When Helping Hurts | read together ch. 3

Let’s (finally) talk about Chapter 3 of When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor and Yourself by Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett.

In this chapter the authors give us a definition of poverty alleviation.

Poverty alleviation is the ministry of reconciliation: moving people closer to glorifying God by living in relationship in right relationship with God, with self, with others, and with the rest of creation.

I love that definition. I love that it encompasses the whole person. As Christ’s ambassadors we are called into the ministry of reconciliation. That includes helping with material needs but it also includes dealing with the relational side of people’s lives. It’s messy and it’s hard. There’s no quick easy fix. In fact, there’s no sure fix at all. They remind us throughout the chapter that “the fall really did happen” and because of that, on this side of eternity, there will always be brokenness; that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do all that we can to participate in bringing hope and healing and HELP to those in need of it. God has made it clear that we are to persist in participating in those things until He puts an end to it all, and we must remember that we are ALL broken and in need God’s saving grace.

Our relationship to the materially poor should be one in which we recognize that both of us are broken and that both of us need the blessing of reconciliation. Our perspective should be less about how we are going to fix the materially poor and more about how we can walk together, asking God to fix both of us.

…

But part of our striving is also to fall on our knees every day and pray, “Lord, be merciful to me and to my friend here, because we are both sinners.” And part of our striving means praying every day, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven, for without you we cannot fix our communities, our nations, and our world.”

I love the emphasis they place on helping the whole person.

The goal is to see people restored to being what God created them to be: people who understand that they are created in the image of God with the gifts, abilities, and capacity to make decisions and to effect change in the world around them; and people who steward their lives, communities, resources, and relationships in order to bring glory to God.

When I read those lines… I think about the country I’ve been living in for the past year… I wrote a post a couple months ago about how so many here do not believe they have any ability to effect change in the world around them because of what they are taught within the system they were born into. So many do not know, understand, or believe that they were created in the image of God and that he has given them gifts and abilities that he desires to see them change the world with. I’ve had the privilege of teaching some this year and watching their eyes open to the possibilities of influencing. I think about India… where Hinduism teaches caste and people believe that the level they were born at is the level they must stay and that their value is determined by their position at birth. So many live hopelessly, believing they have no worth, not recognizing that they were made by a Father who loves them and wants them to know Him and to live for His purposes. I think about a friend in America… who thinks that the mistakes she has made in the past have determined her worth now and in the future. She thinks that God hates her and is punishing her financially and relationally for all that she’s done. She believes that she will never be able to “succeed” and that no one will ever be able to love her. She thinks that the very broken representations of love she has experienced in her life are the only forms of love she’ll ever know. She doesn’t see who God made her to be or how she could ever do anything to glorify Him. She thinks she lost her chance. I think about so many people in so many places… who need help learning how to relate to God, to people, and to the world… the way God desires us all to. I think about how their lack of knowing the truth influences material poverty. I think about the layers and layers of heart issues involved in helping people in these types of situations, before/during/after we address the material issues that we sometimes recognize first.

In discussing how to help Fikkert and Corbett tell us that we should begin with helping people to have a proper worldview (understanding of themselves, God, others, and the world around them). They then give us 5 things we should remember, recognizing that TRULY helping is rarely a simple thing and sometimes it is more complicated than just correcting their/our understanding.

[1] having the right concept about how a relationship is supposed to work does not automatically make the relationship work well. …  Healthy relationships require transformed hearts, not just transformed brains.

[2] Satan and his legions are at work in the world and have the capacity and desire to damage our relationships. Even if all humans had the correct worldview, Satan would still be on the prowl, attacking us and the rest of creation, thereby causing “poverty” in many manifestations (Eph. 6:12).

[3] one of the results of the fall is that the entire creation is cursed (Gen. 3:17-19), meaning that crops fail and tsunamis happen even when our worldviews are not faulty.

[4] other people sometimes actively work against or undermine the efforts of an individual poor person to change his situation.

[5] most of the systems in which the materially poor live—systems that contribute to their poverty—are outside of their control. Transforming the worldview of the materially poor will not transform these systems, a point that will be elaborated on in the next section.

Conclusion: This life of helping, offering hope, being ambassadors that carry the ministry of reconciliation is complex and requires faithfulness, diligence, patience, deliberate work, massive amounts of God’s grace, and … is gonna get messy. Because we are messy. They are messy. And let’s just be reminded again – the fall really did happen.

So there we are. Now we each have to find a way to deal with it and do our job. I’m excited, though intimidated… but thrilled that God has chosen to use me.

When Helping Hurts | read together ch. 2

Okay. It’s catch up time. First, I know it’s SUPER late… but I’d like to say I appreciated what Kacie said about Chapter 1, discussing WHY Jesus came…

And… they do! But the thing is, I think Jesus came to save sinners and reconcile the world to Himself. That was His purpose, and thus it is the purpose of the Church and the purpose of every believer in the Church – to call all men to Christ.

[and]

I think the purpose of the church is to participate with Christ in drawing all men back into relationship with God. Our love for those around us drives us to care for suffering as we live out this mission.

I absolutely agree and I really think that the authors would agree as well. I also agree with her statements that God being angry with Israel because they neglected the poor is not the entire story. Neglecting the poor is a symptom of neglecting a right relationship with God. I think the important part, and what I thought that they were trying to point out, is that the fact that God chose to name it specifically means it matters to him – a lot. Not more than salvation. Not more than souls. Of course, we need to remember that. But the focus of this book is on the poor, so I understand their emphasis on it. [She also posted a great Piper video that you might want to watch!]

Also, I wanted to mention that in our group discussions over here I was glad that Scott had taken time to look up the word “poor” in lexicons to find out what kind of poor the Scriptures they quoted were referring to. Did it just mean “poor in Spirit?” No. It really meant materially poor.

______________________________

Now on to Chapter 2. How do you define poverty? Most people think first, and maybe only, about the material aspects of poverty. But there’s more to it. The framework that the authors take us to is a relational one. They pull from the work of Bryant Myers, a Christian development thinker, who focuses on the relational nature of the Triune God and that when he created us in His image, he made us as relational beings as well.

Before the fall, God established four foundational relationships for each person: a relationship with God, with self, with others, and with the rest of creation. These relationships are the building blocks for all of life. When they are functioning properly, humans experience the fullness of life that God intended because we are being what God created us to be. In particular for our purposes, when these relationships are functioning properly, people are able to fulfill their callings glorifying God by working and supporting themselves and their families with the fruit of their work.

The problems relating to poverty stem from these four basic relational areas and we ALL suffer from poverty in some of these areas that play out as “poverty of spiritual intimacy, a poverty of being, a poverty of community, and a poverty of stewardship.”

I really really like what he said here:

Every minute since the fall, each human being is the proverbial “square peg in a round hole.” We don’t fit right, because we were shaped for something else.

For some people the brokenness in these foundational relationships results in material poverty…

[and later on...]

The fall really happened, and it is wreaking havoc in all of our lives. We are all broken, just in different ways.

We were made for a perfect relationship with the Father, and with each other, with the world, and with ourselves. And in order to be effective at alleviating any of the poverty of any of the types in the world, we must recognize our own brokenness and our own need for Jesus, otherwise we’re just going to make it all worse.

In the end of the chapter the authors remind us that while we all do face some type of poverty there is something unique about the materially poor, something God asks the rest of us to step into and help to change.

I feel like I’m just summarizing here and that there’s a lot of my own thoughts that I don’t have time to say because I really want you to know what the books says. So putting the book down… For a list of reasons, this all gets very personal to me. A few of my friends here got together tonight to talk about chapter 2 and (what we’ve read so far of) chapter 3. As I talked about it, I had to work not to cry. I think it is so important for us to not just look at the poor and think, “Well, if they would get off their butts and get a job their lives would be better.” or “Well, if they hadn’t made such poor choices with their lives then they wouldn’t be in this mess…” There’s always more to the story than we see… And maybe some people are lazy and, yes, a lot of people have made poor choices… But what if that’s NOT the case? And what if it is? What if we take time to get to know people? To step into the messes of their lives and see what the story is? And to love them… NO MATTER WHAT – like Jesus did for us. And what if we share with them how important Jesus has been to our stories? And what if we stick around to show them how Jesus wants to be a part of their stories too? I mean, either we do that… Or we give them a handout and check “help the poor” off our “To Do List”… Or we write them off as hopeless… I’m pretty sure the latter two aren’t going to bring any sort of restoration… And that’s what Christians are called to, right? So I guess we better get ready to get messy…

And that’s all the rambling I have for tonight. I hope it makes sense. It’s late and I’m tired, but I was determined to get this posted. I’m guessing I won’t make my goal of Chapter 3 by Wednesday. Thursday. Thursday is the new goal. ;)

There’s a lot more I would like to talk about but this is a blog post, not a book. I’m hoping my friends will talk about the parts I didn’t get to. So, if you want more [read the book... and/or] click around to read other people’s reactions, thoughts, insights… Anissa @ Oasis,  Brittany @ His grace displayed, Jon @ Hands Wide Open,  Kacie @ The Well Thought-Out Life, and Christine (and Scott) @ We Are His Hands.

Spirit working among us

Today I had some friends come over. We were planning on studying the Trinity. But as the time approached, I felt like we just needed to have some very REAL time with each other.

You may or may not have read this post I recently linked to. It talked about inviting people into your mess and not apologizing for being a human being with emotions. The blogger (@chatting at the sky) said: “What if instead of brushing our emotions aside and apologizing for the brokenness, we invited a few people into it? What if instead of pointing out the mess on the floor, we welcomed them to sit with us among it? Perhaps we would finally see that we were made for greater things than this.”

You may or may not be aware but, in general, I’m a mess. And lately, I’m a MESS. I counted today. There are 4 significant areas in my life that I’m struggling with. There’s a lot of ache in my heart to do with these areas, and this week has been just plain difficult. On 37 different levels. (I didn’t count the levels. It’s just a random number that signifies a lot of levels!)

God is in all of it. I know that. I see that, most of the time. And even when I don’t see it, I know it’s true. I’m having some real and messy moments with Him. He is faithful and He is Sovereign and He is teaching me in his lovingkindness.

When my friends, 3 Sisters, came over today I sat down with them and I asked them to share what our Father is teaching them. The first girl shared a verse she read last night and spoke about how it taught her and met her in some difficult circumstances in her life. It was beautiful to hear how the Spirit is moving in her. The 2nd girl then began to share…

I am learning that life can be very hard. God let’s very hard things happen sometimes. But all of the hard things He uses to make us stronger and more like Him.

She continued on for 2 or 3 minutes and my eyes FILLED with tears. Then I tried to begin to speak… but instead the tears flowed out of my eyes. And there they saw my brokenness. And I told them how I have struggled recently and I am struggling today. And I played my new favorite song for them and showed them the lyrics so they could understand. There I was, a little embarrassed… but inviting them into my mess. And they needed it. They needed to see my mess. The rest of our time together was the most meaningful we have EVER had.

I didn’t mean to really talk specifically about ANY of my 4 areas of struggle but I ended up sharing about 1 that affects them. We all ended up crying. And some of the sweetest fellowship I have ever had in my life occurred. They hugged me. They prayed for me. They melted my heart. God melted my heart. And all of us had tears flowing. (And this is not typically a culture that shows a lot of emotion, especially not the teary kind.) In the midst of it, they told me that when we come together I am not an American and they are not  ____. We are just all God’s children. At that point, I wept. Again. But more.

And then we talked about Heaven and how people from all nations will come together at the Throne and how God will wipe away all of our tears as we finally understand WHY… We will finally see all the beauty that was contained in all those broken moments that hurt so much when they happened, and He will wipe away our tears.

I guess we’ll study the trinity next time. Today though, I think we saw a great example of the Spirit working among us.