[Dialogue] {Disarmed} Re: congregation-based community organizing

[Elliestock at aol.com]

In a message dated 8/16/2007 3:38:33 AM Central Daylight Time,  
martin at ica-uk.org.uk writes:

Dear  all,  

Do any of our colleagues in the US have any experience of  
"congregation-based 
community organizing"?   

My partner  Derek is involved with the Faith Network for Manchester where we 
live here  
in the UK, and it is exploring new ways to increase the influence of faith  
communities and 
others in decision-making processes. The mechanism  of  "congregation-based 
community organizing" (CCBO) is being used  and Greg Galluzzo, Director of 
the 
Gamaliel Foundation in the US, is  supporting the initiative. 

If any of you have any experience of  working or supporting such a way of 
working, Derek 
would be grateful to  hear of it, and any advantages or pitfalls.  Have any 
of the ICA ToP  
or other tools been used? 

many  thanks,
Martin


--
Martin Gilbraith, Director  <martin at ica-uk.org.uk>

ICA:UK, registered charity #1090745 &  company limited by 
guarantee #3970365
registered in England &  Wales, at 41 Old Birley Street, Manchester 
M15 5RF
tel/fax: 0845 450  0305 or 0161 232 8444 - website: www.ica-
uk.org.uk

a member of the  Institute of Cultural Affairs International
"concerned with  the   human  factor  in  world  development"




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Derek,
Ellie and I have been part of the Institute since 1970 and have been local  
church pastors since then (with an interlude of five years on the staff of ICA) 
 using movement methods and context.  We are currently co-pastors of the  
Northminster Presbyterian Church in St. Louis and when we came here in 1998, the  
church had been involved in congregation-based community organizing through 
the  Gamaliel Foundation of Chicago since 1991.  We have encouraged cbco and I  
especially have been regularly involved in the St.Louis affiliate, 
Metropolitan  Congregations United for St. Louis (MCU).  I am currently facilitator for  
the St. Louis Clergy Caucus, the clergy whose congregations have committed to 
 MCU and community organizing.  The approach is quite different from the  
Institute in that it confronts the powers-that-be with power of its own (money  
and people as Alynski always said) as a way of accomplishing its goals of  
instituting what grassroots people and communities want and need.  As  
controversial as its methods are (continuing the Alynski style), it does get  
congregations involved in local issues and with other faith communities they  might not 
normally engage with.  The most helpful book on explaining what  the Gamaliel 
Foundation and cong-based community organizing is all about is  Doing Justice 
by Dennis Jacobsen, a Lutheran pastor involved with  Gamaliel.
Carl(eton) Stock
St. Louis



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