Zero Down Development
After a wonderful wedding and honeymoon, and a corresponding break from all things Internet, I'm slowly but surely going to be blogging again -- though probably not quite as frequently as before, at least for now. I'll kick things off by highlighting what looks to be a really cool event.
My friends at the Association for Development through Education in Costa Rica, with whom I lived and worked for a couple of months in early 2010, are planning a conference for January that will certainly be one unlike any other conference you've ever been to. In partnership with a Costa Rican seminary, a mission organization and a community health group, they'll be exploring the "zero down" development model ADE is using, and considering its wider implications for various sectors in different places. Here's the blurb:
A bilingual conference looking at answers to the tough questions of the interaction between faith, missions, money, and development. No one is coming with all the answers, but as we come together, learn from each other, and look specifically at the "zero down" model we hope to take steps forward to further understand these difficult relationships.
Here's the conference promo video (also available in Spanish):
If you're interested in reading more about my experiences with ADE, here are a few posts from that time:
- I wrote about teaching English via Cha Cha Slide here;
- I gave a Palm Sunday sermon about Jesus, friend of chorizeros, described here; and
- I gave a video tour of the community and house where I lived here.
Please do learn more about ADE and their Zero Down development conference.
Rick Warren and the Purpose Driven Iglesia
It’s been almost a decade since Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life was published, selling over 30 million copies in its first five years alone. Warren's influence on the North American evangelical church cannot be overstated, and it is also well known that he and his church have undertaken some ambitious development initiatives, starting in Rwanda. More recently, a nationwide Purpose Driven Living campaign was launched in neighboring Uganda.
Meanwhile, the teachings of The Purpose Driven Church, a book Warren wrote several years before his mega-bestseller, seems to be taking root in Latin America:
Juan Carlos Flores, president of the Foundation of Leadership and Innovation Liderinnova, along with his wife, Orietta Oreamuno, began in 2002 to teach the paradigm presented in The Purpose Driven Church both inside and outside of Costa Rica to other Spanish speaking countries. He was one of six American teachers in the 40 Days Campaign produced by Purpose Driven Ministries.
The foundation has already reached Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia, Argentina and Venezuela. In 2007, they held a conference in Venezuela, where hundreds of pastors and Christian leaders gathered to talk about the “Purpose Driven Church.”
For more on the significant connections between megachurches in the United States and Christians in developing countries, see the paper I co-wrote for Transformation, the journal of the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies.
My latest in PRISM Magazine: “A Home for Life”
A boy looks in the window at Semillas Biblioteca, a library in Diriamba, Nicaragua
During my first two visits to Costa Rica, both of which were way too brief, I became really curious about Costa Rica's neighbor to the north, Nicaragua. The two countries share a big border, and since CR is comparatively wealthy and Nicaragua is comparatively poor, this creates a bit of tension between the two, as you can imagine (not that we in the US know anything about tensions with a poor neighboring country).
So when I went back to Costa Rica last year to spend two months with my friends at the Association for Development through Education, I was sure to schedule a bus trip to Nicaragua. I lined up visits and interviews for three potential magazine story ideas, not sure which, if any, would ever be published.
Pastor Francisco outside his church
One was a visit to La Chureca in the capital city of Managua, the largest garbage dump in Central America. There, a pastor who was a friend of a friend of a friend walked me through a labyrinth of plastic and sheet metal and introduced me to men and women who were part of a church he pastored until recently.
On another day I caught a minibus to the nearby town of Diriamba, where some friends of a friend had started that town's first public library to nurture an appreciation for learning and reading and to provide young people with a safe place to grow up. The visits to both La Chureca and Diriamba were humbling and encouraging, as I witnessed Christians serving those in need and doing so faithfully, without a whole lot of fanfare.
But for various reasons the magazine idea that in fact came to fruition was a visit to Hogar Belén, a home for disabled and abandoned children just outside Managua, and part of a nonprofit called Mustard Seed Communities. It has been published in the May/June edition of PRISM, and the PDF is available here.
A boy at the clinic at Hogar Belén
I'm glad this story came together because I think it demonstrates a striking contrast between prevailing views of what is considered success -- even in church and ministry among the poor -- and what Jesus has to say about serving "the least of these" with mustard seed-like faith.
The disabled, abandoned children of Hogar Belén don't need any more of the CEO-type leaders that our evangelical culture is intent on churning out. And they certainly don't need any more egotistical political leaders who put up year-round Christmas Trees to remind citizens of all they have to celebrate because of him. My hunch (or hypothesis) is that what the children of Hogar Belén have found is in fact what Christ calls each of us uniquely and all of us collectively to be. But you'll need to read the article to see what that is. Then I'd really love to hear your thoughts.
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