What Wholistic Means

Let’s talk about wholistic and what it means to us. We spell wholistic with a ‘W’ because it keeps ever in front of us the idea that we need to deal with the whole person, all aspects of their life, and the whole community or neighborhood, meaning all sectors in that place.

Some people and the Webster Dictionary spell it without the W and give it a spiritual meaning from holy. We agree with that BUT feel it is more important to concentrate on the whole, not just on the spiritual or holy aspect.

Dela Adadevoh who was my director in Africa and who I spoke of last week wrote another book The Whole Gospel to the Whole Person  speaks about the Wholism from a Biblical basis.

Dela says the Gospel is a redemption and restoration story; it is restoration to a blessed spiritual, intellectual, emotional, social and material state. He goes on to list the Characteristics found in the Garden of Eden which include; goodness, beauty, order, purpose satisfaction and intimacy with God.  The phrase “Kingdom of God” is used frequently to explain God’s plan for the nations and people of Jesus Christ.  Knowledge and will are not enough to make people holy and spiritual.

The ultimate impact of the Gospel is the Hebrew concept of Shalom which is peace with God meaning there is no longer separation between man and God. The Gospel gives us the promise of entering God’s rest’ physically, spiritually, emotionally and intellectually. Shalom also means we can now live in peace with the rest of creation. The blessing we leave as missionaries is the blessing of peace

The call to witness for God is not limited in its focus to individuals, God also expects communities and nations to be His witness. The Great Commission is a call to make disciples of all nations, not just make disciples in all nations. Making disciples of all nations is not only making individual disciples but also disciples of communities to ensure they build themselves on Godly principles. God’s blessings are wholistic and primarily seek to bring the people of a nation relationally closer to God.

Dela ends his book by saying ‘Christ honored transformation of society must begin with the church. A transforming Church is an effective agency in the hands of God for transforming society’

In working in a community or neighborhood, we are looking into the above areas as well, but the different sectors found in a community come more into play. Therefore, when we talk about community, sometimes we will use the term sectors, and when dealing with the individual, we talk more in terms of physical, spiritual, emotional and social aspects.

Just concentrating on one area of life, such as just working with a person’s health or getting them a job, helps them in one way, but there needs to be assistance in multiple areas of life for real transformation to take place.

Let’s look at another aspect of being wholistic. Sometimes agencies talk about being wholistic when they have different people deal with the different sectors or areas in a person’s or community’s life. But to us that is not wholistic. That is parallel track ministry, but all elements rarely come to play in a person or community. Instead, what needs to happen is that multiple elements must come into play in order to see transformation. The people working in their own track are specialists and generally only concentrate on their specialty

I use the illustration: Have you ever look down a straight line of railroad tracks? The tracks start out being in parallel but far down the line they seem to converge. However, as you walk down the tracks you see that they never do. This is what happens when we have specialists working on their track.

They hope that all the people working together will bring convergence. But this does not happen.

For us to see wholistic transformation, all areas and sectors of life in individuals and a community must be done by one person who is looking for wholistic transformation to take place. This means we want to help people (in CHE or NT) to be generalists not specialists.

This also means you also have to use the KISS, Keep It Short and Simple, principle when helping people. In other words, we must decide what is the most important thing another person needs to understand, and forget sharing many of the “what-ifs”—the things people might need to know in the future or things that might be nice to know but others would never use.

So remember, it is best when we have generalists who deal with multiple areas in a community’s or person’s life, and who keep it simple. In another blog I will share with you how this is accomplished through our participatory teaching approach.

Biblical Perspective to Transformation

This past week I read with great interest Dela Adadevoh’s new book “Personal Life Transformation” in a Biblical Perspective 2013, International Leadership Foundation, Orlando FL. Dela was my supervisor as Africa Director of Affairs in 1988 when we were on staff with Campus Crusade in Nairobi and developing CHE. Currently Dela is the Global VP for Campus Crusade for Christ (CRU) and founded the International Leadership Foundation in 2004 which he serves as president today. The ideas presented are taken from his book as they fully represent where we are coming from in Transformation.

Dela says right belief does not automatically lead to transformed lives and right actions. Right actions do not necessarily lead to transformed minds, values and lives. There needs to be intentionality in developing life values and principles from beliefs. People have to be helped not only to believe the right things but also to know how the truth relates to real life issues.

Central to transformation is our worldview, that is how we unconsciously view the world around us. Dela says a world view change is a sustained commitment to looking at our world from another frame of reference with a new set of values.

Worldviews are formed by a unique inter-relationship between conceptual categories which Dela identifies as God, truth, authority, power, success, love forgiveness and service. The key question is the transformation process is What is Truth? A person’s worldview informs their beliefs, values and behavior. Our worldview is the aggregate of our various conceptual understandings and how they inter-relate with one another

To experience biblical transformation one has to believe in, God is Creator, God is a perfect person, The characteristics and revealed will of God are absolutes, the Bible as the Word of God, Jesus Christ is the perfect human , Jesus Christ is the Son of God, Jesus Christ as the Savior and the spirit of God as the agent of transformation.

Transformation must be motivated by intrinsic factors striking at the core of one’s beliefs and outlook on life. This causes a radical change of one’s outlook on life consequently ones values in life which affect our behavior.

For full transformation people need a personal relationship with Christ. They are living like Jesus in the contemporary world and leading like Jesus does through Servant Leadership which empower people to be more then they have dreamt they could be. The goal of transforming a person’s worldview, must have at its heart the restoration of humans into the image of God as they become good stewards of God’s creation.

Dela goes onto say Interdependence is the objective of God in everything that he calls us to do. To me this is the factor tying a neighborhood together so their neighborhood can be redeemed and restored.

Transformed lives are validated by transformed system, structure and situation, Transformed leaders must translate their new outlooks and values into new decisions and policies that will result in new institutions and societies.

One of the identified challenges in transformation is the disconnect between the private and public lives of people. The transformation process begins with personal life transformation that should lead to transforming relationships which should lead to institutional or organizational transformation. The process for transformation should increasingly approximate the life of Christ.

No person, nor society can be fully transformed as that will only come when Christ returns. But we can continually think about, plan for, equip and look for transformation taking place in this life. Transformational impact in society increases numbers of transforming people and leaders.

What is Transformation

TRANSFORMATION DEFINITIONS
Let us look at seven definitions of Transformation as used by different organizations

A definition given by Bryant Myers of World Vision International in his book Walking With the Poor:
“I use the term transformational development to reflect my concern for seeking positive change in the whole of human life materially, socially and spiritually . Changed people and just and peaceful relationships are the twin goals of transformation . . . Changed people are those who have discovered their true identity as children of God and who have recovered their true vocation as faithful and productive stewards of gifts from God for the well being of all” (Bryant Myers, Walking with the Poor: Principles and Practices of Transformational Development [Marynoll: Orbis Books, 1998]

The Opportunity International Network (OI) defines Transformational Development as:
“A deeply rooted change in people’s economic, social, political, spiritual and behavioral conditions resulting in their enjoyment of wholeness of life under God’s ordinances.”(Opportunity International: Transformation Indicators Paper [unpublished document: 2000]).

World Vision uses the following:
Transformation is radical change in worldview toward acting on the belief that Jesus frees me from all forms of bondage, and that in that freedom my purpose in life is to love God and neighbor in practical ways. From a transformation perspective, whatever changes occur in the community’s circumstances (access to food and water, health issues, income level, etc.) are less important than how people in the community view their circumstances.

Transform World Working Definition
Transformation is the progressive, ongoing, measurable, and supernatural impact of the presence and power of God working in, through, and apart from the body of Christ on human society and its structures. It involves seeking positive change in the whole of human life materially, socially, and spiritually as we recover our true identity as human beings created in the image of God and discover our true vocation as productive stewards, faithfully caring for our world and its people. Deep and profound change is possible in human beings and is equally possible for the social organisms that we call communities, cities, and nations.

Transformation as Seen By CRWRC
The “transformation” we seek in communities is as deep as the human heart and as broad as the whole range of the human experience in the world God made. We want our approach to faithfully declare that our God reigns; Jesus is Lord over every inch of creation. “From him and through him and to him are all things”(Rom 11:36). We want to do community development that reflects the depth and breadth of the Kingdom. God works in us and through us to transform beliefs and actions, reflected in redeemed community, and focused on peace, justice, and righteousness.”

We in Collaborative for Neighborhood Transformation use the following:
A permanent change in one’s attitude, belief, and behavior in all areas of an individual’s life (physical, spiritual, emotional, social) who then facilitate the same changes in others; who as an aggregate, change their neighborhood from the inside out.

How Transformation is Different Then Measuring change or Social Impact
1. Transformation is a change in all areas of an individual’s knowledge, attitudes,
beliefs and behavior in all areas of their life; physical, spiritual, emotional, social
and intellectual.
2. God is actively involved in this change which is the underlying factor for long
term transformation to take place.
3. Because of the changes in individuals as they come together they begin to
transform their neighborhood from the inside out.
4. Identify bisecting interests – where the dreams of the community meet the
calling and capacity of the church, in harmony with God’s mandates
5. Recognize “common grace” of God’s work outside of church
6. Learn from goals & methods of good secular initiatives
7. Align agendas around common ground of the church and neighborhood
8. Relationships (horizontal) and prayer (vertical) are key to fruitful
intersection between community’s dreams and kingdom goals
9. Every person has opportunity to make an informed decision about Christ
10. Measure Christ-likeness in unbelievers

The heart and soul of is transformation as is stated in CNT, Vision and Mission Statements and How we go about our ministry

Vision
To see as many cities across North America transformed, neighborhood by neighborhood, in all areas of life. These cities are networked together so eventually the North America is transformed as a whole from the inside out.

Mission
CNT exist to expand transformational ministries across North America cities by creating a collaborative of partner organizations that will mutually encourage, motivate, and innovate on behalf of underserved communities. They will focus on transforming neighborhoods and then networking the neighborhoods in a city to transform the city from the inside out. In addition there is a collaborative at each city level and at the national level to see this take place

How we Go about Ministry
We Connect People, Create Community, Transform Communities and then Connect them into Collaboratives that transform large geographical areas.

What Is Your Passion? Mine is Transformation

I am beginning a series of blogs on Wholistic Transformation of which this Blog being the Introduction to a series of eight more posts which will cover:
• What is Transformation
• What Wholistic Means
• Biblical Basis of Wholistic Transformation
• Why is Wholistic Transformation Important
• Transformation Requires More than Doing Things for Others
• How will We Know if Transformation is Happening
• How Do I get Involved in Wholistic Transformation in My Place
• How do I get Involved in Wholistic Transformation More Broadly

The purpose in writing these blogs is to find like minded people who have an interest and or passion for Transformation. Then we want to help them better understand what Transformation is all about and how they can get involved where they are and in simple ways. But first let’s talk about people’s passions.

Steve Moore in his book Who is My Neighbor? talks about passion. There are two levels of Passion; Interest Based and Issue Based. We need to have ways that people can become involved in their interest and passion level that they are willing to become involved in: He talks about two types of passion
• Interest Based where people do things for fun as it brings them enjoyment.
• Issue/Cause Based where people become more and more involved because it brings them a sense of fulfillment and purpose.
He depicts an Issue/Cause Based Passion as what he calls a Passion Pyramid with Level 1 being the base and Level 4 the top.
• Level 1: Learning More About an issue or cause that attracts them.
They are willing to spend time in learning more what the Issue/cause is all about.
• Level 2: Engaging in Activities is becoming involved in doing things and
learning more as their commitment to the issue is growing
• Level 3: Influencing Others by sharing what they have learned and done
with others because they want to see their passion spread.
• Level 4: Heavy commitment and leadership is present even when sacrifice is needed.
They continue on spreading and leading no matter what it takes to accomplish their passion

The Blogs will use this approach in identifying people who resonate somewhat with our cause of Transformation. Then help them learn about the issue and get them involved in simple ways where they are and hopefully they will begin to spread their growing passion for Transformation among the people in their sphere of influence.

So come join us each week as we learn more about Transformation of Under-served Urban Neighborhoods
Stan

Examples of Improved Ways to Do things For Others

I will be writing several blogs on examples of activities that build peoples self esteem or move them forward to beginning to do things for themselves through the coaching of others.

Christmas Gift Store
Many churches use an Angel Tree approach for Christmas gifts for poor children. But instead of doing it that way they cam up with a different version then above of a Christmas Store, Churches members still bought gifts for kids but they are delivered as an unwrapped gifts to a location in the neighborhood where the poor came to choose Christmas gifts for their kids. The prices are set at about 10% of retail value so the prices are low. The store is someplace in the neighborhood, in a church in the neighborhood or in the elementary school

The parent picks gifts they think their child would like and takes it home to wrap it and give it to their child at Christmas. Sometimes instead of paying cash a person agrees to work in the store for say two hours for each gift. Therefore even if the parent has no funds they can choose, wrap and deliver gifts to their kids. Imagine the difference in how a parent feels by being able to be the giver of that gift to their child

Back Pack Give A Way
A church in Colorado donates backpacks full of supplies at the beginning of the year for families who cannot afford them. This year, the school Family Resource Center set up a “Time and Talent” program for these backpacks. Every family that accepted a backpack agreed to give two hours of their time back to school in some form of volunteer work. Schools know that if they can get a parent to the school for a positive experience the learning and attention of their child improves. As of January, 100% of the parents had completed this commitment. Parents dignity and feelings of self worth is strengthened as they have been able to provide for their child’s school supply needs instead of being dependent on others.

Those Served Become Servers at a Church Soup Kitchen
New Prospect Missionary Baptist Church is located in Over the Rhine, a community just outside downtown Cincinnati. New Prospect serves a mostly African-American population in a neighborhood that has been left behind. Many of Cincinnati’s homeless live in Over the Rhine, and for many years New Prospect has attended to their nutritional needs through a soup kitchen in the church basement. Several years ago, a group of ministers and lay leaders in the New Prospect congregation decided to re¬examine the church’s relationship with the people it was “serving” in its soup kitchen.

The congregation designed a “Gift Interview,” of assets to explore the unknown talents of the people coming to the soup kitchen. They asked questions about the gifts and abilities people were born with; they asked about skills and the things people liked to do. They also asked about dreams and provided an opportunity for each person to express what they would do if they “could snap their fingers and be doing anything.”

What they found astonished them: here were carpenters, plumbers, artists, musicians, teachers, and caregivers, all coming to the soup kitchen at New Prospect. Here were gifted and talented people, people with dreams, and people with things to contribute. As the interviews proceeded, the people being fed blossomed as they realized they had something to contribute. As the pastor said, “Folks were telling us, ‘We don’t want to stay over here on the receiving side of the table. We’re not just recipients. We want to cross over to your side of the table, the blessing side of the table. We want to cook and serve, too. We want to belong by contributing.”‘

More and more, the original soup kitchen recipients served the food and those who had once been servers, accepted the role of recipient. They received food and sat at the tables developing relationships with those they ate with. When everyone involved in the soup kitchen could function as a server and a recipient of the gift of food, the power once associated with being the server disappeared and real reciprocal relationships began to blossom.

A Great Way to Start to Get to Know Your Neighbors

Efforts to rebuild the neighborhoods are hampered by the fact that new residents moving in, whether tenants or homeowners, do not know each other and have no knowledge of past revitalization efforts. “Many work two or three jobs to get by,” notes Nelson Butten, “and others work and go to school. They have no time to meet their neighbors.” Often no structure remains within the neighborhood to foster their involvement. The social fabric of communities, already damaged by foreclosures, is further frayed when people lack the time and opportunity to build relationships. Yet without a shared vision of what they like and what needs to be changed, residents will have a difficult time rebuilding neighborhoods hurt by the foreclosure crisis.

If you think about it, hospitality may be the most ancient and universal of community-building strategies. Throughout time and in all cultures, it has been recognized that there is no greater act of compassion and fellowship than to welcome others to share your shelter and food.

Given the isolation and fear that tends to keep neighbors from neighbors, this is perhaps more true today than it has been for many years. Food sets the mood in a NeighborCircle by saying, ‘not only are you welcome in my home, you are someone with whom I would like to break bread.’ For those who love to cook and entertain, the NeighborCircle provides a great oppor¬tunity to display talent and creativity. Many of our hosts have created elabo¬rate meals for Circle guests, but simple meals or quality take-out have worked just as well. Preparing and serving the food for the Circle should not be a stressful event, so unless the

They begin with a resident volunteering to host a NeighborCircle in his or her own home. Over the course of a month a group of 8 to 10 families will come together at the host’s home three times for dinner and conversation. The meetings are assisted by one or two facilitators trained by Lawrence Community Works.

At the first meeting, residents simply get to know each other over a meal provided by the host. They talk about the different places they have lived in their lifetime and put a pin on the map as they talk about these places. The strategy acknowledges that personal relationships are foundational to efforts to build community. In Lawrence’s diverse neighborhoods, racial, ethnic and economic differences act as barriers between residents, so a special effort must be made to create a safe place where they can come together. The facilitator may ask questions related to where they lived.

At the second meeting participants discuss what they like about their neighborhood and what they want to see changed. They begin by brainstorming ideas and issues and must emerge from the meeting with one or two things they want to work on. They meet a third time to develop strategies to address the priorities agreed to in the second meeting. The 2nd and 3rd meetings are what NT teaches as part of mobilizing a neighborhood. Some NeighborCircles continue getting together after their first three meetings in order to work through their issues. Others do not.

The facilitators are a key component of the NeighborCircles’ success. They are typically volunteers who receive a small stipend for their assistance. The facilitators receive training on facilitation techniques as well as in the NeighborCircle model. Use of volunteers means that many more NeighborCircles can be organized than Lawrence CommunityWorks staff could do on their own. The facilitators also gain valuable skills that they can use elsewhere, either in their Jobs or in other volunteer interests.

Question and Answer About Urban Society

Question
When one looks at the social issues surrounding us right here in the United States—poverty, crime, lack of solid educational and job opportunities… It is easy to become overwhelmed and intimidated. What could one person, what could I, do as a Christian?

My first impulse is to close my eyes to the outside world, doing my best to create a world of harmony for my family and friends. I donate to good causes on the faint hope that someone else can create a better world. Yet sometimes a voice from within whispers, “Stretch out of your comfort zone and go into your neighborhood as salt and light.” What does Jesus want from me?

There is an Answer—NEIGHBORHOOD TRANSFORMATION
What Neighborhood Transformation is
• Going into a community, walking with the people in the community and helping show we are all made in the image of God. It starts with simply developing RELATIONSHIP.
• Then LISTEN. What do the community people want to do? What are their dreams?
• Then HELP THEM make their dreams a reality by:
x Using their assets.
x Doing the work themselves.
x Directing the efforts themselves.
x Starting small with projects such as entertainment or cleanup.
x Following that success with a more ambitious project.
• CONTINUE—stay with the work. You and others will find Jesus right in that neighborhood. People will realize they can transform their neighborhood by working together. We can all be PART OF THE RECONCILATION JESUS IS DOING NOW.
• What Neighborhood Transformation is not
• Not doing for—it is doing with. We are all open to the transforming power of God and we are teaching and listening to each other.
• Not YOUR Agenda. You are helping the community find God’s plan for them as they discover it themselves.
• NOT a transaction; it is a relationship.
• Not quick, it is long-term. Jesus has been reconciling the world to Himself for 2000 years and is not finished yet. Why would we believe we can rush transformation?
• Not you alone; it is the community. You focus on teaching the community to multiply and grow. They supply the effort.

What Neighborhood Transformation Produces:
• Transformed people—physically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally.
• Reconciled people—education improves because parents get involved in their children’s schooling. Blight is removed because people care.
• Cooperating people—producing education and job opportunities.
• Redeemed people—finding Jesus living within them in the neighborhood.
• Giving people—sharing these results with others in additional communities.

These things occur because we, as Jesus’ disciples, follow the way in which He ministered on earth. He lived with people, loved people, and served through creating relationships with people.