C h u r c h - b a s e d O r g a n i z i n g
A guide for diocesan social action offices
Prepared by
THE ROUNDTABLE
National association of diocesan social action directors
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involved more extensively, have seen some of the potential and perhaps some of the problems, and are looking for ways to maximize the potential and minimize the problems.
Social Action Directors need to explore church-based organizing as a tool for effective urban ministry. The Roundtable believes that we must take a more active role in helping to initiate, strengthen, deepen, and improve this process, especially in terms of its effect on internal parish life. We hope that this paper will assist us in carrying out this task. WHAT IS CHURCH-BASED ORGANIZING?The GoalIn one sense the goal of church-based organizing is no different from that of any other kind of organizing. People organize to have power over the many decisions that affect their lives. Organizers have always sought to enable workers or neighbors to get what they need to live their lives in relative peace and happiness. Labor organizes to achieve just wages, health care, pensions, vacation time, and reasonable hours. Parents organize to improve the schools their children attend, the parks in which their children play, and the health care facilities in the community. Neighbors organize to reduce crime, get rid of the cockroaches and rodents, improve garbage collection, fight higher taxes, and too often, to keep a halfway house for addicts out of their neighborhood. Similarly, church-based organizing is about empowering people to achieve the goals they have for themselves, their families, and their communities, and also for their parishes. The principal difference is that the Church approaches organizing with a particular set of religious values, social teachings, and beliefs. Its basic building block for organizing is the congregation or parish. It is interesting that, while business and political leaders have long tended to see power there, congregations and parishes usually do not think of themselves as having much power. In fact, they have significant power. The primary components of power are numbers of people, money and commitment. Most local churches have all three, a fact that has not been missed by organizers and organizing networks. Yet, much of the churches' power has been untapped. The Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) was the first network to take seriously the task of developing a powerful community organization within a network of participating parishes and congregations. Other networks have followed. There are nearly two hundred church-based organizations in the country today. |
Last year the Campaign for Human Development allotted nearly $2.2 million to sixty of them. The goal of church-based organizing is to develop the people's ability to act effectively on issues and values. It builds on both the institutional interest of the parish and the individual interests of clergy and members. One of the tasks of the organizer is to clarify such interests. The organizer encourages leaders to think about how participation in the organization will benefit the church, improving its members' quality of life and building the parish's capacity to act publicly on its own values and teachings.
Biblical and Theological Foundations for Church-based OrganizingThe Catholic Church's support for church-based organizing is grounded in its very definition and mission. The Church is a religious institution with a mission in history. In the words of the Second Vatican Council, it is to be "the sign and the safeguard of human dignity." The Church must promote social, economic, and political conditions that enhance human dignity and contribute to the common good.The first stories in the Bible teach that human beings are made in the image and likeness of God, and that the goods of the earth are gifts meant for the benefit of all, not for the advantage of the few. With these God-given gifts goes the responsibility of stewardship. We are to be co-creators with God, working in history to create a society of justice and equity, which enables all to live with the sacred dignity given to them by the Creator. We also learn about the Church's social mission through the life and teaching of Jesus, who used the words of the prophet Isaiah to summarize his own work on earth: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and to recover sight to the blind, to set a liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." Christ's commandment to love our neighbor requires that we both respond to the effects of injustice on individuals work to redress the structural causes of injustice lodged in the social, economic, and political institutions perpetuating human suffering. To this end parishes must become effective agents for change. They need to cultivate the skills and the organizational capacity to publicly act on their religious values. Along with the biblical imperative to work for social change, Catholics are also guided by the teachings of the Church's social encyclicals of the past hundred years. They remind us of the significance of human life and human dignity as primary values in the good society. The encyclicals emphatically promote the |
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The ROUNDTABLE
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Fax: 212.274.9786
roundtable@nplc.org
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