Cal Thomas has a nice article here about real “community organizing” – that actually works. And guess what? It doesn’t involve throwing lots of tax dollars at problems and pretending they’ll go away. Robert Woodson runs the Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, headquartered in Washington D.C., an organization that he founded in 1981. For the last 30 years CNE has been making a positive impact by emphasizing self-sufficiency; transforming lives from the inside out.

Woodson says the difference between programs he supports and others is that he “takes time-tested principles and virtues and applies them to addictions, homelessness, and other conditions. We have moral consistency.”…
He is emphatic about what he says and he produces success when so many other programs fail: “Faith in God transforms the inside and that faith transforms the outside.”

Also featured in Thomas’ piece was Pastor Shirley Holloway who founded the House of Help/City of Hope in Washington, D.C. to help restore lives damaged by addictions and other self-destructive behaviors. Shirley believes that committed marriages are an important part of that restoration.

said Holloway, “Success comes from continued, consistent focus in the right direction. There are couples who came in homeless who are now homeowners.”

Could real “hope and change” come from God-centered living? It sure seems to work wherever it’s sincerely practiced; Christianity has only been transforming lives for 2000 years.