Through my experience over the years of working with churches in El Salvador, I have identified five general reasons why churches do not engage in or drop out of community transformation which are as follows:
- COMMUNITY TRANSFORMATION IS NOT PART OF THE CHURCH’S MISSION: The first and most important reason why churches do not get involved in community transformation is that it is not central to their mission. Most church leaders understand community service to be an important part of the spiritual formation of their members and an excellent way to announce to their neighbors that there is a church in their area that loves them; nevertheless, they do not believe that the church’s mission is to make a sustainable change in their communities. They define community transformation as a social outreach project but not as change in the relationships, vision and overall living conditions of the most impoverished of their neighbors.
- COMMUNITY TRANSFORMATION IS SOMEONE ELSE’S RESPONSIBILITY: In different contexts, at different times, the church has found other agents to hold responsible for social change. The church looks to or holds responsible the government, non-profit agencies, para-church organizations or civil society to take care of the long-term needs of its community. Even when they are skeptical of their effectiveness, churches will hold other organizations responsible for transforming their community.
- CHURCH LEADERS BELIEVE THEY LACK SUFFICIENT RESOURCES TO TRANSFORM THEIR COMMUNITIES: In many cases, churches see themselves as lacking the sufficient resources (such as money, time, and personnel) to effect long-lasting change in their communities. Many churches see themselves as recipients of assistance or as needing resources themselves and therefore cannot contribute to community transformation. Whereas, other churches believe that it requires extensive, professional expertise or large amounts of money to effect substantive change so do not begin to connect or have an impact in their community.
- PREJUDICE: Many churches hold deep ideologies of difference based upon race, ethnicity, class, gender and religion that separates them from their neighbors. Churches hold subconscious and conscious beliefs about the differences between people which inform their lack of action. In some cases, their belief about race or ethnicity affects their relationships and actions toward others. In other cases, their understanding of poverty such as, “people are poor because they want to be,” “or because they are lazy,” prompts a church not to focus their attention on the needs of the poor. Another major reason why churches do not reach out to their neighbors is because of religious differences. Churches are hindered from reaching out to others for fear of crossing lines between major groups of faith (such as Catholic versus Protestant) or even between different denominations.
- CHURCH LEADERS STATE THAT THEY DO NOT KNOW HOW TO EFFECTIVELY TRANSFORM THEIR COMMUNITIES: Many church leaders state that they want to effectively to their neighbors but they do not know how to discover their church’s resources, connect to their community, or develop sustainable initiatives to transform their communities.
Although I’ve seen many church leaders struggle with these five obstacles, it is an amazing experience to watch those who take a chance to develop a mission for their church that includes community transformation, to reach out and partner with their neighbors, to begin to serve sacrificially, and to ultimately become leaders of long-lasting change in their communities.
CLICK HERE to read part 3 of the series “what is community transformation?”
