In the British welfare sector, the role of religious groups in offering faith based welfare provision is substantial and addresses a wide variety of needs. Such action is not confined to the Christian faith, since other religious faiths generate welfare initiatives of their own. Nor is faith motivated welfare provision restricted to meeting basic human needs, as it can include efforts to build community relations and also encompasses community development approaches that support citizens to come together to create self-help projects. In fact the latter themes sometimes appear linked in social policy where community development is seen as a way of generating cohesive and cooperative communities, particularly in areas where there are ethnic divides to be bridged (Pearmain and Hatamian 2011: 1-2). This thesis focusses on one aspect of faith involvement in the welfare sector. It investigates whether British churches can adopt a community development approach, and in so doing, produce the positive outcomes that are associated with community participation neighbourhood regeneration. In this chapter I show how that topic has become pertinent to today’s welfare climate and the community development profession. I introduce a number of research questions that must be answered in order to argue that churches can embrace a community development approach, and outline how these questions are addressed in my literature reviews and case studies of churches in the chapters that follow.