This organization focuses on empowering indigenous churches to bring transformational development to some of the world’s most vulnerable people. Continue reading
Monthly Archives: October 2013
World Vision
We think very highly of all of the organizations on our list, and support each of them without reservation. If we had to choose just one organization to support, our favorite among favorites, this would be the one… Continue reading
Wycliffe Bible Translators
This organization’s mission is simple and clear – translating God’s Word into the thousands of languages necessary to reach all the nations of the earth with the good news of the Gospel. Continue reading
The Frozen Pool
In the last post (Futility or Effectiveness?), we talked about the roadblocks that keep many of us from giving to help the world’s desperately poor – and noted that dismantling these roadblocks was one of the primary purposes behind our work at Givers by Design. So here’s the question: Continue reading
Futility or Effectiveness?
After reading about the Church in America’s anemic response to the problem of extreme poverty in Richard Stearns’ landmark book, The Hole in Our Gospel, we began talking with people – lots of people. And in these conversations, a common thread quickly emerged.Continue reading
Blessed: Now What?
This idea, that we are blessed to be a blessing, is a theme that is woven throughout the length and breadth of scripture – and, is one of the foundations upon which Givers by Design is built. Continue reading
Implications for Witness, part 1
Many Christian writers have recently taken the Church to task for its anemic response to the problem of extreme poverty. (Anemic? …Yes, less than 2% of the average American church’s budgetContinue reading
Extreme Poverty and the Church
The Church – the body of Christ on earth – has a 2000 year tradition of acting on the biblical mandate to help the desperately poor. Throughout the book of Acts and historical accounts of the early Christianity, Continue reading
The Least of These
The poor… have you ever really considered the fact that Jesus came into this world as one of them – and, what this might mean? Have you noticed that the good newsContinue reading
A Scriptural Imperative
As we noted in the prior post, the reality (Ephesians 2:8-10) that we are saved by grace, through faith, for something – to help build for the kingdom – forms the backdrop for our understanding of the biblical mandate for helping the poor.Continue reading
A Hole in Our Gospel
Timothy 4:3 – For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. That is, a gospel with a hole in it – Continue reading
Extreme Poverty: Hopelessness
Extreme poverty sets in motion a chain of cause and effect that ends in hopelessness. It is important to note that the hopelessness that is the defining characteristic of extreme poverty is not a character flaw in the poor.Continue reading
Extreme Poverty: Human Impact
One billion people live on less than a dollar a day; the human impacts of such extreme poverty are enormous. For some perspective, consider that the average Christ follower in America lives on a bit more than $100 per day.Continue reading
What is Extreme Poverty?
Poverty, at it’s very simplest, is a matter of “not having,” either in absolute terms or relative to others. There are many forms of poverty in our world – economic, relational, cultural, spiritual. Continue reading