The bigger picture.

I was thinking the other day about inner city problems and gang violence. There had been something on the news again. Listening to the item, it struck me that the focus is always inwards; what can we do in the community, gang, individual etc. Whilst there are clear practical and material needs to be met, this approach looks incomplete. Maybe the problem is that these communities and the individual people in them are too enclosed, too detached from the bigger picture, the world beyond. It's well known that individuals who seperate themselves from wider social interaction run the risk of eccentricity or worse still actual mental health problems. So groups and comunities that are not nourished by or feed into the wider community eventually have nothing to grow on and nothing but there own narrow experience to base their lives on. If such communities are materially and economically deprived to begin with then it is hardly surprising that development and growth can be limited and often maladaptive.
So, in addition to input to develop infrastructures and personal input to help individuals, maybe we should be adding the need for"output", a contribution to the wider world, not when things are better but during the process of change.
Maybe churches have a role in encouraging individuals to think beyond themselves as a means of changing things for themselves. Jesus told us we had to die to self and to take up our cross daily. I don't think He meant that as an act of Christian self-improvement. His words are for all and offer life to all, not just those who have done RCIA. His words are spirit and life and we should help others to apply His wisdom in their lives whether or not they are believers. Applied, this word becomes deed and the Gospel lives.