As churches and ministries seek to address the broken relationships at the root of material poverty, they’re quickly going to find that there is no one-size-fits-all solution that applies in every place. Poverty is complex, and so our approaches to poverty need to be sensitive to the local facts on the ground. Because every person who is in poverty and every community in poverty is a bit different, good intentions are not enough.

We often want a “recipe” to follow that works everywhere, every time. What we need instead is wisdom from God for how we can live into God’s story of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation. This bigger story points us toward a biblical framework for alleviating poverty. This framework includes recognizing who God has made us to be, humbly accepting our own brokenness and need for redemption and restoration, starting with people’s gifts and blessings rather than only looking at their needs, understanding ministry design principles that inform our work, and more.

Even within this framework, though we have to improvise—we need tools that help us think well about how to apply God’s story of transformation in the specific communities where we serve and in the lives of the specific people we work with.

The Chalmers Center’s Innovate training incorporates this biblical framework with the field of design thinking to help motivated teams develop Kingdom-centered solutions that allow communities to truly flourish. The focus is on application, putting the framework into practice to declare and demonstrate the love of Jesus in word and in deed wherever you are.

Tabitha Kapic, Director of Innovation at the Chalmers Center, recently appeared on the Ministry at Scale podcast to talk about how ministries and nonprofits can use innovation best practices to address the root causes of poverty.

Listen to learn how:

• Innovation is key to long-term transformation
• Design thinking can jump-start our ministry efforts
• To creatively incorporate best practices in ministry to empower people and communities to tackle complex problems.

Join us for Innovate Training Starting Sept. 2

Interested in putting this into practice at your church or ministry? Join us for our upcoming Innovate training—sign your team up before August 23 and save $300!