Doing Justice: Congregations and Community Organizing, 2nd Edition

Dennis A. Jacobsen

May 2017 · Fortress Press

About this ebook

Doing Justice introduces readers to congregation-based community organizing rooted in the day-to-day struggles and hopes of urban ministry. It draws from the author’s decades-long career of personal experience in community organizing ministries.  

Illustrated with examples from the experience of community organizers, Doing Justice weaves theological and biblical warrants for community organizing into concrete strategies for achieving justice in the public arena. It offers sound treatment of fundamental organizing principles like power, self-interest, and agitation and suggests ways to build and sustain an organization, relate to media and corporations, and strengthen ministries and empower lay leaders.  

The second edition includes forewords by veteran pastor-activists Bill Wylie Kellermann and Grant Stevensen and a new preface that notes recent changes in organizing, describes needed new directions and connections, and discusses the significance of new movements such as Black Lives Matter. Also new is Stevensen’s running “conversation” with Jacobsen, drawing readers into deeper engagement with organizing practices. 

Designed for use by congregations and church leaders as well as by ministerial students, Doing Justice will open new vistas for community action in support of the poor, the disadvantaged, and the disenfranchised of our society.

About the author

Dennis Jacobsen pastored Incarnation Lutheran Church in Milwaukee for twenty-six years and for twenty of those years was Director of the Gamaliel National Clergy Caucus, a network of over one thousand religious leaders. He is an active leader in MICAH (Milwaukee Inner city Congregations Allied for Hope) and the author of Doing Justice: Congregations and Community Organizing (Fortress Press).