Well-meaning people wanting to make lasting change don't always do it. We want our congregations to have a meaningful impact in other people's lives, particularly those Jesus asks us to care for: the least, the lost, the left-out. Turns out, there are good ways and not-so-good ways to do this.
Last week, NPR's Terry Gross did an interview on Fresh Air with Dale Russakoff, who wrote a book about efforts to revitalize Newark's troubled school system. The interview was about education but had powerful insight about attempts to create change in general. The ministry implications were simply glaring at me. The lesson from New Jersey is that good intentions to better the lives of others are not enough to make that happen.
Here's what happened: Newark's mayor Cory Booker, New Jersey governor Chris Christie and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg devised a plan to help Newark's failing schools. It seemed like a winning combination of political power and financial capital - Zuckerberg had pledged $100 million to the cause. But the problems started from the beginning, Russakoff reported. Booker and Zuckerberg went on Oprah to announce the $100 million gift and its intended purpose to renew the schools. The problem was that students, families, teachers and school employees didn't know about the plan for renewal. They had to learn about it on TV. According to Russakoff, this didn't play well in Newark. Many skilled and experienced teachers had good ideas about renewal, but they weren't invited in at the beginning for their input.
The next problem was about oversight of the initiative. Booker took the Zuckerberg money and created a foundation to handle the use of Zuckerberg's gift and matching donations. But to get a seat on the foundation, you had to donate $10 million or more (though it was later dropped to $5 million). This alienated educators and other stake-holders who wanted to have a say in how the money was spent to help their children. It became a top-down reform movement, where decisions were made by a few wealthy donors.
This was all I heard of the interview, but it goes on with other fine examples. See the church parallels? It reminded me of a trip I took to Honduras in 1999 with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). We went at the invitation of the Honduran Lutheran church help rebuild after Hurricane Mitch, and to write about the experience for various publications. Our guide took us on a tour of the area. In the next village over from where we stayed, we saw skeletons of half-built homes made from wood. Why were they half-built, we asked? He told us that a church group from somewhere else in the US had come and built these homes because they thought the locals would like them. Turns out, the local folk wanted cinder block houses, so they never finished those skeletons. So we helped them make cinder block houses, since that's what they wanted and that's what worked best in their area.
Obviously, the Lutheran church (or any church) has not always gotten in right when we go somewhere to help those in need. We don't even always get it right when we try to help neighbors in our own city or village. It's tempting to be so excited to help that we rush right into service without building relationships or identifying real needs.
You might have heard someone (me?) talk about being missional church. The spellcheck function on my computer says it's not a word but if you Google it, you'll find it everywhere. It generally means that we do church the really old-fashioned way: focusing on bringing the Good News of Jesus (in word and deed) out to the places where others are, rather than hoping they will come to us. It's what Jesus did in his ministry of healing, teaching and sharing meals.
When we do church this way, the missional way, we do often end up serving the neighbor, but we do it in a context of relationship. We work along side others, we hear their stories, we perhaps share something of ours. So much of this work is about simply listening and being present in our communities and watching to see where God is already at work. Maybe the leaders of the school reform in Newark didn't get the message, but as disciples of Christ, we can find better ways to make a difference - in the name of Christ.
