I’ve been doing a lot of research on the subject of collaboration. Churches seem to be able to easily cooperate with other churches in their neighborhoods but they have not found it as easy to collaborate together.

The dictionary defines cooperating as working with someone in the sense of enabling: making them more able to do something: typically by providing information or resources they wouldn’t otherwise have. While, collaborating means actually working alongside someone to achieve something together. Cooperating is “to/for” typically while collaboration is “with.”

It is much easier to cooperate with others since little trust is required. We can work alongside someone helping them to accomplish their objectives without being in a any kind of relationship with them at all (e.g. serve in a soup kitchen). But, to collaborate with others, meaningful relationships are essential. Therefore, trust is essential!

Racheal Botsman, an expert in the developing Collaborative Consumption transition taking place in the marketplace worldwide, talks a lot about trust. She has observed that the once common top-down trust in institutions (churches, non-profits, governments and businesses) that consumers have had is no longer relevant. She says that trust has shifted from institutional to distributed.

I believe this is what has been taking place in our neighborhoods. Individual believers are losing “faith” in their local churches. They are leaving their churches seeking personal trusting relationships with other believers  in new ways such as home groups and neighborhood development activities. They are finding and developing new and relevant ways of effective ministry in their neighborhoods.

There is an ever-growing belief that the local church is irrelevant and more concerned about maintaining their programs than in ministering to their members and neighbors.  People don’t trust their local churches like they used to!

Cormac Russel gives some good advice to anyone wanting to develop trusting relationships in their neighborhoods encouraging us to ask, “How can we show up in people’s lives and genuinely be curious about what they care about enough to act upon it?”  This will raise our trust reputation in our communities and will result in many wonderful collaborative efforts leading to the sustainable transformation of our neighborhoods.