All We Can Lent Devotional March 22 - 28
Week Five:
Shifting the power
Bible Study
John 14:12-17
Have you ever been in a position
where you knew you could do something really
well if you were just given trust, time, and
responsibility, but someone else kept insisting
‘oh, I’ll just do it’?
You would imagine the first of these options
is how Jesus might have felt as he prepares
to leave his disciples physically – hesitant to
trust them with the power of the Holy Spirit.
And yet, he seems to be totally comfortable
shifting his own power to people whom he
knows are fallible.
In international development, All We
Can believes shifting the power to local
communities produces better outcomes
because local solutions are more impactful and
sustainable than external ones. But even if they
weren’t, there’s a compelling argument that it is
the right thing to do anyway.
In this passage, Jesus tells his disciples they will
be able to do the great things he has done and
more. They are given power and responsibility
to help build God’s Kingdom. Jesus does not
say ‘I will keep doing these things for you
because you can’t be trusted with the power of
the Holy Spirit.’
If Jesus, who genuinely does have the
knowledge, wisdom, and power to do a better
job than us, still recognises the need to trust us
with the power of the Holy Spirit, what does
that say about how tightly we cling to power?
Nye Bevan, the MP responsible for the
creation of the NHS, once said ‘the purpose
of getting power is to be able to give it away.’
Jesus offers us a similar vision of seeking to
reduce our own power in order to release the
potential of others.
Releasing others to experiment, implement
their own ideas and yes, make mistakes, is a
deeply Christ-like act.
That is not to say Jesus leaves us totally to our
own devices – as the passage says, we receive
the Holy Spirit as our helper and advocate.
But the Holy Spirit does not impose decisions
upon us, or programme us as a mindless robot
conducting God’s will, she comes alongside –
encouraging, nudging, and supercharging what
we choose to do in pursuit of God’s Kingdom.
This is a role we too can play with those we
shift power to.
Shifting the power is not easy. It requires
self-restraint, humility, and an acceptance
that however great you think your ideas are,
sometimes you need to let someone else
implement their own. Once you push through the
initial hesitation, however, All We Can continues
to find it a wholly transformative practice.
Questions fordiscussion or reflection
Why does God give us freedom,
responsibility, and power when he
could choose to act more directly?
Who holds power in your church
and who does not? What might
shifting power within your church
look like?
Who does your church interact
with outside its walls and what are
those power dynamics like? How
could you shift the power in these
interactions?
Story from All We Can
By Angela Zamare Smith
Angela is All We Can’s Director of Programmes and Partnership who has decades of
experience seeing the good, and the harm, that the development sector can do. She is passionate about “Shifting the Power” to local communities – we had a chat with her to find out what that means.
Angela, you have been involved in the
conversation around ‘shifting the power’ in
our sector for a couple of decades now. How
would you articulate the problem that this
movement is seeking to address?
As a sector, we have known for decades that
the way we work has perpetuated colonial
mindsets and approaches. Historically,
international development charities have set
the agenda for what ‘good’ development looks
like; they have designed the programmes and
utilised the jargon needed to release financial
resources from their governments. They access
funding from government and then approach
local counterparts to both befriend and police
them into implementing the programmes
expected by donors. This dismal description
may no longer accurately represent all the
actors in the development sector, but sadly
many have not moved far enough from this way
of working.
There is growing energy in the sector around
the idea of ‘co-creation’: do you see that as a
move in the right direction?
Even where agencies in high income
countries have ‘co-created’ or ‘co-facilitated’
programmes, they always have the bigger
voice, and local counterparts have learnt to
toe the line. It is a pecking order; from donors
to UK/European/American charities to local
organisations and then the communities they
serve. The charity sector has been good at
creating local organisational ‘mini-mes’ that
have adopted development speak and jumped
through compliance hurdles but are still totally
dependent on their richer counterparts to
unlock the resources they need to function and
meet the needs of their communities.
The sector understands the problem though,
right? Why aren’t more people seeking to
change the way they operate?
Yes, we all know about the barriers that stop
the sector from moving beyond the ‘shifting the
power’ rhetoric to actually walk the talk. We
have known for some time what it needs to do
–but the sector has been stuck.
I remember attending a training course in 1999
in Malawi, and even then we were discussing
who should be in the driving seat of bringing
about change and transformation. It was agreed
that local people know their own contexts best
and have the solutions to their own problems.
They just need support from the outside.
So, to the barriers to making progress. These
were identified, among others, as a lack
of trust, our own governance setups, and
compliance imperatives which are untenable
to people whose language and culture are
not English. Governments and development
professionals have a definition of what good
development ‘should be’, stemming from
their educational and political persuasions.
Our boards help to ensure this status quo,
and collectively we haven’t done enough to
change donor’s mindsets over the years. Selfpreservation
and fear of an unimagined future
have also kept us toeing the line. Charities and
other development agencies have comforted
themselves that they are needed, and after all,
we have an impact! We’ve clung to the belief
that colonial money is better than no money.
All this sounds like reasons to be angry and
disappointed. Please tell me you have some
good news?
Yes, in the last year, things are shifting.
BOND, one of the sector-bodies for
development agencies like All We Can, began
to make strides in the right direction and
confront the barriers that have inhibited us
from being led by the priorities of the people
we serve. All We Can staff played a role in
helping establish sector working groups
focused on tackling the barriers, clarifying
what we mean by locally-led development and
how we get there. Change is possible, and we
all have a part to play in that, from checking
how we talk about international development
and poverty with our friends, through to
carefully choosing which charities to support
and whether it is appropriate for us to put
limitations or restrictions on our gifts.
Questions for discussion/reflection
What did you learn from this
conversation? Were you aware of the
issues in the development sector?
How do you choose the charities
you support?
What might our faith say about the
way we go about tackling poverty?
Challenge
By Liddy Buswell
Liddy has been involved in youth participation work with Girlguiding and The Listening Fund, and is a former Methodist Youth Rep. She currently works as Outreach Manager
at Christian CND.
When Methodist Youth President Phoebe Parkin addressed the 2021 Methodist
Conference, she drew upon the image of God’s table. She then said that she feels
that in the Church ‘there are two tables: a children’s table and an adult table, where
the power is held.’
My own experience of shifting power has
been with young people, having been involved
in formal youth participation work for the
past six years. Youth participation means
allowing young people to contribute equally to
processes and decisions that affect them. It’s
through this lens that I want to explore three
ideas about shifting power.
1.Shifting the power is a vital
part of building the Kingdom
of God.
When we fail to listen to people, or even invite
them to be part of a conversation, we are
playing into the structural sin that prioritises
some voices over others – when we should see
every human being as intrinsically loved by God
and worthy of our equal respect.
2.
Shifting the power isn’t always easy.
I was once on a youth board where one meeting
was a particular struggle. Our facilitator said to
us ‘I think you’re overwhelmed that you’re the
ones making the decisions here.’ We were all
still in education and we had spent our whole
lives being told what to do - being the ones with
the power took some getting used to! Shifting
the power might look as though it’s making
things slow, chaotic and inefficient – but only
through this process do we obtain reflection,
creativity and authenticity.
3.
Shifting the power is something that should happen at every level.
I want to challenge you to reflect on power
structures at a local level - do you have a
children’s group? Asking the kids what they enjoy
or what they want to learn about a great form
of youth participation – but often it stops there.
Do your young people have a chance to serve?
To read? To lead services? Do they sit on your
church council? Are they seen as equal members
of the body of Christ outside of their group?
Replace ‘young people’ with a different group
–
for example, the communities All We Can works with, or another demographic within your church – what are the answers to the same questions?
Shifting the power needs to be an intrinsic
part of our ministry, in order to build a table
where everyone is welcome, respected, and
recognised as a sibling in Christ.
Prayer
By Vice-President of the Methodist Conference,
Anthony Boateng
Anthony Boateng is the current Vice-President of the Methodist Conference
and a Local Preacher, with a passion for social action, politics and spiritual
revival. He is the Convenor of the London District Social Responsibility
Commission and has been a member of the Conference since 2014.
God of justice,
We recognise that historically in international
development, power has rested with
large, multinational, predominantly white
charities who have implemented projects for
communities rather than with them. Whether
intentionally or unintentionally, we have at
times allowed imperialistic and colonialist
beliefs to influence decisions. For example, by
adopting a false rhetoric that people of colour
need capable white leaders and educators
to create change and rescue them from their
own helplessness.
God of justice, we pray for equality. For a world
where all have a voice and our actions do not
leave people feeling as if their experiences are
ignored or invalidated.
We pray for all working to change this by
shifting power towards local communities
to help produce lasting results. To avoid
assumptions that those who hold power always
know what is best for marginalised people.
Grant us wisdom and humility at all times when
making decisions. Help us at all times to fully
consider the impact of our decisions.
May we always ask countries and communities
where we seek to serve what they need
and offer that support. Help us to enable
communities to identify their problems, find
lasting solutions and take action. So that they
are self-reliant, resilient, have an improved
standard of living, and an active faith.
We reflect on the challenges such as natural
disasters and how it can turn our world upside
down. We hold in mind organisations such
as Eagles who continue to work tirelessly to
implement programmes by building community
resilience through training and support in areas
such as food security, climate change and disaster
risk management, health, income generation.
We ask for greater awareness of where power
needs to be redistributed in our churches. For
a just and fair church that seeks the welfare of
all. Where leaders guide with prudent care and
nuture life for great and small.
Amen.