I read an article about Sustainable Livelihoods and Development which suggested that in days past successful community development has been measured by an improvement in economic reality which hopefully resulted in the alleviation of poverty.
There is nothing wrong with that assumption - except that development is surely about more than economics. As important as an increased ability to create income is, maybe it is not always the best method of development, or even the most essential need!
Development is too often limited to a one-dimensional activity; the dream result of a predetermined agenda imposed by a well intentioned but ethnocentric (or even egocentric)professional. Development needs to begin where the people are at, with what they have available and in a direction and methodology they can control - which is why I prefer the word Transformation.
Transformation does not begin with the assumption that some one/thing needs to be different or better. It does not begin or occur in a vacuum. It takes seriously the pre-existing context and seeks to act together to create a new more relevant environment that empowers and benefits.
Transformation is a multi-dimensioned strategy that assumes nothing but operates in a cyclical pattern of listening, waiting and acting. Transformers exist for the other.
The same theory operates in the Church. Too often leaders presume to know the direction and strategy that the church wants. With little or no knowledge of the context they arrive with a predetermined tool kit of ways to fix and develop the community of faith - often ignoring the hopes, dreams and capacities that already exist. Often they assume that their 'pet' strategies are universal and will work despite the context.
The Salvation Army created new sustainable communities of faith because it was not predictable - and because leadership acknowledged that the context must dictate the method (without ever altering the Message). We come unstuck (irrelevant and unsustainable) when we attempt to unilaterally deploy a methodology that seeks to achieve predetermined outcomes regardless of context.
