Hello!  Thanks for taking the time to visit my page.  

I'm Clint, a community development specialist with e3 Partners Ministries as part of their Community Transformation (CT) initiative. I'm a West Point graduate and former U.S. Army officer; I now work with local churches and other organizations to help them develop strategies for identifying and interfacing with the problems they encounter in their communities.  My two regions of focus are the U.S. and Central America (yes, I realize that the word "focus" isn't quite fitting to the task!).  I'm also pursuing a course of theological studies with Theopolis Institute, in Birmingham, Alabama.

Here you'll find a quick look at my background and information about e3 CT--who we are, what we do, and why we do it. Despite the many paragraphs, I've provided only an overview; if you'd like to know more, please feel free to contact me at clint.hail@e3partners.org.

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Background.

Growing up in a missionary home is one of the greatest privileges of my life. The value of spending time abroad, in many different countries and cultural settings, cannot be measured. Working shoulder-to-shoulder with people whose daily experiences were so different from my own had a huge impact on the way I understand the world around me. As such, I've developed a high capacity for working across cultural boundaries--a skill set that has both shaped and served me throughout my life. 

In community development this feature of my character is critical because we, all of us, even in our own neighborhoods and cities, are constantly moving in and out of different cultures. Different groups--whether their composition is determined by ethnicity, socio-economic class, religious creed, or a mixture of all the above--maintain different conceptions of what is true, good, and beautiful; conversely, we have differing standards on what is false, bad, and unacceptable. To work effectively across all of these boundaries--sometimes all at once--requires a high level of cultural self-awareness and in return, a high degree of cultural empathy. 

I'm getting ahead of myself. 

My appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point further refined my character. Following those four years I went on to serve as an officer in the Army, serving nearly six years of active duty, including a year of combat leadership in Afghanistan and a year stationed in South Korea. 

Afghanistan proved to be a critical turning point in my life. For a number of reasons, that year was an emotional, physical, and spiritual gauntlet, but it left me with three life-changing insights. First, assuming that by applying vast material resources to programs planned and conducted at an inhuman scale, imposed from the top-down, by agencies existing outside the community it seeks to help, it's possible to bring about human flourishing is the height of futility. That kind of thinking reflects the "god-complex," characteristic of the modern West. 

Second, and related to the first point, when we underestimate the creative power of human beings--who are made in the image of God--we undermine their creative potential, and thus, their dignity. People ought to be empowered to think for themselves in order to address their own community's needs. Those closest to the problem are, in reality, those best equipped to devise solutions. Outside help may be needed, but it shouldn't be the first resort--there is so much more that we can do on our own, if we're willing to push ourselves. 

Finally, I became acutely aware that systemic, structural injustices exist.  Though they very across societies, these forces affect the daily lives of people, everywhere. Life for the impoverished Afghan farmer is haunted at night by the Taliban and then, in the daylight, he's accosted by the American military. Caught between Scylla and Charybdis, he has limited options, if any; he cannot simply rise above it all, or "bootstrap" his way out. He has to survive, and to do so may require him to shoot at American troops, for if he doesn't, he and his family will answer to the Taliban operatives in their village. What is this farmer caught up in? And what can he do about it? 

This example is extreme but illustrative. No society, America included, is immune to these types of deep, structural issues. 

Coming to grips with these realities drove me to reconsider my own future. Though I didn't have language for it back then, I became very interested in topics related to asset-based community development. Paralleling that development I also began to take seriously the calling on the church to be a pillar of leadership, both in the lives of her congregants, and the communities in which they have been placed. After resigning my commission and leaving the Army at the end of 2013, I soon met Josh Yarbrough, director of e3 Community Transformation. As we spoke, it became obvious that this is where I needed to be--here's why… 

What is Community Transformation?  

Community Transformation (CT) is e3’s community development initiative, which began in 2010. Using an asset-based approach, we empower local churches to lead their communities in addressing issues of economic and agricultural development, community health and sanitation, education, water resources, justice, and human trafficking. 

Our practices ensure that ownership of the development process remains at the local level—in the hands of nationals, or, in a U.S. context, members of that community—and is easily reproducible once we’re gone. This is already producing high impact results around the world, in nine countries outside the U.S. 

Why the church?

While we do work with non-profits, NGOs, and even municipalities, we partner, primarily, with churches. There is both a theological and sociological impetus behind our approach to community development. 

First, the church has a calling to be salt and light to the world. In Matthew 5:13-16, Jesus says to his disciples that "You are the salt of the earth….You are the light of the world." Jesus is describing, in no uncertain terms, what should characterize the ministry of his people to the world. Salt brings taste, helps preserve, and acts by dispersing into the matrix of what it influences. Light helps show the way, changes perspectives, helps people turn from darkness, and acts by exposing. These are just the basics of how the church ought to understand itself; this is the role she is empowered to fulfill. 

Sociologically, we can understand the value of the church in two ways. In the last twenty years, social scientists have detailed the collapse of "social capital"--"the meaningful human contacts of all kinds that characterize true communities." Despite this trend, however, churches remain a final--though tenuous--redoubt of social capital within communities across the country. I said America, but this is a process being repeated across the globe. It's at this moment of crisis that churches ought to be encouraged to reach deep into their communities and provide hope. 

Additionally, we can see the value of the local church through the age old principle of subsidiarity. Subsidiarity, essentially, refers to the idea that those closest to a problem are best equipped to solve it. No institution is more strategically placed than the local church to have a lasting, positive impact within a community. 

Again, I've left a lot unsaid here, but these points are essential to our approach.

What is Empowerment?  

We have four pillars of empowerment. Churches are empowered when they learn to create solutions using their own resources, relate to those in their community in love by working together, act by learning to use the skills and talents that are already available to them, and lead their communities towards a Kingdom-inspired vision of human flourishing. We measure empowerment not by what we do for people, but by what people become able to do themselves.

How is CT different?  

What sets e3 CT apart from other development strategies, is that we do focus on empowerment and achieve it through our method of facilitated self-discovery. Through this process we avoid confusing our role between that of consultant with our true role as co-strategists with the local residents. This ensures that ownership of all projects/initiatives remains at the local level. Throughout the process we encourage creative and critical thinking that cuts across all cultural boundaries, and implants a sense of empowerment and self-sufficiency.  Thus, we believe, the dignity of those we serve is restored. 

Churches and other organizations--those that are working to address issues related to systemic poverty and community development--usually sense that there's a gap between them and the community they desire to serve. Unfortunately, they're usually right. This gap exists for the simple reason that while it may be obvious that certain problems exist within the community, it is much more difficult to determine what exactly those problems are. 

The simplest way to say this is that most churches and outreach groups, simply don't know how to interface with their communities. Now, they may show compassion towards those they're seeking to serve; this service can take various forms, but they are not likely to do so with a clear picture of the community's capacities and vulnerabilities. Or, they may resort to imposing purely top-down measures. In either case, whether it's "random acts of kindness" or a "god-complex," the agency lacks a clear understanding of what the community's reality looks like because they never seriously engage the members of that community. 

This gap is one example of where we fit in the process of development. e3 Community Transformation steps into this gap to train and assist churches and organizations in how to understand the problems by mobilizing the community. Wherever extreme poverty persists, the degree of our equipping and involvement increases--so, what we do in rural Bolivia will look different from what we're doing in an American urban context, but the essence of our work is the same.

Why do we think CT is strategic?  

CT is strategic on three levels: 1) By zeroing in on localized, grassroots community development, appropriate partnerships and coalitions are fostered, and CT is a train-the-trainer model that encourages organic and sustainable multiplication of effort (that simply means that we're always working ourselves out of a job!); 2) Our development methodology is designed to be highly adaptive to the audience’s context – no matter the geography, economic structure, or socio-political situation – or in other words, it is effectively cross-cultural in its scope and impact; 3) Our approach is holistic in that we avoid relying too heavily on material resources to change people’s conditions, and instead empower them to be creative, collaborative thinkers – equipped to address whatever issues their communities face.

Why CT is a worthwhile investment?  

e3 Community Transformation is empowering, adaptive, holistic, and sustainable – these are the cornerstones of our strategy. With e3’s twenty-eight years of cross-cultural ministry, and worldwide local-national partnerships, we understand the commitment it takes to see transformation happen.

What is the hope?  

Imagine what would happen if every local church were equipped and empowered to lead their communities in the day-by-day, nitty-gritty work of tackling tough community problems? Imagine what would happen if God's people were bringing together communities, showing them the love of Christ by walking with them, taking their vulnerabilities seriously and shoring up their existing capacities? We can't really imagine what that would be like, but that is our hope--and we labor every day towards that goal.  

Soli Deo Gloria.

Clint