Needs Assessment

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen.

Today's topic is called Needs Assessment - a process of measuring the needs that we see in a country or community. This is important because we should know that the definition of what we do is not just talking to people. That is not the main goal. The definition is more than that - it is love. Love that lives in your heart turns into action for people, whether you speak or not. And from here comes the importance of needs assessment - because needs assessment means you know what people need in the right way, what they need before what, and what you can present first and then what comes after that.

So needs assessment is about understanding the needs that are in front of you, so that you can address them and then reach the inner meaning - the inner face. You understand the environment, you understand the culture, you understand the poverty that exists. All these external things help you reach the inner meaning. Because no matter how much you talk about our Lord in the mission, if people do not find food, they do not hear you.

We do not want to change the spiritual level. But we say that there are times when people need the absolute basics before even talking about our Lord and wanting them to come to church.

Seeing with the Eyes of Christ

Let us read the text together. This text, if we understand it, we understand the whole topic.

"Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, 'The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.'" - Matthew 9:35-38

What did our Lord Jesus do in this passage? Three things: He taught, He healed, and He freed. These are the three essential things. If we take them, these are the essential things about any person we want to serve. He was looking at people and giving solutions to them.

But notice also - our Lord was seeing the group, and He was also able to see a single person. He was looking around at hundreds and thousands, but He was looking at Zacchaeus above the tree and said, "Come down, because I want to stay at your house today."

So our eyes as servants need to be like the eyes of Christ. We need to know the needs of people. We will see the group as we will see the person. Our Lord will show you the needs of the group as a whole, and He will also guide you to the needs of a single person who needs something specific.

Why Needs Assessment Matters - The Doctor Analogy

What is the importance of needs assessment? In a very simple way - think about a doctor's visit. If the doctor diagnoses you incorrectly, what happens? The doctor lost his time, his resources, his energy. And the patient did not benefit from it. The patient did not get the right treatment. Nobody benefited.

When we come to apply this in our services, we have resources - health resources, money, everything. All of these can be wasted if I do not focus on the actual needs of the person. And at the same time, if you were giving those same resources to someone who really needed them, you would help much more. So you might lose resources, and someone who truly needed help does not receive it.

There are statistics that say approximately 58 percent of aid sent to Africa is wasted. Why? Because they did not do a proper assessment, and the resources went to the wrong places.

For example, if you do a poor assessment, you might build a hospital right next to a village, but the people still die next to the hospital. Why? Because you did not study the actual problem. A good assessment would tell you where to place the hospital, what the real issue is, and whether a hospital is even the right solution.

The Dangers of Bad Assessment

What are the risks of not doing a good needs assessment?

Wasted resources. As we said, money and effort go to the wrong places.

Stereotyping. You assume every village needs the same thing. But every village needs its own study. A fishing village has completely different needs from a farming community.

The expert mentality. You come in thinking you already know what people need without studying or listening. You need to study well. You need to listen.

And here is a very important example of bad assessment: imagine we send potatoes and jackets to a country in Africa because we have cold weather here. But they do not need potatoes and jackets - they need something entirely different. Or imagine building a mobile app for a church program - but did you even ask whether people have phones? Or whether they have electricity?

Love with wisdom is what gives us effect. Love without wisdom wastes resources. Our Lord Jesus Christ came to solve the human problem, but He tells us to sit down and count the cost.

Meeting People Where They Are

There is a principle that applies directly to missions work: you cannot address higher needs until the basic needs are met. We start with the essentials - food, drink, shelter, safety. These are the basic foundations. We are not saying our goal is only physical. But our goal must begin with the physical, the security, the food.

Consider the story of Abouna Antonios Samaan in Ethiopia. He was a medical doctor. He went first to serve people, to cure them, to do the medical work. And through caring for people physically, the whole city was affected by him. They loved him. He was not only taking care of their bodies but building trust that opened the door to everything else.

When people are not concerned about the basics, when the foundation is laid, we can come to the church. We can come to wanting to build the church. That is beautiful. But if there is nothing foundational, you will build the church and find no one comes. Why? Because people are dying.

The level after that is the psychological and social level, and this is more common in Europe and in the West. People there may not have the same physical poverty you see in Africa, but they have another need - they need the feeling that they are not alone. They need community. If you can bring this need through the church as a mother, to make people feel they belong to a community, you will save people and bring them to our Lord.

Of course, the highest level is the spiritual goal, because we do all of this in the first place and the last place so that people go to heaven. The base comes first, and then we build up. But our goal is more than survival - it is eternal life.

There is a verse from a Church Father - Father Athanasius from Beni Suef - who said that we serve all of man, in all aspects, in all times and places. We serve the whole person - physically, psychologically, spiritually. Because man is one.

And look at this beautiful verse - the Lord says:

"Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while." - Mark 6:31

Notice the attention of our Lord - not only were the disciples teaching and learning and seeing miracles, but He noticed they needed to come aside, to rest, to eat. That is the attention to basic needs even for His own disciples.

Entering Through the Door of Need

Every person has a door - a felt need, an immediate concern. Your task in needs assessment is to find that door and enter through it with love.

This is very clear in the story of the Samaritan woman. Our Lord, at the entrance of the conversation, knew that all the "windows" were closed - she was a Samaritan, she was a woman, there were cultural barriers. But when He asked her, "Give Me a drink," He entered through the door of her practical need. And once that door opened, He entered deeper and deeper. Christ asked her for a drink, but in reality, she was someone who needed forgiveness.

There is another example - Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. The Ethiopian was reading Scripture and needed someone to explain it to him. Philip entered through that door - the door of understanding Scripture. And through that door, the Ethiopian came to faith and was baptized.

So when you are in a mission, look and see the positive side of anything that happens. Anything that happens, take it as a positive opportunity, because this gives you eyes - bright eyes, like the eyes of Christ - and you will really come to know the needs of people.

The Story of the Mechanic

I want to give you an example from the missions. When you are in the field, the Lord works to discover the needs of people for you in unexpected ways.

A team was driving between villages and in the middle of the road, the car broke down. There was a mechanic nearby. The mechanic who came to repair the car became a door for the team. Through him, they entered with listening - what does this village need? What do people do here? How does this mechanic live? He opened the door to understanding the whole community's needs. Someone who came to fix a car became the opportunity to hear the real needs of the people.

The Seven Steps of Needs Assessment

We have two eyes, as Christ was seeing in the passage. Now here are the steps.

Step 1 - Research

Before you go, study well. What is the poverty level? What is the political situation? How do people get water? What is the history of the people? Are they afraid of the future? What languages do they speak? What has been tried before?

Research is not a substitute for being present, but it prepares you to be present with understanding.

Step 2 - Deep Observation (Prayer Walking)

This is very important. When you are in the mission, take a few hours. Walk around the area. Walk around and see people. Do they walk fast? How do the children live? Are the children in the street instead of going to school? Are people sitting together? How do they interact?

This is called prayer walking. You walk and pray. How do people get water? Do they have electricity? How do people live? Walk and look. This is how you put your hand on the real situation.

Step 3 - Empathetic Listening

After observing, listen. Like the mechanic example - when someone comes, do not just talk at them. Let the person talk. Ask open-ended questions: "What do you do during your day? What are the biggest challenges you face?"

This is exactly what Christ did with Bartimaeus. We know he was blind and wanted to see. But the Lord still asked him, "What do you want Me to do for you?" (Mark 10:51). What do you need? He let the person express their own need.

Step 4 - Identify Assets

In the observation and prayer walking you are doing, notice the assets people have. What are the good things they have? They may have land, but they do not know what to do with it. They may have resources that can be used. The project you build should use the resources they already have. This is the foundation of sustainability - building on what is already there.

Step 5 - Root Cause Analysis

You see problems in your walking and hearing from people. You know the assets. Now you start to find the root cause. For example, with Abouna Antonios, the children were dying. At first you might think they needed medicine. But when you investigate, you find the children were drinking contaminated water - from wherever water was available, shared with animals. The root cause was not a lack of medicine but a lack of clean water. When you find the root cause, you can address the real problem. From there, maybe later a hospital, a school, a church - but first, solve the root cause.

Step 6 - Act

After you gather the data, you enter into SMART objectives - specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. You start to collect the data, put it in a plan, and begin to execute.

One very important thing at this stage: involve the local people. Every local person in the area should be involved in the project. When the people who live there are part of the work, they will keep it going after you leave. Because they feel ownership. If you do everything yourself and leave, the project dies.

Step 7 - Follow Up

Any work we do, we have to follow up. It is very important that we evaluate what we did. Did the water solution work or not? Is the school serving people or not?

Here is a story: a team built a school for girls, and after opening, no children came. Why? They had a beautiful school, teachers, everything was ready. But the children could not come because their parents needed them to go in the morning to bring water and food. So the team did a simple thing - they moved the school to the afternoon. And the problem was solved.

So even if you did a good analysis and knew the needs well, it does not prevent the need for evaluation and follow-up.

When Needs Assessment Is Done Right

When you do the needs assessment right, something beautiful happens. When people feel that you are coming not because you want something from them, but because you genuinely care about what they need, they come to you. They open up. They trust you. But if you come and people feel you have another agenda, they will not receive you. Doing the assessment right means people see that you truly care.

The whole idea with Abouna Antonios and the clean water was this: when they provided water, the whole village saw that these people are here for us. After that, the entire village was open. The service continued for a long time.

Stories from the Field

There is a story from the Coptic church in Thailand. In Myanmar there is a civil war, and children are being displaced into Thailand. The church there is caring for about sixty refugee children. These children carry deep psychological trauma - they have been through terrible things. The church is meeting their emotional and psychological needs, helping them heal.

When we invest in these children, we are not just helping them today. These children will grow up. They will be leaders. When you invest in a traumatized child, you are investing in the future of an entire community.

Key Takeaways

• Needs assessment flows from love - when love lives in your heart, it becomes the action of understanding what people need, in what order, and what you can present first
• Christ saw both the crowd and the individual - we must develop two kinds of eyes, seeing the broad needs of communities and the unique needs of each person within them
• Enter through the door that is open - meet physical and practical needs first to build trust, then address the deeper spiritual needs, following Christ's pattern with the Samaritan woman
• Follow the seven steps - research, deep observation, empathetic listening, identifying assets, root cause analysis, action, and follow-up - skipping steps leads to wasted resources
• Never treat symptoms when you can address root causes - a village losing children to disease may need clean water, not a hospital
• Love with wisdom is what gives us effect - love without wisdom wastes resources, so combine a heart full of love with careful assessment

Dive Deeper

Resources coming soon.

To our God be all glory and honor, now and forever. Amen.