Community organization as public ministry - Essay Example

Community organization as public ministry Community organization is valuable to the society because it instills social justice to the society and upholds societal values. The church, as one of the critical sources that people look upon in decision making, should offer spiritual leadership to community organizations by relaying the required information. Community organization is a process whereby people, who share the same interests, come together and form an organization within proximate grounds that incorporates their matters.1 Community organization is formed in the view of attaining a certain social change within the community. This is done by acquiring collective power to address their misery. The main idea for the development of community organization is to address social justice. The need for social justice could be anywhere; in the community schools, homes and churches. For a long time, spiritual leadership has been used as an anchor for supporting various social justices within the community. Organizing community as a public ministry will play a key role in influencing social justices that will integrate mutual benefits. Therefore, spiritual leadership is essential as the connector within the framework.2 Part B Advantages and disadvantages of community organization as public ministry A lot of social injustices have been known to occur within the community. This is mainly caused by those people who refuse to work within the fringes of the law and general principles that uphold the societal values. 3For the community to be together, people must recognize that societal values should be encouraged and people brought under proximate grounds to heed these values. Communities that refuse to work together often fail to recognize the advantages these values. Like any other bodies formed to address matters, community organization is known to have both the advantageous and disadvantageous values. 4The benefits of community organization include empowering the society by involving the people in a certain area to come together. This gives them the courage to address other injustice. When people come together in the society they have more strength to address a certain issue compared to people who do it individually.5 Community organization acts as a voice for the voiceless in the society. Organizations have been known to develop to benefit the organization members, and other members of the society. 6An organization may be developed to address the rights of the handicapped people. With this, they can fight for certain issues to be addressed these handicapped people are still considered as members of the society. Besides the above mentioned advantages, a person who joins a community organization can get the some benefits. One can widen his social and professional networks by meeting new people. One’s skills are set to grow by sharing their ability and the knowledge they have with others. When one joins a group, the main idea is to work to help other people. The disadvantages that may crop up in community organization are few but can be a major challenge in societal development. Community organizations have been known to bring up major conflict of interests. This can be seen in matters where some are for, while others are against a certain issue. A situation whereby people are for the legalization of abortion, and others are not, is a common example of this. Both of the organizations have good reasons but to bring them in level grounded reasoning is difficult. This often divides the society and weakens oneness. For unity to be achieved despite the presence of conflicting organizations, bodies and strategies that address their issues as the neutral party and foster understanding among them need to be adapted. It is only a society that supports one another that there could be mutual understanding and growth.7 Tools to harness social justice in churches Attaining social justice in a church can prove difficult if proper steps are not taken. There are tools which can act as a guide to realize social justice in church. Effective education can be termed a good tool to harness social justice. 8Social justice can be realized by establishing a means of educating church goers on principles that the church is supposed to be built on. For a long time, cases of some churches leading its member’s astray due misinformation have been at heard of. This can be curbed if the relevant authorities educate people in these churches. The media is also a tool that should be incorporated in the church to help harness social justice in the church. Relaying information to the public is important in church building and upholding values. People from different churches and different places differ in some issues regarding religion.9 This is mainly due to different churches lacking the reasoning behind their different idealism. If the churches shares different idealism, societal justice can be achieved and this can be done through the media. Politics can also qualify as a tool that can instill and uphold social justice in the church. When politicians become members of a certain denomination or identify themselves as members of a certain church, they can act as an example to others. 10Good leadership is valuable since people who look up to political leaders will be in the right path as long as the leaders act as good role models. Pointing out bad political leaders who hide behind the church’s name in churches will ensure social justice in churches. The role of instilling social justice in the community is supposed to be the role of the whole system staring from the government all the way down to the citizen. Unity among various churches can be encouraged and developed between different churches to attain social justice in churches. There are currently a number of churches in the world and are all formed under different idealism. There are churches like Catholics and the Jehovah’s Witness whose teaching are different. If unification of churches were to be attained, social justice will be achieved. Part C Role of Christian leadership in public ministry In public ministry, Christian leadership plays a major role by mentoring societal members to work in unity. Christian leadership is vital in the modern day society in instillation of required principles of the Bible, which is the holy book of God. The Bible has basic guidance for the role every person has in the society. The book of psalms,11 states ‘how good and pleasant brothers live together in unity’, this is the word of God that clearly encourages unity among all people not just Christians. The book of Ephesians states ‘As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.’ 12The Bible is clearly significant so who ever can relay this information to the public is definitely of value in the public ministry. Following the teachings of the Bible has been for a long time the strength through which social justice in the society is addressed, the Bible is full of teachings meant for all and unifies people worldwide, the role of addressing the wrong doings that takes place is a task that should be taken by anyone in the society to ensure good prevails to all. Church leaders have a role to urge people to read the Bible for guidance and be able to know how to partake the task at hand. Part D Devising a ministry plan for social justice There is the need for devising a ministry plan for Christian leadership through which social justice can be achieved within the church. For this to be achieved certain considerations needs to be addressed. Members of society who are involved in major decisions in the society need to be involved if the ministry plan is to be effective. These members have the ability to reach a larger number of people since they are mostly heads of certain groups. Key issues in the church that may undermine social justice in the church need to be identified, addressed then solution put forward.13 For one to establish an effective ministry plan that upholds social justice in churches, one need to put to consideration the fact that people are different in terms of what they believe in; they are from different cultures and other background information.14 Therefore, to devise an effective ministry plan checks and balances are appropriate in terms of how one is to engage different people. 15 Proposals of what should take place in a church such as opting not to include the gays in a church activity due to their nature of sexuality may cause conflicts .The conflict of this nature can be avoided only if one is careful and makes sure he indulges all in the plan.16 To develop an effective ministry plan that addresses the need of social justice in churches, key issues and resources that can propagate the matters at hand need to be identified. One ought to identify which ideas people are likely to relate with or are mostly familiar with.17 To come up with a good ministry plan for the church, one can utilize the models that have been initially put forward and known to have worked. By bringing all these together, one can then devise a ministry plan that is useful in the social justice development. Part E Role of the church in creating balance between church and community The church is supposed to act as the neutral party when it comes to settling disputes that might arise among the community members. In the cases where social change is needed on certain matters, conflicts might arise and bring forward gaps or division among those that are for the change proposed and those against the change. 18The church can put an end to this by utilizing the members to advocate for peace by putting out ears to get the views of the public. The church can also advocate for peace through its connections that can hasten finding the solution. Community organization is a public ministry; therefore, require spiritual leadership within its frameworks to enable them attain social justice. Core value of the Bible should always be put forward when one needs to devise a ministry plan to achieve mutual agreement in churches. It is a high time that churches tries to come up with ways they can bring unity for the good of the people. This can be done by overlooking the differences between them and working for the good of Gods people. Part F Keywords: societal values, spirituality, Bible, plan, mutual, leadership, idealism, religion. Bibliography Abelson, J., & Gauvin, F. P. (2006).Assessing the impacts of public participation: Concepts,  evidence and policy implications. Ottawa, Canada: Canadian Policy Research  Networks. Baker, K. (2011).When Faith Storms the Public Square: Mixing Religion and Politics  Through Community Organizing to Enhance Our Democracy. London: John Hunt  Publishing. Barlow, A. L. (2007). 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