Alan Cross blogs at Downshore Drift, where this was originally posted.
When I moved to Montgomery to work at Gateway Baptist, there was a shift in my focus in that I worked in a surburban, all-white congregation in the South. But, very quickly, we began to project ministry through mission trips and through a weekly ministry at a local housing project where we saw people freed from drug addiction and where we saw gang leaders come to Christ. At one point, I was basically the chaplain for a branch of the Crips gang in North Montgomery, having lead the leader of the gang to Christ on Easter Sunday at a community block party that they were having. We learned a ton and saw God do great things. But, through all of that work and seeing people come to Christ, I became frustrated because we were helping individuals, but their environment was such that they stayed trapped in vicious cycles of dependency, immorality, crime, and brokenness. People wanted a change, but we were only focusing on the spiritual and it wasn’t getting into every facet of their lives. We needed a more holistic approach.
Later, we stared Community Development Initiatives (CDI) with the purpose of “developing creative partnerships to bring spiritual, social, and economic transformation to communities around the world.” It is a very small platform with a few volunteers, but we have helped Gateway Baptist (the church I pastor) and others facilitate development work in India, Haiti, the Gulf Coast, Montgomery, AL, Europe, Africa, and New Zealand. With our partners in North India, we have developed the India Child Sponsorship initiative and are helping to provide education and support for dozens of orphans in a region of the world that is immersed in poverty and spiritual darkness. Throughout all of this, I have kept learning and growing about what makes holistic, transformational development on spiritual, social, and economic levels possible. We need to address the whole person in his/her family/relational structure on both a local and global perspective addressing their spiritual and social needs while also working toward economic advancement and justice. The Gospel is the message about how one is made right with and reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ. But, theimplications of the Gospel address every facet of life. We need to focus on both.
Here are some significant resources that have shaped me over the years in developing a Biblical, holistic perspective toward Christian development work and the proclamation and demonstration of the Gospel of the Kingdom with all of its implications. I am providing links so you can see the summaries of each book.
- Walking With the Poor: Principles and Practices of Transformational Development by Bryant Myers
- When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor . . . And Yourself by Steven Corbitt and Brian Fikkert
- The Hole In Our Gospel: What Does God Expect of Us? The Answer That Changed My Life and Might Just Change the World by Richard Stearns
- The Descent to Compassion by Steve Wright
- Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress by Lawrence Harrison and Samuel Huntingdon
- Underdevelopment Is a State of Mind: The Latin American Case by Lawrence Harrison
- Glocalization: How Followers of Jesus Engage a Flat World by Bob Roberts, Jr.
- Discipling Nations: The Power of Truth to Transform Cultures by Darrow L. Miller
- Economics of Good and Evil: The Quest for Economic Meaning from Gilgamesh to Wall Street by Tomas Sedlacek (Foreward by Vaclav Havel)
- The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor by David Landes
- Progress-Prone and Progress-Resistant Societies: Mariano Grondona’s Paradox and a Cultural Typology of Humane Developmentby Thom Wolf (free pdf)
- India Progress Prone: 21st Century India and the Baliraja Proposal of Mahatma Phule by Thom Wolf (free pdf)
- The Book That Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization by Vishal Mangalwadi
- Truth and Transformation: A Manifesto for Ailing Nations by Vishal Mangalwadi
- How Should We Then Live: The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture by Francis Schaeffer
- The Poverty of Nations: A Sustainable Solution by Barry Asmus and Wayne Grudem
- Good News and Good Works: A Theology for the Whole Gospel by Ronald J. Sider
- Travesty in Haiti: A True Account of Christian Missions, Orphanages, Fraud, Food Aid, and Drug Trafficking by Timothy T. Schwartz
This is all a good start. There is a lot of material out there involving Christian thought and influence. The books by Harrison are secular in nature, but they address the role of culture in determining progress and economic advancement. The prescriptions noted in his work are strinkingly similar to how the Bible tells us to live. Sedlacek is a world renowned economist, but he is also a Christian and you can see that influence in his work. Wolf writes from India and gives us a global perspective. I also studied under him in seminary, so he has influenced me greatly. Mangalwadi also bridges the East-West divide and gives us a view of what has made the West prosper.
I believe that Christians need to think and minister holistically – spiritually, socially, and economically. As Scot McKnight demonstrates in The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited, we do not need a truncated gospel that only concerns itself with how individuals get to heaven. We also must consider the implications of the Gospel of the Kingdom and how God, through Jesus is making all things new.
For some reason, when I copy Alan’s posts over, there is always a formatting problem – the paragraphs disappear. I can solve this by copying and pasting through MS Word, but that removes all the links. With this many links, I could not do that.
If any of you young whippersnapper contributors with all your new-fangled computer knowledge know how to fix this, feel free. It’s beyond my ability.
Alan, I really appreciate this information. I direct a ministry from the US partnering with Haiti churches for over three years now. You said,
“Throughout all of this, I have kept learning and growing about what makes holistic, transformational development on spiritual, social, and economic levels possible. We need to address the whole person in his/her family/relational structure on both a local and global perspective addressing their spiritual and social needs while also working toward economic advancement and justice.”
I so resonate with this. Prior to actually getting involved in Haiti and getting my hands on experience with poverty and broken structures, I likely would have been one on the sideline yelling, “Just give ’em the gospel. Souls are all that matters.”
But I can tell you and others, of course you’ve been on this path already, when you go all in in places like Haiti, you learn (and continue to learn) that just building some houses and providing some meals will not really and truly help the poor. Yes, there is that need. But the Christians I know there no more want to be forever dependent on us than we want them to be. We actually do more harm so much of the time as we are trying to help.
Have you read “Toxic Charity?”
Thanks again brother.
Les Prouty
The Haiti Orphan Project.
First time didn’t seem to work.
Alan, I really appreciate this information. I direct a ministry from the US partnering with Haiti churches for over three years now. You said,
“Throughout all of this, I have kept learning and growing about what makes holistic, transformational development on spiritual, social, and economic levels possible. We need to address the whole person in his/her family/relational structure on both a local and global perspective addressing their spiritual and social needs while also working toward economic advancement and justice.”
I so resonate with this. Prior to actually getting involved in Haiti and getting my hands on experience with poverty and broken structures, I likely would have been one on the sideline yelling, “Just give ’em the gospel. Souls are all that matters.”
But I can tell you and others, of course you’ve been on this path already, when you go all in in places like Haiti, you learn (and continue to learn) that just building some houses and providing some meals will not really and truly help the poor. Yes, there is that need. But the Christians I know there no more want to be forever dependent on us than we want them to be. We actually do more harm so much of the time as we are trying to help.
Have you read “Toxic Charity?”
Thanks again brother.
Les Prouty
The Haiti Orphan Project.
Alan:
Could you write up a paragraph on what is happening there in Montgomery relative to turning around high risk youth in the inner city? What are practical examples of what it means to have a Holistic approach given that the Gospel message (as I understand your post) is not significantly altering the trajectory of the daily lives those trapped in bad environments. On a scale of 1 to 10 who needs to be driving the action plan: the person seeking a better life .vs. others who are mentoring him/her?
Is in possible, even in principle, to expect much lasting change unless the person needing the change acknowledges what is wrong and formulates an action plan to achieve a tangible goal. How can this be outsourced to someone else?
Most people I know that are successful work. They go to school instead of the beach. They just don’t drift and choose the path of least resistance.
Yesterday’s Wall St. Journal had an article about the high employment rate. According to the testimony of a guy who is running an employment placement service, as many as a quarter of the people who come to him looking for jobs are not even remotely employable because they (1) fail a drug test; (2) are not reliable in terms of showing up to work; or (3) don’t have the work ethic and won’t learn anything. If this is typical of society in general then I think there is going to be a permanent underclass in American cities. And as you intimate, I don’t think preaching the gospel to people, taken in isolation, is going to turn this situation around.
Is there some type of ministry/outreach that has been shown to work? One way to measure the success of such a mystery is by noting a 50% decrease in the murder rate in the inner cities.
Roger, it is really hard here and getting harder. I wish that I could say that the churches are making a difference, and in many individual cases they are, but overall on a society-wide basis, they are not. No one is, really. I think that we are near a tipping point where we are going to see some kind of societal collapse that will be rather dramatic. Between the underground economy and government depedency, there is not a great deal of motivation for people to make the changes needed to get out of poverty. As long as people can survive at a low level economically without having to work 9-5, they will do so – especially when hard work and success is not instilled to them at an early age.
I am not trying to be overly simplistic here, but it really does all go back to family structures. When the family is strong and there is a father present to instill work ethic and values, you see that translated to the children. When there is no father, it gets much harder. Things can turn around for individuals, to be sure, but at that point, you are talking about rescue and mentorship on a one-on-one basis. I really don’t know of any society-wide transformation possiblities apart from the family. It becomes a one-on-one thing, and even then, it is very hard. But, God can do anything and that is why the spiritual aspect is so important in all of this.
Alan, I only see things here in Oklahoma City from an anecdotal viewpoint. But I agree with everything you say.
Our church, First Southern Del City [OK] used to have a “bus ministry” where we brought kids in from very poor [they are called Section 8] public housing projects on Saturday for a special targeted Sunday school [well actually I guess it was a Saturday school]. Many of them would make decisions and be baptized but they DID NOT INTEGRATE into the church or to society generally. I agree with you that the Gospel is necessary, but not sufficient, to turning these kids around into having a productive life. The Gospel gives them hope for an eternal life without doing anything measurable to improve the present situation.
I guess God setup the family for a reason. He told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply. Implicit in this command is that they have to stay together and maintain the family unit.
To put it bluntly, there are not enough people in churches with enough bandwidth to significantly fill the void that kids experience as a result of having “no parents”. Parenting, is a two-person 24/7 job that lasts for 15 to 20 years. [Maybe longer: My wife and I loaned our daughter and son-in-law $30,000 to help them with a down payment for a house — they paid back every dime of it over a eight year period. I didn’t ask them to do this or expect it but they actually paid it back with interest]
I don’t think it is possible for any surrogate parents to even come close to being able to replicate the parenting job.
I recall from my Silicon Valley days a guy started a ministry to gang members. He mentored several of the hard core cases. He took one in off the street and let him stay at his place a few months. However, that ended when the kid stole his stuff and sold it via a criminal network to get money for drugs. As I recall, when that guy reached 18 he was busted of on a severe felony count and sent to prison. This episode was back in the 1980s. I don’t know what “the rest of the story” is here, but that kid [now in his 30s or 40s] is probably still in prison or dead.
I’ve been on juries in Santa Clara County CA where “kids” {ages 18 to 22} were on trail for very heavy felony cases. One that comes mind was a trial where a guy was being tried for rape, false imprisonment, and assault to commit grave bodily harm — and about a dozen lesser charges. I was the foreman of the jury on that case. It was graphic — especially when the girl he assaulted took the stand. The prosecution took a week to put on the case. The defense rested on the evidence and didn’t call a single witness. We deliberated for four hours and took a straw vote. We voted 12/0 to convict on all counts. The judge sentenced him to life in prison. This trial was in the 1980s. As of 2005, when I left California he was still serving a life sentence in Soledad Prison. This guy lived in a rough area of town and had no father.
I know people who were radically transformed by the Gospel. But in most cases these guys, although they sowed tons of wild oats, came back into society again when they were saved as young adults — say in their late teens or early 20s. In most cases I’ve observed, when this transformation happens, it is the case that in their formative years between birth and fifteen these kids were in a stable home situation.
I guess the Bible wasn’t kidding when it says “the sins of the parents are visited on their kids for multiple generations” [my paraphrase]
I don’t necessarily think their is a “theological” or Biblical argument that collaborates this, but based upon empirical evidence I’d say it is exceedingly rare for a person to turn his life around if he grew up without parents and then somehow slipped into gang behavior or a hard-core life of crime.
Roger,
Thank you for your comment here. That transformation does happen. It is possible. I have seen it. But, it is a miracle of grace and we call such things miracles because they are very difficult. I have been a part of ministries where people changed. I have seen it and know some people now. But, those are in case-by-case situations and the person usually is at the end of their rope and then someone intervenes. There is discipleship/mentorship. The person is good soil and they respond and God does a work. There are not really society-wide or systemic ways to produce transformation that I know of, although we should still recognize that evil can be systemic. I think that we should do all we can in relation to systems to bring justice and prosperity, but at the end of the day, without a strong family structure (which is a systemic problem), it is hard to see widespread change.
So, the people who say it is a heart issue are right. But, it isn’t just a heart issue. God made us body, mind, and soul and put us in social structures/relationships. When we minimize the effect of breakdown in these areas, I think that we miss out on how God has ordered society and how God calls us to live. REALLY good thoughts here. There is hope because Jesus is alive, but it is a very difficult situation.
“downshoredrift” is me, by the way. The comment came up that way.