12. Church as an agent of change Prof. Dr. Kanayathu C. Koshy Page

(A sequel to the article, Focus, July 2022, Vol 10 (3) page 30-33)

Prof. Dr. Kanayathu C. Koshy

The context: This is a ‘Sequel’ (follow-up) of the July 2022 Issue of FOCUS in which I wrote an article titled, Redefining Ministry to be Agents of Change. This article contained a ‘DRM-SD’ (Disaster Risk Management for Sustainable Development) methodology to reduce risk, enhance resilience and promote sustainable development of a world overwhelmed by the Covid-19 pandemic. Since most countries treated Covid-19 as a disaster, this approach was quite opportune too. The method used three project management tools – i) State-PressureResponse SPR, ii) World Café, and iii) Logical Framework Analysis, LFA, as part of DRM-SD. This Sequel provides additional operating details of LFA, which also factors SPR and World Café in the July 2022 issue of FOCUS (Please do read my article carefully from the July issue of FOCUS).

Background: Because of my interest in faith and sustainability, I chanced upon a paragraph by The Late Joseph Mar Thoma Metropolitan in the December 2017 ‘Malankara Sabha Tharaka’. It talked about a special discussion theme, “Church as an Agent of Change: Redefining Ministry Contextually”, as part of that year’s Clergy Conference at Charalkunnu [a Camp site in Pathanamthitta Dist.]. Not that I was part of the conference in any way, but I had an abiding liking for the subject for its relevance and the fact that it could be analyzed by a few research project analytical methodologies mentioned above. With this caveat let’s continue. To me, “Church as an Agent of Change” is a ‘solution’ and “Redefining Ministry Contextually” is the ‘means to this end’. By ministry is meant any legitimate activity that is carried out by the church to serve its purpose. In other words, it could be any activity of the church in promoting the Great Commission given by Jesus Christ, (Matthew 28:18-20).

Why LFA in particular? LFA is, Logical Framework Analysis or Approach that nowadays is mandatory for all new projects, supported by most major donor agencies. LFA provides an objective-oriented tool for designing, developing, implementing and monitoring projects. This method starts with the identification of a core problem, which is based on existing understanding and the best knowledge available. The causes of the core problem are traced back (from the core problem) and then the effects are traced forward. This provides a simple way to derive the ‘causal chain’ that exists in all problem analyses, and to plan intervention resulting in logical benefits that follow (Figure 1).

In a project sense, solving the core problem, highest level issue, H, will be the “goal” (vision), relevant for the benefi ciaries; solving the causal next lower, mid-level problems, M, will be the “target”, achieving which will deliver outcomes to the target stakeholders, and the lowest level problems, L, will inform the “project activities” which produce results (outputs) that address the real cause of the original problem. Not all these 3-levels are shown in Figure 1, which is only a generic, simple, breakdown approach; how many times it should happen is not mentioned here. Usually a triad system of, ‘Highest-MiddleLowest’, should suffice. Thus, we need activities to address the cause of the core problem. These activities will result in benefits. Things to bear in mind though are: i) that we cannot address all causal problems all at once (so we have to prioritize), and ii) that the activities carried out themselves in many cases may not even solve the problem/s completely but will only result in reducing the ‘risk’ of the issue to a large extent. All things considered, know that it is the best outcome at the moment, provided that we do what remains to be done soon enough. These will become our ‘assumptions’. Also we should bear in mind that some activities could, forever, eliminate a problem as well; it depends. The following is an LFA breakdown pattern, in its simplest way:

Figure 1. “Cause – Effect” & “If – Then” hierarchy ‘Cause/s of the core problem will have effect/s (blue boxes). These effects will be adverse to our well-being. They must, therefore, be addressed through project level activities. If we act, then we have benefit/s (green boxes) that either reduce considerably or even eliminate altogether the bad effects of the core problem’. Always the core problem defines the major project objective.

How does it all relate to Charalkunnu? True, - SPR, World Café, LFA- are all general project management tools and I did not address any specific issue that must have been the subject of discussion at Charalkunnu. Now let’s try this: Where I alluded to dividing a problem into H, M, and L levels on a cause-effect hierarchy, if we insert real issue that could have been discussed at Charalkunnu, we have the making of a LFA “cause-effect” platform or in its LFA terminology, a ‘Problem Tree’. From then on an ‘if – then’ platform), or an ‘Objective Tree’ can be constructed. Next comes a logframe or a ‘project summary matrix’, which is usually a one pager of the project itself with indicators used for each stage, and their means of verification, and assumptions.

It hardly matters what problem we are dealing with – related to church, (say, issues of service missions such as Sunday school, Youth league, Choir, Sevikasangam; Women’s Fellowship, Intersession prayers, Edavaka mission, Senior citizen, Palliative care, and the collective Church worship service etc.; it could even be Covid-19, the approach is the same. As long as specialist Stakeholders discuss all relevant issues in a World Café format, then begin to think in an SPR fashion about the antecedence, current situation & future scenarios, and apply LFA approaches to design and plan project implementation, we are on track. This way the risk associated with all issues could be reduced substantially to levels we can live with.

If the discussion at Charalkkunnu did progress enough to identify the H & M level causes and activities, we have everything for a good start. If not, we could take it up further during additional stakeholder analyses. Thus the Goals, and Targets for each major problem can be addressed, with indicators, just like what the UN has done in its Open Working Group (OWG) meetings during the development of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (17 SDGs) in 2015. Up to this stage could be done at the Sabha level, in our case – i.e. identifying the H and M level issues. This is somewhat a top – down approach, just to assure a direction for the Sabha.

But we still haven’t addressed the lowest level (L) issues. True. That’s because these are better done at the Parish level, with Diocesan support. It is at the parish level the problems become individual and institutional in nature, and where real-life solutions are more truthful. These solutions are more direct, and the responses closer to the local needs. They are better left to each parish depending on their own circumstances, stage of development and the gravity of the problems. In such an approach, extreme care has to be taken to ensure that the problem identification and the responses choices conform to the centrally set goals and targets. This is the bottom–up approach, which when joins with the collective results from various such lower levels, work their way up to address the apex challenge the Church (Sabha) has put up for discussion.

Conclusion

This is what was implied in the beginning by saying that the subject matter of Charalkkunnu, (Church as an Agent of Change: Redefining Ministry Contextually), appeared amenable to certain popular project management tools such as SPR, World Café and LFA. Since LFA is an indicator-based approach, progress at any stage could be verified for improvement – regardless of Parish, Diocese or Sabha.

This is a field where, as Jesus said, “…the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.” (Matthew 9:37; Luke 10:2). If the SUSTAINABILITY PARADIGM (Sustainable Development – its pathway) becomes a Mission Field of the Mar Thoma Church, with a VIRTUAL Headquarters for a start, much can be achieved relatively easily. When these achievements are shared among churches, it would result in even more innovations. Further, these are ‘lowcost, win-win, and no-regret’ options, one would be stimulated to engage in.

The author is an Emeritus Professor of Sustainability at the Environmental Resources Research Centre, Trivandrum, India, after his full retirement in 2016. He has over forty years of international teaching and research experience in universities of – India (Kerala), Jamaica (W.I), USA (SUNY, Buffalo), Fiji (USP), Malaysia (USM), and was closely associated with the UN and other regional organizations in South Pacific & South East Asian countries.