This text joins the concept of "patience" with some aspects of Endogenous Local Development, with special attention to the metaphoric world originated in theological language, one of the first and main historical matrixes of the imaginary of development. The proposition advanced is that the Local Development Agent is a mediator between the times of the community (collective dimension) and that of the individual (private dimension). This idea is prepared by a previous reflection about the tension between social theory and the theological dimension of culture, and is followed by two illustrations of the task of the Local Development Agent: the notion of diagnostics and that of sin.
Local Development Theory; Endogenous Local Development; Historic Patience
