As a trained minister who works in the context of under-resourced communities, I have spent the past ten years trying to build pathways that lead to healthier engagement between church and community. I am hoping this forum will allow those of us who are connecting with faith communities through our ABCD efforts to share ideas and learn from one another.

updated by @wendy-mccaig: 10/25/16 02:05:46PM

Children of God Body of Christ has been sometimes successful but other times very unsuccessful. What is it you want to know? Do you want to share stories? Do you have ideas you want to kick around?

Sharon,

I would like to gather the stories of how faith communities are engaging in ABCD work and what others have found to be most helpful in equipping congregations to do this work. Last year we developed a training for churches called "Mission Shift" and have taken about 100 church leaders through the process. We are now coaching 4 churches in how to shift their missions approach from relief to development. I would love to know if others are doing similar work and what they have found most helpful and most challenging.

Thank you for your response.

Hello Wendy,

You are way out of my league. We have only two churches that we did workshops at and have found the churches to be very receptive but the individual leaders to be very apprehensive. They seem to feel that doing anything that is out of the ordinary is too much. They can't seem to get pass "what we did in the past" I have read about some successful churches but have not experienced this yet. We also started a webinar series only to have three church leaders to attend the first one and the attendance dropped to one on the second webinar. So pat your self on the back you are doing a grand.

Here is something I think would interest you:

Reply by Mac Johnson 10 hours ago