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Conference to Explore 'Assets-Based' Community Development
FARGO, ND (August 16, 2002) - The Town and Country Commission and the Northwest
Conference of the Evangelical Covenant Church are co-sponsoring a training
conference, "Church Mission and Community Care: Releasing God's Gifts to
the Church," at Knollbrook Covenant Church October 25-26.
Carol Ann McGibbon, co-director of the Master of Arts in Community
Development program and the Urban Institute for North Park University in
Chicago, will be a keynote speaker for the event. She will be joined by
Luther Snow, a community developer and author of The Organization of
Hope: A Workbook for Rural Asset-Based Community Development. Jon
Kramka, director of mission development for the Northwest Conference, will
also lead a workshop during the weekend.
There will be both an adult and youth track for the training sessions, said
Gary Goreham, a member of Knollbrook Covenant who serves as a consultant to
the commission. Registration is limited to 100 people. Primary
consideration is being given to rural
pastors, along with lay leaders, youth workers and young people throughout
the Northwest Conference.
What excites McGibbon about the fall event is her belief that community
development is biblically based. She cites the Old Testament book of
Nehemiah as a case in point, noting how a prophet turned into a sociologist
to help rebuild the walls of a city. "I think the empowerment of
individuals and communities has to be spiritual," said McGibbon.
"Otherwise, it's going to be redundant. If people aren't transformed
spiritually, the problems will occur over and over again."
But McGibbon and Luther will do more than act as cheerleaders for community
development. They will discuss sociological models to help people engage in
community development in their respective regions. McGibbon will explain a
more recent mode of thinking that has proved effective - the "assets-based"
perspective.
In the past, sociologists often used a "needs-based" ministry perspective
to focus on what communities needed and connected them with resources from
outside of the community. With an assets-based view, the goal is to try to
find the resources that already exist in a given community, said Goreham, a
professor of rural sociology and chair of the
Department of Sociology/Anthropology at North Dakota State University in
Fargo.
"It's an empowering, affirming approach," said Goreham of the assets-based
approach. "We're looking at the capacities already existent in the
community. One of the techniques we look at is called assets mapping -
looking at all of the strengths of a community. And you look at the
relationships between individuals and the associations in the community.
You try to build social capital."
McGibbon's biblical analogy for the assets-based model of community
development is I Corinthians 12, which affirms the many parts of the body
and how they contribute to the overall body function. Asset-based ministry
in the church, she added, can be as simple as sitting down with a person
(whether it be a high school student, senior, disabled) and asking them
what they like to do and then finding a way for them to do it in a church
setting.
"Maybe we've had men or women who have gone through loss and could be grief
counselors," said McGibbon, citing one example. "You first use the gifts to
the maximum, those who are in the community."
Along with the training conference, .the event will include a banquet and
'sizzler' on the evening of October 26 with regional songwriter and
musician Chuck Suchy providing the entertainment. Mark Hovestol, pastor at
the Bemidji Covenant Church in Bemidji, Minnesota, and chair of the
conference's Town and Country Committee, will lead a special worship
service at Knollbrook on October 27.
For more information about the training weekend, call Goreham at
701-231-7637. Information on assets-based community development can be
found by reading Building Communities From the Inside Out by John
Kretzmann and John McKnight, professors at Northwestern University in
Evanston, Illinois. Web site Information also can be obtained by visiting
www.northwestern.edu/ipr/abcd.
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