Go to the People

My church homegroup is almost through reading "When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor... and Yourself" by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert, a book I highly recommend. A recent chapter questioned the increasingly popular church trend of short-term mission (STM) trips, which Americans spent $1.6 billion on in 2006 alone. While certainly not calling for the end of such trips, the authors point out the harm STMs can cause and introduce good practices to follow when planning and embarking on them. They also identify STMs as a stewardship issue:

"Spending $20,000 to $40,000 for ten to twenty people to be on location for two weeks or less is not uncommon. The money spent on a single STM team for a one- to two-week experience would be sufficient to support more than a dozen far more effective indigenous workers for an entire year (173)."

In the next chapter, the authors talk about doing missions in your own backyard (Christian Community Development, the type of work that my employer, Abundant Life, does). Even though he lived before Jesus walked the earth, Lao Tzu wrote a poem that really embodies the principles of Christian Community Development:

"Go to the people
Live among them
Learn from them
Love them
Start with what they know
Build on what they have
But of the best leaders
When their task is done
The people will remark 'We have done it ourselves.'"

Table for Two

A few weeks ago, one of my 8^th graders took me out to dinner.  I guess technically I took him because I drove, but he paid.  Granted, it was only a few bucks, but I suppose some might question why I would let a kid whose family isn’t wealthy buy me dinner.  The reasons are two-fold.

First, I value generosity.  I try to be generous myself, and I appreciate it in others.  By accepting his dinner invitation, I gave him a chance to practice generosity.  God set an example for us in ultimate generosity in that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).  Not only so, but he also made us heirs who will share in his glory (Romans 8:17).  As Ed Welch puts it in his book, When People are Big and God is Small, "It's one thing to release a person from prison, but it is something else to deluge that same person with all the riches imaginable" (127).  If only we would be so generous with one another!

Second, I wanted to give him a chance to materially contribute.  People in Christian community development fail when they don’t expect anything of those they are ministering too.  In his book, A Quiet Revolution, John Perkins says dependence is “the hard, seemingly impenetrable reality behind poverty” (133).  Too often I see a sense of entitlement among the youth I work with – an attitude that I owe them something.  Not only is this not the case, but it would make for a very unhealthy relationship.

As for dinner, we spent some quality time chatting over tacos.  We talked about music and video games, about how his parents might move to Petersburg and he would either go with them or move in with his sister.  I asked him what his favorite restaurant was and he said Riverside Lunch, where his dad takes him about once a month.  Maybe we’ll go there next time… but I’ll pay.  

NY Times Celebrates Life of CCD Hero Allan Tibbels

This week, the NY Times published short stories of 23 notable people who passed away in 2010, including Christian Community Development hero, Allan Tibbels.  Titled "Wheelchair Missionary," the brief article talks about how Allan, inspired by John Perkins, moved his family into one of Baltimore's most blighted neighborhoods (along with friend Mark Gornik) and helped to transform it by partnering with residents to found New Song Community Church, New Song Academy (an independently-run public school) and Sandtown Habitat for Humanity.  Sandtown Habitat, which Allan co-directed, had rehabilitated nearly 300 homes by the time of his passing in June.

One of the most interesting -- and effective -- aspects of Tibbels and Gornik's ministry is that they purposefully did not start any programs immediately upon moving into Sandtown.  Instead, as Gornik tells it, they simply hung out for two years, getting to know their neighbors and their needs, and growing in trust for one another.  From the beginning, it was about relationships.

You can read the excellent NY Times article here.  For more on Tibbles, see the Baltimore Sun's obituary.

Side Note:  Many of you who have spent time with me since 2001 have heard me talk about John Perkins and how he influenced my own life.  John founded the Christian Community Development (CCD) movement, which my organization, Charlottesville Abundant Life Ministries, is a part of.  If you're unfamiliar with CCD and want to understand why I do what I do, I highly recommend reading John's first book, "Let Justice Roll Down."  It might just change your life, like it did mine.

Reading Material: "When Helping Hurts"

My church homegroup is currently reading "When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor... and Yourself" by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert, two economics professors from the Chalmers Center for Economic Development at Covenant College.  I'm less than halfway through the book but I'm really enjoying it.  Corbett and Fikkert's main argument is that poverty has spiritual, social, psychological, and physical aspects, but most poverty alleviation efforts only treat the physical rather than taking a holistic approach.  They define poverty alleviation as a "ministry of reconciliation: moving people closer to glorifying God by living in right relationship with God, with self, with others, and with the rest of creation."

One helpful aspect of this definition is to recognize that we are all poor in some way and in need of poverty alleviation, because none of us have perfect relationships.  They write, "The goal is not to make the materially poor all over the world into middle-to-upper-class North Americans, a group characterized by high rates of divorce, sexual addiction, substance abuse, and mental illness....  The goal is to restore people to a full expression of humanness, to being what God created us all to be..."  I really appreciated this point, because too often "those who have" incorrectly assume they know what "those who do not have" need.

Corbett and Fikkert then define material poverty alleviation as "working to reconcile the four foundational relationships so that people can fulfill their callings of glorifying God by working and supporting themselves and their families with the fruit of that work."  This definition reflects the biblical view that work is (or should be) an act of worship.  When an individual is empowered to earn his own wages, and when he is not merely chasing after wealth or seeking to glorify himself rather than God, he has a healthy relationship with work.

Having worked and/or volunteered in Christian Community Development with a holistic ministry for the last 7.5 years, some of this material is not new to me, especially the practical advice.  Still, the biblical rationale behind the advice and the real world examples of institution-created poverty are enlightening, and I'm looking forward to reading on.