What will be the nature and impact of your aid and ministry in Haiti?  When it comes to helping the poor, the natural reaction is to do for them rather than empowering them to do it for themselves. In the past, relief beneficiaries were often seen as passive patients and victims who are totally dependent on external experts for help. The best relief programs engage and build upon the local knowledge, labor, networks, and all types of productive resources from the first day. Furthermore, the current relief work in Haiti will quickly shift to rehabilitation and development work, which demands even less ‘doing for’ the Haitian people.

How about YOU? What will be the nature and impact of YOUR aid and ministry in Haiti?

To help you address this question, the authors of a paradigm-shifting book on the causes of and solutions to the problem of poverty will host a special, three-part webinar designed to help churches, relief agencies, and individuals respond to the crisis in Haiti … by helping the Haitian people to take ownership of the rebuilding process.

Scheduled for February 17th, February 24th and March 3rd, from 1 to 2 p.m. EST, these hour-long webinars will be facilitated by Steve Corbett and Dr. Brian Fikkert of The Chalmers Center for Economic Development. The Chalmers Center seeks to “help churches help the poor to help themselves.” The book, “When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor … and Yourself,” is in its fifth printing since it was published in July.

Join your Sojourn Pastor’s and Seed leaders as we learn how best the church can address the global issue of poverty.  The Webinar is FREE!  Register and sign up here.

I often get asked what we are trying to accomplish through the mercy ministry here at Sojourn.  Author Steve Corbett helped bring clarity to our goals for Seed:

Our goals are NOT:

• To make the materially poor into middle-to-upper-class North Americans
• To make sure that the materially poor have enough money
• To complete projects and produce products for people

Rather, our goals ARE:

• To restore people, through the power of the gospel, to a full expression of who God created us to be – a release from the bondage to sin into a right relationship with God.
• To demonstrate what a just, loving, peaceful relationship is as we point our neighbors to Christ.
• To equip or develop our neighbors to fulfill their callings of glorifying God by working and supporting themselves and their families with the fruit of that work.
• To genuinely care for those in our neighborhoods and invite them to share in our lives, even if and especially when it takes sacrifice.

Relationships and Processes, Not Projects and Products

Our goal is to see people restored to being what God created them to be:  people who understand that they are created in the image of God with the gifts, abilities, and capacity to make decisions and to effect change in the world around them; and people who steward their lives, communities, resources, and relationships in order to bring glory to God.

These things tend to happen in highly relational, process-focused ministries more than in impersonal, product-focused ministries.

In other words, biblical mercy includes relationships combined with the proclamation/application of God’s word with deeds that demonstrate God’s provision and compassion.  These relationships take time and do not happen over night.

How are you doing?  How are you extending mercy to your neighbors?  Is your community group focused on a service project or are you focused on the relationships you are forming with the people you are serving?

Seed is an equipping ministry to help you and your group serve others.  Contact mercy@sojournchurch.com to speak with someone who can help you establish redemptive relationships as you serve individuals and families in Louisville.

When you drove into Germantown/Shelby Park this weekend, did you take note the poverty all around us? Or if you are like many, have you grown numb to this reality?

Did you notice the boarded up house on Mary Street?  Did you take note of the broken windows, peeling paint, cracked sidewalks, trash on the streets?  Did you think about the elderly shut-ins who live in fear and isolation?  Did you see any of the neighborhood children running around without parents and guide-less?

When you drove to Sojourn East this weekend, did you take note of the poverty all around us?  Or have you thought of poverty as only existing in the inner-city?  Did you think about the people who are living in those nice homes and how they are facing loneliness, domestic violence, emptiness, and household debt?

If not, I invite you to wake up to reality.  Poverty is all around us.  Why do you think there is so much poverty?

Let’s consider a biblical description of poverty:

Poverty is the result of relationships that do not work, that are not just, that are not for life, that are not harmonious or enjoyable.  Poverty is the absence of shalom (peace) in all its meanings.

As God’s ambassadors, representing God’s kingdom[1] and all that it entails to a broken world, how are we as Christians to set the pace in addressing the poverty around us?[2]

To address poverty one must engage in the ministry of reconciliation[3]:  moving people closer to glorifying God by living in right relationship with God, with self, with others, and with the rest of creation.

Therefore the reconciliation of relationships is the guiding compass for our mercy efforts, profoundly shaping both the goals that we pursue and the methods we use.  We must engage the marginalized, the poor, and our neighbors with loving redemptive relationships that point them to Christ, who reconciles us to God.[4]

So what does all this mean? Bottom line, mercy begins and ends with relationships.  Our neighbors and the poor do not need a cold and sterile program to help them through their struggles.  No though helpful, a program is not enough.  They need a Person and they need the church.  They need Jesus Christ and his family to bring about lasting genuine change.

When you think about mercy and poverty – do you think about a 2 hour service project or do you think about Bob, who struggles to make ends meet, care for his children, and who calls you when he needs advice, help or someone to celebrate a victory with?

Sojourn wants to challenge your understanding of God’s special heart for the poor, the nature of poverty and how you can personally address it.  To get started simply join us every Monday night at 6:30pm at the 930.  We visit homes of the elderly, the marginalized and the poor.  You won’t go at it alone.  Join us and discover the joy as well as the gifts that God has given you as you serve families in the city.  Contact Jesse Moss at jmoss@sojournchurch.com for more information regarding Mercy Mondays.

If you would like to dive deeper into the nature, meaning, and how to address poverty, I encourage you to read the helpful book When Helping Hurts by Corbett and Fikkert.

[3] 2 Cor 5:17

[4] Romans 5:11