Under-Connected: Building Relational Power, Solidarity, and Developing Leaders in Broad-Based Community Organizing
Many pastors, faith leaders, and community organizers are isolated and under-connected to communities of praxis that can accompany them as they go about their social change work, helping them to ground their organizing in their faith lives. There is a crisis of leadership development and training. T...
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MDPI AG
2025-05-01
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| Series: | Religions |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/16/5/620 |
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| author | Aaron Stauffer |
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| author_sort | Aaron Stauffer |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Many pastors, faith leaders, and community organizers are isolated and under-connected to communities of praxis that can accompany them as they go about their social change work, helping them to ground their organizing in their faith lives. There is a crisis of leadership development and training. This paper argues for a rethinking of leadership development as grounded in conceptions of relational power, value-based organizing, and deep solidarity. Leaders, it is often said, are those who have followers. This definition takes for granted models of leadership that were first developed in the 1940s in Alinsky-style networks and adapted in the 1980s and 1990s in the neo-Alinskyite movement. This article extends this approach to home in on what leadership development amounts to in broad-based community organizing so as to help congregations and faith leaders see how community organizing can be an enactment and expression of their faith lives. Organizing strategies of leadership development can sit at the heart of congregational development. Developing leaders is about transformative critical reflection on premises of meaning schema. Leadership development is connected to leaders developing in the sense of exploring new ways of seeing the world and acting on them. By refocusing the organizing strategy of leadership development around relational power and deep solidarity, pastors, faith leaders, and community organizers can build stronger institutions. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-06313780d12040f392bf2f735376e322 |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 2077-1444 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-05-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Religions |
| spelling | doaj-art-06313780d12040f392bf2f735376e3222025-08-20T02:34:01ZengMDPI AGReligions2077-14442025-05-0116562010.3390/rel16050620Under-Connected: Building Relational Power, Solidarity, and Developing Leaders in Broad-Based Community OrganizingAaron Stauffer0Divinity School, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37208, USAMany pastors, faith leaders, and community organizers are isolated and under-connected to communities of praxis that can accompany them as they go about their social change work, helping them to ground their organizing in their faith lives. There is a crisis of leadership development and training. This paper argues for a rethinking of leadership development as grounded in conceptions of relational power, value-based organizing, and deep solidarity. Leaders, it is often said, are those who have followers. This definition takes for granted models of leadership that were first developed in the 1940s in Alinsky-style networks and adapted in the 1980s and 1990s in the neo-Alinskyite movement. This article extends this approach to home in on what leadership development amounts to in broad-based community organizing so as to help congregations and faith leaders see how community organizing can be an enactment and expression of their faith lives. Organizing strategies of leadership development can sit at the heart of congregational development. Developing leaders is about transformative critical reflection on premises of meaning schema. Leadership development is connected to leaders developing in the sense of exploring new ways of seeing the world and acting on them. By refocusing the organizing strategy of leadership development around relational power and deep solidarity, pastors, faith leaders, and community organizers can build stronger institutions.https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/16/5/620leadershipleadership developmentcommunity organizingrelational powerdeep solidarity |
| spellingShingle | Aaron Stauffer Under-Connected: Building Relational Power, Solidarity, and Developing Leaders in Broad-Based Community Organizing Religions leadership leadership development community organizing relational power deep solidarity |
| title | Under-Connected: Building Relational Power, Solidarity, and Developing Leaders in Broad-Based Community Organizing |
| title_full | Under-Connected: Building Relational Power, Solidarity, and Developing Leaders in Broad-Based Community Organizing |
| title_fullStr | Under-Connected: Building Relational Power, Solidarity, and Developing Leaders in Broad-Based Community Organizing |
| title_full_unstemmed | Under-Connected: Building Relational Power, Solidarity, and Developing Leaders in Broad-Based Community Organizing |
| title_short | Under-Connected: Building Relational Power, Solidarity, and Developing Leaders in Broad-Based Community Organizing |
| title_sort | under connected building relational power solidarity and developing leaders in broad based community organizing |
| topic | leadership leadership development community organizing relational power deep solidarity |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/16/5/620 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT aaronstauffer underconnectedbuildingrelationalpowersolidarityanddevelopingleadersinbroadbasedcommunityorganizing |