MARCH 2002

"Community Organizing and Community Development: Where the Church Fits In"

The Urban Church and Community Development

Community development and community organizing are topics that CityVoices has probably "danced around" for all together too many years. Community organizing and community development are too integrally related to all the main streams of city church ministry for us as urban church pastors and servants of city churches to ignore for much longer. Even if you have a hard time in finding the right place for organizing & development within the greater range of city church ministry (as I do!), neglecting to give organizing & development any place at all would be the greater disservice to the whole of urban ministry.

With the few articles that follow, CityVoices hopes to provide you with a bit of background on where community organizing has been: it’s birth in the mid-20^th century, always related to the church, but much closer to and much deeper into America’s city community’s and their people needs. We will then profile the most effective blend of practical and academic needs being met through the Master of Arts in Community Development Program at North Park University. And then we will follow that up with an interview profiling Dean Morris, a recent graduate of North Park’s program now working with Chicago’s Nobel Neighbors.

A more extensive piece follows by pastor, organizer, theologian Robert Linthicum of Partners in Urban Transformation. His more than forty years of effective urban ministry will become self evident as he addresses a few of CityVoices’s questions. We conclude with a bit about helpful books and resources related to biblical community organizing.

Much more could be said and done. Many more questions could be asked. These will suffice for now, as they prompt more questions and words in your own minds. They are certainly not the final words any of us will have on the subject. We will return to these again and again in the future.

********************

Organizing’s Roots, Alinsky in Chicago

(Adapted from "The Democratic Promise: Saul Alinsky and his Legacy") http://www.itvs.org/democraticpromise/index.html

Few know it today, but Chicago was the birthplace of a powerful grassroots social movement that changed political activism in this country. "Community Organizing" was pioneered in Chicago's old stockyards neighborhood by the soberly realistic, unabashedly radical Saul Alinsky.

Alinsky's hard-nosed politics were shaped by the rough and tumble world of late 1930's Chicago. Back then, the city, still in the grips of the Great Depression, was controlled by the Kelly-Nash political machine and by Frank Nitti - heir to Al Capone's Mafia empire. In 1938, with a freshly minted graduate degree in criminology from University of Chicago, Alinsky went to work for sociologist Clifford Shaw at the Institute for Juvenile Research. He was assigned to research the causes of juvenile delinquency in Chicago's tough "Back-of-the-Yards" neighborhood. In order to study gang behavior from the inside, Alinsky ingratiated himself with Al Capone's crowd, and came to realize that criminal behavior was a symptom of poverty and powerlessness.

The Back-of-the-Yards neighborhood, setting of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, was an immense slum in the shadows of Chicago's giant Union Stockyards, one of the largest factory complexes ever created. Its inhabitants were poor; they had no rights and no job security. In the course of one year, wages were cut three times. As Alinsky watched and decided that he could no longer stand by as a silent observer. He believed that widespread poverty left America open to the influence of demagogues and that the only antidote was active, widespread participation in the political process. Alinsky envisioned an "organization of organizations," comprised of all sectors of the community - youth committees, small businesses, labor unions and, most influential of all, the Catholic Church.

He consulted with Herb March, a union leader organizing stockyard workers for the CIO - the Congress of Industrial Organizations. He teamed up with Joe Meegan, a powerful organizer with strong links to the Catholic Church, through whom he was able to convince a powerful Bishop Bernard Sheil to join the fight against unfair labor practices. Alinsky also recruited leaders of previously hostile ethnic groups: Serbs and Croatians, Czechs and Slovaks, Poles and Lithuanians - always appealing to their mutual self-interests. Finally, on July 14, 1939, Alinsky and Meegan convened the first Back-of-the-Yards Council meeting, chaired by Bishop Sheil. The event was revolutionary in American history because it was the first time an entire community was organized. The union, the community and the Church became one and the same.

Alinsky led the Back-of-the-Yards Council in a series of successful pickets, strikes and boycotts, and in the process, won a mentor in CIO President John L. Lewis. In 1940, institutionalizing the concepts he had learned from Lewis, Alinsky formed the Industrial Areas Foundation - the IAF - an umbrella organization out of which new campaigns would be run. His book, Reveille for Radicals (1946), a manifesto which called upon America's poor to reclaim American democracy, became a bestseller.

By the 1950s, Alinsky had developed a clearly defined organizing philosophy and had won a reputation as champion of the disenfranchised. He began to organize in predominantly black communities, and in 1959, co-founded The Woodlawn Organization (TWO), which brought the struggle for civil rights to Chicago's South Side and challenged Mayor Richard J. Daley's powerful political machine through a radical voter registration drive. In 1965, Alinsky was invited to Rochester, NY to help the black community successfully take on Eastman Kodak over the issue of racial hiring.

By the late 1960s, Alinsky had become a folk hero to America's young campus radicals. In 1969, he set up a training institute for organizers and wrote Rules for Radicals, in which he urged America's youth to become realistic, not rhetorical radicals. In 1970, Time Magazine hailed Alinsky as "a prophet of power to the people," contending that Alinsky's ideas had forever changed the way American democracy worked. By the early '70s, Alinsky concluded that America's poor would have to ally themselves with the middle class, whom he was afraid would move to the right. Unfortunately, he never got to organize the middle class. On June 12, 1972 Alinsky died suddenly of a heart attack. He was 63 years old.

A passionate believer that social justice could be achieved through American democracy, Saul Alinsky methodically showed the "have-nots" how to organize their communities, target the power brokers and politically out-maneuver them. The lessons he taught people about the nature of power, imparted dignity to the poor and helped create a backyard revolution in cities across America. His work influenced the struggle for civil rights and the farm workers movement, as well as the very nature of political protest. He was a mentor to several generations of organizers like Ed Chambers, Fred Ross and Cesar Chavez. Alinsky's still thriving Industrial Areas Foundation became the training ground for organizers who formed some of the most important social change and community groups in the country.

Alinsky was a larger-than-life figure, possessed of an extraordinary ego, boundless energy and an ability to captivate, entertain and outrage his listeners. As biographer Sanford Horwitt says, he had the gift "...of making everyone he came in contact with feel that the encounter with him had been a special, central one." At one time Saul Alinsky was a name known to millions: he cast a fearsome shadow across the land when invited by concerned liberals and ministers to "clean up the town" - organizing the disenfranchised to fight back against racism, poverty and isolation.

Born in 1909, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, Alinsky had a passion for justice which originated from his experience growing up in Chicago's Jewish ghetto where he witnessed suffering during the Depression. It was his mother who influenced him most. Alinsky's son, David, once said, "...at the core of what motivated him was his mother, Sarah Rice...She taught him that...individuals [must] be responsible for other individuals and that you can't just walk away when you see something that's not right."

********************

An Innovative Partnership: Educating for Community Development

(In a joint relationship, Chicago's North Park University and the Seminary Consortium for Urban Pastoral Education have pioneered a Master of Arts in Community Development Program, housed at the North Park campus. North Park's Velda Love is the Senior Admissions Counselor. Carol Ann McGibbon is the Co-director of the MACD program, and is also the Vice President of SCUPE. In order to get a better picture of this "formal side" of education for community development, CityVoices sat down in a recent interview session with both Carol Ann and Velda.)

Would each of you summarize how you came to the North Park's Master of Arts in Community Development Program? Carol Ann -

In 1995, we had a number of SCUPE students who were interning at places like Lawndale Community Church and Bethel New Life, and a lot of their work was becoming more involved in community development. We had a supervisors' meeting at which the question was raised, "You're doing a great job preparing people for urban pastoral work, but what about community development work, which is becoming a specialized field? Is there any way SCUPE could help people get practical education in this field?

The three year research and development phase of the program became a major focus of my work at SCUPE. We were granted development support from the Luce Foundation and the Chicago Community Trust. We convened listening groups with key leaders in community development throughout the city of Chicago. Many of these leaders currently serve on the Advisory Board for the MACD program. They told me about the many existing programs that look at urban policy and city planning, at economic development as a slice of community development, and programs that strictly educate around housing issues. However, there was a distinct need for a program that embodied a wholistic approach to community development. This was defined as a program that t helps people work through on a practical level what it means to be a community builder, a community organizer and what it means to be an economic developer, and combines those three very important elements together. Few programs exist that bring community organizers, builders and developers to the same educational table.

The next step was to survey the need for such a program on a national basis. The Christian Community Development Association proved invaluable in assisting with this aspect of the research. At the same time, SCUPE began to explore the possibility of seeking accreditiation for the MACD program through North Park University. The President of North Park University, Dr. David Horner, shared the vision of providing relevent education to practitioners in community development. Given the urban mission of the University, there was strong interest to create shared ownership in the MACD program by North Park and SCUPE. The strength of the program has been in this ongoing relationship between the two institutions.

Velda, how did you come to the Master of Arts in Community Development Program?

I started at North Park in April of 2000, my background and experience is in community development and resource development. I received my formal training in community development from the Chicago Area Projects, a juvenile delinquency prevention agency that works closely with about 40 community-based organizations, and serves as the state model of grassroots community building and organizing. I had the opportunity to work in various areas of the organization; marketing, program development, fundraising, government affairs, which allowed me the benefit of reviewing bills and educating legislators on the best possible solutions for protecting youth, and their families in communities throughout Chicago. I ended my career there as the Director of Development. I was born and raised in Chicago's Hyde Park community.

I was living in Milwaukee and desired to return home to Chicago. I was looking for a position that would combine all of my previous experience, but in the area of higher education. North Park University was looking for a recruiter in the area of Community Development. I interviewed, got the job, moved back home, and began fulfilling a dream of being in an institution promoting both an academic and practical skill set to community development at the master's degree level.

I believe that the strength of communities lies in the residents. Students interested in the program are usually older, i.e., the average age is around 35-40. They have been working in the field of community development or wish to implement a career change. The approach of the program is grassroots and faith-based, therefore, students are taught through theory and praxis to understand the concept of being part of a community setting. None of our students are of the mindset that they have all the answers for how communities should function, but rather, they are the bridge-builders and co-laborers in building the capacities, the strengths and gifts of the community and its people. Our students are committed, passionate believers in the work they are doing. The MACD program allows them to enhance their skills and then take what they've learned back into professional and practical work places.

This year we've recruited students from several different parts of the world: Tanzania, Jordan, Palestine and Nagaland, to name just a few homelands. Some students come our way through local community newspapers, word of mouth or referrals from current students, the website, community and church visits, and direct mail advertising. Chicago is known as the birthplace for community development through its long history with Saul Alinsky and the Back of the Yards neighborhood groups and activists.

Why "community development" as a discipline of study, as opposed to urban planning, urban finance, urban health? What's so special about "community development?" Why recruit students to this area of study at North Park University?

(Velda) Community development encompasses all of the disciplines you've mentioned. Community development involves urban systems and planning, finance and resource development, urban planning and policy, and community analysis and human resources. People are the resources for community development. It's difficult to plan an urban landscape without including the people living, working, banking, and doing business in the community. When you're looking at urban health, you're concerned with the people that will utilize the resources from a community health facility, i.e., a community clinic or community hospital.

(Carol Ann) Our intent in the Master of Arts in Community Development program is to do wholistic community development, and that encompasses all aspects of what makes for excellence in the quality of life in a community. The program takes seriously housing, economic and job development, education, health care, transportation, and recreation. It's both wholistic and sustainable. We don't want our students, as community development leaders, engaging in non-sustainable projects that in the long-run do more damage to a community than they contribute.

Biblically, the Old Testament book of Nehemiah has been incredibly important to me as I've thought of how you go about community development. It has provided a biblical and theological foundation for how to go about rebuilding a devastated urban community from the inside. This foundation is tied very closely to a philosophical approach to community development that comes out of Northwestern University's Asset-Based Community Development Institute. The directors, Jody Kretzmann and John McKnight are well known for their writings and consultations on "asset-based" approach to community development. We're part of their network and both Jody and John have served in an advisory capacity in the development of the MACD program. They have referred to the MACD program as the accredited education complement to the consulting and networking that is central to the ABCD Institute.

The MACD program has found a way to mobilize the educational classroom part of their philosophy. With the "asset-based" approach to community development, we're looking at individuals and what kind of strengths and gifts each individual brings to the welfare of the whole community, to building up the infrastructure of the whole community. Our program encourages leaders to look at associations and institutions like the YMCA (YWCA), libraries and churches in the neighborhood and what they bring. We look to banks and businesses, and what they can contribute. That's the approach we take. We want students to come to come out of this program knowing they can be community-builders. We want them to be organizers. If there's an issue that needs tackling, whether political, economic, or whatever, we want them to mobilize the inherent powers of the neighborhood to go after issues that those residents feel are important to go after. However, students learn to move from addressing systemic issues to building the capacities of the neighborhood in areas such as education, job development and housing so that the quality of life in the community is improved.

(Velda) Our students are community reinvestment act bank officers, staff and leaders in community development organizations, entrepreneurs, pastors and staff of urban churches, executive directors of community-based organizations, housing specialists, city-state-and government workers, public relations professionals, Chicago police officers, and for profit and not for profit administrators.
Their motive in coming back for a Masters Degree in Community Development?

(Velda) For some people it's a way to enhance the skills they use on a daily basis either on their job, in their church, or volunteer organization. Others have a faith background and desire to work for the betterment of their neighbors and all God's people. Still others come to increase their understanding of neighborhoods; it's people, and the city for both their intellectual acumen, and for personal reasons. Students in this program share a sense of commitment to building a better quality of living for themselves by ensuring that they invest in the future of their communities and the communities of their home country.

(Carol Ann) The Police Department and Park District encourages their staff to seek relevant education. So does community reinvestment act offices of the banking industry. People are coming to us for that very reason. They understand that the welfare of urban communities is central to their vocation and they want to know more about community, not just a limited view, but the whole picture. That's what motivates them.

Who are your competitors, or colleagues in the field of community development programs here in the Chicago area?

(Carol Ann) The city of Chicago offers a wealth of educational programs focused of various aspects of community-related education. University of Illinois in Chicago has a well respected program in policy and planning. Spertus has a human development services degree. DePaul and Loyola also have related degree programs. An important colleague in the field is not in Chicago, rather it is Eastern College located in Pennsylvania. Eastern has been offering economic development courses from a Christian context over a number of years.

How many students and faculty are now involved in the program?

(Velda) We have 41 current students now involved in the program, at every level. . Students come from organizations and institutions such as Chicago area churches, Bethel New Life, the Chicago Police Department, individual entrepreneurs, the Corporation for National Service, VISTA, Association House, the Center for Student Missions, Misseracordia, Organization of the Northeast, LaSalle Bank, etc.

The tuition fee for the two-and-one-half year program is $14,800. However, most students are being sponsored in one way or another by the organizations who are invested in their continuing education. And for those sending organizations that simply cannot afford scholarship funds, we are now in the process of developing a scholarship program, which will be of significant help to students in future years.

(Carol Ann) The faculty in the program are all adjunct. This is intentional, as we are committed to a teaching community of professionals, actively working in the various aspects of the field of community development. We are delighted to say that we have recruited a faculty of academically prepared and respected practitioners to teach in the program

We're really pleased with the overall student diversity we have in the program. Out of the 41 students currently enrolled in the program, we have 75% representation from African-American, Hispanic, and international. We have 19 men and 22 women, which is a well-balanced mix of gender representation. The majority of our students are over the age of 30, so we have a very mature group who bring a wealth of experience, wisdom and professional resources to our community of peer learners.

If you are interested in further information about SCUPE and North Park University's Master of Arts in Community Development program, please contact: Carol Ann McGibbon, SCUPE / M.A.C.D., 3225 West Foster Ave., Chicago, IL 60625, (773) 244 -5643, mcgibbon@northpark.edu , Velda Love, North Park University / M.A.C.D., 3225 West Foster Ave., Chicago, IL 60625, (773) 244-5764, vlove@northpark.edu

********************

Dean Morris: Blending Theory and Practice on Chicago’s Northwest Side

While "community development" has come to mean a lot of different things to a numerous people, Dean Morris Executive Director of Chicago’s Nobel Neighbors likes to center in on what amounts to a unique view of development. "We look at community development as meaning assembling the building blocks of human resources to impact neighborhood revitalization, including real estate development or economic development here on Chicago’s northwest side.

Dean Morris has arrived at his definition from both the formal / academic route, and the very practical and natural path in which his career has taken him. A recent graduate of North Park University’s M.A.Community Development Program, he has taken time to carefully develop his philosophy / theology of community development, while not forsaking his passion – Chicago’s people and seeing something accomplished of practical and lasting value in the communities within which those people live.

Dean, why "community development" as an area of study, as opposed to urban planning or finance? Why not one of those other classical areas of urban study?

Community development is one of those things that takes place inside a community, working itself out. You’re working with community residents who will assist in the in the building of that community, as opposed to outsiders. True community development is an inside-out approach.

Summarize the mission of Nobel Neighbors.

Our mission is to improve the quality of life for individuals who live in the West Humboldt Park community. We try to accomplish that by becoming the facilitators to organize for social change. We look at creating opportunities for empowerment and leadership development. We try to empower people in such a way that their lives have improved as a result of our having worked with them. Our activities our mostly centered around housing and safety issues at this point.

Do you see community development as an ongoing thing, or are you working to go out of business?

The objective is to work myself out of a position, but there’s so much to do at this time that I don’t see that happening at any time soon! That touches at the real results of community development, versus simply social service. Nobel Neighbors is not a social service agency. We are a community-based organization, currently using three approaches to accomplish our mission.

One, is our community organizing approach which is direct action: Winning immediate victories on issues, developing leadership within individuals, giving people a sense of their own power and alternating the relations of power.

Our second approach is a community-building approach which encompasses a lot of our work with asset-based community development. It’s different, as I see it, than community organizing, where you have individuals involved for their own self-interest. But community-building focuses on a lot of relationship building. If you like to garden and I like to garden, and we get together and we develop a gardening project, then that begins to improve the quality of life in our community. That’s asset-based community-building.

Currently, we have a campaign going which is called "Leader-per-Block," in which VISTA volunteers canvassed each house on every block in our community, the purpose being to work with local leaders in each city block directly.

Our third approach is centered around a real estate development project. We’ve identified several abandoned and vacant properties in our service area, which have been left to be vandalized. Nobel Neighbors has a plan to acquire one of these abandoned properties as a pilot for affordable housing.

For those who look askance at community organizing or community development, and say, "Isn’t this really kind of a dressed-up name for radical activity in what used to be a good city neighborhood?" How do you approach that type of argument?

Community development is no more radical than what working class families did back forty and fifty years ago. In those days you had working class communities and their individuals supporting each other. It was like a little company town with "ma and pop" stores, everyone knowing each other. The monies that were earned were invested back into that community, keeping that community healthy.

A shift happened after World War II. Factories moved out to the suburbs and these city communities were left underserved. Eventually the working class people moved to the suburbs, leaving an underclass community to fend for itself. We’re trying to bring back that mindset saying, "We need our industries back here, we need working class citizens who can earn their own wages to sustain themselves and their families. We need the banking industry to pour money back into the community to invest and build." What we’re asking is not anything more radical than working class families did forty and fifty years ago.

Dean, what’s drawn you to community development work? In what ways are you working out God’s call on your life?

I feel that God is calling me to build and expand his kingdom. When you work to improve the quality of life for individuals, that is in part, building the kingdom. Although lots of churches and faiths would have different views on the kingdom itself and how that kingdom is built, I see my calling as building community, and when you’re doing that, that is kingdom work.

Humboldt Park is the area where I work, and it’s also the area where I spent a lot of years growing up as a teenager. I’m from the community and I’ve seen the changes that are taking place in the community. I’ve always been one who has worked towards the development of people.

Nobel Neighbors is not in itself a religious organization. But all of our staff are Christian believers, as well as our board of directors. We’re very much faith-based, and we’re mindful of the spiritual element in our life and work.

Contact: Dean Morris, Nobel Neighbors, 1345 N. Karlov Ave., Chicago, IL 60651, (773) 252-8524, Dmo6210883@aol.com

********************

Bob Linthicum: No Better Evangelist for Community Organizing

(For nearly forty years, Bob Linthicum has traversed the ministerial roads that have taken in, out, and doubling back through each of the disciplines of urban pastoral ministry, community organizing, missions, academia, and teaching. While defying precise descriptions (other than Presbyterian), Linthicum continues to pave new trails for urban community organization with the relatively new Partners in Urban Transformation. A faith guild of creative hearts and minds, Linthicum is bringing together some of the best theological and community organizing talent nationwide, to multiply gifts and ideas for future generations.)

Bob, what precisely is community organizing, and how does it differ from community development?

Community organizing is the discipline of enabling people and their institutions to engage in public life in ways that enable profound change to occur both in those public and corporate institutions that most impact the people and in the quality of their lives. It provides the means by which ordinary people can learn the skills of engagement in public life, and thus assume responsibility for their own situation. The "Iron Rule" of organizing is "Never do for others what they have the capacity to do for themselves." And I would add a second rule: "Those who lack economic, legislative or bureaucratic power can generate power only by acting collectively."

Now, how does organizing differ from community development? In seeking to differentiate between the two disciplines, the first point I would want to make is that the two disciplines are not mutually exclusive, but depend a great deal upon each other. That is, good organizing will do community and economic development. And good community development will use the strategies of community organizing. What, then, is the difference? It is the difference of focus.

What does community development focus upon? It focuses upon equipping and enabling the poor or the powerless to take charge of their own situation and change it. So, for example, if the people’s problem is inadequate or nonexistent housing, community development will work with them in many ways so that they can build their own homes. The best community development is focused on people helping themselves.

Good community organizing will agree with these principles of development, but our focus will be different. We ask the question, "Why are there homeless people? What is our government and industry not doing that forces people to live in horrible conditions?" Organizing seeks to solve the systemic causes of issues, while community development seeks to address the results of those causes. Thus, using our housing example again, organizing will recognize that the very policies of governments and business are resulting in the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few at the expense of the people least able to compete. So they will seek to get the government to change its laws to benefit the poor and will seek to get business to divert funds for housing construction.

An example: When I was directing World Vision’s urban work outside the United States, we had the situation in Madras, India where the city government rounded up all the untouchables living on the streets of Madras and moved them to a government-owned flood plain outside Madras that was uninhabitable because of flooding twice a year by monsoons. World Vision went in and provided immediate relief. But I also sent my best Indian organizers into the situation. There, they got the people together into groups to work on solving the complex and multiple problems of building a new community upon that flood plain. Now if World Vision had only been doing community development at that time, it would have decided it needed to mobilize the people to build homes for themselves – and it would likely have cost World Vision around $1,500,000 to complete that project. Instead, we were committed to doing community organizing. Our organizers motivated the people to declare to each other, "The government created the problem by forcing us to move here. Let them now solve the problem they created!" And those untouchables organized themselves to confront the government at every turn of the road regarding this injustice. Eventually, they ended up making their case, face-to-face, before the governor of the state of Tamil Nadu (in which Madras is located and to whom the city government is accountable). The result is that not only did the government build houses for every family, but it sold the land and homes to the people at an extremely low price, and the government built the infrastructure of a floodwall (to keep the monsoon floods out), paved the streets, brought in electricity and plumbing, and even built a school, library and community center. The cost to the government was $1,500,000, and the cost to World Vision for three years of organizing and the salaries of five full-time organizers was a total of $35,000!

Now the final point I want to make as we differentiate between community organizing and community development is that the focus is different but the ultimate objective is the same. Organizing focuses on building the power of the people so that they can bring about change in the systems; development focuses on building the power of the people so that they can change their community. Both are needed. If you don’t work to better your neighborhood, it will keep going downhill. But if you don’t work to change the rules of the game that got your people in that mess in the first place, you’ll keep on losing – no matter how nice you try to make your neighborhood!

What it comes down to is this: we need each other! You who are involved in community development need us who are involved in community organizing to work with you to build power among the people so that they and we can get the rules of the game changed so that we have a chance to win a few! And we in community organizing need you who work in community development to help us in our projects after we’ve "won a few" to be effective in taking the steps necessary to actually rebuild our communities. So, going back to our housing example, you need us to get zoning laws and local government policy changed so that housing can be built cheaply. And we in organizing who see it as a day’s work to get government policy changed need you who can build housing cheaply to show us how to do it! We need to learn to work together. Because, if we don’t, it will not be the people but those greedy and power-hungry guys who will keep on winning!

Bob, since you wrote "City of God, City of Satan"(1991) and "Empowering the Poor" (1993), American cities have become far richer places. Are there ways you’d like to see the church at work, "organizing" if you will, even among the urban wealthy, to empower them in ways that they are impoverished and simply don’t it?

Organizing has no future if it organizes solely among the poor and working class. All organizing is built upon the premise that there are two kinds of power in the world – structural power and people power. Structural power brings the weight of law, legislative and judicial authority and the wealth of giant corporations to the table. The only power that the people bring to the table is each other. The more people and institutions like churches, schools, unions, non-profits work together, the more effective they will be. Poor people – especially in the United States – can’t do it alone. Only by joining with the middle and upper classes can we create a sufficient mass of people to be taken seriously by the wielders of structural power.

I am currently involved in an ambitious IAF (Industrial Areas Foundation – one of the four national organizing networks) organizing project of the Los Angeles metropolitan area (an area wider than the state of Indiana). As a member of the pastoral staff or a Presbyterian congregation, I am involved in organizing in the Pomona Valley, a 30-mile wide area of over 1,000,000 people in the Los Angeles metropolitan area region east of Pasadena. That region includes upper middle class cities like Claremont and LaVerne, but also cities like Pomona, and Ontario. It is both a very rich and a very poor valley!

What I have discovered is how little difference actually exists between my congregation of college-graduate upper management and professional people and Pomona’s poorest of the poor! We are all concerned about common issues in education, housing and homelessness, crime, gangs and policing, work and unemployment and health-care. The fact is, however, that before the IAF organizing, we didn’t know how common our issues and worries were. And the reason why we didn’t know that was because we never talked to each oother! We just knew what our "own kind" believed.

So what organizing has done for us is that it has provided the means by which we started talking and sharing with each other. Out of those conversations, we built friendships and relationships of trust. And now we are organizing together to deal with those common issues – Protestants and Catholics, rich and poor, American and alien, whites, blacks and brown. And for the first time, the Pomona Valley is truly becoming one community!

Community organizing takes justice to the streets. Theology tends to deal with justice in the heavenlies. Where can the two disciplines meet for today’s concerned and intentional city church pastor?

It meets in the local congregation! In order for Christians to really make a difference in their cities, they need both a theology of power and a practice of power! They can’t get along with either one or the other. The principles and strategies of congregation-based community organizing enable a congregation to act powerfully. These strategies are more "caught" that "taught." That is, one or bore congregations learn to act powerfully by acting powerfully, and for that they need a professional organizer to train them to use the power of people that the churches have in abundance.

But Christians also need a theology of power. Without such a theology, our organizing will become pragmatic and disconnected from our faith so that we will no longer see the organizing task as a strategic and necessary extension of our personal and corporate faith into the world.

Biblical theologians like Walter Bruggemann (The Prophetic Imagination) and Walter Wink (The Powers trilogy) have provided invaluable biblical research on power, but because they are academicians and not organizers, their applications are weak. My book, City of God; City of Satan (1991) was an early (and I think rather good) attempt to develop a theology of power from "the streets", as is Dennis Jacobsen’s recent Doing Justice - Congregations and Community Organizing. However, I believe that the writing of a comprehensive biblical theology of power with practical and concrete application through the practice of community organization is still ahead of us. Consequently, I am currently at work on such a book that will be released in 2003, likely under the title Building A People of Power.

Community organizing seems to have had its halcyon days (Saul Alinsky, 60s) and its harder time (80s and 90s). Where is it going to go from here? What is its future? And what does it need to do to enter into that future?

I would question whether the halcyon days of organizing were the 1960s under Saul Alinsky. I think the halcyon days are right now! Although organizing through some dark days after the death of Alinsky in 1972, in the 1990s the movement significantly rebounded. Today, there are at least 133 community organizations in as many US cities, most of which receive their training and leadership development from one of the four national networks. These 133 community organizations represent about 4500 institutions of which 87% are churches. These organizations are filled with thousands of Hispanic, African-American, Asian and Anglo Christians from every major and some smaller denominations and of every economic class. Organizing is fast becoming a national movement far beyond the wildest dreams Alinsky ever dared dream! So I think the best days are right now and just ahead of us!

Now to your primary question, "Where is organizing going? And what does it need to enter into that future?" Over the past decade, organizing has become a profoundly powerful movement throughout the United States. 133 organizations training the more than 4 million people of its 4500 institutions to act powerfully in public life is no small movement! It has tremendous potential to change the face of the United States in the cause of justice. But organizing will not realize this potential unless it deals with three issues.

First, organizing needs to acknowledge the overwhelmingly dominant place churches play in the movement, and build a "theological backbone" that unquestioningly presents the direct relationship between organizing and the mission and purpose of the church. Without doing that, organizing will remain tangential to the church rather than the church seeing it as a legitimate and powerful way to carry out the gospel. That’s why I formed Partners in Urban Transformation (PUT), and am bringing into the organization some of the best theological minds who are also doing "hands-on" organizing and urban ministry today. PUT is conducting workshops around the country, contracting with several of the national networks to do biblical training, conducting courses in some of the major Christian seminaries and universities around the USA, doing research and writing books, and producing a spectrum of resources (including a 27-session video course on biblical foundations for organizing, contracted by Youth With A Mission, World Vision and nine evangelical academic institutions).

A second major task facing organizing is reaching the evangelical, Pentecostal and holiness (EPH) churches. Now mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic churches have embraced community organizing for years. But EPH churches have, by-and-large, remained wary of it. Of course, a reality today is that "mainline" Christianity is increasingly becoming "sidelined", as the EPH churches mushroom. However, there has been, over the past five years, a steadily growing interest in organizing as EPH churches commit themselves to the city and discover that the traditional strategies of relief, social services and community development are inadequate for bringing about systemic change. That is why the development of a biblical theology of power is so important today, and why I am putting so much energy into the writing of the same.

A third major task is the necessity for the four networks (IAF, PICO, DART, Gamaliel) to begin working together, if they are to have any hope of building a national coalition working for equitable justice and the elimination of poverty for all Americans. Thus far, each network has "done its own thing". But I believe that if the networks do not find a way to work in concert together, organizing will always remain powerful at the city and metropolitan area, but will not impact the inequality and impoverished of our country and therefore will not become a national movement.

Contact: Bob Linthicum, Partners in Urban Transformation, P. O Box 756, Upland, CA 91785, (909) 932-1993, PUTOffice@aol.com , www.partnersinurbantransformation.org

********************

Resources for Faith-based Community Organizing:

While this is a partial list of the many good resources available, contact the PCUSA Urban Ministry resource site at: http://www.horeb.pcusa.org/urban/cbco_resource_list.html and you’ll find a plethora of other good resources and contacts regarding the subject of community organizing and community development.

ACORN – The Association of Community Organizations for Reform. ACORN has offices in New York, Washington DC, Little Rock AR, and New Orleans. For more information, contact its website at www.acorn.org.

Center for Community Change. CCC publishes a periodic newsletter on organizing issues. 1000 Wisconsin Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20007, www.communitychange.org.

Direct Action and Research Training (DART), P.O. Box 370791, Miami, FL 33137, (305) 576-8020, dartcenter@aol.com.

Gamaliel Foundation, 203 N. Wabash, # 808, Chicago, IL 60601, (312) 357)-2639, gamalielus@aol.com.

Industrial Areas Foundation, 220 W. Kinzie, 5^th floor, Chicago, IL 60610, (312) 245-9211

Pacific Institute for Community Organization (PICO), 171 Santa Rosa Ave, Oakland, CA 94610, (510) 655-2810, www.pico.rutgers.edu

"Activism That Makes Sense: Congregations and Community Organizations," by Gregory Pierce, Paulist Press, 1984.

"Dry Bones Rattling: Community Building to Revitalize American Democracy" by Mark Warren, Princeton University Press, 2001.

"Faith-Based Community Organized: The State of the Field," by Mark Warren and Richard Wood, (website) http://comm-org.utoledo.edu/papers2001/faith/contents.htm.