Reporting from the Responses from Our Presentation
I would echo a lot of what you saw from the responses you took home. The responses I received were in large very similar. Many people wanted more substance in the "why Jesus followers ought to be involved" section. And that is definitely an area that we need to work on. But then, we've been talking about fleshing this out for the last two weeks so, I don't think we need to worry.
As you said also, people wanted to see a wider array of ways to get involved. One commenter said something to the effect of "Are there fast, easy ways churches can get involved without researching?" Honestly, we did emphasize educating ourselves quite a bit in our presentation, and with due reasoning. Then again, the same person also wanted to know what we can do to get churches to not be lazy about these issues. I thought that was a bit strange.
I also agree with your assessment of making the case for the cyclical connection between poverty and AIDS stronger. I'm a visual person and I'm sure many others are as well. What do you think about putting up a simple graphic that shows that pattern on our wiki? We could then flesh out the reasoning behind it in words. I'm sure I can do it.
I also got a lot of responses asking us to explain how to change churches' attitudes. I'm really not sure if this is the right way to go. Speaking from what little experience I do have in working with churches, changing attitudes and ways of thinking is a difficult and exhausting endeavor. Perhaps these responses came from previous frustrations in working with the church and seeing bad attitudes as the major barrier preventing the church from action. While this may in part be true, I find combatting value judgments and attitudes head-on to be defeating and not a good use of time. Instead, could we encourage people moved to action against HIV/AIDS to seek others who are likewise moved to action within the church, and start partnering with organizations to combat HIV/AIDS together (a more grassroots approach to affecting change rather than a top-down one).
As you said also, people wanted to see a wider array of ways to get involved. One commenter said something to the effect of "Are there fast, easy ways churches can get involved without researching?" Honestly, we did emphasize educating ourselves quite a bit in our presentation, and with due reasoning. Then again, the same person also wanted to know what we can do to get churches to not be lazy about these issues. I thought that was a bit strange.
I also agree with your assessment of making the case for the cyclical connection between poverty and AIDS stronger. I'm a visual person and I'm sure many others are as well. What do you think about putting up a simple graphic that shows that pattern on our wiki? We could then flesh out the reasoning behind it in words. I'm sure I can do it.
I also got a lot of responses asking us to explain how to change churches' attitudes. I'm really not sure if this is the right way to go. Speaking from what little experience I do have in working with churches, changing attitudes and ways of thinking is a difficult and exhausting endeavor. Perhaps these responses came from previous frustrations in working with the church and seeing bad attitudes as the major barrier preventing the church from action. While this may in part be true, I find combatting value judgments and attitudes head-on to be defeating and not a good use of time. Instead, could we encourage people moved to action against HIV/AIDS to seek others who are likewise moved to action within the church, and start partnering with organizations to combat HIV/AIDS together (a more grassroots approach to affecting change rather than a top-down one).
posted by Hideyo at 3:21 PM
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