Practices of Local Resources Mobilization for Integrated and Sustainable Local Community Development in Evangelical Churches: The Case of selected Full Gospel Churches in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Abstract

Since religious organizations are considered to be responsible both for the Creator and the creature, they are expected to work to address both the spiritual and physical aspects of people. Having this in mind, the main objective of study was to assess the practices in mobilizing local resources for sustainable local community development, in Evangelical Churches in mobilizing local resources, focusing on Addis Ababa Full Gospel local churches. Both primary and secondary data collection instruments were used to collect data. Open ended questionnaires along with interviews and focus group discussions were employed for data collection. The respondents were selected by using simple random sampling for target population and purposive sampling method for concerned church officials and community development professionals. Primary data were collected through questionnaires from 76 leaders, interviewees & focus group discussion participants; whereas, secondary data were gathered from different sources like reports, books, journals, proclamations, and websites. Although there are about 122 Full Gospel local churches in the study area, and have been there for many years with different resource bases, they were found to be inactive in giving integrated services in coordination with other local actors. The main focus of the targets was found to be spiritual or religious lives of people and no significant contribution in addressing the socio-economic life aspects of people both in their religious circles and beyond. Their major reasons for these were found to be lack of awareness about holistic mission, absence of system for local resource mobilization, and absence of readiness to create linkage with others for common purpose. Thus, unless they give due attention and work to fill these gaps, sooner or later, their mission may inevitably be challenged. That means, they are recommended to enlarge their views towards church mission, and, create a strong system that works with others for sustainable local community development.