What Is Faith-based Community Organizing?
Faith-based community organizing is a method of working with faith communities to address and correct the problems and concerns of their communities and, in turn, vitalize and strengthen the life of congregations.
There are many paths to a more just world, and faith-based community organizing is one of them. Other paths include direct service, in which people respond to the immediate and often urgent physical, emotional and spiritual needs of others. Another path is advocacy or activism, where people act and to speak on behalf of others who are suffering from great injustices and social ills.
Faith in the Valley’s path to building a more just world involves teaching people of faith how to build and exercise their own power to address the root causes of the problems they face. In Faith in the Valley, this struggle for justice is rooted in our faith.
At the center of this model of faith-based community organizing is a belief in the potential for transformation—of people, institutions and our larger culture. This belief stems directly from Faith in the Valley’s rootedness in faith communities, and it radiates throughout the organization, influencing the way we relate to public officials, to community members and to one another.