1. We Partner with an Entire Community
Community leaders invite 410 into their development journey. They define their goals, their problems, and their solutions. Community members participate in their development with their time, talents, and resources. 410 Bridge stands in the gap of what they cannot do on their own. Our participatory model of development ensures that the programs and projects are indigenously sustainable long after the community graduates. The leaders define their path, take ownership of the solutions, and are accountable.
2. Fundamental Shift in Worldview
For our efforts to truly make a lasting difference, the community’s mindset – their perspectives – on what success, progress, growth, and rising out of extreme poverty means must change. In everything we do, we seek to share the transformational impact that a Christian Biblical worldview can have on the lives of the people living in extreme poverty.
3. Indigenously Sustainable
There is a radical difference between ‘sustainable’ and ‘indigenously sustainable’. Unless projects and programs can be sustained by the community itself, long after 410 departs, we will have failed. Every program and project belongs to the community, and the community is responsible for sustaining it without ongoing Western support or short-term mission teams.
4. Restoring Dignity
Our commitment is to help the poor lift themselves from poverty, restoring their dignity, purpose, and freedom.
We do not see the poor as a set of problems to be solved (water, education, economic development, etc.). We recognize that they are the solution. When we (the West) engage the poor from this perspective, we have the opportunity to radically improve the pace and depth of their development, while transforming the way the Body of Christ engages in healthy poverty-focused missions.
5. Fulfilling the Great Commission
Advancing the local church is central. We want the local churches – not one, but all of them – to be the hero of the development work. Unifying and advancing the local Church, is a powerful catalyst for creating lasting freedom from poverty.
