Addressing the Five Causes of Poverty
The Transforming Power of Work
Adapted from Becoming Whole: Why the Opposite of Poverty Isn’t the American Dream, pp. 251-258 As I’ve shared in this space before, the story that God is telling about His Kingdom is key to our understanding of why and how we are to care for the poor. Moreover, getting this story wrong—telling a broken story…
In American culture, there’s often a divide between rural and urban dwellers. Yet when two leaders from these communities view their lives through a holistic Gospel lens, they find surprising common ground. Listen as they discuss fatherhood, marriage, discipleship, death, and hope in Christ. Laura Haley: Today’s audio interview is brought to you by…
The tomatoes caught me off guard. Sitting in a small Anglican church in Kenya, I was prepared for the invitation to put some money in the offering plate. I was not prepared for tomatoes. But that’s what the members of that farming village brought. Tomatoes, avocadoes, maybe even a chicken or two, all brought up…
Adapted from Becoming Whole: Why the Opposite of Poverty Isn’t the American Dream. If you’ve read or heard much from the Chalmers Center over the years, you know that we are deeply committed to helping the local church to minister to people who are poor. In an era in which many have lost faith in…
Every mother wants a chance to provide a better life for her children. But it’s not easy—especially if you’re among the 736 million people worldwide living on less than $1.90 a day. Millions of mothers all over the world are raising families in this kind of extreme poverty. Djaka Djigbodji is one of these mothers.…
Every earthly kingdom has its own way of doing things, its own customs and policies regarding food, sex, family, and religion. And every kingdom has an economic policy. But when Jesus welcomes us into his alternate kingdom, something strange happens. We discover a whole new world. And we soon discover that Jesus’s kingdom looks different…
Adapted from Becoming Whole: Why the Opposite of Poverty Isn’t the American Dream, pp. 92-96, 98-99, 120. I had a wonderful upbringing in a godly, Christian family, and I attended Christian schools from first grade through my senior year of college. But despite my parents’ best efforts, like many Western Christians, I somehow absorbed highly…
When Pam’s marriage fell apart in 2015, she was left alone with bills to pay and a grandson depending on her. She paid for what she could, but sometimes it was a struggle. “I was scared,” she says. “I wasn’t making a lot of money at the time, and I didn’t know how to budget…
Excerpted from Brian Fikkert and Kelly M. Kapic, Becoming Whole: Why the Opposite of Poverty Isn’t the American Dream (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2019), 52-55. Humans beings are created to be image bearers. To be an image bearer is to act as a mirror, reflecting the image of whatever god we are worshiping onto the rest…
Across the world on the first day of each week, Christians gather to pray, partake of the Lord’s Supper, perhaps baptize new members into God’s family, read the Scriptures, hear a sermon, and sing. The style of each of these parts of a worship service vary from place to place and tradition to tradition, but…