Let me tell you, never has as experience such as this one, radically redefined and reshaped so many essential philosophies in my life!
I am currently a student at PCC, who has hopes of entering into the field of public medicine. Going into this conference I had many ideas of what I would like to do in the future with my career in public health, and how I would like to approach the dilemmas that I have seen first-hand - primarily with drug addictions and chronic pain within the homeless community. Many of my ideas were premature, and I had not been able to develop them in a very detailed manner. At this conference, I found all my premature ideas and dreams, but fully developed and practiced by some of the most inspiring people I have ever had the privilege of listening to.
In the Bible, there are many stories where we see Jesus do something amazing. He heals the blind, he heals the paralyzed, and he hangs around the prostitutes and beggars, which of course was unheard of in his time. But one thing that we see each time Jesus makes one of these radical displays of love, is that he does not just heal the person and walk away. He does not merely point out a flaw in the woman at the well, rather he tells her how she can acquire living water, that will never leave her thirsty, he tells the no longer crippled man to, "get up and walk." All of these displays of power point to something: Jesus was not just interested in fixing these people mechanically, but empowering them, lifting them up, and helping them in a holistic sense, so that they could rise and proclaim the Good news.
The philosophy that CCDA practices is drawn directly from these practices of Jesus. Christian community development is all about community transformation. CCD’s philosophy is not to sustain a community and simply keep it alive, but to radically change it, so that the people living in it are transformed as well, while keeping their dignity intact.
One of the board members at CCDA, Robert Lupton wrote a book called Toxic Charity. While I was at the conference a few of us were able to sit with him and hear him talk a little bit about the book. The basic premise of the book is this: giving to those in need what they could be gaining from their own initiative may well be the kindest way to destroy people. I feel like this book embodies a lot of what CCD is trying to do, and one of the main things I took away from this conference. Although charities feel good to us who are doing them, what long-term kingdom goal are we achieving by doing them? We have to push ourselves to ask the question, what are our actions accomplishing? Are we only providing a meal for the homeless to eat? Are we simply helping the young student get a “passing” grade on his next exam? Or are we trying to transform people’s lives by allowing them to reach their potential on their own?
Yes, on their own.
Often times we forget about the homeless person's past, or the junior higher's own capabilities. We approach the situation as if we are the saviors and rescuers of the day, and we are coming to help the cat out of the tree, and I am here to tell you that this approach will not suffice. We have to allow the community to grow and blossom, and the community must do it.
Programs such as STARS, and the homeless ministry run by Leo Hurtado are integrating the CCD philosophy into their ministry. But like I said before, this transformation doesn’t come from a few people. Rather, it must be done together as a community.
So what can we do about all of this? All of this sounds great, and I would be hard pressed to find too many people that would say, "No, we should keep a homeless person on the streets begging, or we should keep that student at a C average." I think the first thing that we should strive for is embracing our community. I learned so much from the CCDA conference, but if there is one thing that really hit me hard in the temple and stuck to me, was that Pasadena is a city that is hurting, and Lake Avenue church is in the center of that hurt. For us to not be completely inviting, and pushing for the Pasadena community to BE the Lake Ave community, then we are being blatantly blind.
In the coming year, I hope to invite people all over the Pasadena community, from all different types of backgrounds and lives, to spend a day with our church community. My dream is that it would open up the doors and really let people of our community know that we care for them, but also that we want them to be fully engaged in our church community. You can think of it as a block party, where there are food, games, and live music. Here is where we are given the opportunity to redefine our relationship with the Pasadena community, and here is where we can show God's love to so many.
