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When Helping Hurts
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$ 13.19
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$ 14.99 |
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$ 1.80 (12%) |
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| Item Number |
497894 |
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Item Description...
Churches and individual Christians typically have faulty assumptions about the causes of poverty, resulting in the use of strategies that do considerable harm to poor people and themselves. Don't let this happen to you, your ministry or ministries you help fund A must read for anyone who works with the poor or in missions, When Helping Hurts provides foundational concepts, clearly articulated general principles and relevant applications. The result is an effective and holistic ministry to the poor, not a truncated gospel."Initial thoughts" at the beginning of chapters and "reflection questions and excercises" at the end of chapters assist greatly in learning and applying the material. A situation is assessed for whether relief, rehabilitation, or development is the best response to a situation. Efforts are characterized by an "asset based" approach rather than a "needs based" approach. Short term mission efforts are addressed and economic development strategies appropriate for North American and international contexts are presented, including microenterprise development. Now with a new preface, a new foreword, and a new chapter to assist in the next steps of applying the book's principles to your situation, When Helping Hurts is a new classic |
Item Specifications...
Pages 230
Dimensions: Length: 0.5" Width: 5.5" Height: 8.5"
Weight: 0.75 lbs.
Binding Softcover
Release Date Jul 1, 2009
Publisher Moody Publishers
ISBN 0802457053
EAN 9780802457059
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Availability 58 units.
Availability accurate as of May 25, 2012 01:00.
Usually ships within one to two business days from New Kensington, PA.
Orders shipping to an address other than a confirmed Credit Card / Paypal Billing address may incur and additional processing delay.
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Reviews - What do our customers think?
 | Going to Shape How We Do Ministry! May 21, 2010 |
| This was a fabulous book. I have read a lot of Community Development books, but this book does such a great job in summarizing the biblical stance, the issue and cause and what we can do to help. I love that is both a local and global perspective. I am about to order 10 copies just to have on hand to give out to my leaders and those we are working with because it is that good. It is really going to shape how we continue to do short term trips at our church and expand our local ministries. | | |  | Good but not Great May 16, 2010 |
Good but not great is how I would describe the book When Helping Hurts: Alleviating Poverty Without Hurting the Poor...and Yourself. I would argue that Christians can and should learn from the insightful way that these authors look at poverty and its alleviation. I would also say, however, that the book can grow tedious and the ideas do not appear to be transferable to all contexts.
What I Liked
The authors of this book have a clear love for the poor, but not the sort of adopt-a-stray-puppy love that many wealthy folks have toward those less fortunate. The truth is, sometimes adopting a poor person or people group as your pet project might harm them and you, and Christians need to know this truth for themselves.
I found the authors' description of different kinds of poverty very helpful. Not all people who we think of as poor are impoverished in the same ways. The poor could have extra need for healing in their relationship to God, self, others, or the rest of creation. This book addresses all these categories.
The authors also do very well when pointing Christians toward more than one kind of aid that a poor person might need. While our gut reflex is to give immediate relief in the form of food, money, or service to someone in need, the authors wisely attempt to guide readers to a bigger-picture approach. Sometimes immediate relief is needed. Sometimes rehabilitation or skill-development is more appropriate. The authors show us how wise decision-making in this category can be a life-saver for the needy and the helper alike.
What I Did Not Like
While much of the book is very solid, I have to confess that this book simply grew hard to read after a while. The authors obviously had even more information, volumes worth of information, that they wish they could have packed into this little book. Unfortunately, the broadness of scope that they work toward in later chapters makes the reading far more tiresome than it is in the beginning of the text where readers are just becoming acquainted with this new view of poverty and help.
Recommendations
This book would be an excellent resource for church deacons or benevolence committees who need to think very clearly about how to help the needy in their area. It is a good work for pastors to ponder as they consider mission trips and giving for the congregation. Even county ministerial groups might want to take a look at this work for guidelines for how a larger group of churches might think differently about the poor. But, do not think many should pick this up for pleasure-reading. It get's thicker as you go.
| | | | When Helping Hurts May 8, 2010 |
| This book is an excellent guide for missions-related work inside and outside of the USA. All church missions committees should read it. I have to say that the last chapter is about setting up a lending institution, something that not just anyone can do. | | |  | practical and full of hope Apr 29, 2010 |
| the subtitle of the book is: "How to alleviate poverty without hurting the poor ... and yourself." it gives a very different definition of poverty than i've ever used. and it distinguishes the different kinds of help that are needed: (a) physical or monetary gifts, (b) resources, or (c) development... it very clearly explains that the real cause of any of our poverty is broken relationships, and therefore, the alleviation of poverty is restored relationships. it's practical and hopeful both. the beginning is a little dry but i knew it was building the basis for parts 2 and 3 which are more practical. anyone involved in short-term mission trips, urban ministry, or outreach to the poor should read this book! | | | | Read this before you try to help the poor Apr 22, 2010 |
When well-meaning Christians attempt to alleviate poverty, they often unintentionally do more harm than good, according to Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert in this book. It is an important message for Christians from Western countries to hear before they march boldly onwards with their poverty relief efforts. Poverty is not solved simply by splashing cash around.
Poverty is not just an absence of money; it is also about broken relationships, and people living in poverty have often been acculturated into a poverty mindset. Materially wealthy people have poverty in their lives, just as do materially poor people, and if you want to serve the poor in a non-arrogant way you need to acknowledge your own struggle with brokenness. Helping people out of poverty is more about people and processes than about projects and products.
This is an important book which needs to be read by any church groups involved in poverty relief, and I am therefore reluctant to offer criticism. However, I think that, in the context of today's African poverty, the authors' ideas of relief, rehabilitation and development do not fully take into account the economic conditions driving people into poverty. When war, disease, famine, corruption and many other forces prevent people from improving their conditions, successful development is almost impossible. If people are living in conditions which Western Christians consider unacceptable, then the option of refusing to provide ongoing relief on the ground that it creates dependency is not in my opinion morally justifiable.
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