Review and Reflection on “Faith-Based Organizing.”

I recently read “Faith-Based Organizing.” This is a good book if you are looking to get into some practical application of community organizing within a faith setting. There are several chapters with the how-to’s of organizing, the people that you’ll need, and the foundation to get you started.

Here’s my sticking point — throughout the book, I kept reading about how certain aspects could not be tried or didn’t work out. It left me a bit confused. The reality of this is that organizing and change in a culture is difficult. Ideas on paper can be mapped out perfectly. But then as soon as you deal with people, it gets messy.

I don’t say all of that to dismiss this book. What I pulled away from this book is that here is a method that works if it is applied. It’s the ideal. And we recognize that no ideal works the way it ideally should. But it’s a great model to be a guide for action going forward. x

Part 1 of the book is the foundation. It talks about congregational transformation. That’s the stuff I love and needless to say, it’s the part of the book I enjoyed the most. Because talking about Congregational transformation provokes ideas, questions, and more. Congregational transformation is also about individual transformation, relationship transformation, community transformation. It allows me to sort though these things and figure out what might work in my setting, why, and to what purpose.