Holistic Churchplanting and Community Development

  Lecture Notes, Viv Grigg June 88, rev June 2006
(diagram links to be added)

I. SUMMARY OF CHURCHPLANTING
We have seen the Four Seasons of Growth

But this is only part of the ministry — the spiritual.

We have seen the Kingdom of God.  And that preaching the Kingdom of God, is to preach how the Kingdom changes spiritual, social, economic, community.  Let us expand this area of community change.
 

II. HOLISTIC
In Luke 2:52,  Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.
 

God’s Intentions: maturity in all four areas

a.  For individuals (Col 1:28,29)

b.  for the Church (Eph 5:27) — without spot or blemish

c.  for the world (Matt 6:10) — thy kingdom come

The gospel deals with all areas: We have seen that the cross is the  linkage between man’s need and God’s resources -

All things hold together in Him (Col 1:17). The gospel embraces all of life and creation.

III.  DEVELOPMENT OF DIACONAL MINISTRY

(Within an existing church in a poor community)

SPIRITUAL                                SOCIAL                                  ECONOMIC                                 POLITICAL

Bible study on Kingdom               youth football                            land rights                                       land rights
New altar                                    teach adults to read                    jobs                                                godly community leaders 

                                                   crèche/day care                         electric                                            funeral coop
                                                   care for widows                         credit coop
                                                   recreation area                           herbal plants

                                                                                                     scholarships
3. Prioritize these
4. Make goals/plans for one of each of these areas
5. For the top priority of these

    a. plan field trips

    b. contact authorities for info on programs

    c. contact NGO’s
    d. make a plan
    e. work with community leaders — possibly draw them this committee.

6.  Start with a realizable project
7.   Build people’s sense of ability authority (lay a base for political action slowly) .

8.  When negotiations break down develop techniques that defuse violence but effect change.

9. Before these break down make sure a thorough theology of dependence on the sovereignty of God  in the midst of suffering has been internalized.

IV. THE ROLE OF THE RICH CHURCH

DIAGRAM 5 : ACTS 4:32—34

DIAGRAM 6:THE ROLE OF THE CHURCH INTERNATIONALLY

Major successful ways to use external funding.

1.For aid to widows and orphans, refugees, and others for whom there is immediate calamity or no long-term solution. Dependency on the church is normative.
2. Get the means and control of the means of industrial production into the hands of the poor.

    a. CAPITAL TRANSFER
        i. Transfer of seed capital through a credit/loans coop for activities people have already initiated
        ii. Transfer of expansion capital for functioning businesses
    b. TRANSFER OF EXPERTISE
        i. vocational training in existing schools

        ii. credit coop
        iii. small business development
        iv. community leadership development
    c. Function in role of middlemen between the two sectors of society
        i. Loans among the poor are flexi—loans to benefit of borrower and lender
        ii. Often these loans are in goods
        iii. It is possible to cut out the middleman from rural areas or distributor in the city
 

VII. THE ROLE OF THE RICH IN EXTERNAL DEVELOPMENT FACTORS
Causes are determinative of appropriate responses. What causes slums? What % of the poverty is due to personal sins, calamities, oppression, social structure?

What can we do to effect justice
 

See notes on developing movements in development paper.
 

© Viv Grigg & Urban Leadership Foundationand other materials © by various contributors & Urban Leadership Foundation,  for The Encarnacao Training Commission.  Last modified: July 2010