a few of the assignments. Those exercises help to both apply and deepen the learning your students are experiencing through these sessions. We do recommend that you have them do such exercises because actually doing what they have been taught will more likely mean they would incorporate that learning in their daily lives (that is, they act their way into a new way of thinking). That is particularly true in doing the “one-on-ones” (individual meetings) exercises in the course, “Building Relational Power In Your Community”. But such exercises occur in other courses, as well.
As you can see from this chapter, Building A Church of Power need not be an academic exercise. It can become a powerful tool that you can use to help the transformation of your congregation, association, community or broad-based organization into a body of people who can really make a difference in their own worlds and in the world around them. Why not use it in this way?
The Workbook
Session One
“Working for the Shalom Of Your Society”
I. Open this session with a short time of prayer or worship. Turn on video for the presentation of this session by Dr. Linthicum. Turn off the video at the end of the session.
II. Participation in the following biblical work:
A. This session will end with some small group/individual biblical work which will be presented at the beginning of Session Two.
If you are taking this course as an individual, work with each of the listed scriptures, studying each in the light of the stated question, and then drawing conclusions for the entire grouping of scriptures based upon each of these passages.
If you are taking this course as a group, divide into five small groups. Each small group is to work with the assigned scripture, answering the question from that scripture.
B. How the Church is to work for the shalom of its society:
“How are we as God’s people to seek the peace of our city or society through:
Group 1: Presence James 1:19-27
Group 2: Prayer Ephesians 1:15-23
Group 3: Practice Matthew 25:31-46
Group 4: Practice Jeremiah 22:13-17; Isaiah 61:1-4
Group 5: Proclamation Romans 10:9-17”
There will not be time at the end of this session to gather as a large group for the reports of the small groups. That will be done at the beginning of Session Two. Instead, adjourn the session from the small groups.
IV. Assignment for Session Two:
Priority Reading: Linthicum, Building A People of Power, the first third of chapter four.
Optional Reading: Saul Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, ch. 6.
Session Two
“The Church’s Call to Mission”
I. Beginning of session:
A. Open the session with a short time of prayer or worship.
B. In session one, you should have completed the assigned biblical work in your small group. Now have each group report its findings and conclusions to the whole class. Then, as a total class, draw conclusions regarding how the Church is to work for the shalom of its society through the exercise of presence, prayer, practice (social action) and its proclamation, according to these scriptures.
II. Turn on video to watch the reports from the SOSM small groups on the same question. Then, watch Dr. Linthicum’s presentation. Watch the video until the completion of this session.
III. Assignment for Session Three:
Priority Reading: Building A People of Power textbook, second third of chapter four.
Optional Reading: Alinsky,, ch. 7.
Session Three
“The Church’s Call to Power”
I. Open this session with a short time of prayer or worship. Turn on video for the first presentation of this session by Dr. Linthicum. Turn off video at the designated spot in the video.
II. Participation in a reflection on power:
A. If you are taking this course as an individual, work with the list given of the characteristics of organizations and people who know how to exercise power, and contrast with the list of powerless organizations and people. Then, work with the questions at the end of “B” below.
If you are taking this course as a group, reflect as an entire group on the two lists of powerful organizations/people and powerless organizations/people. Then, share together, guided by the questions at the end of “B” below.
B. How people’s organizations with power tend to exercise that power, how people’s organizations without power tend to act when they need to act powerfully, and how individual people without power act and react to situations of powerlessness:
| | |
|People’s Organizations with Power |Powerless People’s Organizations |
|Direct, focused, personalized confrontation |Untargeted symbolic demonstrations |
| | |
|Specific in demands which can be quantified and implemented | |
| |Vague, abstract, general demands impossible to implement |
|Negotiate; realistic give and take based on recognition that an | |
|agreement is desirable; compromise is alternative to domination by one|Absolute; 100% or nothing, compromise is viewed as equal to “selling |
|side |out”. Everything or nothing view of morality. |
| | |
|Set or have a voice in setting the agenda | |
| |React/respond to someone else’s agenda |
|Preserve the dignity of their adversary; provide room to save face; | |
|distinguish role behavior from the person |Demonize opponents; attack them as evil persons; no distinction |
| |between public role and the humanity of the person. |
|Realistic understanding of self-interest; understand constraints or | |
|limits within which adversary operates |Appeal to absolute morality; no understanding of limits within which |
| |adversary operates. |
|Seek a settlement | |
| |Seek total victory of “right to death” |
|Flexible | |
| |Rigid |
|Deal with the details that make a program or policy work; interested | |
|in implementation |Unconcerned with what it takes to make something work; think this is |
| |someone else’s problem. |
|Accept responsibility for their actions. | |
| |Consequences aren’t important because “truth” or “God is on our side.”|
| | |
|Type of Individual “Shaped” by Power |Individual “Shaped” by Powerlessness |
|Self-confident; head high |Insecure. |
| | |
|Speaks directly in specific terms |Fluctuates between obsequious and intemperate behavior. |
| | |
| |Weak internal gyroscope; appealed to be demagogues; can be drawn into |
|Knows where she/he stands; recognizes that compromise is appropriate; |rioting. Dependent. |
|interdependent. | |
| |Shuffles; intimidated by authority. |
|Looks you in the eye. | |
| |Suspicious of “The Other” who is seen as a threat. |
|Respects diversity; enjoys “give and take” | |
| |May be fatalistic, self-hating, low self-esteem or exaggerated |
| |self-importance. |
|Understands self in relation to others; healthy | |
|self-love/self-respect. |Is a victim who sees self as a martyr in his cause. |
| | |
|Acts on core values; loves life; recognizes there are some things to |Right; authoritarian personality. |
|die for. | |
| |Dependent on others; low tolerance for details; impatient. |
|Flexible; democratic personality. | |
| |Blames someone else. |
|Seeks to become more and more competent in public life. | |
| | |
|Accepts responsibility for his/her actions. | |
Have the group work with the questions, “How do you see these contrasts reflected in the organizations in which you have participated and in the people who provide leadership to those organizations? How have such characteristics helped to mold that organization for good or for ill? Have the people who have been in those organizations felt empowered or made powerless?”
III. Return to the Video, the reports of the SOSM class and Dr. Linthicum’s conclusions.
IV. Assignment for Session 4.
Priority Reading: Linthicum, Building A People of Power, third portion of ch. 4
Optional Reading: Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, ch. 8.
Session Four
“Essential Principles for Empowering People for Change:
The Nehemiah Solution” (Part I)
I. Open the session with a short time of prayer or worship. Turn on video for the first presentation of this session by Dr. Linthicum. Turn off video at the designated spot in the video.
II. Participation in the discussion.
A. If you are taking this course as an individual, it might be helpful if you could invite other pastors and/or friends to sit with you in this session and to watch the video with you. You could then egage with them in discussion around the two questions which follow. If you cannot have other people view the video with you, then write down your own answers to these questions.
If you are taking this course as a group, discuss the following questions together in that group.
B. Comparing Nehemiah’s methodology and our own, discuss the following questions:
1. “What is similar in Nehemiah’s strategy to the approach churches tend to use today to carry on ministry?”
2. “What is significantly different in Nehemiah’s strategy to the approach churches tend to use today both within their own interior life as a congregation and in their engagement with their neighborhood or city?”
3. “How is the health, well-being and effectiveness of the Church affected by our not taking seriously the Nehemiah model for ministry?”
III. Return to the Video, the discussion of the SOSM class and Dr. Linthicum’s conclusions.
IV. Assignment for Session Five.
Priority Reading: Linthicum, Building A People of Power, the first half of ch. 6.
Optional Reading: Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, ch. 9.
Session Five
“Essential Principles for Empowering People for Change:
the Nehemiah Solution” Part II
I. Open this session with a short time of prayer or worship. Turn on the video for the first presentation of this session by Dr. Linthicum. Particularly take note of the following empowering process which Dr. Linthicum will present:
The church learns from the constituency it is seeking to reach:
• The people’s hopes and strengths
• The people’s problems and issues
• The natural leaders of the people
• Those who care enough to take action.
The people are then brought together where:
• They analyze the problems facing them
• They transform the problems into issues
• They determine the solutions and create plans of action
• They implement and carry out the actions
• They evaluate the results
• They move on to the next action.
II. Turn oiff the video at the designated spot in the video.
A. If you are taking this course as an individual, work with the questions below; writing down your answers may help you in formulating those answers.
If you are taking this course as a class or group, separate from each other and go off by yourself to reflect upon the following questions.
B. Thus far, the sessions in this course have described the work of a powerful change, capable of changing its neighborhood or city, its own self and the lives of its members. In the light of the explorations on power of the four previous sessions and this session, how would you answer these questions?
1. In the light of what I have explored thus far in this course, in what ways am I concluding that my church should move in reaching out to the world around it? (Write down your answers, in order not to forget them.)
2. In what ways should my church build its interior life and equip its members to act out this outreach into the world? (Write down your answers.)
3. What is God calling me to do to enable my church to become, in its life and mission, what God is calling it to be? (Write down your responses.)
III. Return to the Video, the insights of the SOSM class and Dr. Linthicum’s conclusions.
IV. Assignment for Session Six.
Priority Reading: Complete ch. 6 of Linthicum’s text, Building A People of Power.
Optional Reading: Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals, ch. 10.
Session Six
“Avoided Biblical Strategies for Bringing About Change”
I. Open the session with a short time of prayer or worship. Turn on video for the first presentation of this session by Dr. Linthicum. Turn off video at the designated spot in the video.
II. Participation in the following biblical work:
A. If you are taking this course as an individual, work with each of the listed scriptures, studying each in the light of the stated question. Draw conclusions for the entire grouping of scriptures based upon each exploration of a scripture.
If you are taking this course as a class, divide into your five small groups. Each small group is to work with the assigned scripture, answering the question from that scripture.
B. Avoided biblical strategies for bringing about powerful change:
“What were the tactics used by the people of God to change the systems (i.e., look at the tactic or methodology used by the person, not the content)?”
Group 1: Nehemiah 5:1-13
Group 2: Acts 16:16-40
Group 3: Exodus 1:8-20
Group 4: Acts 15:1-29
Group 5: John 21:15-19
Once you have all completed your work in the small groups, have each group report its findings and conclusions to your whole class. Than, as a total group, determine what are the five tactics being demonstrated in these five scriptures which the Church, by and large, tends to avoid .
III. Return to the video, the responses of the groups at the SOSM class and Dr. Linthicum’s conclusions.
IV. No Assignment.
Bibliography
Alinsky, Saul D., Reveille for Radicals (New York: Vintage Books, 1980)
Bruggemann, Walter. Hope Within History (Atlanta: Westminster-John Knox Press, 1987)
Bruggemann, Walter. Peace (St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2001)
Bruggemann, Walter. Prophetic Imagination (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978)
Chambers, Ed. Roots for Radicals: Organizing for Power, Action and Justice (London: Continuum Press, 2001)
Freedman, Samuel G. Upon This Rock: The Miracle of a Black Church (NY: Simon and Collins, 1993)
Friere, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed (London: Continuum Press, 1984)
Gecan, Michael. Going Public: An Organizer’s Guide (NY: Anchor Books, 2002)
Gornik, Mark. To Live in Peace: Biblical Faith and the Changing Inner City (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002)
Green, Joel. The Gospel of Luke (Grand Rapids, MI.: Eerdmans, 1997)
Harris, Maria. Proclaim Jubilee: A Spirituality for the 21st Century (Atlanta: Westminister-John Knox Press, 1996)
Hertig, Paul. “The Multi-Ethnic Journeys of Jesus in Matthew: Margin-Center Dynamics”, Missiology: An International Review, Vol. XXVI, No. 1 (Scottdale, PA: ASM, 1998)
Howard-Brook, Wes. Becoming Children of God: John’s Gospel and Radical Discipleship (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Press, 1994)
Jacobsen, Dennis. Doing Justice: Congregations and Community Organizing (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 2001)
Kinsler, Ross and Gloria Kinsler, The Biblical Jubilee and the Struggle for Life (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Press, 1999)
Kraybill, Donald B. The Upside-Down Kingdom (Scottsdale, PA: Herald Press, 1978)
Linthicum, Robert C. Building A People of Power: Praxis for the 21st Century (Federal Way, WA: World Vision Press, 2005)
Linthicum, Robert C., City of God; City of Satan: A Biblical Theology of the Urban Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1991)
Linthicum, Robert C. Transforming Power: Biblical Strategies for Making A Difference (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003)
Mouw, Richard J., When the Kings Come Marching In: Isaiah and the New Jerusalem (Grand Rapids, MI.: Eerdmans, 2002)
Myers, Ched. Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988)
Pierce, Gregory F.A. Activism That Makes Sense: Congregations and Community Organization (Chicago: ACTA Publications, 1984)
Rogers, Mary Beth. Cold Anger: A Story of Faith and Power Politics (Denton, TX: University of North Texas Press, 1990)
Trocme, Andre. Jesus and the Nonviolent Revolution (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1998)
Ucko, Hans (ed). The Jubilee Challenge: Utopia or Possibility (Geneva, Switzerland: WCC Publications, 1997)
Warren, Mark. Dry Bones Rattling: Community Building to Revitalize American Democracy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001)
Wink, Walter. Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 1992)
Wink, Walter. The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium (NY: Doubleday, 1998)
Additional Resources
Primary Presenter
Dr. Robert C. Linthicum, President
Partners in Urban Transformation
1236 Fairway Circle
Upland, CA. 91784
Phone: (909) 982-3676
Fax: (909) 982-3676
E-mail: rlinthicum@
Website:
Video Course Producers
Christians Supporting Community Organizing
P.O. Box 60123
Dayton, OH. 45406
Phone: (508) 799-7726
E-mail: cscocbco@
Website:
ORGANIZE Training Center
442-A Vicksburg
San Francisco, CA. 94114
Phone: (415) 648-6894
E-mail: MikeOTC@
Partners in Urban Transformation
(see above)
Procla-Media Productions
Youth With A Mission
P.O. Box 26479
Colorado Springs, CO. 80936
Phone: (719) 380-0505
Fax: (719) 380-0936
E-mail: procla@
The producers of this video course have obtained all authorizations, consents, licenses, agreements and other approvals or permits which are necessary to allow the use, reproduction, publication, dissemination or other use of this video course, including its videos, workbook, textbook, packaging, supplementary listing and assignments, advertising or representation for which any claim of right may be asserted.
Video Course Sponsors
Eastern University School of Strategic Mission
Center for Organizational Excellence Youth With A Mission
School for International Leadership P.O. Box 25490
and Development Colorado Springs, CO. 80936
1300 Eagle Road (719) 527-9594
St. Davids, PA. 19087-3696
(610) 341-1483
Eastern University Southern California District
Graduate Business Programs Assemblies of God
Institute for Urban Studies 17951 Cowan
Urban Economic Development Irvine, CA. 92714
990 Buttonwood Street (949) 252-8400
Philadelphia, PA. 19123
(215) 763-3383
The Needmor Fund Vanguard University of Southern CA.
2305 Canyon Blvd., Suite 101 Center for Leadership
Boulder, CO. 80302-5651 55 Fair Drive
(303) 449-5801 Costa Mesa, CA. 92626
(714) 556-3610
Roberts Wesleyan College World Vision International
Center for Christian Social Ministry Staff Development Department
Master of Social Work 800 W. Chestnut Avenue
Northeastern Seminary Monrovia, CA. 91016-3198
2301 Westside Drive (626) 303-8811
Rochester, NY 14624-1997
(716) 594-6490
All sponsoring agencies, as listed above, are to be held harmless with respect to any claim relating to any error, omission, defect or inaccuracy in any video, workbook, textbook, packaging, supplementary listings and assignments, advertising, representation or other material produced as part of or relating to this video course or project.
PIUT
Partners in Urban Transformation
Partners in Urban Transformation is a ministry dedicated to the equipping of the church for engagement in public life. It does this through providing learning opportunities, consultancies and both published and electronic resources, as well as by operating laboratories that conduct experiments in urban ministry. PIUT partners directly with highly innovative urban ministries both in the United States and throughout the Two-thirds world. Besides being a ministry, PIUT is also a religious order.
PIUT has its origins in a major ministry innovation of World Vision International – the Urban Advance -- which that relief and development agency hosted from 1985 through 1997. The Urban Advance worked in 21 large cities in Asia, Africa and Latin America where it developed 28 local community organizations in slums and squatter settlements. The Urban Advance itself concentrated on training lay-people and pastors to organize their poor communities, building a cadre of professional organizers in each city, developing adequate funding sources and networking with both national and international organizations to provide support and political and economic influence. The organizing work in these slums and squatter settlements resulted in people’s organizations being built in every city, 52 economic development projects created, over 6,000 homes constructed, slum infrastructures built, people taught to read, governments held accountable to act justly, the rescuing of hundreds of street children, the training of more than 8,000 pastors and hundreds of community workers, and the strengthening or planting of scores of churches.
In 1996, Linthicum left World Vision to assume the presidency of Partners in Urban Transformation. PIUT concentrates upon preparing people, churches and mission organizations to work in public life, seeking justice for all, equitable distribution of wealth and the building of a relational culture centered on a relational God. It provides consultancy services to mission agencies, denominations, churches and local community organizations in the fields of strategic planning, community organizing, discernment processes, mission studies, innovative urban ministry, economic development, multicultural ministry and the building of biblical and theological foundations. PIUT has conducted workshops, seminars and retreats for more than 9,000 pastors since 1996 in urban biblical and theological reflection, community organizing, urban spirituality and urban mission and ministry. Linthicum has taught at Eastern University in Philadelphia, Claremont School of Theology near Los Angeles, United Theological Seminary in Dayton and Vanguard University in Costa Mesa, CA. PIUT regularly develops field laboratories for training, experimenting in urban ministry and in integrating learnings into the field of urban ministry. Among its most successful laboratories have been the Hollywood-Wilshire Cluster of Presbyterian Churches in Los Angeles, the Oklahoma City Cooperative Urban Parish (Methodist, Presbyterian, Disciples of Christ), and the Pomona Hope Community Center in Pomona, CA. PIUT’s publications include a wide spectrum of both technical and popular material on urban ministry, biblical foundations and community organizing. This includes books, papers, curricula, video/DVD/CDRom courses, and seven video courses, of which this is one.
A recent ministry innovation of PIUT has been its partnership with Servant Partners, an international mission agency committed to empowering the urban poor in Asia, Africa and Latin America. That partnership is committed to systemically addressing the issue of extreme poverty (a family living on less than $1.00 a day) through developing their capacity, ability and willingness to take substantive action to address their poverty.
PIUT is not only a training organization and a mission agency. It is also a religious order. This religious order was created by the members and associates of PIUT for the purpose of enabling us to pay attention to our corporate and individual spiritual formation in order to both deepen our relationships with each other and God, and to support each other in our respective works of ministry. PIUT is a dispersed order, operating in each of our respective communities, congregations and ministries. As a dispersed order, there are two forces that gather us together into one community. The first is our annual retreat, where we gather for a week to be in community with each other and to strengthen both our ministries and our lives in Christ. The other is the daily disciplines of prayer, Bible study, and our engagement in public life and our accountability for the use of our money and time.
There are three levels of individual and corporate participation in PIUT: members, associates and friends. Members are those who agree to the disciplines of the religious order, annually give a financial gift to PIUT and participate in its corporate life. Associates include all of the above but also include a commitment to provide leadership to PIUT either by serving on its board of directors or by being engaged directly in its ministry (e.g., leading workshops, teaching courses, writing for publication, etc.). An individual or corporate friend is a person or instruction that gives annually to PIUT, but assumes no other responsibilities.
For further information, contact: Dr. Robert Linthicum
Partners in Urban Transformation
1236 Fairway Circle
Upland, CA. 91784-1784
(909) 982-3676 (phone/fax)
Email: rlinthicum@
Website:
The Organizing Networks
There are community, church-based and broad-based organizations in over 300 cities of the United States and in pivotal cities throughout the world. Most of these local and citywide organizations are members of one of the networks listed below.
ACORN National Training and Info. Center
1024 Elysian Fields Avenue 810 N. Milwaukee Avenue
New Orleans, LA. 70117 Chicago, IL. 60622
Phone: (504) 943-0044 Phone: (312) 243-3035
Gail Cincotta, Executive Director
Wayne Rathke, Chief Organizer
DART PICO
The DART Center 171 Santa Rosa Avenue
P.O. Box 370791 Oakland, CA. 94610
314 NE 26th Terrace Phone: (510) 655-2801
Miami, FL. 33137-0791
Phone: (305) 576-8020
Ed Bauman, Executive Director
John Calkins, Director
Gamaliel Foundation RCNO
203 North Wabash, Suite 808 738 East 92nd Street
Chicago, IL. 60601 Los Angeles, CA. 90002
Phone: (312) 357-2639 Phone: (323) 755-1114
Gregory Galluzzo, Director Eugene Williams, Executive Director
IAF Servant Partners
220 West Kinzie Street 1550 E. Elizabeth Street, Suite U-12A
Chicago, IL. 60610 Pasadena, CA. 91104
Phone: (312) 245-9211 Phone: (626) 584-5717
Edward Chambers, Executive Director Derek Engdahl, Executive Director
ACORN
(Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now)
ACORN is unique among all organizing networks in that it is the only network to build its power around individual membership rather than institutional membership (except for Servant Partners, each of the other networks is an “organization of organizations” such as churches, religious institutions, schools, unions and community groups). ACORN organizes low- and moderate-income families in 850 neighborhood chapters in 75 cities in the US, Canada, the Dominican Republic and Peru. It has steadily grown from a small group of welfare mothers who began the organization in Little Rock back in 1970.
Two other features distinguish ACORN – an absolute commitment to organizing the poor plus a constant willingness and ability to break new ground. From the beginning, when it brought together black and white, welfare and working poor, ACORN defied expectations of what a community organization could be. It pioneered multi-racial and multi-issue organizing, led the way in electoral organizing and branched into innovative housing development, community media and labor organizing.
For 35 years, ACORN has built grassroots organizations from the bottom up. The same principles that guided the first neighborhood groups in Arkansas still guide the organization today. ACORN members are active members who participate in local meetings and issue campaigns. Each person takes the initiative to join ACORN and plays an active role.
ACORN is committed to organizational democracy and grassroots leadership. Members, not staff, speak for and lead the organization. They elect leaders from within their communities to serve on city, state and national boards that set policy for the organization.
Finally, ACORN is committed to the principle of financial self-sufficiency. Members pay dues and organize a wide array of grassroots fundraising events which today accounts for 75 percent of the entire organization’s budget.
ACORN’s agenda includes affordable housing, tenant unions, community reinvestment, bank and insurance red-lining, jobs and income, union organizing, schools, voter registration and electoral politics.
For further information, contact: Wayne Rathke, Chief Organizer
ACORN
1024 Elysian Fields Avenue
New Orleans, LA. 70117
Phone: (504) 943-0044
(Material taken from “ACORN: The People United, 1970-1995 and from its website)
DART
Direct Action and Research Training Center, Inc.
DART is a midsize network, primary doing institutional organizing in southern states and in the Midwest USA. It tends to organize in midsize cities (e.g., Dayton, Columbus, Louisville, Jacksonville), organizing exclusively through local churches. It was founded in 1982 on the basis of a commitment to democratic principles and Judeo-Christian values of justice and fairness. It grew out of two organizing experiences in south Florida. One was a coalition of Senior Citizen groups addressing issues of concern to low-moderate income seniors. The second was an organization of African-Americans that was developed after the 1980 riots in Miami. The leadership and staff of both organizations, in addition to national church leaders, were convinced that the organizing experiences of these two groups were transferable to other communities.
DART has now grown into a training and consulting network of more than 20 grassroots organizations. Seven of these congregation-based community organizations are in Florida, and the remainder is in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan and Ohio. DART’s primary goal is to promote justice and equality of opportunity through the empowerment of low-moderate income people.
The fundamental problem addressed in all of DART’s work is the disparity of power faced by persons in low-moderate income communities where the absence of democratic community organizations denies the opportunity of taking successful action to solve problems. The systemic issues facing most communities are the pervasiveness of low-wage, non-benefit jobs, disparities in health care, public education and safety, and the persistent ineffectiveness on the part of public and private structures in delivering services equitably to low-income people.
DART’s vision is strongly rooted in an understanding that religious congregations have a prophetic role to play in holding society’s political and economic systems accountable for acting fairly. With this as a framework, DART offers the following four types of services:
1. Building new congregation-based community organizations where there is interest and the potential for long-term, self-sustaining organizations.
2. Providing consulting and training for existing organizations in the DART Network on an ongoing basic.
3. Providing workshops on organizing skills for religious institutions and community groups, and
4. Recruiting and training organizers, particularly minorities and women.
Because it is an organization of congregations, DART has a very strong biblical training component that includes introductory training in how to read and use the Bible to do social analysis and to work for corporate and social reform in cities through community organizing. Its annual Clergy Conference is a continuing means for honing biblical interpretation and organizing skills of its pastors and church leaders.
For further information, contact: John A. Calkins, Executive Director
DART
P.O. Box 370791
Miami, FL. 33137-0791
Phone: (305) 576-8022
(Material provided by DART)
The Gamaliel Foundation
The Gamaliel Foundation was originally established in 1968 to support the Contract Buyers League, an African American organization fighting to protect homeowners on Chicago’s Westside. In 1986, the Foundation was reorganized as an organizing institute providing resources to community leaders in their efforts to build and maintain empowerment organizations in low-income communities.
The Gamaliel Foundation has grown to more than forty affiliates in twelve states, and in nearly every major metropolitan area in the Midwest. Increasingly, the Foundation is called upon to assist in building power organizations abroad. In 1998, the foundation established its first international project by creating the Natal Organizing Project in the Republic of South Africa.
The Gamaliel Foundation brings an array of resources to groups committed to creating powerful citizens organizations. It provides its affiliates with the tools needed to train and develop leaders and staff. These tools include extensive leadership training, strategic planning, issues development, staff recruitment, staff development and fund raising expertise. The goal is to build powerful, effective, local and metropolitan organizations that become vehicles for leaders to participate in making decisions affecting their communities. Through their connection to the Gamaliel national network, local organizations are able to effect change at ever-broader levels of power – local, state, regional and national.
The Gamaliel Foundation builds on grass-roots empowerment and uses the tools of community organizing to advance progressive social transformation rooted in the faith values of its membership. This is evidenced in the National Leadership Assembly of the Gamaliel Foundation, an annual gathering of hundreds of delegates from Gamaliel affiliates which shapes and guides the mission and direction of the Gamaliel Foundation. In the Gamaliel National Clergy Caucus, it offers theological training, resources and representation for its approximately one thousand clergy.
Increasingly, political and economic decisions are made at a regional, national and global level rather than at a local or even citywide level. The Gamaliel Foundation is responding to this shift by assisting in the creation of a national network of metropolitan-wide organizations. Regional organizing is essential to address the root problems facing neighborhoods. Such organizing creates the opportunity to counteract parochialism and bridges race and class divisions and political boundaries by building coalitions of diverse groups acting together on their collective self-interest.
For further information, contact: Gregory Galluzzo, Director
The Gamaliel Foundation
203 North Wabash Ave., Suite 808
Chicago, IL. 60661
(312) 357-2639
(Material provided by the Gamaliel Foundation)
IAF
The Industrial Areas Foundation
The IAF is the oldest and largest of the organizing networks in the USA, as well as doing organizing in Great Britain, Germany and South Africa. It was founded in 1940 by Saul Alinsky, who first practiced and articulated the essential principles which community organizing uses today. It still continues that organizing task through four regional organizations working in 78 cities. Those cities tend to be the largest of USA cities (e.g., New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Dallas, etc.). Organizing is broad-based and includes middle-class suburbs as well as inner cities.
Over the past sixty years, the IAF has attempted to positively impact the economic, social, political and cultural pressures on families and communities through the organizing of congregations and institutions to engage in public life. This has been accomplished by creating board-based, multi-issue, diverse “power” organizations that identify, train and develop indigenous leadership. The building and operation of these organizations is guided by Judeo-Christian values and the experience of the American democratic experiment.
The training and calling forth of leaders (a leader being one who has a following and can deliver that following) is based on the IAF’s iron rule: “Never do for others what they can do for themselves.” Thus, it teaches the skills of public life – engagement, debate, negotiation, compromise – to ordinary people who want to organize and exercise power on behalf of their families, congregations, schools, neighborhoods and institutions.
In the IAF culture, organizing is defined as “constant disorganizing and re-organizing”, as organizations and people seek to adapt to a constantly changing world. Consequently, during its 60 years, organizing under the IAF has moved through three distinct phases. The earliest organizing was neighborhood organizing (e.g., the “Back of the Yards” or the Woodlawn communities, both in Chicago) because power at the time was primarily local. A second phase of organizing by IAF was congregation-based organizing as city neighborhoods decayed leaving religious institutions as the only effectively organized institutions. Today, faced with the reality that power is no longer local or even vested finally in cities but is increasingly exercised regionally and nationally, IAF has moved into broad-based organizing.
Broad-based organizing seeks to organize around a “relational” culture – i.e., institutions with the capacity to act effectively by listening to, understanding and powerfully connecting the individual and collective stories of its members, their histories and experiences. Such organizing, to be effective, must be regional in scope (e.g., the Los Angeles metropolis is an area 150 miles by 95 miles, and with nearly 130 distinct political entities). Although religious institutions are a primary base of such organization, public and parochial schools, organized labor, civic organizations, social service groups and non-profit agencies encompassing the middle and working classes are a part of the constituency organized. Building on the premise that power precedes program, a region-wide, broad-based constituency of relational power is built before it can be mobilized on behalf of its negotiated, collective, public interests on a scale necessary to bring about change.
For further information, contact: Edward Chambers, executive director
The Industrial Areas Foundation
220 West Kinzie Street
Chicago, IL. 60610
Phone: (312) 245-9211
(Material provided by the IAF)
NTIC
The National Training and Information Center
Neighborhood residents are the experts on the needs of their own neighborhoods. That’s the radical idea that led to the formation of the National Training and Information Center in 1972. Understanding this led to a core belief: to be effective, NTIC has to be a catalyst, bringing into partnership the key players who determine the viability of our nation’s neighborhoods.
Today, a group of about 15 organizers, researches and other staff at NTIC carry out that vision. They offer ideas and tools to “everyday” people from all walks of life who are committed to improving their communities, in three basic ways:
Training.
NTIC trains community organizers and key neighborhood leaders from on average 125 local organizations each year. Training is offered at a low cost to the local organizations, since NTIC’s experience is that groups most needing assistance can least afford it.
Research.
Neighborhood organizations frequently find themselves embroiled in policy debates with representatives from the business and public sector; they need specific, useful information to document the problems in their communities. In many cases, NTIC can provide that information.
Technical assistance and consulting.
Organizing staff logs thousands of hours on the phone and travel thousands of miles every year to provide technical assistance, answering questions that usually begin “How do I . . .?” NTIC has also produced several dozen manuals on the “nuts and bolts” of community organizing and specific issues over the years and has published Disclosure, a bi-monthly newspaper that covers neighborhood organizations around the country.
The philosophy NTIC has long espoused is issue-based community organizing. It is the process of listening to neighborhood residents identify problems they wish to solve and bringing them together to pursue solutions, then helping to bring together neighborhood residents and representatives with power to solve those problems. The end result is neighborhood gains, as people who previously were isolated begin to build power and a means to improve their communities – and in the larger picture, the towns, regions, states and eventually the country of which they are a part.
“Of the best victories,” an organizer’s catchphrase runs, “the people will say, ‘We did it ourselves’.” The victories for neighborhoods are the victories of the many NTIC-trained community organizers who have made neighborhood organizations succeed over the years.
For further information, contact: National Training and Information Center
801 N. Milwaukee Avenue
Chicago, IL. 60622
(312) 243-3035
(Material provided by the NTIC)
PICO
People Improving Communities through Organizing
People Improving Communities through Organizing serves a national network of congregation-based community organizations. PICO’s mission is to build community organizations with the power to improve the quality of life of families and neighborhoods.
Through the PICO network, people learn to participate in and influence our political system and democratic institutions. Those who were previously ignored, excluded or apathetic become involved. People’s stake in our society is made real. Family life is strengthened. The once-torn fabric of neighborhoods is rewoven. At the very heart of this mission is the process of helping people to help themselves.
Congregations of all denominations are the building blocks of a locally affiliated PICO community organization. The members of a local congregation and those living in the neighborhood join together in a powerful expression of unity that transcends racial, ethnic and income differences. PICO seeks to involve all elements of a community based on the following principles:
• Respect for human dignity
• Creation of a just society
• Development of the whole person.
PICO carries out its mission in three ways. First, PICO builds new community organizations and provides technical support to existing organizations. For new projects, PICO raises seed money, assists in creating a sponsoring committee, oversees the initial organizing effort, recruits the organizer, and helps establish a secure local funding base. Once a local organization is built, PICO provides continuing consultation and technical assistant.
Beginning with one affiliated organization in 1972, the PICO Network today has projects in eight states and 45 cities, which includes over 325 local congregations containing approximately 275,000 families. Hispanics make up 38% of all PICO families, Anglos 33%, Blacks 21% and Asians 7%. Twenty-four religious denominations are represented.
Second, PICO Trains leaders. PICO sponsors joint training for leaders drawn from all of its Network organizations. This is done at the National Leadership Development Seminar that is held twice each year. This seminar provides leaders with theory and practice of congregation-based organizing.
Third, PICO recruits and develops community organizers. There are 39 professional organizers in the PICO Network and 7 staff and consultants working directly for PICO. Their recruitment and development is a critical function of PICO and a key to its success.
For further information, contact: Ed Bauman, executive director
PICO
171 Santa Rosa Ave.
Oakland, CA. 94610
(510) 655-2801
(Material provided by PICO)
RCNO
Regional Congregations and Neighborhood Organizations
Regional Congregations and Neighborhood Organizations is centered in organizing small- to medium-sized African American congregations. Historically, three institutions have transmitted common values and culture in African American communities: the family, schools and churches. Families are on the verge of collapse. Parents have lost control of public schools. Consequently, the church must act as a primary force in reversing deterioration.
We are witnessing the end of the “Second Reconstruction” in America. The United States is shifting from an industrial-base to an information and technological-based society. As the economy continues to reconstruct itself many of the cultural and economic assumptions under which African American families and institutions have operated are becoming obsolete. States rights, welfare reform and the dismantling of the Federal “safety net” is pushing more people permanently into the ranks of poverty. More poverty equates to greater despair, an increase in dysfunctional families and continuing deterioration in public education.
Important lessons from the “First Reconstruction” can inform those concerned about contemporary circumstances. Concepts of compassion and concern for the poor will take a back seat to the acquisition and consolidation of wealth. Race relations will continue to deteriorate. As a result, many of the gains made by people of color will be reversed. The prison industrial complex will flourish.
Despite the challenges, new economic and political realities will provide opportunities to foster strategies of self-determination and collaboration in communities of need. RCNO aims to achieve these objectives by building the capacity of small to mid-size African American churches to provide traditional and non-traditional education programs; develop youth intervention programs; assist local congregations in gaining access to affordable credit; and create micro-economic opportunities.
Faith based community organizing provides theologically grounded techniques and skills to effectively organize African American communities. To do so, however, its churches must augment the “Worship” model of ministry with a “Prophetic Service” model. In the Worship model, the pastor views the congregation as consumers who consume the word on Sundays and in mid-week Bible studies, and consume through giving tithes and offerings in exchange for hearing sermons; in other words, the congregation is essentially reactive.
In the Prophetic Service model of ministry, however, the pastor views the congregation as producers, the congregation forms leadership teams, these leadership teams address congregation and community issues, the congregation engages in “public discourse” on critical issues, and thus the congregation becomes proactive. RCNO believes that small to mid-size churches are replete with untapped “human capital” and that capital can be organized as churches work together in a faith-based community organization.
For further information, contact: Rev. Eugene Williams
RCNO
738 East 92nd Street
Los Angeles, CA. 90002
(323) 755-1114
(Material provided by the RCNO)
Servant Partners
Servant Partners (SP) is committed to the empowerment of the world’s urban poor through the development of community organizations and peoples churches. They do this by living in community among the poor, organizing slum communities for action, building local leadership, evangelizing in faith, and working beyond race and class. The SP organizers are primarily young couples and singles from across the world (the major national sources of workers are the United States, Brazil, the Philippines and Africa). The essential strategy upon which the ministry of Servant Partners is built in its local ministries is the principles and strategy of community organizing. Partners in Urban Transformation has partnered with Servant Partners to conduct much of its training and its organizing theory.
Currently, over 60 SP organizers are working in teams in the following situations:
• Pomona, CA., USA – In this city presently rated as one of the poorest small cities in the USA, SP is using principles of community organizing to build a consortium of suburban and inner city churches and missions in an organizing effort that enables community residents to rebuild their communities;
• Santa Ana, CA., USA – doing a church plant among Santa Ana’s Hispanic poor;
• Bangkok, Thailand – organizing in several squatter settlements;
• Khartoum, Sudan – a partnership effort with Life in Abundance organizing effort, headed by Dr. Florence Muindi;
• Mexico City, Mexico -- a new work with an organizing team consisting of three Americans, two Swiss, one Zimbabwean, one Mexican and one Brazilian;
• Mumbai, India – a new organizing effort, building relationships as the first stage of organizing in selected Mumbai slums;
• Nairobi, Kenya – this is a capacity site where SP is partnering with a ministry already in place – Daybreak (Pastor Imbumi Makuku);
• North Africa – security prevents stating this site in print; this is a beginning work.
At its present rate of growth, SP plans to have about 100 organizers in cities throughout the world by 2007.
To enable the community organizing ministry of SP to grow, to prepare new candidates for mission and to enhance the abilities and capacities of present workers, SP conducts a number of training activities.
For further information, contact: Derek Engdahl, Executive Director
Servant Partners
1550 E. Elizabeth Street, Suite U-12A
Pasadena, CA. 91104
(626) 584-5717
(Material provided by Servant Partners)
Resources
The Building A People of Power Resource
THE BOOK
Building A People of Power: Praxis for the 21st Century Church:
God didn’t intend the church to be an institution! God intended it to be a people of relational power, using the power of Christ to transform the world into a shalom community of justice, elimination of poverty and relationship with God. Building A People of Power, the most important biblical study of power written by Robert Linthicum, presents how God’s people can exercise power (“the capacity, ability and willingness to act”) to share with Christ in building God’s kingdom of shalom.
THE VIDEO
The video course, “Building A People of Power”, is being released with Linthicum’s book as six short courses of three to six sessions, as well as continuing as a single set. Primarily taught by Linthicum, this teaching video also includes important lessons taught by Marilyn Stranske (an organizer with the PICO community organization in Denver, MOP and former president of Christians Supporting Community Organizing) and Mike Miller (director of the ORGANIZE Training Center and former editor of the journal, Social Policy). This video course is available both in DVD and in VHS (USA video) formats.
The six short courses are as follows:
• The World as God Intended (and As It Really Is) (5 sessions)
• What Did Jesus Really Come to Do? (4 sessions)
• Building A Church of Power (6 sessions)
• Building Relational Power in Your Community (4 sessions)
• Using Power to Turn Your City Upside Down (3 sessions)
• How to Develop Powerful Leaders and Build Values (5 sessions)
Price: The price varies, according to the number of sessions each course contains.
The Base Package:
You can also order the full video course, Building A People of Power. It consists of fourteen videos or DVDs containing 27 class presentations and an introductory session. The base package also includes one copy each of the textbook, Building A People of Power and the facilitator’s workbook.
Price: $300.00
|HOW TO ORDER: |
|Any of the above materials can be ordered from Christians Supporting Community Organizing, Partners in Urban Transformation or Procla-Media |
|Productions. Addresses, e-mail addresses and websites are found on p. 23. |
Additional Resources from
Partners in Urban Transformation
The following are a sampling of books, videos, curricula, papers and Bible studies available from Partners in Urban Transformation. For a detailed description of each resource, visit PIUT’s website or write for a free catalog. You may order resources directly through the PIUT website or by phone, fax, mail or email.
Partners in Urban Transformation
Business and Sales Office
Mailbox # 44, 25101 Bear Valley Road
Tehachapi, CA. 93561-8311
Phone: (661) 821-0656 Fax: (661) 821-0676
Email: partnersoffice@
Website:
Books by Robert Linthicum:
• Building A People of Power: Praxis for the 21st Century Church (World Vision Press, 2005)
• Transforming Power: Biblical Strategies for Making A Difference In Your Community (InterVarsity Press, 2003)
• City of God; City of Satan: A Biblical Theology of the Urban Church (Zondervan, 1991; out-of-print; available only from PIUT)
• Empowering the Poor: Community Organizing Among the City’s ‘Rag, Tag and Bobtail’ (MARC, 1992, 1999; out-of-print; available from PIUT until supplies run out)
• Signs of Hope in the City (MARC, 1995)
• Christian Revolution for Church Renewal (Westminster, 1972; out-of-print; available from PIUT until supplies run out)
Books by Other Authors:
• Saul Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals (Vintage Books, 1989)
• Edward Chambers, Roots for Radicals: Organizing for Power, Action and Justice (Continuum, 2003)
• Samuel Freedman, Upon This Rock: The Miracle of a Black Church (Simon, 1993)
• Gregory Pierce, Activism That Makes Sense: Congregations and Community Organization (ACTA, 1984)
Videos:
• Building A People of Power: Biblical Foundations for Faith-Based Community Organizing (27 session course in VHS video or DVD)
• The World As God Intended (and As It Really Is) (5 session course, VHS or DVD)
• What Did Jesus Really Come to Do? (4 session course; VHS or DVD)
• Building A Church of Power (6 session course; VHS or DVD)
• Building Relational Power In Your Community (4 session course; VHS or DVD)
• Using Power to Turn Your City Upside Down (3 session course; VHS or DVD)
• How to Develop Powerful Leaders and Build Values (5 session course; VHS or DVD)
Short Term Adult Education Curricula:
• “Church: Discover Your Calling” (mission discernment process)
• “The Gospel According to Ephesians” (eight 60 or 90-minute sessions
• “How God’s People Can Address Injustice” (four 60-minute sessions)
• “It Wasn’t About the Walls: Nehemiah and the Transformation of Us All” (seven 60- to 90-minute sessions)
• “Jesus, Jubilee – and Money!” (five 60 to 90 minute sessions)
• “The Man Who Turned the World Upside Down: Paul in Acts” (nine 60-minute sessions)
• Who Is This Man? A Study of Jesus from the Four Gospels” ((nine 60 to 90-minute sessions for Advent, Christmas and Epiphany seasons)
Curricula for Extensive Courses:
• “How to Make A Difference: A Biblical Introduction to Community Organizing” (20 90-minute sessions or 10 three-hour sessions, for a total of 30 instruction hours)
• “Building People Power, Leaders and Community” (20 90 minute sessions or 10 three-hour sessions, for a total of 30 instruction hours)
• An Introduction to Community Organizing (an individualized 36-hour distance learning course on CDRom)
Papers:
• “The Biblical Understanding of the World As It Actually Is”
• “Building Heaven and Creating Hell: The Bible on Economic, Political and Religious Systems and Their People”
• “Doing Community Organizing in the Urban Slums of India”
• “God’s Call to the Urban Church: Claiming Your Birthright”
• “How Far Along Is Your Church? The Life-Cycle of Congregations”
• “How Struggling Churches Can Cluster for Power”
• “The Individual Meeting: A Way of Life and Ministry”
• “The Key to Personal and Church Transformation: the Doctrine of Vocation”
• “Paul: The Man Who Understood Power”
• “People of Vocation: An Amazing March Through Scripture”
• “Principles of Leadership Taken From Scripture”
• “Relational Power: Bringing Morality Back Into Public Life”
• “The Shalom Community: The Thread That Ties the Bible Together”
• “The Surprising History of Evangelicalism and Why We Need to Rediscover It”
• “We’re Here Because He Was There: Nehemiah and the Transformation of Society”
• “We’re Not in Kansas Anymore: the 21st Century Urban World”
• “Why Some Churches Succeed and Others Don’t”
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