'community development' Tagged Posts
Walking With The Poor
I bought this book with no little excitement given the list of theological luminaries that have recently been recommending it as a must read. Ron Sider, for instance, calls it: “probably the best book on how to do holistic community development.” There is no doubt that it is certainly comprehensive in its treatment of the issues, certainly far more than any…
Gentrification: Help or Hindrance to Housing Schemes?
Gentrification is a phenomenon that is occurring in schemes all over Scotland (indeed the UK). It is a word that has been in use for many centuries but was brought to the fore in the early sixties by a sociologist who observed how middle class people moving into traditional working class areas,…
Urban Myth: Inner City Young People Can’t Listen to Sermons!
by Mike Stark Most of us are familiar with the terms ADD or ADHD (attention deficit disorder, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). We work with and know many local children who have been diagnosed as such, placing them in a box and giving them a medical label to help them understand their…
8 Keys to Housing Scheme Gospel Ministry (8)
Avoid Paternalism & Dependency Many, great, Western missiological thinkers have battled with the issue of paternalism in cross cultural contexts for decades. What exactly is paternalism? The essence of paternalism is providing outside direction and resources by some “mature” party to someone considered “immature” and not yet capable to carry full leadership…
PROXIMITY: For People Interested In Urban Ministry
Incarnational Living | Church Planting | Urban Youth Ministry | Missional Community| Urban Church Proximity 2012 is a conference happening this May (25th-26th) in Salford, hosted by the Eden Network. It aims to bring these five streams above together in one place for two days of vision,…
8 Keys to Housing Scheme Gospel Ministry (6) Church Based Community Development (b)
Mark Dever notes on The Gospel Coalition blog, that: Since the Fall, the trajectory of unredeemed human history—the City of Man—is always in the Bible to judgment (the Flood, Babel, Canaan, Egypt, Jerusalem, Babylon, Rome & then Rev. 19). (Not quite as universal as gravity, but seemingly as…
8 Keys to Housing Scheme Gospel Ministry (6) Church Based Community Development
Part A: Church Based Community Development In his book, Generous Justice, Tim Keller states: “All I know is, if I don’t care about the poor, if my church doesn’t care about the poor, that’s evil.” Jesse Johnson, writing an article for The Cripplegate Blog, has a…
8 Keys to Housing Scheme Gospel Ministry (5)
Listening to Your Community It is noticeable in Niddrie that there are many housing association groups and various other social agencies, largely staffed by outsiders, who impose their ideas and ideals on to the community without much prior discussion. It is taken for granted that the ‘professionals’ know what we need. Often, many church plants can be guilty…
The 8 Keys to Ministry In Housing Schemes (3)
Part III: Developing Community Skills Robert Lupton would call this a ‘redistribution of resources’. His logic being (albeit from a community development perspective): 1. We live in the area we are trying to reach 2. We work toward a ministry of reconciliation at a Godward level and a community level Then (3) we are, hopefully, going to see a redistribution of…
The 8 Keys to Gospel Ministry in Housing Schemes (2)
Part II: The Ministry of Reconciliation All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of…