faith based community organizing

Articles

1 . Getting organized : faith-based alliances make a difference by Stephen Hart

Aurora Solis is typical of the people involved in faith-based organizing . Solis , a Mexican immigrant who grew up in a low-income home works in a staff position at a high school in San Jose , California . She has been a U .S . citizen for only four years . But she was recruited by her pastor to serve on the parish "local organizing committee " and bring together parishioners and others living in the church 's neighborhood She became a leader in neighborhood

struggles and by 1997 was president of People Acting in Community Together (PACT . Today she speaks with poise and humor to large audiences , and negotiates with the mayor of San Jose

Across the country faith-based community organizing is enabling people to confront issues of economic justice . A recent survey by Interfaith Funders shows how large and diverse this movement has become . Unlike almost every other justice movement , it is strongly multiethnic injecting moral passion and religious tradition into public debate , but in a way that respects the nation 's cultural diversity . It allows congregations to become active on political issues without the divisions sometimes engendered by church social action in the 1960s and '70s

In its current form this is a relatively young movement . It was pioneered in the 1970s by the Industrial Areas Foundation , after IAF founder Saul Alinsky died and Ed Chambers took over . Ernie Cortes 's work in Texas was the first practical expression of the new approach , which departed significantly from Alinsky 's style , not least in taking seriously religious issues and the well-being of congregations . By now the movement has grown far beyond the bounds of the IAF , with which only about one-third of the local projects are affiliated . The rest work with one of three other organizing "networks : the Pacific Institute for Community Organization (PICO , the Gamaliel Foundation , and Direct Action and Research Training (DART . theless , the movement remains coherent , following a common philosophy and organizational strategy

Organizing is a form of politics , broadly understood . Faith-based community organizations do not usually provide direct services . Rather they address issues , pressuring governments or corporations to bring more resources into modest-income neighborhoods or to adopt policies that better meet their needs . Organizing also distinguishes itself from "advocacy " the kind of work done by church lobbying offices in Washington and state capitals . Advocacy is typically carried on by privileged people on behalf of those less privileged . The idea behind faith-based organizing is that the agents and beneficiaries of change should be the same people--ordinary people empowered to become effective and articulate actors on the public stage

The campaigns undertaken by local projects address issues important to the congregations . An example is the work of VOICE , a Gamaliel affiliate in Buffalo . The city 's West Side is an ethnically diverse neighborhood plagued by falling property values and drugs , often dealt from abandoned houses . In 1997 Our Lady of Loretto Catholic Church , a VOICE congregation in this part of...