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Posts in “Helping Without Hurting”
Now that You’re Home: Building on a Short-Term Mission Trip
What we do when we return home from a short-term mission trip is an important part of healthy short-term ministry.
Putting Policy into Practice: A Case Study
The past couple of weeks, we’ve shared some of the keys to starting an effective benevolence ministry through your church or ministry. Often, however, the process of creating or redeveloping a benevolence ministry isn’t linear.
Building a Transformational Benevolence Ministry
One of the most important factors in a sustainable ministry model is creating a system for how you handle new requests. We call this an intake process. Having a plan that everyone follows takes the stress out of benevolence, for deacons or staff, for volunteers, and for applicants.
A Framework for Effective Benevolence
One of the most important questions that we should ask as we engage in any kind of poverty alleviation work is “What is poverty?” Because the way that we diagnose the problem determines the solutions that we used to alleviate the problem.
Equipping Faithful Volunteers
If you’re involved in outreach or mercy ministry, you might wonder how to go about finding, equipping, encouraging and retaining volunteers to assist in this long term ministry.
Taking the First Step in Poverty Alleviation
As followers of Jesus, when we see material poverty in the world around us, our first instinct is often to do something about it. But where should we start? What’s the first step in poverty alleviation?
Designing Innovative Solutions to Problems
Have you ever been working on solving a complex problem and felt stuck? You knew there had to be a way forward but you just couldn’t see it? That’s how designing a poverty alleviation ministry can feel. Take the issue of food insecurity as an example. Most people are familiar with a “soup kitchen” model…
Designing Ministries That Help without Hurting
Since publishing the book, When Helping Hurts in 2009, the Chalmers Center has received countless questions from people who want to know how to create a ministry that helps without hurting.
The Widespread Impact of Chalmers and ABCD Principles
One of Angie’s primary takeaways from When Helping Hurts was the concept of Asset-Based Community Development. For the first time, they started to look for the assets in their community before looking for what was missing.
Facilitation as Reconciliation: Adult Education and Poverty Alleviation
Many poverty alleviation ministries include some type of training for their participants. Of course ministries would want to provide instruction in skills and habits that lead to long-term growth out of material poverty! But we have to be careful—a lecture-based teaching style in which the teacher tries to pour content into students’ brains is not only ineffective but can be harmful in the space of poverty alleviation.
Faithful Presence: Why “Hanging Out” Is Vital to Long-Term Development
Adapted from When Helping Hurts, 75-79. Defining poverty alleviation as the reconciliation of people’s four key relationships with God, self, others, and creation shapes the methods our churches or ministries should use to achieve that goal, with major implications for how we choose, design, implement, and evaluate our efforts. Because every one of us is…
Helping without Hurting in the Sleeping Quarters of a Rescue Shelter
A story of transformation from one of our partner ministries. When Sylvia Anderson took an interim position at Everett Gospel Mission in Northwestern Washington, she didn’t expect to still be there 20 years later. But the Lord showed her something beautiful about the opportunity to integrate her faith and work in a meaningful way. Today…
The Five Causes of Poverty—Part 1: Stories
Adapted from A Field Guide to Becoming Whole, 17-19, 50-52. Poverty alleviation is fundamentally about transformation—about walking alongside people and communities who are materially poor as they move to a better situation than their present one. Doing this effectively requires us to know where we are trying to go and how we can get there….
Short-Term Missions that Avoid Long-Term Harm—Part 2
Adapted from Helping Without Hurting in Short-Term Missions: Leaders’ Guide, 7-11. Last week, we shared some cautions about the real harm that poorly-thought-through short-term mission efforts can cause. This is a real issue with real-world consequences. We can’t emphasize enough that churches and ministries from wealthy countries need to work hard to ensure that they…
Short-Term Missions that Avoid Long-Term Harm—Part 1
Adapted from Helping Without Hurting in Short-Term Missions: Leaders’ Guide, 29-31. Much international travel, particularly to and from countries with limited healthcare infrastructure, has been on hold for the past 2 years due to the Covid-19 pandemic. As short-term trips begin to become a possibility again, it’s important to remember some best practices for short-term…
Skin in the Game
Adapted from A Field Guide to Becoming Whole, 113-115. One of the most challenging elements of any poverty alleviation effort is identifying people who are truly ready to change. If the goal of poverty alleviation is spirit-led transformation—seeing people restored to who God created them to be—it’s important for us to recognize that sustainable, long-term…
A Long Walk in the Same Direction
Adapted from A Field Guide to Becoming Whole, 107-112. When followers of Jesus describe our relationship with God, we often use the language of a “walk with God” or “Christian walk.” That’s because spiritual growth is not a sudden jolt into greater maturity. Instead, it’s the patient outworking of the Spirit of God in our…
Helping Without Hurting in Financial Partnership
The Chalmers Center’s Founder and President Brian Fikkert was recently interviewed on the Finish Line Podcast on the topic “When Helping Hurts in How We Give.” The Conversation covered many themes from When Helping Hurts and Becoming Whole—including understanding when to apply relief, rehabilitation, and development in poverty alleviation as well as how to flip…