“Program is our native tongue,” the missions pastor told me. Her words caused the gears in my brain to realign and click together. After meeting with countless groups who deeply desire to love and serve their neighbors, but struggle in many ways to do so, the metaphor...
Charity is often the result of, well, charitable feelings prompting someone to act on behalf of someone else. It seems obvious: Someone needs something. I have that something. I give them that something, and they now have what they need. Problem solved. What we are...
Have you ever wondered how to recognize a flourishing community? In this journey of being a Change-Maker, sometimes it helps to see an example of what holistic success really looks like. Over the last forty years as a part of FCS, we’ve refined our vision of what it...
Every community of faith we have ever worked with knows, without a doubt, THAT the Bible calls us to respond to poverty, but very few of them have much clarity on what it says about HOW. Let me explain. The Good Samaritanization of Poverty Alleviation I never would...
If you’ve been following our series on flourishing or explored Seeking Shalom, you know that flourishing is the meaning and measure to our approach to community development. Today, we want to dig a little deeper and talk about why flourishing matters so much in...
Flourishing in place is the end goal of all of our community development work. We want everyone to Flourish in Place. It’s why we exist at the Lupton Center – to equip change-makers to build neighborhoods that thrive. Any work we do in development or ministry or...
Impact is more important than intent. We live by that, and we emphasize it to every change-maker we work with. At the same time, it’s important to dream! Results are beautiful and important, but they are most inspiring when connected to a grander, captivating vision...
How Community Development and Community Organizing Work Together As a change-maker, you’ve probably run into the phrases “community development” and “community organizing” many times. But did you know that these two concepts work together for mutual benefit? Today,...
Community Development was an innovation. Now, we are innovating even further by implementing. Holistic Neighborhood Development. Over 40 years ago, Bob Lupton and his team at Focused Community Strategies questioned the standard nonprofit model. In particular, they...