Hard news surrounds us. Health issues. Wars. Famine. Persecution. How can we help? The needs can feel overwhelming.
When Helping Hurts by Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett, one of the most impactful books written about poverty alleviation from a Christian perspective in the past two decades. The book is written from the perspective of economists with significant experience in ministries seeking to make a difference in the lives of those born into poverty. As the title suggests, Fikkert and Corbett make a persuasive argument that most of the well-intentioned aid efforts of the West actually hurt those they are seeking to help.
Fikkert and Corbett are not dissuading us from charitable efforts. On the contrary, their hope is that we would be even more generous with careful and thoughtful due diligence in our giving. However, they want our efforts to have a meaningful impact on the very lives we are intending to help.
How can our good intentions and finances translate to real impact? Fikkert and Corbett offer several pieces of advice:
Don’t separate aid from people and relationships
Fikkert and Corbett emphasize the relationship between poverty and the shame attached to poverty. Poverty is not only a lack of material resources or knowledge: it can also mean “being poor” relationally, psychologically, and/or spiritually. People live within systems that are affected by these struggles. The once only fall has rippled through generations to affect us all. We cannot help those in need until we embrace our “mutual brokenness.”
Don’t offer relief when development is needed
Fikkert and Corbett emphasize three different points in the path of assistance. The first path is relief, which tries to help stop the “bleeding,” the second path is rehabilitation, which “begins as soon as the bleeding stops,” and finally the third path is development, which is “a process of ongoing change.” “One of the biggest mistakes that North American churches make—by far—is applying relief in situations where rehabilitation or development is the appropriate intervention.”
Follow the locals’ lead
Equally important is how aid is administered. The affected population must drive “the assessment, design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of the assistance program.” During a crisis, we feel a sense of urgency to step in and take charge. But we must wisely sit in the backseat if we want our assistance to have long term effectiveness. If the affected population is not bought-in in terms of leadership and on-the-ground help, aid fails. In fact, there have been many instances where outside help has shown to be unnecessary and unhelpful. In short, “Avoid paternalism. Do not do things for people that they can do for themselves.”
Support the local community
Fikkert and Corbett get very practical, encouraging an approach that identifies, targets, and mobilizes “the capabilities, skills, and resources of the individual community.” The long-term goal is to have local ownership, leadership, and ties, especially with the local church. “When the project is ‘theirs,’ they are more likely to sacrifice to make it work well and to sustain it over the long haul.”
Don’t forget about the spiritual component
Christians ought to be the most generous and the most responsive to all types of physical needs, but we ought to care most deeply about our neighbor’s soul. John Piper once said, ““We care about all suffering now, especially eternal suffering later.” Make sure that your work is tethered to the work of the gospel.
How do we do mission trips, then?
One of the strongest challenges that Fikkert and Corbett present to the church is its history of short-term mission trips. Fikkert and Corbett say that such trips are often the church operating at its very worst in trying to productively engage the problem of poverty. Trips are often created to cater to the desire of those who go on them to feel good about themselves and to have a certain type of experience. Many trips are not ministering to needs that the local community is asking to have filled, or at least not the most significant needs. Many trips are crafted to spotlight those who go on the trip to accomplish good in some area of ministry, whether that is (re)building a structure or putting on a VBS. Few trips lend real aid to the churches and ministry workers on the ground.
A local, multiplying partnership
As this is published, I am en route to southern India (for my foruth trip) to support our partners. With these pitfalls, why would we dare venture on such a trip? When Helping Hurts has shaped much of New Life’s perspective on our mission strategy and efforts. We are traveling to support an indigenous ministry (all of the leadership and ministry workers are Indian).[i] This ministry is not only indigenous, it is also sustainable, with a track record of moving the vast majority of its church planters off financial support to be self-supporting within a matter of several years.
This rapidly expanding ministry supports a network of 3,000 church planters serving over 9,000 villages throughout India (in all 29 states), and has expanded into Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, and Sri Lanka. Many of these pastors have suffered severe beatings and threats of violence because of their faith (India has been consistently ranked among the top ten most hostile nations to Christianity).[ii] Other churches have been vandalized and destroyed. And yet, they continue on joyfully run the race, and God responds by bringing many to faith.
We are grateful to be able to partner with these brothers and sisters and will do so whether or not they want us to have part of that partnership be in-person visits. At the present time, we are the only church that has regularly sent people to our partners in India (our trips were halted over the past three years because of Covid). They have asked us to return because of their need to be encouraged in such a challenging mission field, and because of their desire to be trained and equipped (the vast majority of their pastors have no formal theological training).
The primary purpose of our trip is to encourage and support those on the front-lines of ministry in the second-most populous nation in the world (it will overtake China as the most populous nation in the world sometime in 2023) where radical Hindu nationalism has made the country highly resistant to the gospel. In fact, the percent of Christians has decreased over the past decade from 2.6% to 2.3% today.
This indigenous multiplication model is remarkable. Its leadership is healthy, wise, brave, and faithful; we are blessed to not only serve alongside them, but to also learn from them.
These are brothers and sisters in need of help, not because they lack wisdom or need our Western “know how,” but because they are under attack and are part of one of the most significant and challenging frontiers of ministry in the world today!
We are humbled by the opportunity and excited about God allowing us to support such a courageous partnership. If you are interested in making a tax-deductible financial contribution, you can make an online gift here. When making an online gift, select “Global Outreach” as the Fund and put “India” in the memo line. All of your funds will go to support our partner ministry.
You are probably familiar with Paul’s words in Philippians 4:13, where he confidently asserts that, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” The context is even more powerful. Paul is asserting that he can navigate through suffering for Christ’s sake through Christ’s strength, and then he speaks joyfully of the gift of the Philippian church’s partnership with him. Listen to Paul: “I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble.” It is through Christ’s strength that our brothers and sisters can faithfully demonstrate their hope in Christ. And it is a kindness to them and to us that we are able to participate in some small way.
Whether or not you able to support this trip financially, I covet your prayers not just for our team, but also for our brothers and sisters in India and for God’s multiplying work. May God grant them courage and grace as they stand boldly for Jesus on the front lines.
[i] For the sake of the protection of the ministry and individuals in it, I am unable to share details about the names of those in the ministry nor the name of the organization. If you would like information, please reach out to me with an email.
[ii] Open Doors, “World Watch List,” 2022, https://www.opendoorsusa.org/christian-persecution/world-watch-list/.
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Photo by Muhammad Muzamil on Unsplash