If we develop a survey of world need, we can get a better strategic perspective on where Christian community development can start.
Let me suggest that a lot of what we are looking for is already being done at the local level - just move it forward, globally.
In a local church setting, here are the four aspects of surveying need that come into play.
1. Define
the geographic boundaries of community to serve
- Target your resources to a specific area
- Designate landmarks that border the area
2. Describe
the needs of the community, giving special consideration to the felt needs of
the people living there
- Study the area's demographics and life situation
- Determine the food, housing, clothing, education, safety, job training, counseling and spiritual needs
- Identify which people to serve
- Survey the community and determine other programs serving area residents
3. Distribute
resources and services to the community through relationships with the people
- Share resources, skills, and services to match the described needs
- Develop programs that allow people to build relationships
- Establish criteria for interacting with other agencies and churches
- Initiate relationships with other churches and agencies that wish to participate
- Create and use various ministries and programs to help distribute resources
4. Develop
responsibility among people in the community, especially the youth, for its
continuing development
- Target the young children to prevent damage from lack of education and drug addiction
- Use programs that develop Christian community leaders
- Raise up community members who walk with Christ, graduate from high school, pursue higher education, get jobs to provide for their families, find decent & affordable housing and become leaders in their community
All this and still remembering this truth - only when the Church is rooted in a vertical relationship to God in worship can the church's two ministries of kerygma (proclamation) and diakonia (service) be held in proper balance and tension. Only in this way, too, can evangelism and social responsibility be kept from degenerating into merely human activity and even propaganda. The mission of any church can fall into this trap.
The gospel, rightly understood, is wholistic. It responds to people as whole people; it does not single out just spiritual or just physical needs and speak to those. Christian Community Development begins with people transformed by the love of God, who then respond to God's call to share the gospel with others through evangelism, social action, economic development, and justice.
Critics seem to suggest that if only missionaries stay home, primitive people will be left undisturbed to live out the myth of Rousseau’s “noble savage.” In fact, David Livingstone was preceded by Arab slave traders; Amy Carmichael by victimizers who dragged boys and girls to the terrors of child
prostitution in the temples. At times, evil forces like these have destroyed entire peoples. In North America, not only California’s Yahi but also the Hurons—and possibly 20 other Indian tribes—were pushed into extinction by land-hungry settlers. On one occasion, pioneers sent gifts to a tribe, wagon loads of blankets known to be infected with smallpox.
