Luke Parrott

When Helping Hurts: a book review

The popularized slogan to “Make Poverty History” is given a starting point through the insightful research and understanding that comes from this new book, When Helping Hurts.  If you want to engage in poverty alleviation, if you want to do something for the homeless man that sits on the corner of First and Main, if you want to be a part of eradicating extreme poverty on an international level, this is the first book you need to pick up.

 

It begins with a practical concern:  that our efforts to alleviate poverty can harm more than help the poor if we don’t respond with a more discerning approach.  By offering a theological framework from scripture, the reader is able to see how every Christian is called to engage in poverty alleviation at some level.

 

Quickly following this chapter comes a paradigm shift in how poverty is defined.  The authors offer a holistic model that addresses poverty in the context of spiritual intimacy, community, being, and stewardship.   It is a very formative concept that speaks directly towards how one chooses to address the needs of the poor.

 

The rest of the book is dedicated to challenging our presuppositions about how to properly diagnose a situation in the context of the poor.  A situation calls for one of three responses:  relief, rehabilitation, or development.  A majority of mission teams and organizations use relief as their answer to poverty alleviation.  However, several domestic and international examples are used to reveal that relief is rarely what the poor need.  The following chapters then begin to unpack what it looks like to truly work with the poor and participate in transformational development that works over the long haul.

 

Throughout the book, there are excellent case studies presented to the reader to make the principles more tangible and transferable.  The book can be used for personal or group study as the questions are accessible to a small group setting. 

 

In a world where social justice is part of mainstream culture, it is important that caution is taken and efforts towards poverty alleviation are met with what the current research tells us is the most effective methodology.  When Helping Hurts will steer you down the right path so that your genuine efforts do not produce more harm than help in the long run. 

 

Learning the Theology of Jazz, "Finding the Groove"

Did the title catch you off guard?

It did the first time I heard it too.  My pastor, Robert Gelinas of Colorado Community Church, is our resident "jazz theologian" in Denver.  He has captured the beauty of living in community as Christ followers while carrying out the work of God with this simple metaphor:  jazz.

Community.  Calling.  Christ.

Discovery.  Faith.  Community.

It's an avenue we are all navigating.  A journey we are all on.  An exploration that leads to constant new discoveries.  As I read Robert's book, "Finding the Groove", I began to see in a fresh new way how God desires to "move" within his people.

It is very jazz like.

We are all trying to play an instrument.  We are all trying to learn the basic notes to basic songs.  We are all constantly practicing. 

We are also playing with others.  Trying to make music.  Improvising in jam sessions.  Creating ensembles.  Adding harmonies.  Keeping rhythms.  Holding the base line.  Breaking out in solos. 

Making music.

That's what the community of Christ followers does.  And Robert paints the picture beautifully.  It's the best metaphor I've heard for what Paul likes to call the "body of Christ".

I would highly recommend this short book.  It will free you to make the music that God has set inside your heart.  Check it out!

"The Hole In Our Gospel"

It's a book coming out in March written by the President of World Vision, Richard Stearns.

He leaves us with a question we all must face as genuine followers of Jesus.

"What 'good news' have God's people brought to the world's 3 billion poor?"  It is in this very question that Richard sees a hole. 

Interview about the book

The Gospel of Social Justice and Sin Management

Perhaps a better title would be “Two Ends of the Same Stick”.

There are times when argument is needed to support the foundations on which we stand.  Now is that appropriate time when it comes to understanding the Christian response to the momentous energy today devoted to social injustice. 

For certain camps of the Christian right wing and conservative, argument is needed to help them see how their neglect and indifference to social injustice betrays their very own beliefs.

For the more progressive and liberal camps, perspective is needed to put their feet on a more firm, yet fertile soil.  While they are filled with great passion and activism, there is need to deepen the roots within the soil.

Social responsibility and sin management are two ends of the same stick.  Yet often one is marginalized for the sake of the other.  We fail to balance the one with the other.  And so we live with one extreme or the other.  We desire to be like Mother Teresa or Billy Graham, but not both.

It would be well worth your time to download the following short book by Vernon Grounds titled, “Evangelicalism and Social Responsibility”.  It is a free download from Denver Seminary.

For a heart that is prone to extremes, this book will either move you out of indifference or further deepen the roots that have already been planted in your soil.  In either case, we will better see both ends of the same stick.  Living in this tension aligns us more closely with the lifestyle of Jesus himself.

"Jesus Wants To Save Christians" by Rob Bell, A Book Review

I'm usually one of 2 ways with "pop christian" books.  I either sit back and wait till everyone has had their say till i pick up the book myself (as I did when Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz or Eldridge's Wild at Heart came out). OR i try to be the first one to get a hold of the book so i can generate my own opinions without weighing in others enthusiasm or lack thereof.

For whatever reason, I went with the latter for Rob Bell's new book. 

Egypt.  Sinai.  Jerusalem.  Babylon.

That's what the book spends the most time discussing.  The cycle of man as he finds himself stuck in oppression and bondage (Egypt), restored to a place where he renews himself to God and what he requests of his people (Sinai), flourishing in a season of blessing and abundance (Jerusalem under Solomon), only to find oneself having forgotten the God who granted such favor and thus, falling to a place of exile where he has left his first love (Babylon).

The first 2/3's of the book walk down this road from Genesis to the end of Acts.  Using the example of the disciples, Rob describes how they walked with Jesus and yet still did not understand what Jesus was doing until after his resurrection.  Could it be that we today make the same mistake?  That we could walk with Jesus and do Jesus things but still miss the point of what he intends?

After bringing to light the fact that we live in an empire (much like that of the Romans in the 1st century) he shows that we, as a nation, act out of preservation and a spirit of entitlement that leads us down roads of forgetting the God who made this all possible.  We become distanced from the needs of the world around us and find ourselves oppressing those around us so we can maintain our own blessings. 

The point is brought home rather swiftly and succintly in the final pages of the book that Jesus wants to save us from that cycle of Egypt, Sinai, Jerusalem, Babylon.  Hence, the title of the book, "Jesus Wants To Save Christians".

However, I found the title of the book to be much more prevocative then the content itself.  Kudos to Zondervan for the choice of title, I suppose.  But I was hoping the book would be a bit more progressive in thought rather than leaving us to consider nothing more than the statement posed in the very title.

I think the drive was to allow American Christians to see the empire we have comfortably settled into and realize that a lot of our comforts have been at the cost of our reckless, power driven, military machine of a nation.  But with so much all ready out there on this topic, I would really like to see more works showing how we, as Jesus followers, are actually breaking that mold.  How Christians are not allowing themselves to be dictated by the values of the empire we live in.

I guess I'm just ready to see more literature about how Christians are leaving behind the American Dream.  I want to hear more stories about people who are advocating for change in our power hungry government.  More about kingdom work that is bringing God's rule down to earth. 

Churches abandoning aggressive capital campaigns for new luxury buildings because they are re-prioritizing their budget to meet the needs of those outside our empire. 

Students in high school investing their lives in bigger things than the next saturday night party. 

College students passionately pursuing a degree that equips them to meet the needs of a broken world. 

Young professionals with a disinterest in climbing the ladder and building up the resume so they can move into the nicer community and have the faster car.

I think we're heading in that direction.  There's just a tall wall that we must tear down so that people can look outside the walls of America.  And as the wall comes down we need to pave roads out to the global community so our time, money, and dreams can move towards these destinations.

Develop Your Passions.  Contextualize it with your faith.  Move out into the global community.