When Helping Hurts | read together ch. 4

So, I’ve actually finished reading W.H.H. by Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett, but I’m pretty much WAY behind in the blogging. I have a feeling though that no one is really waiting on the edge of their seats. But, I’ll just keep the posts coming as I have time. :)

I wrote this post for chapter 4 like a week ago but it turned out to be more of a book report than an actual discussion. I don’t like that. It’s not really the point. So today, I changed it a tad but it’s still kind of reportish. I just don’t feel like really rewriting. If I do, I’ll never finish blogging through the book. So, here’s what I have. I’ll try to do better next time. ;)

TODAY: CHAPTER 4 – “Not All Poverty Is Created Equal”

We’ve decided we want to help. We want to do it in an ACTUALLY helpful way. So, how do we know what that is? This chapter gives us a good starting point:

A helpful first step in thinking about working with the poor in any context is to discern whether the situation calls for relief, rehabilitation, or development.

What are the differences? Relief is “stopping the bleeding” in a crisis. In this situation, the person/community is basically unable to help themselves. Rehabilitation happens after the bleeding has stopped, helping people to get back to where they were before the crisis hit. Development is a long process of empowering people to be “more of what God created them to be.” These changes – the becoming more of who God wants us to be – happens to everyone involved – the helper and the helped. [Remember, we are ALL broken. Just in different ways.]

Relief is probably the one of the 3 that more people focus on most. It is also the one that is done at the wrong time in the wrong place most often and the one that can cause the most damage when done inappropriately. In many ways, relief is the “easiest.” People go in, stop the bleeding and it’s “done.” It’s easier to complete a project than to live in relationship that is required for rehabilitation and development. I’m not saying relief is bad… It’s very very good when it’s NEEDED. But often times we do this in times, places, and situations when people are in NEED of rehabilitation or development. Why is this SO important? Because…

Relief efforts applied inappropriately often cause the beneficiaries to abstain from work, thereby limiting their relationship with God through distorted worship or through no worship at all.

When we keep putting band-aids on problems instead of helping people to be equipped to take care of it themselves, we are hurting them and their ability to have the relationships they were created to have with God and others.

Rehabilitation and development take a lot of… time… effort… knowledge…commitment… messiness…  willingness to have our own lives changed.  It takes NOT have an ”I-am-here-to-save-you” attitude.

The gist of this all is that helping to alleviate poverty has no quick fix. Oh how we all wish it did, right? But it takes time. Lots of it. It takes relationships. Deep ones. It takes taking the time to understand a culture. It takes asking the right questions. It takes a constant recognition that the person you are helping is made in the image of God, just like we are. It takes remembering that we are ALL broken, though in different ways. It takes humility. And it takes responsibility to choose to do it well.

Thankfully, I’ve had some great examples of this in my life. I didn’t know how good of examples I had until I started reading this book. I’ve also had some bad examples too. Later… eventually… I’ll probably talk more about both of those.

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.

When Helping Hurts | read together ch. 1

This week we read Chapter 1 of When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor and Yourself by Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett. Last week we read and wrote about the intro. Anissa, Jon, Kacie, and Christine shared some great insights. If you’re interested, the links to their blogs are at the end of this post.

Chapter 1 is titled “Why Did Jesus Come to Earth?” The author challenged readers to think about our own answers to this question before reading. So, stop for a moment and think about yours. [Did you?] … [No, seriously.] … [Okay, good.]

Our attention is brought to Luke 4:17-21, a time where Jesus gives an answer to WHY he came. In this passage we see Jesus in the synagogue reading from the book of Isaiah (ch. 61).

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.  

Jesus came as the fulfillment of this prophecy. Imagine what it would have been like to be one of those listening that day? The author helps us imagine the questions that may have been running through their minds.

Was it really possible that justice, peace, and righteousness were about to be established forever? Would this King really bring healing to the parched soil, the feeble hands, the shaky knees, the fearful hearts, the blind, the deaf, the lame, the mute, the brokenhearted, the captives, and the sinful souls, and would proclaim the year of jubilee for the poor (Isa. 35:1-6; 53:5; 61:1-2)? (When Helping Hurts)

The answer: Yes. Jesus came to do all of those things. He came to redeem and restore all that was broken in the world… a process continuing now and finished upon Jesus’ Return. But, if you ask most Christians the question “Why did Jesus come to earth?” the answer you will hear is most often “He came to die on the cross to save us from our sins so that we could spend eternity with him in Heaven.” That is true. He did that. But that is just a part of the truth if we look at what Jesus himself said.

Goodness. As I look the chapter there is SO much to talk about… I can’t talk about it all. There are stories and examples in the chapter that I want to retell to you. But I won’t. I hope you read the book. Now. Or later. But seriously. You should read it. I’ll tell you about me instead.

I had a phase several years ago. An ignorant/arrogant phase. I became very passionate about “proclaiming the gospel.” I wanted all men to know Jesus. That’s a good thing, but I wanted to do NOTHING but tell them about Him. That’s all I thought mattered. That’s all the I felt was worth my time. I had friends who would talk about working in orphanages or doing various types of aid work and I wasn’t interested. “I just want to talk about Jesus.” I thought I was so great. Honestly, I think in some ways I arrogantly looked down on people who weren’t ONLY telling people about Jesus. Eventually, God busted my arrogant little self and showed me that proclaiming the gospel happens in word AND deed. We need to do SOMETHING while we tell them about Jesus. If we speak words but do not put hands and feet to those words we’re not sharing the WHOLE gospel. If Jesus cared enough to touch people physically, to heal their bodies, to provide food for the hungry, to proclaim liberty to the captives, to free the oppressed, to give the blind sight… I probably need to learn something from that and follow His example!!! We are sent… commanded… to walk into broken places and to be instruments through which God continues his work of redeeming and restoring.

Another question the authors asked is “For what specific sin was Old Testament Israel sent into captivity?” I wasn’t sure. I would have said, “They were disobedient and did not honor God.” That answer, however, was not SPECIFIC. Check out Isaiah 1:10-13, 16-17; 58:1-3, 5-10. [Really. You should read it. Just click.] God was angry because Israel was neglecting to care for the poor and oppressed. They’re not making this up. It’s in God’s word. How did I not notice that before? And in the New Testament there are examples galore of how important God has made this task to the church. This one…

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. (1 John 3:16-18)

Goodness gracious. That can not be ignored! As mentioned last week from the intro… We’re rich. You and me. North American Christians. We are. Not only that but we are a part of the most wealthy population that has ever lived on earth. That brings such opportunity, such responsibility! Pair that with the fact that we live in a time that has the greatest economic disparity… and that responsibility is magnified!

Did you know that BEFORE the 1994 genocide 80% of Rwanda claimed to be Christians and yet a horrific civil war broke out and 800,000 were killed in the period of 3 months. There’s a story in the book in which a man in Rwanda, a Christian leader, says, “You missionaries brought us Christ but never taught us how to live.” Oh. My. Goodness. We must make disciples, not just converts… people who follow the example of Jesus who brought justice, peace, righteousness, healing, liberty… Oh Lord, Please help us!

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, Kirsten @ Kung Phu Panda, and Christine (and Scott) @ We Are His Hands.

And now onto Chapter 2! “What’s the Problem?” 

When Helping Hurts | read together intro

Welcome to Week One of reading and blogging through When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor and Yourself by Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett. A dozen or so of us, on various sides of the world, are reading a chapter of this book each week and then discussing and sharing ideas in various ways. Some of us will be blogging our way through it. It’s not too late to join the fun/learning! So, go grab a copy for yourself if it sounds interesting! This week we read the Introduction section, so it really wouldn’t be hard to catch up!

Those of us reading the book in THIS part of the world got together last night and had a great discussion, picking each other’s brains and learning from each other’s ideas as we talked over some of the questions brought up in the book. It’s amazing to me how much I’ve learned in the last couple of years and it’s a bit of a bummer to think about how many well-intended mistakes I’d made before the learning began. I’m sure that I still make mistakes all the time but I’m becoming more and more aware. And thus the reading of the book.

North American Christians are simply not doing enough. We are the richest people ever to walk the face of the earth. Period. Yet, most of us live as though there is nothing terribly wrong in the world. We attend our kids’ soccer games, pursue our careers, and take beach vacations while 40 percent of the world’s inhabitants struggle just to eat every day. And in our own backyards, the homeless, those residing in ghettos and a wave of immigrants live in a world outside the economic and social mainstream of North America. We do not necessarily need to feel guilty about our wealth. But we do need to get up every morning with a deep sense that something is terribly wrong with the world and yearn and strive to do something about it. There is simply not enough yearning and striving going on.

I really appreciated these words. They hit me with a great sense of responsibility. I am rich… maybe not according to American standards, but according to global standards.

I’ve seen poverty around the world. I’ve seen faces of some of those 40 percent who struggle to eat every day. In fact, even here in my Asia home… Yesterday, I went into the city to spend a day doing some work at Starbucks. I walked by beggars who likely own next to nothing, and I thought about the contents of the tote-bag under my arm: my laptop, my kindle, my ipod. That’s over $1,000 US worth of electronics that I use everyday, and carry around under my arm – like it’s no big deal. I wondered how long it takes people like the beggars I see on the street to earn $1,000. And I’ve seen many people even “worse off.” Faces that are embedded into my heart’s memory. I have a responsibility to them/to God.

Knowing how little so many have… It’s easy for me to feel GUILT about what I have, but that is not the point or God’s desire. We do not necessarily need to feel guilty about what we have… about our wealth. BUT we DO need to feel a deep sense of responsibility to YEARN (care deeply) and STRIVE (work hard) to change the things that are terribly wrong in the world. It is WRONG for us to go on with our lives like everything is fine and dandy. It isn’t. And maybe sometimes I do need to live more simply than I do. I certainly do WANT to help alleviate poverty more than I am today.

The authors point out that there has been an increase in the last couple of decades with believers reaching beyond themselves through short term overseas trips and local ministry but they also inform the readers that sometimes…

… when North American Christians do attempt to alleviate poverty, the methods used often do considerable harm to both the materially poor and the materially non-poor. Our concern is not just that these methods are wasting human, spiritual, financial, and organizational resources but that these methods are actually exacerbating the problems they are trying to solve.

Fortunately, there is hope, because God is at work.

I don’t know about you but I really do not want to exacerbate the problems I am hoping to help solve! So, I’m excited to learn from the pages of this book and from discussions with friends along on the journey!

Speaking of them, the following are planning on posting about the chapters of this book also. Feel free to click around and DISCUSS.

Anissa @ Oasis,  Brittany @ His grace displayed, Jon @ Hands Wide Open,  Kacie @ The Well Thought-Out Life, Kirsten @ Kung Phu Panda, Scott and Christine @ We Are His Hands … and maybe some others!
(Our goal is to post every week about our chapter by Sunday… but ya know, sometimes that may not happen. And with this week being an intro, who knows! But stay tuned and join in! I can add you to the list.)