In Black churches, community-based health programs have been successfully recruited and implemented with the help of different factors that contributed, as well as, detracted the churches from its successful implementation. All these factors have been discussed in this paper. It has been hoped that the future health-promotion programs for the underserved populations that are organized by the Black churches will be contributed by the lessons, which were learned from.
At the same time, a word of caution has also been sent by the findings to some of the proposals like President Bush’s call to the churches. a much larger responsibility regarding the provision of social services across the country was offered to be taken by the churches. Although, the Los Angeles Mammography Promotion in Churches Program was actively and enthusiastically participated and run by the pastors, and future health-promotion programs were also planned by the churches.
However, it was made very clear that the personal active involvement of these pastors was not enough for the running of these programs, and pursuing will not take place in this way. This program was solved during the study by the involvement of pastors in the recruitment phase of the study only. The other church members were then trained by the pastors, by whom the programs were run in the respective churches of the trainees. However, a need of pastor delegate was felt during the study due to the overburden of work on the pastors during the study.
Thus, an important lesson was learnt during the study, which was meant for the reduction of burden on the pastors. “We have seen by conducting extensive ethnographic case studies how individual black churches evolved from early antebellum times to the era of the civil rights movement in selected Southern states and how these churches have exhibited both a religious or spiritual function and a social or community outreach function.
Now we move beyond individual case studies to embrace large scale sample surveys of churches in different regions of the country in order to show how generalized or widespread and how patterned is the community outreach role of the contemporary black church.
Clearly, large numbers of contemporary black churches have heard the same voice enunciated so distinctly by the Rev. Cecil Chip Murray of the First A. M. E. Church, Los Angeles: “The days of coming to church for personal salvation alone are over.
” Congregations, he said, are actively pursuing “not only personal salvation but social salvation as well. ” (1999, 110) At the same time, the outsiders were often doubted by the pastors of the Black churches. Thus, it was also learnt during the study that relationships and the trust of the outside volunteers was necessary and must, in order to run the church-based health-promotion and other community programs. In this regard, the Los Angeles Mammography Promotion in Churches Program planned and implemented the strategy of working in partnerships during these programs.
In addition, the validity of the program was also enhanced in front of the targeted population by the partnership of volunteers with the respected leaders of the churches, as well as, the community. Furthermore, the churches were provided with the computers, printers, software, and other resources that benefited the researchers during their study, by which, a sense of partnership was facilitate in the churches. Finally, the importance of the establishment of personal and friendly relationships with the pastors and the research members was also identified during the interviews.
For instance, the relationships between pastors, church coordinators, and fieldworkers were solidified with the help of the minimum attendance of a fieldworker at each church that was participating in the program. However, the interactions with the members of the churches were helpful, as suggested from the positive response and feedbacks during the interviews, as well as, the visits during the research. The uniqueness of the findings with the relation to the Black churches should be examined in the further research.
In addition, the application of these findings to the other churches should also be discussed and studied in future. Additionally, it should be kept in mind that variation was observed, even when only small number of people were subjected for the study. For instance, variation was observed with the association of primarily secular or faith concerns with the similarities of holism, which was expressed by the pastors. Therefore, a pattern was highlighted for the future studies of Black churches and their different health-promotion and community programs with relation to the race, ethnicity, and health areas.
Although, small sample of study was not able to derive distinct patterns, however, such differences should be further explored and accounted by church-based health-promotion programs in future. In the end, the factors that might be responsible for the facilitation, as well as, the hindering of the church-based community programs should be adjusted in the future programs at the time of their planning and development in the Black community. In this regard, different ways of the navigation and solution should be implemented by the church members by which, potential barriers can overcome during the programs.