“But when we are honest, too much of the time our service projects cover up the reality that our way of life is what makes the service project necessary to begin with. In that way service projects don’t function to change the status quo, or even push against it, they actually function to maintain it. They are what makes it possible for us to continue to live in consumptive patterns that are destroying the ecology, social fabric and other people’s lives while at the same time telling ourselves that we are good, generous, compassionate Christians.
The best service projects tell the unvarnished truth. They don’t manipulate folks out of guilt. They don’t sugar-coat the root causes of poverty. They let people experience the impact of their way of life on others. And they provide hope for a way forward. That way forward doesn’t involve more projects, it involves new ways of living! It involves people with power and wealth laying it down on behalf of the poor and marginalized. As followers of Jesus, we should be about making a world where the Mother Theresa’s and Martin Luther King Jr.’s have nothing to do. To the degree that our service projects can help do that, I’m all for it. To the degree that they help to obscure reality and maintain the status quo, they aren’t helpful.
This is where we, in the church, could learn a thing or two about community development. Often times church leaders, and youth guys who lead these churches, have absolutely no training in what it takes to transform a community from the ground up. We do service projects without thinking more deeply about how time, energy and money could be best used to help solve grass-roots problems. Too often, youth pastors unwittingly play the role of facilitator in covering up the ways we maintain the status quo. We aren’t asking enough hard questions about the root causes of poverty, both locally and globally. Until we do, we will be part of the problem, not part of the solution.”
(Quote from Michael Danner’s blog post “no saint’s needed” on Provoke+Love. Thanks Sam for passing it along!)
This quote is really challenging to me, as someone who helps bring teams on “service project trips”. iThemba, as a development organization, is always trying to think about how we can “work ourselves out of a job”. How can we help create a world where our job is not needed? So I wonder… can we apply that to teams? How can we structure our trips and outreaches with local and overseas volunteers in such a way that they are challenged to change their lifestyles so much that their outreach trip will no longer be needed? A major part of that has to come from the sending organization itself (church, school, or organization). But I am sure there are things we can do from our side to help people start a journey of re-thinking how they live.
Maybe you can challenge the groups you work with to start thinking about how they do outreach?
Stephanie Ebert 