I’m doing this for God, not you October 11, 2007
Posted by Zack in Missouri , trackback
This Christian Community Development Association (CCDA) conference is largely about the art, science and theology of building relationships and partnerships among Christians across class and race lines. For me, everything about the way they’re doing this is fresh and fascinating. It’s so different from the attempts I’ve seen at this on the left. But also, it’s just amazing to me that this Christian movement to “love each other across class lines” is as broad, deep and sophisticated as it is—and that I didn’t even know it existed just a year ago.
I’m in a session right now called “Do’s and Don’ts for Urban-Suburban Partnerships.” The presentations were fascinating. And now we’re into audience questions. Each person speaking up represents a different batch of upper middle class white folks somewhere who’ve made a scary decision to step outside of their comfort zones—and a bunch of poor folks have made a scary decision to deal with them.
It’s hard stuff. They’re openly and positively confessing their failures, their train wrecks, their stagnation. The struggle burning in these white folks’ lives is: How can we eliminate poverty and tear down the barrier we’ve built up around ourselves…WITHOUT veering into paternalism and doing more harm than good.
I haven’t seen any counterproductive white guilt here yet. I think there is something about these folks’ spirituality that cancels it out. It’s already part of their theology to accept and confess that they are utterly flawed sinners—broken people living in a broken world. That’s a pretty humble platform from which the Haves can go make relationships with the Have Nots. It seems to work pretty well for them (despite the mishaps they’re confessing, there’s a foundation of unmistakable, astounding success at helping huge numbers of people and developing communities).
The leadership of the Christian Community Development Association is multi-racial. The founder is black. The new executive director is Latino. At least a few of the top leaders in the movement are white. They all live in poor urban communities.
I’ve had friends who were the children of the Catholic Worker movement—whose parents moved into poor urban areas in the 60’s. I remember thinking that must have been some dying gasp of the Christian progressive (then, socialist) movement.
But, as it turns out, (conservative!) evangelical Christians picked up where that movement left off. A lot of these leaders moved in to their neighborhoods starting in the 80’s and 90’s. And now the movement to move into “broken” neighborhoods seems to be reaching a fever pitch. I don’t have any stats to back that up, and I doubt anyone does. But it’s the new must-do thing for Christians who are “on fire for Jesus.” A few anecdotal examples from our recent travels:
- The preacher and his wife from Revolution Kansas City just moved into a poor neighborhood to be part of a community (connected, incidentally, to a Catholic Worker community) of other Christians who have resettled.
- A woman from California who we met the other day at the Mission America conference is working with a community of middle class folks who are “strategically relocating”—in batches of 15 households at a time—into neighborhoods that have hit rock bottom.
- Rob Bell, the teaching pastor at Mars Hill Michigan and one of the really big leaders in the broader revolutionary Christian movement, decided he needed to walk the walk and moved his family into a poor neighborhood in Cedar Rapids. Other members of Mars Hill had already done the same, establishing after school programs and other services.
- Shane Claiborne’s very popular book Irresistible Revolution is an account of finding Jesus in the work of redeeming broken communities.
I’ve seen Shane speak now in several different Christian forums, and as he talks about how “my life really got messed up when I found Jesus” (because of the sacrifices he started having to make) you can see the Christian kids in the audience sinking into their seats as it dawns on them what Jesus is calling them to do. And then they go do it. These are some of the most mature young people I’ve ever met—I think because they’re experiencing at very young ages the kind of sober, selfless impulses that come in the secular world only when people have kids.
Yesterday during a break from Bob Lupton’s talk, I was talking to a young guy—maybe 25 years old—who’s working as a missionary in Mexico, in an operation that provides all kinds of services and development assistance in a small community across the border. He looked a tiny bit overwhelmed as he was thinking out loud about the implications of what he was coming to grips with at this conference:
He said something like: “It’s easy being down there. I mean, it’s draining physically and emotionally. But I don’t have to change to be there. And it’s cool. You know—it sounds exotic. People back home get why I’m there, and think it’s cool. The whole church is behind me. But, living in a poor neighborhood in my own city in America…no one’s going to think that’s cool. And I don’t want to do it. It’s going to be awkward for all kinds of reasons. Being a foreigner in another country is one thing, but being a foreigner in your own neighborhood—that seems like that’s going to be really hard.”
But it sure sounded like he was headed for exactly that. Why? Because Jesus wants him to do it. I said something about how I have already seen more comfortable people in the Christian world make that uncomfortable decision than I ever had in 20 years in the secular left. (Mind you, they’re not just moving into the neighborhoods, they’re crossing boundaries and becoming responsible, as members of communities, for their neighbors’ lives.)
He said, “Hmmm…Yeah, that makes sense. The ONLY reason I’d do it is for Jesus.”
A year ago, I would have thought that sounded crazy. But I’ve seen that having God as the primary intellectual motivating factor in service has advantages. For example, it solves the biggest problem with The Haves trying to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem—it can help overcome the paternalism problem.
Hear me out. When that kid moves into some poor neighborhood, he’ll have a better defense against paternalism than most, because—as he helps set up after school tutoring programs, job training programs, etc…—his stance will NOT be, “I’m the great white hope come to save you,” (normally, the default) but instead: “I’m not here to help you. I’m here to serve God. My God wants to alleviate poverty, and I’m doing his will.”
And most of his neighbors will understand and trust that because most of them are already practicing Christians and most of the rest at least grew up in the church. (He’s in a Midwestern, mostly African American and white city.)
Compare that rhetoric and experience to, say, an Acorn organizer’s rap. How does an Acorn organizer explain why s/he’s willing to stomp around the neighborhood working for nothing. It’s hard for neighborhoods to trust that person’s motivation.
OK, this post is way too long. And I haven’t come close to doing justice to the actual content of the session—all about how to avoid specific mistakes in relationships between Haves and Have Nots that can easily mess everything up. The leaders are teaching from decades of experience of, often, messing everything up.
And hundreds are sitting here learning, eating it up, ready to go back to their communities and push this movement further.
Tag: CCDA
Comments»
do you mean grand rapids (contra cedar rapids) as Bell’s location
[…] beginning to discover that Jesus calls us to cross boundaries in revolutionary ways. This weekend he’s at the Christian Community Development Association conference in St Louis. He says: I’ve had friends who were the children of the Catholic Worker […]
excellent. thanks, Zack
[…] Here’s a detailed and reflective report from the workshop aisle at this year’s CCDA conference. […]
I’ve been fishing around your blog and I really like it! Keep up the great writing!
Great post. Being at the conference was extremely encouraging. Having ‘relocated’ in multiple cities, it’s encouraging to know there are others that are living in that way.
To Jesusland And Beyond
Revolution in Jesusland is a fascinating new blog questioning and challenging the cynicism behind that “Jesusland” map which was widely circulated after the 2004 US elections. I’d suggest you read its introductory post for a full explanation of its …