Sustainable community development and local churches in Tembisa : a practical theological perspective

Abstract

A multitude of challenges, such as poverty, pervasive poor health conditions, substance abuse, poor access to essential services and inequality, generally confront many local communities across the globe. Several scholars argue that the church should be involved with those who find themselves in these kinds of circumstances. In this light, local churches appear constrained or neglect to take issues confronting local communities seriously despite knowing them. For this reason, there was a need to investigate the contribution of local churches to sustainable community development in Tembisa, Gauteng Province, South Africa. Therefore, this study was conceived to assess the involvement of local churches in sustainable community development within local communities, particularly the Tembisa community. In conducting this investigation, the study applied qualitative methods of in-depth interviews and literature study, using Richard Osmer’s four tasks of theoretical interpretation. The study confirmed that local churches’ involvement in sustainable community development is critical and beneficial in bringing the desired transformation within local communities. However, the findings of the study revealed that local churches’ contribution to sustainable community development is limited. To come to this conclusion, collected data were analysed thematically. The themes that emerged from the data resulted in crafting a pragmatic strategy that churches can consider for utilisation to enhance their involvement in sustainable community development. Informed by suggestions from field data, which were subjected to theoretical interpretation using academic concepts, this pragmatic strategy is an open-ended guideline that local churches could use to set the vision, mission and objectives of local churches’ involvement in sustainable community development. It further guides the principles, institutional arrangements, and systems required for local churches to operate in a manner that effectively and efficiently impacts sustainable development within local communities. Ultimately, this study interprets the empirical evidence and simultaneously determines biblical models of community development.