Relief and (Re-) Development: Desparation and Dependency

Good intentions without action don't accomplish much, but what action is needed?.

I recently finished reading the book Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help (And How to Reverse It) by Robert Lupton. Perhaps the best part of the book is this one:

...in 2001, six years after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and long after the city should have shifted to long-term development projects, churches and mission organizations still "market" the crisis and volunteers continue to flow into the city by the thousands, distributing free food and clothing to "victims." When relief does not transition to development in a timely way, compassion becomes toxic.

He quotes Roger Sandberg, former Haiti country director of Medair, in defining a progression from relief to development:

First stop, relief. Relief work occurs during and immediately following an emergency and includes not only life-saving interventions but also the alleviation of suffering.

Second stop, rehabilitation. Rehabilitation follows and overlaps with the relief phase. Rehabilitative work increases the capacity of a local community, enabling them to better respond to future crises. Rehabilitation also seeks to promote projects that restore services or livelihoods to a preexisting or improved level.

Third stop, development. Development interventions follow and overlap relief and rehabilitation phases. Development work is long term. It seeks to improve the standard of living for a population over many years or decades. In the best-case scenario, relief and rehabilitation inverventions are done with long-term development in mind....Very roughly, we might say that relief, rehabilitation, and development phases respectively last months, years, and decades.

This particular distinction between relief, rehabilitation, and development has been on my mind in the last several months in three areas of my life: local, national, and international.

On a local level, as a parish priest I respond to urgent crises through small grants from my discretionary fund--a fund set up by the church to be used at my discretion (hence the name) to address needs as they arise. Most of the time, it is used to do things like provide two quarts of oil and a tank of gas to needy folks heading for San Francisco or a hotel room for a mother and her kids fleeing an abusive husband/father. This is all good to do, but leaves me feeling dissatisfied because I know that I'm simply doing relief work, not solving the underlying problems. It also frustrates and angers me when I see an unending procession of need, sometimes event the same people over and over again. I have the dual feeling of being angry at being taken advantage of and yet ashamed of that anger because i know that ninety-five percent of thse folks have few other options.

On a national level, I've watched with increasing frustration as our national debate regarding cuts to the Supplimental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly Food Stamps) between, if you believe the two sides, the heartless, cold-blooded Republicans and the bleeding-heart, dependency-fostering Democrats. Below the partisan posturing is a disagreement about whether (and when) relief of suffering should stop and whether (and when) government should be in the business of rehabilitation and development to help people lift themselves out of poverty and need. There seems to be little discussion of how the government can facilitate increasing the capacity of people to respond to future crises--just whether we should still send checks or not. Additionally, the notion of separating people into "givers" and "takers" strikes me as a profoundly unhelpful way of wrestsling with the need to go beyond relief to rehabilitation and development. Throwing a drowning person a life-ring will not foster dependency. Jumping in and trying to hold them up means that both of you end up drowning.

On an international level, several months ago I spent a week in Haiti. That country is perhaps the poster child (yes, I appreciate the irony of the phrase) for perpetual relief verging on the toxic. Literally billions of dollars have been spent there, often with major strings attached in the name of accountability. At the parish I serve, St. Edward's, we are a part of consortium of churches and a school that have a relationship with St. Patrick's Church and School in LaCorbe, Haiti. Having had a relationship with people there for many years, we are beginning to discuss how to move from continually addressing immediate needs to building the capacity for the community to begin to provide for themselves. There is certainly a tension between what they perceive as their immediate needs and what we hope for as far as long term rehabilitation and development. Part of the challenge is that we have the luxury of taking the long view. A good example is that there is a need for a power source at this fairly remote chruch and school. As enlightened, developed-world folks, we would prefer to set up a small solar installation that would then be self-sustaining. However, our partner in Haiti would like a gasoline generator so that he could haul it around and use it for a variety of congregations and schools. Both make sense in their own way. On the one hand, we don't want to do what so many NGOs have done in Haiti and impose our own will on them. On the other, we don't really want to perpetuate a reliance on expensive fossel fruels. Difficult decisions.

I have no easy answers to any of this, but it does strike me that we need to be having these sorts of conversations at all levels of government and within our churches. Just writing a check, as much as it helps in the short-term, stops at relief without moving beyond that. If we can get to the point of true partnership where we help people to get and stay on their feet, perhaps we can move beyond the gridlock in both government and society.

Visionary Leadership vs. Cult of Personality (updated)

UPDATE: I just ran across the following video presentation on Steve Jobs and Apple Computer. It has a lot to say about the cult of personality verses a culture of vision:



One of the things I struggle with in my own ministry is how proactive to be in my leadership. I've seen (mostly evangelical) churches where the pastor (or, sometimes, the pastor and his wife) are front and center in advertisements and promotional materials, and it is very clear that this is "Pastor X's Church." Among the many difficulties with that is that when the pastor moves on or, God forbid, has some moral failing, that loss has an incredibly huge impact on the congregation, much more so than it might if the pastor were just another staff member. How do you have Pastor X's Church without Pastor X? On the other side, it is quite clear that the pastor of any church has enormous impact in all areas of church life--spiritual, financial, programming, etc... Leadership does matter, and as much as we talk about delegating authority and broadening our leadership base, someone has to be the point person and say "We're going THERE!" Committees don't do that nearly as well as a single individual.

The other issue with a single leader versus a shared leadership model is the cognitive dissonance that people go through. On the one hand, people crave clarity and stability and so are often happy to follow a leader who is self-assured and at least appears to have a good grasp on things. On the other hand, there is a deep distrust in our country of people with any sort of power. We can see it at work in our national politics, with the warnings of people "taking over" or "ramming things through." We seem to be intellectually more comfortable with distributed power and shared leadership, but our hearts know what our brains often forget--there is no substitute for a clear vision and direction and a visionary leader to cast that vision and support it.

As we enter October, the church moves from the rush of the beginning of the program year to thinking about what is variously called stewardship season, the Fall Pledge Drive, or any number of other names. It is a time when we quite literally ask people to buy into a vision, to support it with both their money and their time. The more specific and compelling that vision is, presumably the easier it is to achieve such buy-in. Yet this is not my church, it is God's church and the congregation can do far more collectively than I can do individually. So we are back to the conundrum--do we make the pastor the focus in the interest of having a more focused vision or do we have a more distributed leadership in the interest of sharing power and inviting more participation? Like anything else, it is a delicate dance...

The Umbilical Cord of Christianity

For many years, I've struggled with the developing tradition of inviting people to receive communion prior to being baptized. It is specifically prohibited in the canons (rules) of the Episcopal Church, and yet many churches do so. It is often referred to as Communion Without Baptism or CWOB. Perhaps the most visible example of someone coming to faith in Christ through this practice is Sara Miles who wrote Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion. She is just out with another book Jesus Freak: Feeding, Healing, Raising the Dead. I just read an interview with her and I'm struck again by how she really battles against the church's attempt to control or constrain God. I'm struck by her faith and by the fact that she accurately portrays some of the chief obsticles to that faith that lie within the church itself.

As I thought about that, I thought about how we think about baptism and communion. The idea is that we join in this meal at God's table after we have been born (actually, re-born) into God's family through baptism. In other words, we're born and then we are fed. That makes a certain kind of sense. However, if one takes this metaphor a bit further, how are "pre-Christians" or yet-to-be-(re-)born Christians fed before they are born into God's family? In other words, what provides the "womb" in which a person's first cells of faith can grow and the "umbilical cord" that provides the "nutrition" or spiritual food without which the unborn-again person will spiritually starve? It seems like, for Sara, that umbilical cord was, at least in part, communion itself.

I don't know exactly what to do with this metaphor, but I do think it is worth asking whether the church is a place that provides a safe place for spiritual growth and the "food" necessary for such growth or whether the church can only provide solid food, as it were, to those already in God's family. If it can only feed those who are already Christians, then we become essentially spiritually barren--unable to receive the gift of the beginnings of a new life that is growing within someone and nurturing it to in climax in someone's rebirth. Thomas Brackett, the Program Officer for Church Planting and Redevelopment of the Episcopal Church, talks about "midwifing" what God is already doing--nurturing it and helping it along. How might we best do that, I wonder, and what would it take to move from hospital or restaurant to birthing center?

Mission and Management

As the program year winds down, I'm feeling a bit different about church life and ministry. In years past there was the sense of having gotten through the program year and the anticipation of both taking a break from the sometimes frenetic pace of church life and planning for a Fall filled with possibilities. This year, owing primarily to the current economic climate but also to the ongoing challenges of connecting with a culture in transition, there is a palpable sense of unease as we enter summer. What does the future hold? How can we survive, much less thrive, in a time of tight budgets and only a trickle of newcomers to renew both our budget and sense of mission?

In the last 24 hours I've received information relating to both of those issues. In the latest update from The Barna Group, they discuss what mission and ministry looks like in the 21st century with the various "tribes" that they identify, including the "Casual Christians" they discuss. At the same time, I received the latest from the Alban Institute talking about different ways of viewing budgets. I can identify with both of these articles!

The biggest challenge for the church in 2009 would seem to be being about the work of mission and ministry in a culture that supports neither and in the midst of shrinking congregations and even more quickly shrinking budgets. The biggest challenge for me in leading a congregation is that many members seem perfectly happy with their level of spiritual maturity and their level of ministry to the community around them. What they are not happy with is the fact that "being church" seems to take more and more money. At the same time, nearly half the members of that surrounding community either have no experience whatsoever of church or just enough experience to know what they don't want to go back. They may not exactly be happy with their lives, but the notion that the answers to their unspoken (and perhaps even unacknowledged) questions lie with the church has either not even crossed their minds or, if it has, has been dismissed as soon as it did so.

So where does that leave us? It leaves us with a great number of churches that are content to simply wind down, keep doing what they're doing, and seek some magic solution even as they pine away for the good times of the past. It also leaves a gigantic void of spiritual need that might well be filled with churches who are willing to provide an accessible "spiritual stimulus" in the world by first knowing themselves to be in need of such a thing. If we can awaken what is referred to in the Baptismal service as an "inquiring and discerning heart" in the people of our congregations, we can then invite others on this journey of discovery. However, if we simply more strdently proclaim that we have the answer and if these poor misguided folks would just get out of bed on Sunday morning and come to church to find it, we will largely wait in vain for the door to be knocked down by the rush of newcomers.

So perhaps it's time to put our money where our ministry is and invite others to join us on the journey. Perhaps more now than at any time in the last 50 years we need to put aside fear and the natural impulse to preserve dwindling resources and look into a world in desperate physical and spiritual need and take some risks for God, both financially and spiritually. Of course, it is easy to blog about that and much more difficult to actually do it!

Relatioships Rock, Issues Bite!

It has been nearly a month since I last put fingers to keyboard and posted to this blog. Of course, Holy Week and Easter were there, so there is some justification for silence. Mostly, however, I wanted to give some time to the random thoughts drifting around my brain to form some sort of coherent whole before "uploading" them to blog text. Friends of mine are far more qualified than I am to opine on the various theological and ecclesiastical goings on right now in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. However, I did want to highlight one particular essay, written by The Rt. Rev. Pierre Whalon, Bishop in Charge of the Convocation of American Churches in Europe. I'm a big fan of Bishop Whalon's, not least because he attempts to chart a center course in an era where polarization is the norm. His latest effort is a reflection on the Anglican Covenant where, among a great many other things, he says:

What matters most is in fact what the Ridley Preamble claims: is this Covenant a means to make our contribution to God’s mission in the world more effective?

Many years ago, a number of us in Gathering the Next Generation (GTNG), what I refer to as a "Generation X mission society" came together for a regional gathering. The unofficial theme of that gathering was an assertion that: "Relationships Rock, Issues Bite!" Though more nuanced, I find that same sentiment in both Bishop Whalon's essay and, interestingly, in some of the reviews of the Covenant itself. Efforts to make the Anglican Covenant into an Anglican Contract and to make it proscriptive rather than descriptive seem to be waining in favor of putting out a document that sets out in very simple theological terms the basis of our common mission and life together--and it isn't that we agree on all the issues, either! I look forward (though with a perhaps too jaundiced and cynical eye) to the debate that will commence with the meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council and, in this country, with General Convention 2009. I hope that it focuses on our unity in Christ and the relatioships we have with one another, rather than any sort of doctrinal conformity. We'll see...

Barna and The Belief Buffet

Although just one of many voices, George Barna has made a career out of taking the religious pulse of the United States and suggesting the implications of those results for individuals, churches, and the country as a whole. His latest offering, headlined "Christianity is No Longer America's Default Faith" explores the increasing tendency of Americans to either choose no faith at all or to pick and choose from a variety of beliefs and spiritual practices to meet their needs. The article is a good one, well worth reading, and the implications of the study results are summed up at the end as follows:

The Christian faith is less of a life perspective that challenges the supremacy of individualism as it is a faith being defined through individualism. Americans are increasingly comfortable picking and choosing what they deem to be helpful and accurate theological views and have become comfortable discarding the rest of the teachings in the Bible.



Growing numbers of people now serve as their own theologian-in-residence. One consequence is that Americans are embracing an unpredictable and contradictory body of beliefs. Barna pointed out, as examples, that millions of people who consider themselves to be Christian now believe that the Bible is totally accurate in all of the lessons it teaches at the same time that they believe Jesus Christ sinned. Millions also contend that they will experience eternal salvation because they confessed their sins and accepted Christ as their savior, but also believe that a person can do enough good works to earn eternal salvation.



In the past, when most people determined their theological and moral points of view, the alternatives from which they chose were exclusively of Christian options - e.g., the Methodist point of view, the Baptist perspective, Catholic teaching, and so forth. Today, Americans are more likely to pit a variety of non-Christian options against various Christian-based views. This has resulted in an abundance of unique worldviews based on personal combinations of theology drawn from a smattering of world religions such as Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, and Islam as well as secularism.



Faith, of whatever variety, is increasingly viral rather than pedagogical. With people spending less time reading the Bible, and becoming less engaged in activities that deepen their biblical literacy, faith views are more often adopted on the basis of dialogue, self-reflection, and observation than teaching. Feelings and emotions now play a significant role in the development of people’s faith views - in many cases, much more significant than information-based exercises such as listening to preaching and participating in Bible study.

It almost goes without saying that this has huge implications for the church, especially the Episcopal Church which is both very rooted in words (Bible, Prayer Book, Hymnal, etc...) while also being rich in multi-sensory symbols (water of baptism, bread and wine of Eucharist, candles, stained glass, etc...). The traditional Evangelical way of converting folks to Christianity and enriching their spiritual lives focuses primarily on preaching and Bible study. The above statements reflect the fact that people are becoming more individualistic, less likely to have (or take) the time to do much Bible study (much less do serious theological reflection), and are perfectly comfortable with holding contradictory views taken from a variety of religious traditions. This is sometimes, in my opinion, without actually knowing much about their own faith tradition (if they have one)! A great example of this is the practice of a Christian incorporating Buddhist meditation practices into his or her spiritual practice without realizing that there is a rich Christian tradition of contemplative prayer from which to draw without having to graft in practices from another faith tradition. Of special note is the last observation that "faith views are more often adopted on the basis of dialogue, self-reflection, and observation than teaching."

I would suggest that, at its best and done well, worship in the Episcopal Church and associated programs that emphasize such dialogue, self-reflection, and observation are the primary means by which we might best enter into the conversation that is likely to be the only way to conversion for most people. The challenge for us is to do such things ourselves rather than taking who we are and what we do for granted. The misquoted line from Field of Dreams "If we build it, they will come" (it is actually "If you build it, he will come.") applies here. We can build anything we want: people are not coming unless they have a reasonable expectation of finding a place in which they can enter into dialogue without limitations or pretense, self-reflection without pressure to conform, and observation without pressure to participate.

Quite a tall order for the church at the dawn of the twenty-first century!

Are you a Liberal or a Conservative?

I recently ran across the following that was submitted to the last newsletter of the Church of the Good Samaritan in Corvallis, Oregon. Written by The Very Rev. George Back, Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in Oklahoma City, OK, it was originally published in The Anglican Digest in Lent 1991. It casts a new light on the so-called “conservative/liberal split” and is well worth reading. It also expresses my viewpoint far better than I could.

I have heard rumors that conflicts between conservatives and liberals are tearing the church apart. Don’t believe it.

Few of these people exist. I have had letters and phone calls from some who claim to be one or the other. As far as I can tell, they are imposters. Of course, I can only judge from their behavior.

If the church had many conservatives, the buildings would be packed on Sundays as they keep the Sabbath holy. Our Church would have money since they would tithe 10 percent of their income. Our Church life would be glorious as they would undertake all the traditional Sunday School, retreat, and holy day obligations. An authentic personal morality would be exemplified in their holy lifestyles

If the Church had many liberals, they would be enthusiastically including people all the time. The Church would grow as they reached out to the poor and isolated in various ministries. Our service ministries would be overwhelmed with volunteers and resources. An authentic social conscience would be exemplified in the compassionate lifestyles.

Judging only by behavior, the Church has too few religious conservatives and religious liberals. God bless the ones we have, they are doing wonderful work.

Then where is the problem? There are numerous anti-conservatives and anti-liberals. These are people who compare their particular theology with other’s actual behavior. Their convenient posture enables them to be both righteous and removed and the same time. Both know that others need to change their bad habits. The sins, failures, hypocrisy, and mediocrity of these others provide a good reason not to attend worship and not to give money and not to serve energetically and not to love affectionately in the Lord’s name.

Religion is behavior, not theory. To worship God with all one’s heart, mind, soul, and strength is not an idea, it is a practice. To love one’s neighbor as in “idea” is an illusion. Love must take up space and time; it costs lots of money and much energy. Church is a place for religious behavior, where one worships God and serves God’s children. It is large enough to include true religious conservatives and true religious liberals, since they only emphasize one or the other aspect of true religion.

The Church will never be at peace until the commitment to God and the Gospel of our Lord take priority over any personal warp to some left or right ideas. People who have a primary commitment to their own opinions and a secondary interest in religion always threaten to destroy the church. What good reason and right opinion do you have to excuse yourself from the costly practice of true religion?

Evangelism, Conversion, and Mission

I just ran across the Episcopal News Service (ENS) story on the "Everyone, Everywhere" missions conference currently happening in Maryland. While I'm pleased that the Episcopal Church is talking about mission, I don't notice much about evangelism. Even when conversion is discussed in the article, it is done so only in the context of the "perils of conversion" mentioned by The Rev. Paul-Gordon Chandler, Episcopal missionary and author and the conference's June 6 plenary speaker.

It seems to me that the Episcopal Church in the 21st century appears to think of mission exclusively in terms of social service, relief of suffering, and development. Episcopal Relief and Development, a wonderful agency, thus seems to be our primary "evangelism" tool. In a church that is losing members daily, I find it somewhat disquieting that evangelism is number three on the list of the Episcopal Church's five budget priorities.

As much as I applaud an emphasis on the Millennium Development Goals, I'm wondering if we're simply substituting something that the Episcopal Church has generally been unable to do well--evanglism--with something with which we have had more success--social service. While I don't think this is an either/or proposition, I do think that we have perhaps had the pendulum swing too far over from the evangelism side to the social service side. A balanced approach would seem to be needed. Perhaps we need to be less linear and more circular in our thinking. Rather than simply implicitly saying "My faith compels me to be of direct physical service to Christ in all people" and letting it stop there, might we also then say "My service to Christ in all people is part of the story of my faith that is worth sharing"?

If a life-transforming relationship with Jesus Christ is the goal, and the mission of the church is to "restore all people to unity with God an each other in Christ" (BCP, p. 855) then how will that be accomplished without at least a mention of that transforming relationship and the unique role of Jesus Christ in our unity with God? Inquiring minds want to know...

It's all about Jesus

There is a great deal of material to be found across the web, in blog after blog, about the trials and travails of the Episcopal Church. People have dug into canonical processes, hierarchical charts, and accusations and counter-accusations. It sometimes seems as if this particular part of the Body of Christ is at war with itself. As I thought about that, a passage from St. Paul's letter to the Romans came to mind:

So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7:21-25)

I certainly find this at work in my own life--even when I want to do good, even when my "inner being" delights in God's law, there is sometimes the sense of spiritual lethargy that sneaks up on me and the battle is joined between good and evil, right there in the choices I make each day. Might I submit that the same is true in the church? Certainly, as the Body of Christ, we do not have the same essence as the corporate, political, or social structures. The Body of Christ, like Christ himself, does not have a "sinful nature." Yet, to the extent that the Body of Christ is made up of flawed, human, and sinful "members," we do not function to our fullest or in perfect harmony. We are always subject to dis-ease, that is, anxiety and lack of focus and vision.

The only solution to this, it would seem to me, is the solution that St. Paul offers: God through Jesus Christ. After all, it really is all about Jesus. I ran across a great sermon by The Rev. Frank Logue, Rector of King of Peace Episcopal Church in Kingsland, Georgia, referenced in his blog regarding the scriptures appointed for tomorrow. The point of the sermon, and of the illustration contained within it, is that the members of the church are the only "plan" to spread the Gospel, the good news of God's plan of salvation. There isn't a Plan B. For that reason, it is all the more important for the church to focus on that message.

After all of the lawsuits, the accusations, the counter-accusations, the charges of heresy, apostasy, all of the name-calling and labeling, what really matters is our relationship with Christ. What really matters is Jesus. We are in a world that is changing every minute and that does not appear to be getting better in the changing. Nothing is solid, nothing stable. This is not unlike the first century church, where there was massive upheaval. Into that maelstrom of persecution, dis-ease, and anxiety, what does St. Peter say in tomorrow's Epistle?

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you. Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. (1 Peter 5:6-8)

It strikes me that the biggest temptation we face as a church in today's world is not the temptation to commit blatant sin, to rebel against God, or even to go off on our own and neglect our relationship with God. The greatest threat to the contemporary church may be the temptation towards complacency, despair, or lethargy. How many new ministries are we raising up? How many churches are we planting? How many disciples are we making? From all accounts, not nearly enough. We still have a death grip on what has gone before, on what we used to have, on what the world was like. We are often so afraid of losing what we have, we are not open enough to what God may yet have for us. That is the true danger--that, like the disciples, we are still looking up and waiting for God to save us rather than knowing that we are empowered by the Holy Spirit for mission and ministry.

If we use the analogy of the lion, the church's greatest difficulty is that we are not alert for the danger of that roaring lion, we are simply milling around, often oblivious, and sometimes disinclined to run anymore. If we keep our focus on the Lion of Judah, that is, Jesus, and a wary eye on that other lion, perhaps we will be a little less likely to mope around, whine, and complain, and more likely to get on with mission and ministry in the world. After all, the lion is still out there.