Glimpsing the pearl of great price

By Rick James

In my 30 years of working in international development, church and community mobilisation is the closest I’ve seen to genuinely transformative, sustainable development. Watch this two minute video to find out a bit more.

Recent research in Malawi found that this church and community mobilisation approach was more than 25 times more cost effective and more than four times more likely to be sustained than even an excellent project-based approach (rated A+ by DFID). If you want the evidence, read this 2019 ‘Analysing Cost-Effectiveness report’.

What’s more, mobilising the local church to work together with its community to solve their current community challenges can breathe life (and numbers) back into the church. The local church is no longer seen as out of touch, but deeply relevant, caring and committed to the well-being of others. This is just as important for churches in Europe (if not more).

So I’ve been asking myself over the last few months, if this approach really is a pearl of great price, how should I focus more of my time (paid and unpaid) on this? What other good work do I need to say ‘no’ to in order to concentrate on what is most important?

This week think about:
 How relevant is church and community mobilisation in your context?
What for you is your pearl of great price?