Step 1: Share the asset-building vision
- Learn all you can about the asset framework.
- Seek out individuals most likely to be excited about this concept and share it with them. Presentations to groups can reach large numbers, but sharing one-to-one is a good place to begin. It gives you a chance to test out your understanding and presentation before you get in front of a group.
- Gather a group to shape a congregation-wide vision for asset building. Find those who are informal supporters (e.g., who loves kids?) and those in positions that can make things happen. Seek representatives from a cross-section of the congregation. Remember to include youth.
Step 2: Listen and learn
- Identify current activities, relationships, and programs in your congregation that support asset building. Lift these up for people. Celebrate them.
- Identify factors that impede the integration of assets into the congregation. Focus on those things that can be changed.
- Dream: What will your congregation look like in five years if asset building becomes more intentional today? Identify concrete goals and a few beginning action steps.
Step 3: Shape your asset-building messages
- Plan to get the word out to all members. Keep in mind that people need to receive a message five times in three different ways in order to remember it!
- Consider one-to-one communication, handouts or pamphlets, and presentations. How will you keep the communication going for the long haul?
Step 4: Create awareness; foster energy and commitment
- Offer many ideas and opportunities for asset building so that all adults and youth can begin to be involved. Include some that are simple (smiling and saying hi to young people) and some that are more demanding (being a mentor to a middle school student).
- Encourage clergy and other professionals to be visible and vocal asset builders.
Asset-Building Ideas for Congregations
- Post the list of assets in key, high-traffic areas throughout your congregation’s building.
- Provide a variety of educational opportunities for all ages. Create interactive, intergenerational sessions that encourage younger people to connect with older people.
- Provide opportunities for young people to volunteer in the community. Afterward, discuss the experience from your faith perspective.
- Provide responsible, meaningful roles for youth. These could include being teaching assistants for younger children, volunteering for child care, and pledging financial support from their allowances and part-time jobs, as well as worship activities, such as handing out bulletins, serving as readers or lay liturgists, and being involved in music or other aspects of worship.
- Make your facility an asset-building place. Rent or provide free space for children and youth clubs to use when your building in typically empty. Create a homework room for children and youth to hang out in after school, particularly if many are going home to empty houses. Host a neighborhood child-care center.
- Educate congregational staff and lay leaders—in addition to the congregation at large—about asset building. Discuss the implications that asset building has for your congregation, and brainstorm ideas together.
For more ideas and strategies, see Building Assets in Congregations: A Practical Guide for Helping Youth Grow Up Healthy
