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Why We Wrote This Book
By Co-authors Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert
We have spent most of our adult lives trying to learn how to improve the lives of poor people. Steve worked for many years with a major Christian relief and development agency, serving in roles ranging from grassroots community developer, to country director, to serving on the global management team. Brian took the academic route, spending his time as a researcher and a professor. About seven years ago our lives converged as we began working together at the Chalmers Center for Economic Development, a research and training initiative that seeks to equip churches around the world to minister to the economic and spiritual needs of low-income people. We also teach together in an undergraduate major in Community Development at Covenant College, a degree program that tries to prepare Christian young people to make a difference in the lives of low-income people in North America and around the world.
We still have a lot to learn, as the problems of poverty continue to confound us. Moreover, we do not pretend that the material in this book is unique to us. Rather, the book is simply a way of synthesizing and organizing the ideas of many others into a framework that audiences in a variety of settings have found helpful. We are deeply indebted to the many authors, researchers, and practitioners who have produced a vast range of principles, resources, and tools for us to draw upon. We hope that this book will help—in some small way—to make their ideas and tools more accessible to others.
We write this book with a great deal of excitement about the renewed interest in helping low-income people that is so apparent among North American Christians. While materialism, self-centeredness, and complacency continue to plague all of us, nobody can deny the upswing in social concern among North American evangelicals in the past two decades. There is perhaps no better illustration of this trend than the exploding short-term mission movement, much of which has focused on ministering to the poor at home and abroad.
But our excitement about these developments is seriously tempered by two convictions. First, North American Christians are simply not doing enough. We are the richest people ever to walk the face of the earth. Period. Yet, most of us live as though there is nothing terribly wrong in the world. We attend our kids' soccer games, pursue our careers, and take beach vacations while 40 percent of the world's inhabitants struggle just to eat every day. And in our own backyards, the homeless, those residing in ghettos, and a wave of immigrants live in a world outside the economic and social mainstream of North America. We do not necessarily need to feel guilty about our wealth. But we do need to get up every morning with a deep sense that something is terribly wrong with the world and yearn and strive to do something about it. There is simply not enough yearning and striving going on.
Second, many observers, including the two of us, believe that when North American Christians do attempt to alleviate poverty, the methods used often do considerable harm to both the materially poor and the materially non-poor. Our concern is not just that these methods are wasting human, spiritual, financial, and organizational resources but that these methods are actually exacerbating the very problems they are trying to solve.
Fortunately, there is hope, because God is at work. By renewing our commitment, by adjusting our methods, and by repenting daily, we North American Christians can play a powerful role in alleviating poverty at home and abroad. It is our prayer that God will use the book to play some small role in helping the church of Jesus Christ to increase both the level and the effectiveness of our efforts to minister to a hurting world.
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