When Chalmers published When Helping Hurts in 2009, our team had already been thinking about, teaching, and practicing a theology of poverty and poverty alleviation for a long time. Much of our focus was on international work in the majority world of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, but as the book found a wide readership, we began receiving calls from churches and ministries in the U.S. seeking help with holistic, relational poverty alleviation strategies for their contexts.

We also published a short follow-up book in 2015, drawing on the work of many pastors and church mercy ministry teams around the country, focused on helping local churches transform their benevolence ministries from a transactional approach of meeting emergency needs to a relational posture of walking well with people across time.

Since 2022, we’ve also offered a 6-week, in-depth training course using that material, gathering cohorts of church and ministry leaders to dig in on the process of remaking their benevolence programs to be more welcoming, holistic, effective, and sustainable. We recently spoke with three church leaders who’ve taken this course over the past few years to hear some of the ways their churches and ministries have changed as a result.

Finding Clarity in Practices

Nathan Adams, Pastor of Missions and Men at Pioneer Drive Baptist Church in Abilene, Tex., has a long history with principles of When Helping Hurts. The church staff read the book together, and even adapted its themes into a sermon series for the whole church. A few people on his team have also begun using Faith & Finances. When he heard about the Benevolence training, he signed up to “test drive” it for further training for their church.

As a relatively large church in a smaller city, Pioneer Drive receives a large number of requests for financial assistance. Adams realized that the church was coming into contact with far more community members through their benevolence requests than from visitors showing up at worship services. He said the training from Chalmers helped him think through how to see that work as key to the outreach work of the church. “It inspired me, gave me real tools, and accountability to push forward,” he said. “The best thing we have to offer is relationship with God and with our people…whatever ministry we do, it needs to be something more than offering a dollar.”

For Brandon Boos, Pastor of Missions and Discipleship Development at Faith Oakville just outside of St. Louis, Mo., the training helped his team see concepts they already knew at a philosophical level applied in practice and gave them space to discuss it together. In particular, he said it’s helped the church revamp the focus and policy for their benevolence program, to build a more relational approach to community work with partner organizations, and involving a team of volunteers in responding to benevolence requests. Because the church is on the bus line on the main street of their town near communities of different socioeconomic makeups, they receive a lot of walk-ins, but thinking about benevolence as a key aspect of outreach has helped them stay on mission. “We have to be intentional about reaching out, or we’ll just end up focusing on the more affluent communities,” Boos said.

Brent Hays, Local Missions and Recovery Pastor at Vista Church in Temple, Tex., recognized that mercy ministries through their church needed to be a multi-person effort to be sustainable. “Knowing that we’re finite, that we can’t do everything” as a church was one of Hays’ key takeaways from Chalmers’ training. Now the church has built a good intake process with those they serve to ensure that they feel cared for and invited into a place of welcome. And they’ve  formed teams to coordinate follow-up, include counselors, community resource coordinators, neighbors they serve now counselors, community resource coordinators, and financial services providers representing different churches and organizations in the community. They stay in touch and coordinate efforts through weekly lunches.

Finding Community in Transformational Ministry

All three of these pastors acknowledged that doing long-term, relational, developmental work with individuals and families is hard, often lonely work. This is especially true when a church or ministry is one of the only ones in town focused on transformational goals rather than simply providing assistance for emergency needs. The real work is often as much about being formed by Christ into the type of people who are ready and willing to walk with people over the long haul as it is about program details.

Adams said that taking this training together with other churches gave him a lot of encouragement to continue on the path he and his church had started down, giving him new goals to aim for—trying to find solutions, not just to feel better for a moment. Boos shared that the cohort model of the training helped him think broader about partnership and collaboration. Hays said that he was blessed “just to know that I wasn’t alone.” All the hard conversations he has to navigate with ministry participants and volunteers, he said, got a little easier knowing that others trying to bend ministry in developmental directions all over the country are in the same boat.

Ultimately, Adams said, he and his church have recognized that the benevolence framework they’ve adopted from Chalmers isn’t just to help those in poverty, “but to pull us out of our own stuff.” He said, sometimes “you need to go in not knowing what to do, and feeling that this work should humble you…those kinds of moments don’t end up in the church newsletter…. You get transformed as you sit in the tension of not being able to do much.” Boos said the course reminded him that “we can’t drive people, but if you want to take the next step, we’ll take it with you.”

All three also recommended this training for others engaged in this work. Hays said  “The work that you’re doing is some of the hardest work to do in a church, and if you feel like you’re doing it alone or never move the needle….You’re going to be helped tremendously, because you’ll realize you’re not alone, and know how to get a plan. You’re going to learn something and be equipped to love people well.” Boos said the course would help any church reframe and reevaluate they way they’re doing things, and would be a great way to provide or new staff with a shared learning experience to get on the same page for ministry.  Adams zeroed in on the fact that it is as vitally important for Christians to know how to practice this aspect of their faith as any other. “We can have good intentions,” he said, but without training, “those aren’t enough” to build effective ministries.

Ready to take the next step in revitalizing your church’s benevolence ministry and get real, actionable tools to take your work beyond emergency assistance? Join one of Chalmers’ summer cohorts of Helping Without Hurting in Benevolence Ministry.