The Nehemiah Competencies Training Model: A Christian Community Leadership Development Tool for the Urban Church to Use in Addressing the Negative Effects of Gentrification

2018·1.5 MB·English

by  RALPH WILLIAMSON

THE NEHEMIAH COMPETENCIES TRAINING MODEL:
A CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT TOOL FOR THE URBAN CHURCH
TO USE IN ADDRESSING THE NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF GENTRIFICATION

A THESIS-PROJECT
SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF
GORDON-CONWELL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE
DOCTOR OF MINISTRY

BY
RALPH WILLIAMSON
MAY 2018
Copyright © 2018 by Ralph Williamson. All Rights Reserved.
CONTENTS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS iv
ABSTRACT v
Chapter
1. INTRODUCTION 1
2. THEOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK 27
3. LITERATURE REVIEW 57
4. PROJECT DESIGN 87
5. OUTCOMES 112
Appendix
A. A BIBLICAL MODEL OF LEADERSHIP (LUKE 2:8-32) 137
B. LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLES FROM THE LIFE OF NEHEMIAH 139
C. ALLOWING SCRIPTURE TO SHAPE OUR LIVES 140
D. COMMUNITY MOBILIZATION STRATEGY 141
BIBLIOGRAPHY 146
VITA 150

iii
ILLUSTRATIONS

Figures
4-1. Are You a Community Leader? 99
4-2. Who Are Community Leaders? 99
4-3. Where Do People Get There Needs Met? 100
4-4. What Are Community Needs? 100
4-5. Define Indigenous Leadership 106
4-6. Where Do Indigenous Leaders Obtain Training to Become Community 106
Leaders?
4-7. What is the Role of the Community Church in Developing 107
Indigenous Leaders?
4-8. What Indigenous Leadership Training Is Needed in the Church? 107
4-9. Rationale for the Nehemiah Competencies Training Model 111
“A Christian Community Leadership Development Tool for the
Urban Church to Use in Addressing the Negative Effects of Gentrification

Tables
4-1. Non-Identified Indigenous Leaders 93
4-2. Community Participants Survey 98
4-3. Clinton Chapel Pastoral Histories (1979-2014) 101

iv
ABSTRACT

Gentrification transforms the inner-city community housing from a typical single
style older bungalow house community to a multilevel housing and affluent community.
The millennials began to replace the long term older community residents. Community
services become readily available, businesses such as major chained food stores move
in, bike trails/lanes appear, and dog parks become a norm. The overall quality of the
community improves substantially. Gentrification, however, is a two-sided coin.
Adversely the long term older community resident is pushed out as property taxes and
required house upkeep drive up the cost of owning and/or renting a home. The
indigenous resident is challenged with finding available, affordable housing.
Homelessness becomes a problem as these people lose their home but are vested in
staying in their life long community.
The community church, a stable long-term community institution, becomes the
potential source for addressing community ills. A new type of leader in needed, the
church leader that has a vested interest in the community and the church being
relevant. The competencies of Nehemiah, a community revitalizer, are studied to
determine how these competencies can be modeled to help “rebuild the broken walls.”

v
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION

The Problem and Its Setting
Gentrification1 is the restoration and upgrading of deteriorated urban property
by the middle and affluent classes, often resulting in the displacement of lower-income
families.2 The affordability of real estate prices in these urban area neighborhoods
appeal to the educated, upwardly mobile younger generations. This transformation of
working class or vacant areas of the inner city and urban areas into middle-class and
commercial use centers is gentrification.3 Gentrification forms one part of the life cycle
of a city as part of the natural ebb and flow of the urban context.4
Researchers debate the causes and effects of gentrification, which became
common in the United States in the mid-1970s.5 This process of renovation and
rebuilding of poor and working class urban neighborhoods began in response to job
relocation to the inner city, high gasoline prices, suburban traffic congestion, auto-
dependant and development, and a new taste for old architectural designs.6 It was

1 Sean Benesh, Gentrification, Urban Missions, and Church Planting (Portland, OR: Urban Loft Publishers,
2014), 46.
2 Diane Davis, “The Internet & the City: Bogging and Gentrification of New York Lower East Side,” The
Political Power and Social Theory Journal 19 (2008): 189.
3 Benesh, Gentrification, 43.
4 Benesh, Gentrification, 293.
5 Ebenezer Aka, Jr., “Gentrification and Socioeconomic Impacts of Neighborhood Integration and
Diversification in Atlanta, Georgia,” 4, accessed January 5, 2015, http://www.nssa.us/journals/2010-35-
1/pdf/35-1%2001%20Aka.pdf
6 Johnathan Hale, The Old Way of Seeing (New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin, 1994), 6.
1
accompanied by the influx of middle-class and affluent people into deteriorating areas.7
The rebuilding of the central city motivated decision makers to improve the corridors
leading to the revitalized hubs in order to reflect progress and prosperity. The goal was
to wipe out the appearance of poverty.8 As a result, the poor who lived along these
corridors were displaced when poorly maintained houses were torn down and replaced
with businesses and upscale housing.
Gentrification has positive and negative effects upon the communities involved.
Positively, it results in an upward change in land use to middle and upper class
residential and/or commercial use. Negatively, it results in the displacement of the
poor,9 a common problem in depressed communities throughout the United States and
internationally.10 Gentrification, and issues related to poverty, creates a dilemma for the
urban church by challenging it to stay in the inner-city community and to be more
relevant, or to move out of the inner city into areas that appear more progressive.11

Benefits (or Positive Impact) of Gentrification for the Urban Community
Motivations for gentrification include the opportunity to buy affordable property
and houses, to live in a multicultural historic neighborhood, and to have access to urban

7 Rick Hampson, “Studies: Gentrification a Boost for Everyone,” USA Today, April 19, 2005.
8 Gary Rassell and Beth Etringer, “Tracking County Response to Welfare Reform in Mecklenburg County”
(Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina, 2008), 8.
9 Benesh, Gentrification, 43.
10 Aka, “Gentrification,” 1.
11 David Briggs, “Upon This Corner: The Black Church in the City,” Cleveland.com, accessed January 29,
2015, http://www.cleveland.com/religion/index.ssf/2008/12/innercity_black_churches_strug.html.
2
amenities, such as special events and sport teams.12 As a result of being closer to the
inner city, many people who held jobs in the inner-city experience shortened commutes
that save travel time and expenses. Typical gentrification outcomes include improved
neighborhoods because of the renewal of deteriorating, dilapidated and depopulated
urban neighborhoods. In addition, upgrades are made to streets, lighting is increased,
and businesses and services move into the community.

Negative Impact of Gentrification for the Urban Community
As already mentioned, an adverse effect of gentrification is the displacement of
the poor. Displacement refers to the forced involuntary relocation of the poor, the
ethnic minorities, and the aged.13 Displacement due to gentrification often leads to
homelessness that produces a feeling of hopelessness in the displaced because they
often find it difficult to locate adequate housing at a price consistent with what they
were paying prior to their displacement. One of the most disheartening effects of
gentrification is that people who once owned suitable homes that required minimal
maintenance in the area are often not permitted to buy back into the area when these
homes are renovated.14 Many times, renewal in these urban neighborhoods exclude
poor Blacks and Hispanics who had persevered through hard times; they restored their
neighborhoods, but it resulted in their being ousted by their own success. This negative

12 Benesh, Gentrification, 293.
13 Bruce London and John Palen, Gentrification, Displacement, and Neighborhood Revitalization (Albany,
NY: State University, 1984), 12.
14 Aka, “Gentrification,” 2.
3
effect of displacement is probably the most disturbing of all.
If the factors and relationships that contributed to sustained poverty and the
perceptions of performance by their newer, more affluent neighbors were understood
in greater depth, the problem of hopelessness in urban neighborhoods might be easier
to resolve. God’s people must work to lessen the negative impact of the cycle of
poverty. God’s people must seek the prosperity and peace of the city.15 God’s people
can be found in the church in the inner-city community. The question that is raised is,
“What kind of church can reach and effect issues such as hopelessness? What can a
church do to produce leaders who can influence inner city community issues such as
hopelessness?”16 Rick Warren suggests four Scriptures that help identify the
characteristics of a good candidate for training as lay pastors/Christians leaders: the
ability to lead and know the sheep (John 10:4-5), the ability to meet the need and give
hope in hopeless situations (Psalms 23:1, 5-6), the ability to strengthen the weak and
seek the lost (Ezekiel 34:4-10) and the ability to set a good example (I Peter 5:3).17

15 Jeremiah 29:7. All Scriptures used are taken from the NIV Life Application Study Bible (Grand Rapids, MI:
Zondervan, 1991).
16 George G. Hunter III, Church for the Unchurched (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1996), 25.
17 Hunter, Church for the Unchurched, 136.
4
Gentrification and the Urban Church
When gentrification occurs, the urban18 church dilemma is whether to function
as a center for community leadership development or to leave the inner-city
community. Over the years, the urban church has provided stability to the urban
community even though the church is often neglected, victimized, and rarely seen as an
asset and collaborative agent. The urban church faces the dilemma of choosing to
remain in or depart from the inner city because the urban church has positioned itself as
a community-focused and socially relevant institution.
The 1970’s and 1980’s marked a period of “flight to the suburbs” during which
the urban church and its surrounding community lost members who grew up, attended
college, and moved out of the inner city. The church never left, even when the city was
at its worst. The only functioning institutions are churches and liquor stores in many
struggling urban neighborhoods. There were a number of churches that left with their
members and moved to the suburbs two generations ago, and no one seized the
suburban opportunity more vigorously than evangelicals.19

18 United States Census Bureau, “2010 Census Urban and Rural Classification and Urban Area Criteria,”
accessed January 5, 2015, https://www.census.gov/geo/reference/ua/urban-rural-2010.html. The word
urban denotes ‘metropolitan’ which includes both the inner city and surrounding suburbs. Urban,
according the 2010 Census of US Census Bureau is defined as a city with a population with 50,000 or more
residents. This definition captures the reality of urban meaning density. Today, in the United States nearly
80% of the population lives in areas that are now classified by the US Census Bureau as urban. To qualify
as an urban area, the territory identified according to criteria must encompass at least 2,500 people, at
least 1,500 of which reside outside institutional group quarters. The Census Bureau identifies two types of
urban areas:
• Urbanized Areas (UAs) of 50,000 or more people;
• Urban Clusters (UCs) of at least 2,500 and less than 50,000 people
19 Andy Crouch, “A New Kind of Urban Ministry,” Christianity Today 55, no 11 (Oct 28, 2011): 22, accessed
September 8, 2015, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/november/urbanministry.html.
5