COMMUNITY.REVITALIZATION.CHANGE
The Center for Community Change
The Center for Community Change is an Operating unit of the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, a division of Andrews University. Providing individualized mentoring and guidance to pastors and lay leaders using contextualized innovative solutions for their revitalization and the unique needs of their communities.
Our Program
The Center for Community Change uses a Three-Phase mentoring paradigm along with a 12-month Revitalization Roadmap to provide mentorship, training, church assessment tools and community engagement objectives for pastors and lay leaders to be able to make a positive difference in their life, church and community.
Our Program Leaders
The Center for Community Change was developed by a team of educators, administrators, and serving pastors who are all passionate about engaging churches with their communities. A study found that many of our churches are not as engaged with their communities as they could be. Sadly, some churches even try to avoid their communities, because of these findings, the Center’s leadership team is laser-focused on empowering pastors to develop and strengthen church-community relationships through community engagement. We invite you to join this incredible movement and together help transform our churches and their communities.
Three Phase Mentoring
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Phase 1 - Assessment: Provide Pastoral and Church assessment and framework training in community development. This first phase helps you to take a deeper look into your ministry, church and community and find the best ways to bring awareness of trauma, conflict resolution and theory of change, creating helpful solutions and putting them into action.
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Phase 2 - Intervention and Outreach: Mentoring one-on-one with each pastor and lay leader for collaborative community projects. This phase focuses on empowering the church and creating community sustainable partnerships and making a long-term impact on coordinated community service programs. During this phase the church will develop community-specific service programs, increase the list of local partners through networking and learn about programs that are available as resources to implement with your church family and community.
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Phase 3 - Empowerment and Multiplication: During the last phase you will have the opportunity to inspire your fellow colleagues by reflecting on your experiences and community project outcomes. You will have the chance to empower another pastor through mentoring. Also, during this phase you will evaluate your professional development inventory, create future personal and professional goals, re-evaluate your congregational health and explore further funding opportunities which creates an avenue for growth.
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Community Engagement
The Center works with the Church to complete a comprehensive evaluation to identify core areas of improvement within the church, to then empower the pastor and the congregation to make an assessment of the needs of the community and create a community event to engage and make an impact.
