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.

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.

From Rural CHE to Urban Neighborhood Transformation

As you hopefully already know, CHE or Neighborhood Transformation (NT) is a multi-faceted, community/neighborhood-based, development strategy that deals with the whole person which builds on the people and their community’s assets. CHE/NT trains people how to use those assets to solve their own problem. It is about neighbor helping neighbor. It releases individuals and communities to be all they can be, by transforming individuals who transform their community from the inside out.

Individuals and rural villages were being transformed by this strategy; therefore it was felt that CHE had potential for use in working with under-resources neighborhoods in urban settings. Three years ago it was decided to see if we could adapt our International rural focused CHE ministry for use with the urban poor in the United States. To this end we began to look at what needed to be changed to adapt CHE for United States consumption.

Identifying and Entering the Urban Community
The biggest problem in doing any Urban CHE or Neighborhood Transformation program is identifying cohesive communities in urban settings that are not really a community as we describe in it rural CHE. The more people hold in common, the greater is their sense of unity. If you can enter their community there is more likelihood of change then in diverse populations. But most geographic neighborhoods do not hold much in common. The question becomes how we can begin to create communities that have something in common.

Mel King’s work in Boston defines creating community as “Where people can live and feel nurtured, sustained, involved and stimulated. Creating community is the continual process of getting to know people, caring and sharing responsibility for the physical and spiritual condition of the living space. He adds we need as individuals and as communities to be about getting people to deal with the fears that immobilize us and bar us from our basic instincts towards growth, change and harmony”

We were introduced to a system that had been developed by Northwestern University called Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) which really deals with the above problems in urban neighborhoods. All people and neighborhoods have assets, identify those assets, network them together, and then build on what is already in the neighborhood and what the people themselves want to do.

In reality, this is what CHE does in rural areas, but we use Participatory Rural Appraisal, (PRA) in entering the community. ABCD takes the place of PRA as it identifies assets in individuals even more than PRA.

ABCD became the main approach for entering the community in urban settings. When we find people who are interested in doing something, we provide small group training for them. This training might include how teenage mothers can have healthy pregnancies, how to get and keep a job, or parenting children.

Urban NT is About Creating Community Instead of Entering an Existing Community
We found in rural CHE that transformation occurs best working with groups of people that were not too large in number, in villages of 1500 to 2000 people. Most cities are much larger but are already divided into neighborhoods. We found the best size neighborhood is built around the catchment area of one elementary school. The elementary especially in poor neighborhoods many times is the geographic center for the neighborhood. In the US we moved from a focus on villages to small identifiable city neighborhoods.

Since there are very few identifiable geographic communities that hold many things in common, as noted above, urban NT is all about finding points of interests held by very small groups of people built their self interests.

In reality we are creating new sub-communities built around people’s interests and assets and then aggregating these small self interest groups into a larger group neighborhood group by doing Appreciative Inquiry which helps people identify the good things that have happened in the past and then coming to a consensus of individual dreams for their neighborhood. The neighborhood then develops a plan to accomplish the thing that the neighborhood wants to accomplish for their neighborhood.

Biblical Basis for Neighborhood Transformation

Neighborhood Transformation’s Cause Is:
Equipping churches to assist neighborhoods out poverty and people to maturity in Christ.
The Biblical Basis for our Cause
Participate in God’s mission to restore all creation to wholeness by being faithful witnesses in Word and Deed through Gods redeeming love and work.
• Luke 10:27 Love God totally in areas of your life which deals with whole person and reach out to your neighbor in love as you would for yourself.
• Luke 4:18 &19, Isa 61:2&3. Deal with the whole person by reaching to them in all areas of their life.
• Luke 9:1,2 & Luke 10, 1,8,9, Paul sends out 12 and 72 disciples to reach out wholistically to others
• Matthew 28:18-10, We are to teach all God has commanded us to do which is to deal wholistically with people.

What the Bible Calls Us To Do In Relation To Our Cause
• Love all people and reach out to them don’t wait for them to come to me.
• Love requires a relationship therefore must get to know people can’t just give people things.
• When we do things for people that they should be doing for themselves we actually hurt not love them.
• The goal is a ministry that deals with all areas of a person life thereby transforming them from the inside out and then these people in a given neighborhood are transforming their neighborhood in the same way.

How Our Cause Intersects With A Regular Person
• It gets people out of their comfort zone and into the neighborhood which is a hard step for many middle-class people to do.
• When we do things for people we (which we are inclined to do) we make them dependent on others which is not showing love. We have to equip people with a different worldview of empowering not doing things for others.

Do you have an interest in Neighborhood Transformation’s Cause?
There are many ways you can become involved where you are. Contact Stan@neighborhoodtransformation.net to learn about them.

Can the Poor Change If So How Might a Neighborhood Look?

This is the third blog on Poverty. We have looked at what is Poverty and what groups are ofter found in poverty. Then we looked at ways that facilitate transformed individuals.

Now Some of You Want to Ask Does This Happen?
The answer is a resounding yes if we build on the assets of people in the neighborhood starting with what they want to do. A relationship with Jesus Christ is essential and people growing to maturity in Him, not remaining as a new born. Then these transformed individuals as an aggregate begin to transform their neighborhood using the assets that are there. the neighborhood changes from the inside out.

Desired Results in a Transformed Neighborhood
If the ‘What If’ questions were answered and some of the steps taken described in an earlier blog, we might expect to see some of the following results:
1. Increased knowledge, skills, and resources benefiting individuals throughout the neighborhood.
2. Transformed individuals who are capable of reproducing themselves in others in transformational ways.
3. These results are multiplied throughout a neighborhood and the neighborhood is transformed from the inside out.
4. People are taking more responsibility for their own lives, in all areas.
5. The program is integrated into the neighborhood infrastructure, with the neighborhood leaders taking responsibility. New leaders are emerging neighborhood by neighborhood.
6. There is a growing sense of community.
7. People view the program as their own, rather than belonging to an outside agency.
8. The programs are neighborhood funded rather than funds coming from the outside.
9. The program continues after outside assistance has left the neighborhood.
10. Improvement in social indicators such as education and economics, and a decrease in crime and divorce rates.
11. The program expands to adjacent areas through local training teams, after the initial training team leaves.
12. The entire city is being transformed in all spheres of life, neighborhood by neighborhood.

Change Driven by Grace
We are seeing results in transformational ministry that impact the whole person, in many different religious settings, rural and urban, throughout the world over and above our wildest dreams! The Lord calls each of us who are ministering in His name to deal with people as whole persons: physically, spiritually, emotionally, and socially. The starting point and center of good health is our Lord Jesus Christ. He is working to build His Kingdom.

What Neighborhood Transformation is All about

Some people have asked me “Exactly what is Neighborhood all about” so I wrote this to share with people.

When a church in a new city asks for an Envisioning Seminar, we ask them to bring people from multiple churches together for this five hour training. From the seminar, we hope to find three to five local churches that are interested in trying the NT approach in working with people in their target neighborhood.

The next step involves training church members to be a Facilitation Team. These trainings can be done either segmented, six Saturdays, or in three weekends, spread over 18 months. Typically, we have laypeople from three to five churches coming together for the training. They also begin small group wholistic training in churches.

After the training, each church team explores 3-5 nearby neighborhoods for potential to begin. Each team then chooses their own nearby underserved neighborhood. The team begins to identify assets of individuals and builds a data base of the assets found in the area. They also begin to visit religious leaders, government, non-profits, and local groups in their chosen neighborhood to find out who is doing what, and to begin to develop relationships with them. The idea is to work together, not to compete with them.

The team presents their findings to the people and asks them for their dreams for their neighborhood. Then a matching can take place, matching people’s interests and assets to individuals and associations in the neighborhood. The team then begins teaching multiple small groups based on the people’s specific topic of interest.

The neighborhood elects a neighborhood association, if there is none, and they are trained in how the program works. After the training, the association chooses local people as Neighborhood Agents of Change (NAC). The NACs are trained for 30 to 50 sessions on topics of the neighborhood’s interest. The NACs begin visiting their neighbors sharing what they have learned as the training is going on.

An association of churches from throughout the city, which are doing Neighborhood Transformation, start to meet together in order to learn from each other and impact their city.