Coummunity Counts....Really? (and Other Questions)

A church leader recently reached a point of unusual honesty in a group discussion.  When asked to identify his hopes for participating with others in community transformation, he responded: "I am not sure I am ready to dream dreams for West Michigan yet.  I will let you know when I do."  He did not say this because he lacked hope or faith.  He said this because decades worth of healing racism summits, prayer and worship conferences, city wide serving events, charitable giving, evangelistic efforts, and outreach programming have not fundamentally altered underlying causes of injustice or limited growing social fragmentation.  Like other leaders, this pastor recognizes he and his congregation are part of the problem and the potential solution, but he is fatigued by large scale attempts to bring about needed changes.

The significant racial, cultural, and economic separation of people living in metropolitan Grand Rapids and surrounding Kent County is well documented.  A quick look at social research websites produces the following facts.  In a county with a population of 600,000, there are 3149 nonprofit organizations and 760 religious congregations.  Even with more than 40,000 nonprofit jobs and hundreds of churches, most non-Caucasian residents live in an urban environment, and huge disparities with regard to health, economics, and education remain.  For example, the infant mortality rate of African American infants is triple the rate for white infants, the Income Disparity Index measuring the gap in household income by race is well above the national index, the poverty rate is more than three times higher among African Americans than in the Caucasian population, and there is a twenty percent difference in standardized test scores between urban and suburban students.

It is also interesting to note that the public school system in Grand Rapids, with twenty-one percent of students being Caucasian and eighty-three percent falling into the "economically disadvantaged" category, stands in stark contrast with the private Christian school system which mirrors suburban school districts where more than ninety percent of students are white and less than ten percent are considered to be at an economic disadvantage.  In 2007, it was reported that Kent County congregations supplied 2827 volunteers for educational programs, but only a third of the congregations were involved with public schools.  A couple of other tidbits: 1) less than fifteen percent of employees with the City of Grand Rapids are "minorities" when forty-one percent of the total population falls into this (awful) demographic category, 2) only twelve Christian congregations of over one hundred people come close to meeting the formal definition of multi-racial (i.e. eighty percent or less of the regular participants are the "dominant" race).

This limited data is only given here to raise important questions for leaders in churches and faith-based nonprofits.  Why, in an unusually religious community that has so much social service programming, has so little changed with regard to basic health and fairness for all citizens?  Which of our approaches and strategies need to be reconsidered?  What kind of Gospel are we living and proclaiming?  Are we ready to imagine new ways of working with each other and with other community organizations and with our actual neighbors?  Do we need to start with "little" initiatives and creative experiments before forming grandiose visions (which can easily overwhelm and intimidate)?  Have we neglected solidarity and advocacy and sustained relational presence in our community engagement?

I would be interested in your responses to these questions.