The first principle of Christian Community Development is Relocation. There is some talk among leaders in the CCDA about renaming it "incarnational ministry." The original term, coined by John Perkins, is the scandalous claim that our calling is not irrelevant to our street address, to our geographical location. The latter term gives more traditional theological language to the principle, but lacks its specificity.

As a principle of incarnational ministry, relocation insists that a calling to serve people is a calling to live among them. The Gospel of John says that the Word Made Flesh dwelt ("tabernacled," pitched a tent) among us. I like to say it this way: the Word became flesh and moved in next door. Jesus came to all the world, but he did so in one place, among one people. Lacking his own home, perhaps we should say that the Word became flesh and slept on a pallette in our spare room.

Why is relocation important? It is not merely an answer to WWJD. It is also built on sociological observation. It has to do with race and class analysis. It has to do with our social psychology. We tend to act on things that directly affect us. If there is a pothole in the street near your driveway, you are the one who is most likely to raise some noise to try to get it fixed. If there are dozens of potholes in another neighborhood where you do not live and where you never drive, it is very unlikely that you will even be aware of them. You are almost guaranteed not to become an activist over those potholes. Our residence affects what problems drive us to act.

This sort of analysis provides a lens through which to observe the mission habits of churches. A church full of middle-class people in a middle-class neighborhood may have some pangs of conscience about the plight of the poor. A predominately white congregation may be troubled by the situation of black people in their city. In both cases, a church may organize for missions by planning a clean-up day at a low-income housing project. They may hold a joint worship with a church "in the hood" and provide some financial support to the congregation. They may bring food boxes into the remote poor neighborhood at Thanksgiving, using a list of families received from a social service agency. All of these actions show a response to real needs which can be traced to an understanding of the love of God poured out to all people.

The structural and systemic issues which perpetuate racial division, poverty, and the nexus of race and class, are complex and difficult to face. Part of the problem is geographical. If I live in a middle-classs neighborhood, I don't have to deal with the kinds of problems that affect the lives of the poor. If I have to face a drug problem in my neighborhood, it is likely as a parent or spouse trying to help someone overcome an addiction. In the poor neighborhood, they have to deal with an underground drug economy which sometimes entails violent forms of competition. They may deal with addictions, often of parents who cannot hold a job because their addictions have spun in a downward spiral of personal, familial, and economic degradation. They do not have access to expensive recovery programs. Others are trying to pick up the pieces of what to do about the children or their criminal activity to support their habits. All the while, the middle-class drug abusers are perpetuating the drug economy when they buy their drugs in the poor neighborhood. The residents of that neighborhood keep having to deal with their children's temptations to become drug dealers, the only people they see who have money.

Drugs may be a problem in both neighborhoods, but they do not affect both neighborhoods in the same way. In the middle class neighborhood, I am likely to see the problems of drugs very differently, and if I get active about it, I am very unlikely to address the systemic and structural issues. I probably want to jail the drug dealers and keep my kids from associating with kids in the poor neighborhoods. I want to keep my distance from a problem in another neighborhood.

If I am a pastor of a church but I don't live in the neighborhood where the church's building stands and where the church meetings occur, then I am mostly a visitor to the neighborhood. I may spend many hours in the building, working in an office, having meetings with others who drive to the church from across town to attend meetings, and strategizing about the church's work. At key times of the week, I lead and participate in large gatherings for worship, study, and fellowship, and after two or three hours I lock up and go home. If I think about the neighborhood, it may be focused on how the adjoining properties could become part of a larger church plant, or about how the look of the neighborhood buildings and people might make people nervous about attending the church.

If I am listening to the call of Jesus, my priority for ministry is to proclaim good news to the poor. If I look at the life of Jesus, then I see him ministering among the poor and outcast. I see him taking sides with the poor in public disputes with the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians. I see him ministering to the marginalized, the sick, widows, the blind, the lame, lepers, and others whose life circumstances push them into poverty. If I am going to follow Jesus, I ought to be following him into ministry in this direction.

Perkins has argued that if I live where my church and ministry are, I have a more complete understanding of how that ministry should unfold. The problems and needs of that neighborhood become my problems and needs. If there is a crime problem, it is my crime problem, motivating me to work with the neighbors on finding solutions. If there is a police problem, it is my police problem. If there is a racial profiling problem, my friends and I are affected by the racial profiling. If there are problems finding jobs, my neighbors are the ones looking for the jobs. If there is a problem with transporatation, youth activities, schools, health care, distance to grocery stores or pharmacies, or anything else, it becomes my problem. Latin American theologians called this sharing the life of the poor. The poor's problems should become my problem.

This principle of Relocation has been the most controversial and most difficult of John Perkins's teachings. I have often heard him asked about it, and he does not want to back down on its importance. On the other hand, I have heard him talk to people who have asked about what relocation means for them and give varied advice about the specific ways they might live this principle.

The New Monasticism movement has discussed this principle in a couple of ways: relocation to the abandoned places of empire, and the importance of geographical proximity for community. The priority of serving among those who are abandoned and thrown away by the systems and structures of society is an inescapable calling for those who seek a gospel-based discipleship. The calling to community is greatly undermined by our scattered church memberships who commute to see each other for an hour a week. Reading blogs is no substitute for flesh and blood communication.

There are eight principles of the Christian Community Development Association. I will continue to post on these principles as a way to work through some of my musings about the relationship of this movement to the theological winds which have turned the windmill of my research and writing.

Speaking the truth in front of witnesses is a primary strategy of community organizing. I first read someone attribute it to Jesus in Robert Linthicum's book, Transforming Power. (To find a local independent bookseller where you can order this book, go to Booksense). I wondered as I read it last fall whether Linthicum was stretching the scripture text to tie it in with community organizing. I read the Bible texts he offered (three confrontations in Matthew 21:23 through 22:46, discussed on pp. 81-86), and it seemed that his reading made sense. But I was taking my time in thinking it through.

A few months later I started listening to the Gospel of Luke on CDs. It was a new translation called ESV (English Standard Version). When I got to chapters 3 and following, I heard some key language that previously had seemed like "filler" when I had studied it. After John preached very harsh words of judgment, the text said the people heard it as good news! A couple of verses followed which said that Herod did not think it good news, so he had John jailed.

Suddenly I saw it--in John's preaching as depicted in the gospel. Harsh words of judgment, coupled with promises of the Jubilee, led the "people" to rejoice in the coming of salvation, while the powerful--rulers and religious leaders--did not rejoice, and often became angry. John was speaking the truth to the crowds in front of the poor and oppressed and in front of the rich and oppressors at the same time. The ones in power really hated it when he did that.

The next chapter gives a parallel example from Jesus' preaching. In Nazareth, he gets up to proclaim the Jubilee. It is good news to the poor. It is bad news, or at least they think it is, to the rulers of the synagogue and the powerful. When they start mumbling and criticizing the sermon, Jesus calls them the "prophet killers." They get mad enough to try to kill him right then, but Jesus gets out through the crowd, most of whom rejoiced in his message.

As the early Baptists (and others) often said, "God still has light to shed upon the scriptures." As long as humans are reading, God will need to shed new light.