2. Problem Solving

Problem solving of one sort or another is part of just about every sort of professional job, including both ministry and community development.

____ in His book Stop Setting Goals If You'd Rather Solve Problems [] notes that people prefer to frame their tasks as either goal setting or problem solving, even though they may be doing essentially the same thing.

I believe there is one significant difference between these two tasks: in Problem solving, one does not necessarily own the activity, whereas in accomplishing goals one almost always does own it, and is accountable for the outcomes of the project itself.

In ministry and as in community development, there are often both areas of work to be done. In terms of specific projects and maintenance tasks relating to the operational platform, there may well be a great deal of ownership of the activity, and accountability for the outcomes. There may also be some problems to solve as time goes on in relation to projects and organizations for which they themselves are accountable. However, in both cases, ministry and community development are heavily involved in solving problems which are parts of activities and organizations "belonging to" other people, and for which there is no ongoing accountability on their part. This type of problem solving is unique to any persons engaged in empowerment of others, where the locus of activity rests in the other person.

Helping others to solve their own problems is often an approach to solving problems used in both ministry and community development. I recently read of a teacher in the education field []who harnessed the energy of students by never letting anyone away with "I don't know". Instead of moving on to other students until someone came up with the right answer (thereby letting the early ones off the hook) s/he would say, "ok, that's your problem now. Let us know when you get the answer", and give the next student a new problem. They soon learned to become involved, and to engage in the problems and skill-development at hand, because sooner or later they were going to have to come up with their own answers. That is a very typical example of empowering others to solve problems by not taking ownership of those problems.

Personal counseling in ministry and constancy work in community development often involves untangling complex inter-personal situations. Helping people to learn skills of problem solving and problem prevention, particularly in interpersonal relations, is central to both activities