Heavenly Father, in your Word you have given us a vision of that holy City to which the nations of the world bring their glory: Behold and visit, we pray, the cities of the earth. Renew the ties of mu...
Cities aren’t full of poor people because cities make people poor, but because cities attract poor people with the prospect of improving their lot in life. [Thereofre] we should worry more about place...
The poverty of an inner-city neighborhood like Sandtown was not initially the product of individual irresponsible behavior or family breakdown. A complex range of structural factors led to the exclusi...
During spring 1981, one of my favorite persons at the time, Chicago mayor Jane Byrne, made the announcement that she and her husband were going to move into my old neighborhood: the Cabrini-Green hous...
The lower classes of society are “not only disproportionately vulnerable to injustice, but usually disproportionately actual victims of injustice. Injustice is not equally distributed. One has to deci...
Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well- warmed, and well-fed.
While American society is rich in goods, it is extremely time-poor. Many societies in the two-thirds world, by contrast, are poor in material possessions, by our standards, but they are rich in time. ...
Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for y...
We have conducted the previous exercise in dozens of middle-to-upper-class, predominantly Caucasian, North American churches. In the vast majority of cases, these audiences describe poverty differentl...
I was teaching an English class in a high-rise apartment complex full of low-income families in Minneapolis—mostly immigrant and refugees from East Africa. The tenants’ association paid for me to come...
As the center of Christianity shifts from the West (North America and Western Europe) to the Global South, grinding poverty is on the front doorstep — and in the front pews — of the church of Jesus Ch...
The marginalized and downtrodden receive special insights. They are the ones who can see the pain and the injustice that are killing the world. It is to these voices that we must turn
Talk to any poor person or vulnerable person and they can give you a long list of the services they have received. (editor’s note: one assumes in the West) They are well serviced, but you often have t...
Since 1991, the adult population in the United States has grown by 15%. During that same period, the number of adults who do not attend church has nearly doubled, rising from 39 million to 75 million—...
For the cramped bewildered years we went to school to learn to know the reasons why and the answers to and the people who and the places where and the days when, in memory of the bitter hours when we ...
Exodus 3:7-10, Proverbs 31:8-9, Nehemiah 5:1-13, Luke 18:1-8, James 5:1-6, Psalm 82:3-4
The vast majority of violence oppressing the poor is not driven by the overwhelming power of the perpetrators—it’s driven by the utter vulnerability of the victims. Give the poor a strong, consistent ...
Financially speaking, the difference between you and Bill Gates is smaller than the difference between you and the average person living outside the U.S. To most people, your bank accounts look virtua...
What is the solution? I once asked the former head of a major Christian relief and development organization what he had learned in his decades of experience in the field of poverty alleviation. …he sa...
Though the West’s efforts through international aid have been well-intentioned, they have often done more harm than good. By focusing on what the poor lack, instead of what they have, the underlying m...
Effective work with the poor begins with understanding the nature and causes of poverty, understanding why different types of interventions have been ineffective and effective, discerning one’s role i...
Isaiah 1:17, Micah 6:8, Exodus 22:22-23, Proverbs 14:31, Luke 4:18
In his excellent book, Just Courage , founder and CEO of the International Justice Mission, Gary Haugen articulates some of the realities behind the systemic oppression of the poor around the world...
Any transformational development that is not guided, empowered and made effective by the Holy Spirit will not prove sustainable. Furthermore, expecting and praying for supernatural interventions by th...
Luke 6:17-26, Matthew 5:1-12, Luke 4:33, Luke 16:19-31, Psalm 9:10, Psalm 12:6, Isaiah 41:17, Zephaniah 3:12, Luke 4:18, James 4:8-10, Luke 5:11, 28, Luke 14:25-33, 1 Peter 4:14, Jeremiah 17:5-10, Jeremiah 6:13
The context The beatitudes are one of the most well-known aspects of Jesus teaching. As in the more familiar account in Matthew (5:1-12), Luke presents these words as Jesus’ first public teaching; hi...
The world says: "You have needs — satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don't hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more." This ...
Consider the following summary of an interview conducted by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, two of the world’s leading researchers on poverty: In a village in Indonesia we met Ibu Emptat, the wif...