Digital List Price: | $11.99 |
Kindle Price: | $8.54 Save $3.45 (29%) |
Sold by: | Amazon.com Services LLC |
Your Memberships & Subscriptions
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
OK
Audible sample Sample
When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor . . . and Yourself Kindle Edition
With more than 225,000 copies sold, When Helping Hurts is a paradigm-forming
contemporary classic on the subject of poverty alleviation and ministry to those
in need. Emphasizing the poverty of both heart and society, this book exposes the
need that every person has and how it can be filled. The reader is brought to understand
that poverty is much more than simply a lack of financial or material resources
and that it takes much more than donations and handouts to solve the problem of
poverty.
While this book exposes past and current development efforts that
churches have engaged in which unintentionally undermine the people they're trying
to help, its central point is to provide proven strategies that challenge Christians
to help the poor empower themselves. Focusing on both North American and Majority
World contexts, When Helping Hurts catalyzes the idea that sustainable change
for people living in poverty comes not from the outside-in, but from the inside-out.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherMoody Publishers
- Publication dateJanuary 24, 2014
- File size7518 KB
Customers who bought this item also bought
Editorial Reviews
Review
I can honestly report that When Helping Hurts is the single best book I've seen on this topic. Although this book will make many readers uncomfortable, it quickly offers hope in the form of understandable, feasible new strategies that better grasp the dignity and promise of the materially poor. It deserves a #1 spot on the reading list of every Christian who wants to follow Jesus in a genuine, mutually transforming love of neighbor.
-Amy L. Sherman, PhD, senior fellow and director, Sagamore Institute Center on Faith in Communities, author, Restorers of Hope
What an opportunity evangelicals have to make a difference in our world through the church. Corbett and Fikkert build on the growing momentum of holistic witness that's sweeping our country and globe and are eminently qualified and positioned to take motivated kingdom citizens on a Christ-centered and comprehensive journey that will pay huge dividends for impoverished people and for Christians in our broken world.
-Dr. Ronald J. Sider, president, Evangelicals for Social Action, author, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger
How can a local church make a difference, and how do individual Christians meaningfully reflect Christ's grace, when the disparities of wealth and power in our world are so great? When Helping Hurts explores biblical principles in terms of real-life situations to offer real help and grace-filled answers for such questions.
-Bryan Chappell, president, Covenant Theological Seminary
When Helping Hurts wonderfully combines heavy-duty thinking with practical tools. I appreciate their zeal to root all strategies in the institution God has ordained to bring about His goals. No donor should invest another dollar in any kind of relief effort before digesting the last page of this important book.
-Joel Belz, founder and writer, World Magazine
Churches in North Americawill find this a helpful way to educate congregations and then motivate them to action, both globally and in their neighborhoods.
-Bryant Myers, PhD, professor of International Development, School of Intercultural Studies, Fuller Theological Seminary
A clarion call to rethink how we apply the gospel to a broken world. This book will transform our good intentions into genuine, lasting change.
-Stephen J. Baumann, senior vice president, World Relief
From the Back Cover
Good Intentions Are Not Enough
Unleashing and equipping people to effectively help the poor requires repentance and the realization of our own brokenness. When Helping Hurts articulates a biblically based framework concerning the root causes of poverty and its alleviation.
A path forward is found, not through providing resources to the poor, but by walking with them in humble relationships.
Whether you’re involved in short-term missions or the long-term empowerment of the poor, this book helps teach you three key areas:
· Foundational ConceptsWho are the poor?
· PrinciplesShould we do relief, rehabilitation, or development?
· StrategiesHow can we help people effectively here and abroad?
About the Author
Brian Fikkert is the Founder and President of the Chalmers Center at Covenant College, as well as a Professor of Economics and Community Development at Covenant College.
Product details
- ASIN : B00EDY1YU4
- Publisher : Moody Publishers; New edition (January 24, 2014)
- Publication date : January 24, 2014
- Language : English
- File size : 7518 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 275 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #148,355 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #9 in Poverty Studies
- #33 in Social Work (Kindle Store)
- #70 in Poverty
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors
Dr. Brian Fikkert is a Professor of Economics and the Founder and President of the Chalmers Center at Covenant College. Dr. Fikkert earned a Ph.D. in economics from Yale University, specializing in international economics and economic development. He has been a consultant to the World Bank; he is the author of numerous articles in both academic and popular journals and co-author of five books. Prior to coming to Covenant College, he was a professor at the University of Maryland—College Park and a research fellow at the Center for Institutional Reform and the Informal Sector.
Steve Corbett is the Community Development Specialist for the Chalmers Center for Economic Development and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics and Community Development at Covenant College. Previously, Steve worked for Food for the Hungry International as the Regional Director for Central And South America and as Director of Staff Training. Steve has a B.A. from covenant College and a M.Ed. in Adult Education from the University of Georgia.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonReviews with images
-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
From the back cover we learn what we can expect from the book
Foundation Concepts – Who are the poor?
Principles – Should we do relief, rehabilitation or development?
Strategies – How can we help people here and abroad?
And that is the thrust of the work. These three points are fleshed out by the authors.
The book begins with a short history of how we, primarily North American Christians, got to where we are now. What happened between 1900 and 1930 that changed how we address poverty alleviation and why we are failing miserably at addressing it? Why is a Biblical world view important to the methodology of helping the poor?
Next we find out what the poor think of our efforts to help them. Its entirely possible we fail as we have no clue how other cultures, even sub-cultures within our own culture, think emotionally and politically of their plight. Failure to recognize these distinctions cause our failures in assisting the poor and therefore our evangelism. From our North American point of view are we really helping the poor or just making ourselves feel better by thinking we have? Poverty is rooted in broken relationships, with God and each other, not in financial or material wealth. Only Jesus can fix that.
In chapter 4 we begin to get into the real meat of the work. Help comes in three forms according to the authors: Relief, rehabilitation, and development. Failure to recognize these three and implement them as needed or in correct order can do more harm than good. Many churches and organizations, for example, start and stop with relief. That is, providing immediate help for a need. Though necessary it falls short of providing for the long term needs of the person or persons in need. The authors flesh this out clearly and define what steps, relief, rehabilitation, and development, to take at appropriate times.
Of chapter 7 I took special note. Short term mission trips (STM) have always left me wondering how effective they can be. How can a group of people who blow into town for only a week or two expect to provide any long lasting good? Indeed, they can be helpful as the authors explain however they are often not for several reasons the authors lay out. If only relief is provided the STM is doomed to failure. Development is often what is needed and that can’t be done in a two week STM. In helping the poor we must be in it for the long haul by helping the local churches and organizations in the area as necessary.
The authors continue and conclude with concrete strategies to help the poor in numerous ways and especially spiritually. The issue is often, "Finding armies of people to volunteer one Saturday to paint dilapidated houses is easy. Finding people to love the people who live in those houses is extremely difficult" (pg. 210). We must take the time to walk and love these folks for the long term. Are you ready? Am I ready?
This is a justifiable read. The authors are intelligent and experienced. Expert analysis, true life accounts, and clear strategies are provided. I wholeheartedly commend When Helping Hurts .
So with that being said, I generally appreciated the authors' perspective and focus on what works rather than what suits a particular agenda. Let's be honest, poverty aid is a very politicized topic. The authors challenge some points of many different approaches to poverty relief and economic development. They don't talk much about government aid at all. Their focus is on what we as individuals and communities (specifically church communities) can and should be doing. That's fine for what it is. There is a tinge of anti-government sentiment. They don't come out and say directly that government relief efforts are uniformly harmful, but I wouldn't be shocked to find that they believed that. And I wouldn't agree there. But, as I said, they generally don't talk much about government aid at all, so just don't get this book expecting to learn about the most effective policy solutions. Get a different book for that and read this one for what it is.
While the authors don't seem to be fans of government-driven solutions, they are definitely not the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" type either. They do argue that the poor have some responsibility in participating in poverty solutions and occasionally, they seem to be somewhat patronizing (this is the main reason for giving four stars instead of five). But overall, I think their goal is actually the exact opposite: I think they want to challenge some of the widespread, generally well-meaning, but ultimately very patronizing and condescending views some of us have of the poor. Specifically, this idea that they are helpless and need us to come in fix their lives. In truth, what they need is multifaceted and complex, but a lot of it is just more powerful people and systems getting out of their way so they can access the resources they need to flourish. There's a lot more to it than I can sum up in a comment, but that was my general takeaway and I think the authors do a good job of pushing us rich people to see poor people as, well, people. People every bit as capable as we are of doing good things and being strong and self-sufficient. They don't lionize poor people. Nobody is perfect of course. They just argue (convincingly) that poverty is not solely or even mostly a result of just some people making bad choices. That's just not the reality.
So they are not pro-government and not pro-individualism. They are also not entirely pro-charity. They are pro-the-right-kind-of-charity, as in, the kind that actually works. And this is where I found the most value in the book. I think they could have dived into more program evaluation research to support their points (based on my understanding of the research literature, there is strong evidence to support most of their points; they just didn't always reference it, relying more on stories from their personal experiences in relief and development work to illustrate their points), but I assume they knew that wasn't was going to be compelling to their main audience. Most people are not economic, sociological, or political scholars who want to know the ins and outs of how this all works. They're just people who want to help. And to that end, this book gives them tools to do that. Readers will walk away knowing a lot of things that works and things that don't. There is a lot of practical knowledge that people can implement. Mostly for program directors and people like that, but even just for people who want to volunteer a few hours a week or have some money to donate, what they learn from this book can help them make wise choices on where to do that.
So I definitely recommend this book to any Christian interested in contributing to poverty relief. And even if you're not a Christian, you will still learn a lot and I don't think you would regret reading this book, even though you wouldn't agree with everything. Whatever your religious inclinations, definitely don't leave your critical thinking at the door (though that would apply to literally every book, not just this one) and expect to find things here that you don't agree with. Don't take everything at face value, but do let yourself be challenged.
1. Help personally to understand that some of the traditional ways of “helping others” doesn’t necessarily help and often hinders.
2. Help organizations and groups to orchestrate an effective strategy for truly helping others both close and far.
Top reviews from other countries
The book builds in a logical manner from their basic three-stage view of ministry (Relief, Rehabilitation & Development) and develops practical ideas alongside examples from the authors' own experience.
If I had any criticism it would be that it is written entirely with a North American reader in mind and hence some sections, especially those focusing on practical examples within the local community, are not particularly (if at all) relevant to a UK audience. In general this is not a major problem, but I do find it a shame that they did not try to make it more widely applicable for the European/Australasian church (for example) as part of the recent re-issue.
But that aside, if you are involved in any capacity (but especially leadership) of any church ministry to the poor, either locally or internationally, then I would sincerely recommend this as formative reading.