Flourish: Fuller Life for All through Church Community transformation

By Richard Lister

How does Ormilla, a hungry outcast girl in South Asia, turn into a flourishing young lady confidently leading a preschool? Or how does a violent part of Belfast City in the United Kingdom, where youths used to throw stones at police cars, develop into a thriving community? And how does Peter in Kenya, an alcoholic dressed in rags covered with mud, become a dignified Christian man full of joy and no longer poor? The answer? They've been transformed by experiencing God's goodness through the active love of God's people. God calls all His people into a great adventure. To work with Him so all types of people and all places can enjoy restored and flourishing relationships: Jesus' offer of life in all its fullness. This book shares the compelling stories of God using ordinary local churches and their communities to bring deep transformation. And the book shares the three straightforward Biblical principles that help turn God’s inspiring vision into reality. Are you up for an adventure? Then read on!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Regnum Books International
• Release date: Sep 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9781914454523

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

IT DOESN’T WORK

There's a problem… and it's a big problem.

So many of our well-meant efforts don't produce the kind of change that is needed. What's needed must be deep, broad and lasting.

But often the change that we bring is shallow, narrow and shortlived.

Let me illustrate this with a real-life story.

PERU, FEBRUARY 2015

Juan¹ is two years old and has big brown eyes. He is gentle, smiley – and ill. His intestines don't work properly and the town doctor says there is no hope for him. I'm on a work trip and have encountered many difficult situations but hadn't expected to meet such a devastating story.

As we visit his small home his mother's eyes fill with tears. I ask myself why he is sick. I don't know for sure, but I do know that he lives in a town where you can glimpse hell and that might be why.

Juan's home town of Challapata sits below vast spoil heaps from a mineral mine, one of the largest in South America. A river flows grey-black through the centre of town - it's more effluent than water. You wouldn't dare drink it. The air too is dangerous. Many people here die young from lung disease. I hear an ambulance siren; it means another miner has died. On average one miner dies every week.

Given these risks the miners are afraid. They seek protection by making offerings to a statue before they enter the mine. The idol is of the devil.

SO WHAT WOULD YOU DO TO HELP?

The most common approach would be to start a project² or give money for others to do so. The project would try to sort out some of the obvious problems: to provide money for Juan to get an operation, to pay for cleaning up the river and maybe to lobby the company to sort out safety in its mine. For a while it may work well and make a difference but what happens:

… for other sick kids in Challapata that the project can't afford to help?

… to address issues that the church or charity staff didn't know about or have not been able to focus on (such as the poor levels of education, tensions in the community or depths of despair)?

… when the river gets polluted or more miners die after the project has finished?

So, sadly, the change that we help bring is often shallow, narrow and short-lived. And we can easily feel overwhelmed by the problems of just one town. Let alone one country. One continent. Our whole world.

HOPE

My dream for Juan is that he will be able to flourish; that his family will be enabled to find and afford a skilful doctor or that God will heal him directly. I long for Juan to grow up in a Challapata that has been completely transformed. Where the river runs clear as glass, where all people are valued, where the schools thrive, where God, and not the devil, is honoured and where the sound of ambulance sirens has long since faded away. I long to see Juan's home town looking more like heaven than hell.

The challenge to bring deep transformation is encountered all across the world. Don't just take my word for it. Romnal Colas, Tearfund's Church and Community Transformation Lead for Latin America and the Caribbean, shares some insights from Haiti:

I was responsible, when I worked for another international nongovernmental organisation (INGO), for coordinating the response to the devastating Haiti earthquake of 2010. We distributed cash, built temporary houses, constructed churches and dug wells.

Our organisation decided to build twelve wells and identified twelve sites. We contacted the local pastors and told them we would like to provide wells, the only thing they needed to provide was the space for construction. We spent $3,000 on each well but, after less than one year, nine of them had stopped working.

I remember a conversation with Samuel, a wrinkle-faced pastor with a wide straw hat. He explained: 'Our well has not been working for over a month. The well is very important to us, we really appreciate that you gave it to