Non-profit community development corporations (CDCs) based
at two African American United Methodist churches in Columbus, Ohio, are
exploring a potential partnership that may create job opportunities for
ex-prison inmates in the construction of affordable housing.
Leaders of both CDCs, which were started with help from the United Methodist
Community Developers Program, discussed their prospects for collaboration
during the program's Nov. 7-11 training event in Little Rock, Ark. The event
convened nearly 150 laity and clergy from more than 30 racial-ethnic minority
congregations across the United States to learn principles and strategies of
church-based community organizing and community development.
The Christian Community Development Corporation, a legally separate but related
ministry of Asbury North Church, will need low-cost labor for its planned home
construction and restoration projects in a nearby depressed community. Led by
Community Developer Latanya Cunningham, the CDC broke ground in August on a
project to rehabilitate an abandoned, historic hotel into 32 senior citizen
apartments.
Meanwhile, the CDC at Wesley Church, in another struggling community several
miles away, is seeking job training and employment opportunities for the men it
helps who are coming out of prison, drug rehabilitation programs, and homeless
shelters.
The 33-year-old Community Developers Program supports their ministries with
basic funding, training, and technical assistance. Administered by the
denomination's General Board of Global Ministries, the program is funded by the
church-wide offering received on Human Relations Day and by gifts through the
General Advance.
Speakers and workshop leaders at the training event repeatedly prescribed
collaboration, accountability, and capitalizing on local resources for
development as keys to fulfilling the theme of the conference, "Churches
Saving Communities through Empowerment."
"We must learn to build more partnerships and use the energy and expertise
that each of us brings to the table, rather than always competing for limited
resources," said Roy Priest, head of the National Congress for Community
Economic Development, based in Washington D.C. NCCED serves and represents a
network of 4,300 CDCs, many of them church-related.
Priest spoke at a closing banquet that celebrated the 20-year ministry of Black
Community Developers, Inc., a CDC started by Theressa Hoover United Methodist
Church in Little Rock. Led by the Rev. William H. Robinson, pastor, and
bolstered by extensive local collaboration, Hoover's ministry has spawned
successful programs in substance-abuse prevention and treatment, affordable
housing, child care, youth development, and other areas.
"We have to empower more people to take charge of their own destinies by
not always being recipients and consumers, but by becoming owners and
entrepreneurs," said Priest. He urged church leaders to help more
low-income communities reverse economic neglect and exploitation by combining
their assets and targeting their investments through collective banking and
other tactics. "We must attract new businesses to our communities as
partners who include us in their plans and their profits."
Other speakers and workshop leaders, including veteran pastors and community
developers, shared wisdom gleaned from years of organizing community groups,
doing fundraising and economic development, and responding to poverty,
violence, and health concerns in racial-ethnic minority communities. They, too,
emphasized collaboration, but also urged churches to nurture self-esteem in
poor communities by helping residents to draw upon their own talents and
resources in generating change and growth opportunities.
"You've got to use what you have to get what you want," said Leon
Love, board chairman for a community developer project at Bluff Road United
Methodist Church in Columbia, S.C. Since it started in 1993, the project has
helped residents close crack houses in their once-blighted area, create new
homes and small businesses, and turn an abandoned school into a community center
for education and recreation programs.
"We went door-to-door to assess community needs and assets, and we built
coalitions around a common vision," recalled Love, who offered a dozen
proven strategies for effective community development. "Then we rallied
around clear, simple, popular issues to generate small victories and build
momentum."
"This training event was helpful to many of our projects, especially the
eight just approved this year," said Ruth M. Lawson, who directs the
Community Developers Program. "The worship experiences gave them an
essential theological foundation for this work, while the workshops, panel
discussions, and networking opportunities offered valuable instruction and
helpful ideas to enhance their diverse ministries and ultimately to benefit
their communities."
Lawson, who hopes to sponsor another training event for the network in 2003
awarded plaques to five persons who have been involved in the Community
Developers Program for 20 or more years: the Rev. Robinson and his daughter,
Deborah Robinson Bell, both of Hoover; Sharon Kirtdoll, community developer at
Simpson United Methodist Church in Steubenville, Ohio; José Olivas, community
developer for Western Kansas Mexican American Ministries, based in Ulysses,
Kansas; and Billie McClearn, community developer at First United Methodist
Church, Newburgh, N.Y.
The United Methodist Community Developers Program, established in 1968,
supports church-based efforts to develop neglected, low-income racial-ethnic
minority communities through self-help ministries that focus on education,
economic development and political empowerment. The program has been funded
primarily by the Human Relations Day church-wide offering since 1972. It also
receives second-mile giving support through the General Advance under the
project title "Churches Saving Communities" (# 982143-6).
The next scheduled Human Relations Day is Jan. 20, 2002, although congregations
may observe the Special Sunday and receive the offering at any time.
John Coleman is a GBGM consultant.
