Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think there’s a big problem in cultures where there’s that dependency on ‘I’ve got to wait for someone else to come in’. And then, you know, ‘I don’t have an education. I don’t have anything. I can’t do it myself’. And we even have that in this country in some aspects. But I think when you, once people start to see success, that breeds confidence, breeds that kind of empowerment, and that just snowballs again, it’s that kind of...
Pete Dawson 23:30
Yeah. So earlier on we were talking about impact on people’s wellbeing and Bethany, it’s probably best
directed to you. But when you talk about wellbeing, what do you mean by that?
Bethany Sikes 22:08
Yeah, that’s a great question. That’s definitely one of those terms that can mean lots of things to different people. And we’re going to explore this a little bit more in the next episode. But Tearfund has a very clear idea of what we mean by holistic wellbeing, or another way of thinking about it would be whole-life transformation. So we look at the whole person, so their emotional wellbeing, their personal relationships, their connections in the community as well as their material assets and, you know, the sort of tangible things that they have. And, we talk about CCT having an impact on every aspect of people’s life. And actually for us to say that it’s having an impact, we want to see transformation in the whole person.
And we have a tool called the Light Wheel, where we have nine different aspects of wellbeing that we’ll be exploring in the next episode in more detail. Charlotte, I’m sure you have loads of stories of people that people have shared with you, talking about the fact that they’ve experienced change in multiple areas of their lives.
Charlotte Flowers 24:42
Yeah. I mean, there’s so many. One particularly sticks in my head because it was, it was just incredible to meet this lady called Margaret, in Uganda. We interviewed her as part of an evaluation, but then I got to meet her afterwards and chat more with her. And, as you said, there’s nine aspects of wellbeing that we talk about within Tearfund. And she literally spoke about every one in some way and related it to the fact of what CCT had done in her life. So she and her family had a very very small farm, they were in a rural part of Uganda. And she’d been struggling. It had been quite stressful. She hadn’t been able to send her children to school regularly because of lack of income. So then she got involved with CCT at the church. She was a churchgoer to begin with, but she said that it encouraged her to go along more, to do the Bible studies herself, to pray more. And then she learned more about using your own resources and the land she was using, you know, the crops. And I think it was potatoes initially or cassava that she was making, but it wasn’t really getting much income. And alongside that, there was an initiative from the government. So she got a free orange sapling, like, citrus sapling. And so she started growing oranges, actually, while I was there, she kept giving me more and more oranges to eat, and it was like a lot of oranges. But yeah, that had just grown and income had grown, so her kids were going to school. And she also talked about her physical health, like, she’d had a lot of problems with stomach ulcers. And she said, I think that was to do with stress, of everything that was going on. Yeah. And it had gone. So she said, you know, God had healed her. But she said, you know, I don’t stress any more so that, you know, it was all part of this whole thing and the last thing she said, and it always stays with me. She said she was now leading the women’s group at the church, and they’d even gone to government to ask for certain things. And she said, you know, ‘What am I? I’m a woman. Before I could do nothing. Now, I do, you know, I do everything. And I’m a pillar of the community’. And it’s just that, kind of, the confidence that she had and the pride that she had in all that she was doing. It was just amazing.
Bethany Sikes 26:55
Yeah, that’s such a good example of that whole-life transformation.
Charlotte Flowers 26:58 It’s all connected. Yeah.
Pete Dawson 27:01
So like from a church point of view, my background was in church leadership, in church planting, things like that. And we have measures like we measure the amount of people who make commitments and who get saved. We measure finance, giving, we measure bums on seats, those kind of things. But if you’re talking about wellbeing, how do you measure that in a tangible way, so you know you’re actually making a difference?
Bethany Sikes 27:25
Yeah. It’s not easy, that’s for sure. So we knew from our previous research studies and evaluations, like Charlotte mentioned, that, you know, those stories that people tell us, like they’re talking about their wellbeing, even if they don’t use those words necessarily. So we knew that the Church and Community Transformation was making a powerful difference. But we wanted to try and measure that impact in a very quantified way, and try and put a value on that, on that transformation. So that’s the sort of real goal and why we commissioned the Local Church, Lasting Transformation study. Like I said, it’s our largest independent research study that we’ve ever done. And we worked with some specialists called State of Life who hopefully will be joining us on a later episode. And they specialise in measuring wellbeing and also social value. And we also worked with the UK Government Economic Service to peer review our findings. And so we’re unpacking them throughout the series, but just at a very top level. We asked people about 23 different questions covering their economic and their income, that side of things, covering their social lives, their personal lives and their spiritual lives. And then we were able to compare the results from people who live in a community where a church is doing Church and Community Transformation, and we also talked to people in communities where that hadn’t started yet. So there’s no church in their community doing Church and Community Transformation. And we were able to compare the difference across those 23 questions. And we found that every single one of those was higher for people living in communities where CCT is happening, you can prove that there’s higher wellbeing and that holistic wellbeing, that whole-life transformation, because we didn’t just ask one question, we didn’t ask people, did you, you know, do you have higher wellbeing? We didn’t ask people that. We asked people questions like, you know, ‘Do you have someone you can ask help from in a time of need?’ Like it’s those kind of questions and then we were able, with some fun statistics to figure out where the, you know, whether they were in a community where a church was doing Church and Community Transformation or not, and look at the difference in those results. And so, yeah, excited to unpack those more in other episodes.
Pete Dawson 29:42
So that’s pretty robust information. Findings that we can take.
Bethany Sikes 29:45
Yeah. Statistically rigorous approach.
Pete Dawson 29:48 So good. So good.
Charlotte Flowers 29:50
So can you just give us a sense of the scale? Like how many churches are doing this around the world?
Bethany Sikes 29:55
Yeah. So at the moment, so we started counting about five years ago, and we’ve got to over 27,000
churches.
Pete Dawson 30:05
Is that churches currently active?
Bethany Sikes 30:06
Yeah, that is actively taking part in CCT and being mobilised to do CCT. We have a vision as Tearfund to reach 250,000, so ten times that. So we have lots of work to do. But yeah that’s where we’re at at the moment, which is really exciting.
Charlotte Flowers 30:24
And that’s in pretty much most of the countries that Tearfund is present in?
Bethany Sikes 30:26
Yes, across 50 countries we work in which is, yeah, amazing.
Pete Dawson 30:31
What does it look like for Tearfund moving forward?
Charlotte Flowers 30:33
So yeah, we have this big vision, this big aspiration to reach 250,000 churches by 2030. So it is very ambitious. I mean, the way that looks is us engaging more and more with big denominations around the world and different countries, with theological colleges who teach church leaders, and other organisations as well. So peer organisations who’re interested. So we have lots of interest in CCT, but it’s us having the resources and ability to kind of influence and equip those people that are interested to do it. But, you know, the more people that see it are convinced that it works, and particularly with, with the study that’s been done as well. So we’re really excited that we have enough interest to kind of build, but there’s a lot of work to do.
Pete Dawson 31:20
Well Charlotte, thanks so much for joining us.
Charlotte Flowers 31:22
Thank you for having me. It’s been really fun to chat.
Pete Dawson 31:39 That was so good.
Bethany Sikes 31:41
So good. Really enjoyed that conversation.
Pete Dawson 31:43
So out of what we shared, and there’s a lot to take in, I’m feeling inspired, and I’m feeling challenged in
many ways. But are there any particular takeaways for you?
Bethany Sikes 31:52
I think it’s just really exciting to hear from someone like Charlotte, who’s got that big picture vision of what the church is doing. And it really, you know, inspires you as to why we work with the church. But I love that we’re also understanding a bit better how we work with the church and what that actually looks like in practice. And being able to hear Margaret’s story was such a privilege about how, you know, the Church and Community Transformation model has really brought change, you know, life, life-changing change, into every aspect of her life. And to be able to visualise that that could be happening for people around the world, especially with our really exciting vision of 250,000 churches doing this work. So yeah, I’m feeling quite inspired as we finish this episode.
Pete Dawson 32:37
So good. So over the next five episodes, can you just give us a little sneak peek of what we’re going to be
focusing on?
Bethany Sikes 32:43
Yeah, I can give you a wee sneak peek. So we’re going to be talking to some Tearfund colleagues around the world and some just fantastic practitioners who are hands-on doing this work in several countries that we work in. And we’re going to be exploring a couple of different topics. We’re going to be looking at unpacking that idea of holistic wellbeing, that whole-life transformation that we’ve already touched on today, what it looks like when the church is reaching out and working in its community.
Advocacy – what happens when the church is standing up and speaking out? And also, what it looks like and what it means to put a social value on the impact of the work that we’re doing. So, yeah, lots of exciting things ahead.
Pete Dawson 33:25
That sounds great. Well, guys, thank you so much for tuning in. I do hope you’ve been inspired. I do hope you feel encouraged, and we would love for you to join us next episode, where we’re going to be looking at how the church can bring whole-life transformation. But in the meantime, if you want to find out a little bit more about Tearfund who we are, what it is we do, and more specifically, Bethany, about the report and the findings and where can we go?
Yes, if you want to find out more, you can read our research summary or there’s a video capturing the main findings as well. And you can find all of that on Tearfund Learn. And you can also find out more about Church and Community Transformation there as well. So to do that it’s at learn.tearfund.org. And if you want to go straight to the pages all about the Local Church, Lasting Transformation study, just pop a forward slash on there and CCT-impact.