Lara Rusch ~ 37
denominations means a somewhat different job for community organizers working with
clergy and lay leaders in congregations. In order for religious communities to act on
inequalities in the larger environment, they must work within and through these
structures. In doing so, their work makes visible how power is organized within
community institutions. Congregation-based community organizations teach and
facilitate practices by which churches can create more democratic spaces for discussion,
decision-making, and political action by their members. But most of the time there is
little organizers can change about particular institutions, and they work within the
congregations’ existing roles and patterns in order to build momentum for external
political action.
In this study, organizers described power relations within black Baptist churches
as particularly condensed in response to limited opportunity for public leadership in
mainstream society. This translates into a propensity for lay involvement in church
activities. Lacking supportive resources from umbrella bureaucracies, Baptist pastors are
perceived by organizers as effective team-builders, overseeing multiple committees for
services and programs. Internal committees and ministries teach civic skills, give many
lay people a role and responsibility to the congregation and to the pastor. A proactive
“hands on” approach by Protestant clergy can recruit and encourage lay involvement in
concert with community organizers.
In contrast, organizers describe a hands-off approach among many priests that
provides opportunity for ideas to come from the laity, but that approach may not offer as
much direction as organizers would like. For Catholics, there is more a sense of internal
freedom and a sense of “working on” the priest to gain his involvement. Community
Convention