Asset Based Church Community Development (ABCCD)
Two Age Development is a Christian non-profit organization seeking to foster Asset Based Church Community Development as a permanent, sustainable and independent part of the lives of church communities in Haiti and the United States.
Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) is a fairly well defined concept that can be applied to almost any community. Two Age Development is committed to fostering the principles of ABCD as a permanent part of the communities that we serve. However, our approach to ABCD is exclusively focused on The Body of Christ in the local church. While we do strive to see the church use the principles of ABCD in their outreach to their larger communities, we are deeply committed to submitting to the authority of Jesus Christ in everything that we do and Scripture makes it clear that Jesus has established and equipped the church to do His work in the World. It is for this reason that we are exclusively committed to helping church communities grow up in Christ so that they will be well equipped to reach out to the larger communities in which Jesus has placed them and calls them to minister.
ABCCD in Rural Haiti
The Church faces different issues in different times and places. However, in rural Haiti the challenges are often predominantly related to material poverty. The vast majority of believers in rural Haiti are subsistence farmers. These farmers struggle just to grow enough crops to feed their families and make enough extra cash for the absolute barest of essentials. Meanwhile, deforestation, soil erosion, drought, and excessive subdividing of farm land are putting ever greater pressure on these small holding farmers. Over and against this pervasive material poverty, the New Testament clearly teaches that the members of the church must provide for their own families, pastors, widows, orphans, and the church's facilities. We are also instructed to work hard and be good stewards of the resources that God has entrusted to us so that we will have something to share with the poor and needy of the larger community as well. As long as the vast majority of members in Haitian churches are simply unable to provide for their own families it will never be possible for these Churches to mature into the communities that Christ calls them to be.
When a church that is facing these kinds of challenges asks for our help we are confronted by a need to choose. On the one hand, we can go to North American churches and ask them to support one or more Haitian churches. If material poverty where the only challenge facing the church in Haiti then this approach might work. However, material poverty is only one of many challenges facing Haitian churches and it is only a symptom of the root problem. The real root problem is the same for a church in rural Haiti as it is for an affluent church in the suburbs in the States. The fall really did happen and we now live in a world that is marred by sin and death. God created us to live in perfect harmonious relationship with Him, ourselves, others, and the world around us. But all of these relationships have been broken by the fall. But the story does not end there. God the Son, become a man, Jesus Christ. He lived a sinless life and then died to pay the penalty for the sins of His people. He was buried and rose again to conquer sin and death and redeem a people for Himself. He did not do this just so that we could be born again and then sit around and wait to die so that we can go and spend eternity in heaven. He established the church which He also describes as His Body. He unites all believers to His Body as members through the Holy Spirit. And He calls His church to be salt and light in the present evil age. Jesus does not just tell the members of His Body that they must provide for their own families, their pastors, their church facilities, and their widows and orphans because he has a strong Protestant work ethic. He commands the church to do these things because this is how they will learn to take up their cross and follow Him on the pilgrim journey through this present evil age. And this taking up of His cross is the means by which He has ordained to advance His Kingdom throughout this present world. If affluent American churches subsidize impoverished Haitian churches they will actually be interfering with the work of sanctification that Jesus is doing in His church.
So what is the other option? The other option is to come alongside the Haitian churches. Take the time to get to know them. Get to know their strengths and weaknesses. Get to know their members, their farms, the schools where their children go, and the larger community they live in. Get to the point where you can see how Jesus is working in their midst already to build them up into a mature church community. While doing this, seek to help them find ways to mobilize the assets which God has given them and work as a community to begin to overcome the problems which are holding their members in grinding material poverty. This kind of approach must avoid dependency and paternalism. Generally, this type of work requires that we not give people things or do things for them. And this approach is definitely not a quick easy fix. Unfortunately, Americans are addicted to quick fixes and the American church is a product of our culture. But this is where we find that we have come full circle in our efforts to help the church through ABCCD. Two Age Development seeks to help instill ABCCD in churches in BOTH Haiti and the States. For American churches that are willing to count the cost and commit to a long term investment, the process of coming alongside a Haitian church and helping them to implement ABCCD is an excellent way for a North American church to work on implementing ABCCD in their own congregation. The average North American church will have a totally different set of challenges that they face when compared with a Haitian church. But they will still have just as great a need to overcome challenges and the principles of ABCCD apply equally well to all kinds of church communities. Thus, Two Age Development seeks to build sister church relationships between North American Churches and Haitian Churches as part of our efforts to come alongside the Church and help her to instill the principles of ABCCD as a permanent part of her community life.
Development Defined
Now let us consider just exactly what we mean when we say development. For our purposes, we are using development as a shorthand term for the sustained implementation of the development process in the life of a community. The development process consists of the following cycle:
Two Age Development is a Christian non-profit organization seeking to foster Asset Based Church Community Development as a permanent, sustainable and independent part of the lives of church communities in Haiti and the United States.
Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) is a fairly well defined concept that can be applied to almost any community. Two Age Development is committed to fostering the principles of ABCD as a permanent part of the communities that we serve. However, our approach to ABCD is exclusively focused on The Body of Christ in the local church. While we do strive to see the church use the principles of ABCD in their outreach to their larger communities, we are deeply committed to submitting to the authority of Jesus Christ in everything that we do and Scripture makes it clear that Jesus has established and equipped the church to do His work in the World. It is for this reason that we are exclusively committed to helping church communities grow up in Christ so that they will be well equipped to reach out to the larger communities in which Jesus has placed them and calls them to minister.
ABCCD in Rural Haiti
The Church faces different issues in different times and places. However, in rural Haiti the challenges are often predominantly related to material poverty. The vast majority of believers in rural Haiti are subsistence farmers. These farmers struggle just to grow enough crops to feed their families and make enough extra cash for the absolute barest of essentials. Meanwhile, deforestation, soil erosion, drought, and excessive subdividing of farm land are putting ever greater pressure on these small holding farmers. Over and against this pervasive material poverty, the New Testament clearly teaches that the members of the church must provide for their own families, pastors, widows, orphans, and the church's facilities. We are also instructed to work hard and be good stewards of the resources that God has entrusted to us so that we will have something to share with the poor and needy of the larger community as well. As long as the vast majority of members in Haitian churches are simply unable to provide for their own families it will never be possible for these Churches to mature into the communities that Christ calls them to be.
When a church that is facing these kinds of challenges asks for our help we are confronted by a need to choose. On the one hand, we can go to North American churches and ask them to support one or more Haitian churches. If material poverty where the only challenge facing the church in Haiti then this approach might work. However, material poverty is only one of many challenges facing Haitian churches and it is only a symptom of the root problem. The real root problem is the same for a church in rural Haiti as it is for an affluent church in the suburbs in the States. The fall really did happen and we now live in a world that is marred by sin and death. God created us to live in perfect harmonious relationship with Him, ourselves, others, and the world around us. But all of these relationships have been broken by the fall. But the story does not end there. God the Son, become a man, Jesus Christ. He lived a sinless life and then died to pay the penalty for the sins of His people. He was buried and rose again to conquer sin and death and redeem a people for Himself. He did not do this just so that we could be born again and then sit around and wait to die so that we can go and spend eternity in heaven. He established the church which He also describes as His Body. He unites all believers to His Body as members through the Holy Spirit. And He calls His church to be salt and light in the present evil age. Jesus does not just tell the members of His Body that they must provide for their own families, their pastors, their church facilities, and their widows and orphans because he has a strong Protestant work ethic. He commands the church to do these things because this is how they will learn to take up their cross and follow Him on the pilgrim journey through this present evil age. And this taking up of His cross is the means by which He has ordained to advance His Kingdom throughout this present world. If affluent American churches subsidize impoverished Haitian churches they will actually be interfering with the work of sanctification that Jesus is doing in His church.
So what is the other option? The other option is to come alongside the Haitian churches. Take the time to get to know them. Get to know their strengths and weaknesses. Get to know their members, their farms, the schools where their children go, and the larger community they live in. Get to the point where you can see how Jesus is working in their midst already to build them up into a mature church community. While doing this, seek to help them find ways to mobilize the assets which God has given them and work as a community to begin to overcome the problems which are holding their members in grinding material poverty. This kind of approach must avoid dependency and paternalism. Generally, this type of work requires that we not give people things or do things for them. And this approach is definitely not a quick easy fix. Unfortunately, Americans are addicted to quick fixes and the American church is a product of our culture. But this is where we find that we have come full circle in our efforts to help the church through ABCCD. Two Age Development seeks to help instill ABCCD in churches in BOTH Haiti and the States. For American churches that are willing to count the cost and commit to a long term investment, the process of coming alongside a Haitian church and helping them to implement ABCCD is an excellent way for a North American church to work on implementing ABCCD in their own congregation. The average North American church will have a totally different set of challenges that they face when compared with a Haitian church. But they will still have just as great a need to overcome challenges and the principles of ABCCD apply equally well to all kinds of church communities. Thus, Two Age Development seeks to build sister church relationships between North American Churches and Haitian Churches as part of our efforts to come alongside the Church and help her to instill the principles of ABCCD as a permanent part of her community life.
Development Defined
Now let us consider just exactly what we mean when we say development. For our purposes, we are using development as a shorthand term for the sustained implementation of the development process in the life of a community. The development process consists of the following cycle:
At this point many Americans express a certain amount of surprise that something as fundamental as the development cycle could be lacking from a community. This is primarily due to the fact that the development cycle is deeply embedded in our culture and thus we use it without even thinking about it. However, the development cycle is not necessarily so deeply embedded in other cultures and Haitian culture is not particularly familiar with it. Remember, Haiti’s cultural heritage is one of slaves brought over from Africa. It was illegal for these slaves to be educated in any way. It was illegal for them to attempt to overcome their own problems. They successfully cast off their slave masters but even today they are still the heirs of their slave heritage. Even their language, devised by the French as a means of being able to direct the labors of their slaves while denying them a proper language with which to communicate, continues to impose serious limitations on Haitians more than 200 years after they won their freedom. Additionally, American believers would do well to ask themselves if the Development Cycle is actually an integral part of the life of their church community. Just because we use it constantly in our personal lives does not necessarily mean that it is being used properly in our church communities.
Community versus Individual Development
The importance of implementing the Development Cycle in the context of a community must not be overlooked. Americans tend to think very individualistically. However, this individualistic approach to being a follower of Christ is almost totally foreign to Scripture. Rather, Scripture is primarily concerned with the community of the Body of Christ and the apostle Paul devotes one and a half chapters in I Corinthians 12:12 – 13:13 to an extended discussion of how we are all members of one body characterized by love and interdependence. Without denying the importance of personal stewardship and accountability we still must work with the Body of Christ as a community both in Haiti and the States if we hope to achieve true development. Additionally, Haiti is not an individualistic culture and individuals who pursue personal development apart from the community often find themselves ostracized or worse as a consequence. Finally, it is a good and necessary consequence of successfully community development that the individuals in the community must also develop. In fact, we are convinced that this is the single best way to encourage individual development.
Asset Based Development
Let us now consider what it means to implement the Development Cycle in an Asset Based manner. Asset Based development encourages a community to identify and work with the assets that God has provided to their community and seek to mobilize these assets in their development efforts. Whenever a community seeks to identify their opportunities for development they will invariably identify many valid opportunities which they are currently unable to pursue due to a lack of available resources.
The first temptation when faced with a lack of resources is to look for ways to move forward with projects despite the lack of sufficient assets. In an American church this might consist of borrowing substantially more money for the church’s new building than what they can afford to pay back while telling themselves that they are “stepping out in faith” trusting that the Lord will bring new members once the new building is completed. In a Haitian church, trying to tackle a project that is beyond their current assets usually takes the form of finding outside supporters who will donate the extra resources. The end result of trying to tackle projects that are beyond the means of the community is a breakdown of the development cycle. If the project is a failure then defeatism and hopelessness start to set in thus draining the development cycle of its vital fuel, enthusiasm. If the project is a success then the community starts to think that the best way to get things done is to become dependent on other people’s assets and dependency is the opposite of development.
The other common temptation is to respond to the newly identified list of development projects by focusing too much on what the community lacks. This response invariable leads to fatalism and hopelessness. The key to avoiding these twin perils is for the community to carefully select a single project that will meet the following criteria:
These criteria are most vital during the early stages of a communities attempt to implement the development cycle. Later, once the community has built sufficient enthusiasm for their development efforts they will be better able to deal with failures. In fact, failures are an essential part of the development process and it eventually becomes important that the community have opportunities to learn from and overcome their failures.
Enthusiasm and Critical Mass
As mentioned before, enthusiasm is the fuel of the development cycle. Without it, even the most successful series of projects will not result in permanent sustainable development. This is because development involves risk and is hard work and can only be sustained over the course of time if there is sufficient enthusiasm for the benefits to be gained from the investment.
Consider a hypothetical development project to grow cocoa and incorporate it into the diet of the community. Most Americans would be very enthusiastic about the successful completion of such a project because they either like chocolate themselves or have teenage daughters. However, most Haitians are not particularly fond of chocolate thus even the a highly successful project to increase the amount of chocolate in their diets would be unlikely to generate must enthusiasm. This example may be a little silly but there have been any number of development projects undertaken in the developing world only to discover that the community does not really value the results of the project.
Enthusiasm is vital to successful permanent implementation of the development cycle in a community because communities are governed by a concept know as critical mass. Most Americans think in terms of majority rule when thinking about how a community makes decisions. However, this is only one fairly artificial example of critical mass and it does not apply to all communities in the way that critical mass does. Consider a community made up of a family with mom, dad, and their four children. Majority rule would indicate that a vote of four children verses two parents should suffice to set bedtime as 11pm on school nights. But the critical mass is with the parents despite the numbers. Now consider a church community. If the consensus of the critical mass in the community, regardless of the percentages, is that folks should wear nice clothes to worship on Sunday then that will tend to become the church’s practice. Even in elder ruled churches it is very difficult or impossible for the elders to rule against the will of the critical mass. If the critical mass want the pastor to go then either the pastor will go or the critical mass will shift its position due to people changing their minds or leaving the church in sufficient numbers to shift the critical mass.
The members of a community will generally not all be in agreement on any single issue. However, once the position of the critical mass is established on any given issue all of the members of the community will naturally begin to come into alignment with the views of the critical mass. If you want to test this theory just do a test regarding the question of how church members dress for worship. If you church favors informal dress try wearing your very best formal clothes for worship for a while. Do not explain what you are doing to anyone because that would be cheating. If asked, just tell them that you think that church is wrong and everyone should wear their Sunday best for worship. Just imagining doing something like this is sufficient to help us see the power of conformity is in human society.
This is why enthusiasm is so vital to the permanent success of any effort to instill the development cycle into a community. If a community does not already have the development cycle as an integral part of their community life it is because the critical mass of the community does not want the development cycle to be an integral part of their community life. This inertia can only be overcome by building enough enthusiasm for development over a long enough period of time to eventually shift the position of the critical mass of the community from being opposed to development to being in favor of it. And even once the critical mass has been shifted enthusiasm is still vital in order to keep the critical mass in firm support of development. However, once the critical mass has been shifted into favoring development then inertial starts to work in favor of ongoing development. Stragglers will be brought into line even if only on the surface at first and once this happens it will be much easier to win over their hearts and minds to support development as they start to reap its benefits.
Once the development cycle is in place in a community it becomes possible to move forward with the consolidation process. This process consists of the following elements:
We view our development work as being of finite duration. It is impossible to predict how long a given community will need to be able to continue their own development without further need of our assistance but it is vital that they eventually reach this point or else we will have failed in our goal. This is why we are always looking to work ourselves out of a job in any given community. And if we succeed in building a multiplier effect we hope to one day find that there are mature Haitian churches that are better qualified than we are to carry on our current work in Haiti. Who knows, maybe in God’s mercy the Haitian church will one day be sending missionaries to North America.
Many of the concepts presented here are drawn from two books. “When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor… and Yourself” by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert and “Two Ears of Corn” by Roland Bunch. Both of these books are excellent and we highly recommend them to anyone interested in learning more about ABCCD and the other concepts discussed on our web site. Unfortunately, Two Ears of Corn is out of print and will be expensive if you are able to find it. However, for anyone considering or actually doing development work, even development work of a non-agricultural nature, it would be well worth the investment.
Community versus Individual Development
The importance of implementing the Development Cycle in the context of a community must not be overlooked. Americans tend to think very individualistically. However, this individualistic approach to being a follower of Christ is almost totally foreign to Scripture. Rather, Scripture is primarily concerned with the community of the Body of Christ and the apostle Paul devotes one and a half chapters in I Corinthians 12:12 – 13:13 to an extended discussion of how we are all members of one body characterized by love and interdependence. Without denying the importance of personal stewardship and accountability we still must work with the Body of Christ as a community both in Haiti and the States if we hope to achieve true development. Additionally, Haiti is not an individualistic culture and individuals who pursue personal development apart from the community often find themselves ostracized or worse as a consequence. Finally, it is a good and necessary consequence of successfully community development that the individuals in the community must also develop. In fact, we are convinced that this is the single best way to encourage individual development.
Asset Based Development
Let us now consider what it means to implement the Development Cycle in an Asset Based manner. Asset Based development encourages a community to identify and work with the assets that God has provided to their community and seek to mobilize these assets in their development efforts. Whenever a community seeks to identify their opportunities for development they will invariably identify many valid opportunities which they are currently unable to pursue due to a lack of available resources.
The first temptation when faced with a lack of resources is to look for ways to move forward with projects despite the lack of sufficient assets. In an American church this might consist of borrowing substantially more money for the church’s new building than what they can afford to pay back while telling themselves that they are “stepping out in faith” trusting that the Lord will bring new members once the new building is completed. In a Haitian church, trying to tackle a project that is beyond their current assets usually takes the form of finding outside supporters who will donate the extra resources. The end result of trying to tackle projects that are beyond the means of the community is a breakdown of the development cycle. If the project is a failure then defeatism and hopelessness start to set in thus draining the development cycle of its vital fuel, enthusiasm. If the project is a success then the community starts to think that the best way to get things done is to become dependent on other people’s assets and dependency is the opposite of development.
The other common temptation is to respond to the newly identified list of development projects by focusing too much on what the community lacks. This response invariable leads to fatalism and hopelessness. The key to avoiding these twin perils is for the community to carefully select a single project that will meet the following criteria:
- The project must be a good fit with the community’s assets meaning that the community has sufficient assets to complete the project and the project will help to build up and increase the community’s existing assets.
- The project must have a high probably of success.
- The project must be able to produce recognizable success for the community in order to generate enthusiasm.
- The project must not require too much time to produce recognizable success.
- The recognizable success of the project must produce results that the community values.
These criteria are most vital during the early stages of a communities attempt to implement the development cycle. Later, once the community has built sufficient enthusiasm for their development efforts they will be better able to deal with failures. In fact, failures are an essential part of the development process and it eventually becomes important that the community have opportunities to learn from and overcome their failures.
Enthusiasm and Critical Mass
As mentioned before, enthusiasm is the fuel of the development cycle. Without it, even the most successful series of projects will not result in permanent sustainable development. This is because development involves risk and is hard work and can only be sustained over the course of time if there is sufficient enthusiasm for the benefits to be gained from the investment.
Consider a hypothetical development project to grow cocoa and incorporate it into the diet of the community. Most Americans would be very enthusiastic about the successful completion of such a project because they either like chocolate themselves or have teenage daughters. However, most Haitians are not particularly fond of chocolate thus even the a highly successful project to increase the amount of chocolate in their diets would be unlikely to generate must enthusiasm. This example may be a little silly but there have been any number of development projects undertaken in the developing world only to discover that the community does not really value the results of the project.
Enthusiasm is vital to successful permanent implementation of the development cycle in a community because communities are governed by a concept know as critical mass. Most Americans think in terms of majority rule when thinking about how a community makes decisions. However, this is only one fairly artificial example of critical mass and it does not apply to all communities in the way that critical mass does. Consider a community made up of a family with mom, dad, and their four children. Majority rule would indicate that a vote of four children verses two parents should suffice to set bedtime as 11pm on school nights. But the critical mass is with the parents despite the numbers. Now consider a church community. If the consensus of the critical mass in the community, regardless of the percentages, is that folks should wear nice clothes to worship on Sunday then that will tend to become the church’s practice. Even in elder ruled churches it is very difficult or impossible for the elders to rule against the will of the critical mass. If the critical mass want the pastor to go then either the pastor will go or the critical mass will shift its position due to people changing their minds or leaving the church in sufficient numbers to shift the critical mass.
The members of a community will generally not all be in agreement on any single issue. However, once the position of the critical mass is established on any given issue all of the members of the community will naturally begin to come into alignment with the views of the critical mass. If you want to test this theory just do a test regarding the question of how church members dress for worship. If you church favors informal dress try wearing your very best formal clothes for worship for a while. Do not explain what you are doing to anyone because that would be cheating. If asked, just tell them that you think that church is wrong and everyone should wear their Sunday best for worship. Just imagining doing something like this is sufficient to help us see the power of conformity is in human society.
This is why enthusiasm is so vital to the permanent success of any effort to instill the development cycle into a community. If a community does not already have the development cycle as an integral part of their community life it is because the critical mass of the community does not want the development cycle to be an integral part of their community life. This inertia can only be overcome by building enough enthusiasm for development over a long enough period of time to eventually shift the position of the critical mass of the community from being opposed to development to being in favor of it. And even once the critical mass has been shifted enthusiasm is still vital in order to keep the critical mass in firm support of development. However, once the critical mass has been shifted into favoring development then inertial starts to work in favor of ongoing development. Stragglers will be brought into line even if only on the surface at first and once this happens it will be much easier to win over their hearts and minds to support development as they start to reap its benefits.
Once the development cycle is in place in a community it becomes possible to move forward with the consolidation process. This process consists of the following elements:
- Identify those who have leadership potential in order to develop them and prepare them to take over the leadership roles of the community’s development work.
- Expand the number and size of development projects being undertaken by the community.
- Expand the pool of assets available to the community for use in development projects.
- Help the community to see how the development process and its fruits in the community can provide them with many excellent opportunities for outreach provided that they do not attempt to keep the fruits of their labors strictly for themselves.
- Get the community to begin to foster the development process in other church communities in order to provide the multiplier effect that is vital if the church is every going to have any hope of growing up to maturity.
We view our development work as being of finite duration. It is impossible to predict how long a given community will need to be able to continue their own development without further need of our assistance but it is vital that they eventually reach this point or else we will have failed in our goal. This is why we are always looking to work ourselves out of a job in any given community. And if we succeed in building a multiplier effect we hope to one day find that there are mature Haitian churches that are better qualified than we are to carry on our current work in Haiti. Who knows, maybe in God’s mercy the Haitian church will one day be sending missionaries to North America.
Many of the concepts presented here are drawn from two books. “When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor… and Yourself” by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert and “Two Ears of Corn” by Roland Bunch. Both of these books are excellent and we highly recommend them to anyone interested in learning more about ABCCD and the other concepts discussed on our web site. Unfortunately, Two Ears of Corn is out of print and will be expensive if you are able to find it. However, for anyone considering or actually doing development work, even development work of a non-agricultural nature, it would be well worth the investment.