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Posts by The Chalmers Center
You’re More Than Your Past
As someone previously incarcerated, Chanda knows first-hand how broken relationships are at the core of poverty. It’s why she continues to show up for incarcerated women with biblical truths and practical resources — like Faith & Finances Inside.
Mapping Your Church’s Assets
Local churches that have been engaged with a biblical framework for addressing poverty or have used various tools and trainings from the Chalmers Center know that one of the biggest keys in a healthy ministry is taking an asset-based, rather than a needs-based approach. An asset-based approach helps us see that all people, both those who are materially poor and those with material wealth, can contribute to poverty alleviation efforts.
Resurrection as Reconciliation and Empowerment
As the Chalmers Center staff gathers with our churches and families to celebrate Easter this week, we join with Christians around the world, declaring “He is risen!”
A Call to Benevolence: Helping Your Church Love Your Neighbors in Material Poverty
The Ministry of Jesus has always been word and deed. Wherever Jesus went, he preached the Kingdom of God. As he went, he healed people who were sick and hurting and in trouble as a sign that His message was true and the kingdom was at hand.
Recruiting and Equipping Effective Volunteers
When it comes to poverty alleviation ministry, it’s not uncommon for new volunteers to feel excited about getting involved. They can’t wait to make a difference. But if these volunteers aren’t well-prepared for the work they’re joining, over time, they will likely begin to feel overwhelmed and discouraged. They realize that there are more needs than resources and there is always something else they could do to help. Walking through deep valleys with people wrestling with material poverty, the road is often rough and the way forward isn’t always clear. These sorts of challenges are part of the reason that The Chalmers Center regularly talks about the importance of training volunteers.
Practical Advice for Churches Interested in Work Readiness Ministry
Restoring people to sustaining work is a key component of poverty alleviation. One of the most effective ways to work toward this is by starting a holistic work readiness ministry.
The Significance Of Meaningful Work
In 2022, we kept hearing about the “great resignation” and “quiet quitting.” In 2023, layoffs and inflation are the headlines. No matter the year or the economic cycle, there is great need for work that helps restore people to wholeness. But work isn’t just something we have to deal with in a fallen world. It’s part of God’s good design for our dignity as His image-bearers. This goes all the way back to Genesis 1-2, where God created man and woman and placed them in the garden and told them to to subdue the earth—to exercise their creative potential in His good creation through their work.
Why Life.Church Put a Pause on Missions
Nearly a decade ago, before Life.Church grew into the largest multi-site congregation in the country, the church paused all missions. The church was growing, but their strategy to create local and global impact wasn’t working.
Jeff Galley, Life.Church’s Leader of Life.Missions, knew there had to be a more effective framework for missions, but he wasn’t sure where to start. “There has to be a better approach to serve our communities…we really needed to think differently,” Jeff shared.
Seed Effect Brings Chalmers’ Principles to Northern Uganda
In 2009, Seed Effect set out with a commitment to bringing Christ-centered economic empowerment to South Sudan. Seven years into ministry, civil war returned to the already fragile country—forcing Seed Effect to rethink their approach as they relocated to Northern Uganda.
With Chalmers’ influence, Seed Effect made a quick pivot—they added a savings-led model—that allowed their members to flourish.
How Innovate Helped Restore OKC Strengthen Their Existing Programs
Restore OKC is a community development organization in Oklahoma City. They’re “focused on the restoration of health, environment, reconciliation, and equity with neighbors in Northeast Oklahoma City.” For the past 6 years, Restore OKC has been committed to building relationships with the people in their community and working alongside them to bring about transformation.
Stories of Faithfulness: Learning the Value of Wholeness and Sustainability Through Innovate
Based in central Oklahoma, Branch15 was founded in 2013 to serve women in critical, life-controlling situations. Their mission has always been one of healing and restoration in the lives of their clients. Branch15’s main ministry participants have little to no support systems to address crises, which range from substance addiction to sex trafficking to abusive relationships to incarceration.
Equipping Ukrainian Church Leaders with HOPE International
Last summer, a team from Chalmers’ long standing partner, HOPE International, visited some of the Ukrainian church partners that they had supported in the early months of the war. While encouraged by incredible stories of life-saving relief work, they also detected challenges that often accompany sustained periods of relief: overextended church leaders, dependency from recipients, and frustration from volunteers.
Why Use Stories to Teach?
God’s work in the world unfolds to us in the big story of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Consummation, and in the individual stories told in Scripture. From the Garden to Noah to Abraham to Moses to David to the promise of the Messiah to Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to the church to the New Creation, we are so often given God’s truths in narrative, not only in didactic lessons or abstract categories.
How to Build Developmental Classes that Actually Work
If we’re going to pursue relational poverty alleviation ministry that aims toward long-term development, one of the main outcomes we’re looking for from ministry participants is learning. We want to see the people we’re walking with learn new skills, rediscover their dignity, and grow in their capacity to navigate the complexities of life.
Building Empathy Across Socioeconomic Lines
God made the world out of love, and redeems us through His love expressed in Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins. He made us to enjoy loving relationships with Him, with ourselves, with others, and with the rest of His creation. Because of this, our work to walk with people in material poverty needs to be relational and participatory in nature, working together with people out of love, not merely doing things for them. True relationships are a two-way street. We give and receive.
Building a Network of Poverty Alleviation Ministry Leaders in North America
Chalmers is opening enrollment for our next Ambassador cohort. Anyone with strong experience in relational poverty alleviation ministry and a solid background in the core principles of When Helping Hurts is welcome to apply to get certified and join our network!
Using Your Social Capital To Benefit Others
One of the key messages of our book When Helping Hurts and the rest of our trainings and resources at the Chalmers Center is that how we give matters most. This means that we often need to give more, but not just money. Long-term, transformative ministry is highly relational, and that means giving of our time, energy, and networks—in short, our social capital.
Training to Help Your Church or Nonprofit Help without Hurting
During the past 22 years, in addition to publishing books about poverty alleviation, Chalmers has been creating training for use in both the U.S. and the Majority World (of Africa, Asia, and Latin America). These field-tested programs are built on God’s story of change and community development best practices to help you put a biblical framework for addressing poverty into practice.