The Power of Relocation, part two
See Part One below....
Notes on reading John Perkins, from my class
I am teaching this semester at Phillips Theological Seminary....
1. We
notice the importance of “volunteers” who come into Perkins’ area of
Mississippi to serve with them, even though they do not live there; one way of
looking at volunteers from other areas is to see them as “potential residential
relocaters” and thus as neighbors from the start, because as his story reveals
people on fire with mission and passion do move across town, across the
country, across the world, even though at first it might be just “getting the
feet wet.” When the underlying basis is relational, not program outcome
oriented, that fosters the possibilities of relocation and deeper
transformation.
2. Expect
bumpy roads and failures as part of the growing learning relational process.
Note how he discusses the “lack of social awareness” of white suburban
evangelical whites while working with the social justice oriented black church
and community. He called it a disaster, but it was only a stumbling block step.
Most of the problems seem to stem in some ways from adopting the default mode
of tasks vs. process, or of being too focused on accomplishing something
visible and programmatic in a short time for the good feelings of the
volunteers instead of cultivating relationships which sow seeds of much
greater change.
We were blessed with the
passion and commitment and connection of a white progressive social justice
whirlwind with many connections and a big deep heart, and yet his “getting
things done” approach which worked wonders in many areas of town butted up
against our culture of a much slower time frame, slower pace, building trust
and relationships first and seeing if people and organizations were going to
last and be serious or leave quickly, another notch in their annual report
about what outreach they were doing; many times these personality differences
can lead to great things because of a diversity of approaches, but often they
lead to paralysis; the faster one person moves from outside the area, the
slower or more resistant our neighbors might be in response; it is one of the
ways they exert the power they do have. On the other hand, the slower
relational influence gaining before you do anything approach does turn off even
some of the local activists, especially the younger ones, who see all talk and
all meetings and very little accomplishments; so it can cost people-resources
even from within. I wish all relationships and endeavors could begin with
daylong retreats, orientation sessions, sharing of personality and leadership
style gifts inventories, in order to name the differences before beginning to
work together. There are often also hard and hurt feelings that result on the
parts of both local residents and outside volunteers due to these rushed-into
projects. A take-away on this is that no volunteers, or local hosting
residents, will be without fault in some ideal way, and the illusions on this
actually make it worse and lead to dis-illusionment. But, fearing any mistakes,
some people will resist “getting their feet wet” in any way in any form of relocation
and service, which is not what is intended and helps no one.
3. Notice
how he treats volunteering also not as an aspect of individualism, just for the
personal growth of the one who is volunteering, but he sees them as part,
ideally, of a community, and he reinforces their own community connections, and
encourages them to do things in their own backyards, connecting them with their
wider community, using their time with his community as training ground, not
replacement.
4. Perkins
begins chapter 9 of With Justice For All, on the strategy for the here and
now by making reference to The twin towers of Christian mission in Luke 4 and
Matthew 25. When people ask me how our community discerns what its mission
should be (expecting a series of meetings and votes and even prayer
discernment, etc.) I tell them that our mission is already laid out for us, our
reason for being comes from Jesus’ mission as set out as Perkins describes in
quoting Luke 4 and Matthew 25 (I can also resonate with those who find it, ala
Rick Warren or Bill Easum, in The Great Commandment and The Great Commission,
but usually have to nuance those or add to it a bit to explain what shape that
takes; for the Great Commandment I add on that it is a preface to the deeper
point of who our neighbor is we are to love and Jesus’ answer to that was given
in the parable of the man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and so the
Great Commission is to make disciples who carry out that radical great
commandment; my way of connecting the two.) But the place and people of mission
are expressly named in Luke 4 and Matthew 25. Perkins adds that no one, not
even the rich or comfortable, are to be excluded from the mission of the
church, but one way to bring the gospel to them, one way to commission them, is
to put them alongside Jesus’ mission to the poor, to meet them where they may
be in their gated communities, for example, but not to leave them there,
contented. This is a change and a challenge to a church culture for many over
centuries who saw getting people into such communities of safety and
convenience and wealth as one of the fruits of the gospel.
Perkins says in this
chapter that the very difficulty of the question for people reveals its power
and truth for their lives, and those who initially resist it the most are often
the ones whom it would benefit the most and who are being called. (A lesson
from Jonah of course there.) In my case doing ministry as a newly ordained
white pastor with church planting credentials and interests and ending up in an
abandoned low income low life expectancy predominantly African American zipcode
was not what I had originally intended. It only took a series of
failures/learnings in a different upscale suburban zipcode to re-orient me back
to the zipcode nearby where I am now, where I had been raised and much of my
family remains even though the demographics have changed greatly around them in
the past 40 years. But for some, it is actually achieving success in such an
environment, accomplishing what they ostensibly set out to do, building and
growing a church plant and community and getting noted and success from it that
turns into leaving them floundering, stuck on treadmills of meeting continuing
expectations of upward mobility and constant growth in numbers, that causes
them to rethink their calling and to relinquish the “trappings” and to
relocate. For some it can come from pastoring in an aging church that is stuck
and trying to replicate the past in a changed environment, a process that just
keeps adding stress to the system and losing members until they have to come up
with creative ways of turning their buildings over to others in the community
and meeting as guests and supporters in their own building; or they will out of
desperation take other steps to turn themselves inside out and relocate, such
as dividing up their 80 some members into eight groups based on how close
people live to one another and announcing that these groups are now their
church home, and to meet in homes or other places, as missional communities
that will come together monthly for worship and sharing what they are doing in
their neighborhoods, and the pastor who was struggling to survive as a full
time pastor in the old model will have found a bivocational job that helps him
meet ends and frees him to focus on connecting the groups, and he may move
close to his new job in a poorer section of town, which prompts some of his
parishoners to do the same. The take-away? Be open to a variety of ways you
might be led to living more closely with the poor and suffering.
5. “That’s
why you need to go” Perkins says over and over again to the reasons he hears
people give for not going. Each fear can be the opening to a more loving
transformative relationship. But in this chapter Perkins gives a step by step
path for how to relocate which says it is best not to do it impulsively,
quickly, even with the best intentions. Notice the way he encourages people to
keep involving more and more people into their decision on relocation, and how
that also helps to slow down the decision, the move, the immediate impact (my
observation is that often it is an over-drama, freneticism, anxiety that marks
the very lives of people in need, and the way we can tend to “treat” them just adds
to what ails them.) It is interesting also that we may seek to replace the real
transformation of relocation and relationships over time with the “short term
mission trips” that are now coming under increased scrutiny as people look at
the problems and waste they often engender and, while mostly seeking to keep
some element of them, to reform how such trips are made. These trips may
actually be a way to keep from doing the discernment that Perkins is calling
for about what it is that is keeping us away from more radical, more effective,
life choices. Note also the options he has found that help people to relocate
and address their fears in a common sense way; it is a kind of “marginal among
the marginal” ministry, living in close geographic proximity with those you are
serving but not directly amid them if there are reasons for it, and using that
location to help you be a bridge for others.
6. A
summary of the strategy:
A. get to know the area by working with
others in it or working with a group that works with the poor in another area.
B. Share your vision with the church.
C. Form a ministry team.
D. Become a community over a year or
two.
E. Get special training for your team
or a big part of it.
F. Choose the community of most needs.
G. Outline a target area: this is
important as we have a tendency to take on too much and dilute our relationship
power; he says if the community has a lot of subdivisions then your target area
might be simply six blocks; if it is an area of apartments your area might be
one single apartment complex.
H. Build relationships and allow even
the friends you have made first to help you choose where to live and to point
you to it.
I. Listen to the people, visit them,
invite them. Plan to stay.
J. Once you begin to act, begin with bible
study or prayer group.
K. Work with children.
L. Raise up indigenous leaders to take
over what you start.
M. Join or establish a church in the
area; join is the first and best option, but if can’t find healthy one, start
one.
N. Respond to the needs, begin the
redistribution.
O. In developing leaders to help you in the
sustaining work of the 3Rs and replicating them with other people, I like to
use and adapt his three ways of recognizing gifted people to work with: those
who evidence
1. “lordship of Christ” or what is referred to
as “people of peace” (Luke 10); non-anxious presences, people of inner
abundance even amid much external scarcity;
2. Servanthood, are they willing to be led,
see where their growing edges are?
3. Fellowship, are they
comfortable participating in all aspects of community?
7. In
the Update section on relocation, there is a nuance about a sense of urgency.
While he has been mapping out a way of gradual and deeper engagement, he sees
this need to be balanced with starting the process out of a sense of urgency,
but it is an urgency about the plight of people, not urgency about project
completions. It does remind me how the culture of permission-giving and
vulnerability and trust we have been talking about this semester lends itself
to “urgent responses” or immediate action, and I think about instances here
when we have waited and waited for officials to take care of blighted
intersections or properties (sometimes out of a sense of just seeing how long
it will take, getting a story of powerful neglect) and then we will “all of a
sudden” just go “guerilla garden or cleanup” the property ourselves without
waiting on getting any permission from some out of state owner or from
officials who have been neglecting the blight. We like to foster people feeling
empowered to do that themselves though “not on their own” but in sharing with
others. Sometimes that it taking over an intersection full of constant trash
and weeds and turning it into a beautiful space (see www.guerillagardening.org), or in
graffiti painting over, or giving out food at least once to someone in need
even if they don’t meet all of the requirements expected simply because they
are there and in need. Random acts of justice, kindness, and beauty are often
done in spontaneous actions, or those where one feels the presence of the
Spirit leading them, and as is usual in such cases, it is good to bring in
others as well who can help you; even a sense of urgency doesn’t negate the
sense of community. Sometimes it is during these acts of urgency, and these
one-time practices that might be skirting regulations, that you get ideas and
experiences and doorways open that allow you to take the more systemic route of
justice.
An example: once early
in our relocation and community ministry here, we decided to get big planters
full of beautiful flowers and on Easter Eve night in the dark we would go along
all of the blighted run down abandoned business buildings along our major
thoroughfare and place these big flower pots so that when people got up and
about on Easter morning they would be surprised to see these bits of beauty
lining the streets and turning blight into beauty; it would make their Easter
and the community a little brighter. But when we got up at Easter dawn
ourselves to go experience it, we discovered that they had been dumped over,
the pots and the flowers in many cases stolen and a pile of dirt left instead,
sometimes piles of dirt with flowers buried in them. What was meant to be
beauty turned out to be adding more blight. What we had failed to understand
was the culture of “kicked to the curb” and how people would take any opening
to get something that they could later sell if they thought it was theirs for
the taking, and these were just sitting there by the side of the avenue in
front of buildings that were obviously not being used anymore either. Besides
deeper understanding of our neighborhood culture, what that led to as a
take-away was that we needed to use not big pots but actually flower beds into
the ground, and so we shifted our efforts to actual planting of beds in front
of some of these areas, which took longer but had a more lasting effect, and
was still in the “guerilla” mode, and it led to our offering to do beds for
free to local businesses, and so it deepened relationships. So, an act
out of a sense of urgency, even though it backfired, led to learnings which led
to our original intent.
