Divide & Conquer!

Greetings & Welcome to Our Summer Series 2015!  We are studying When Helping Hurts:  The Small Group Experience based on the book by Steven Corbett and Brian Fikkert.  

Our Goal is Transformation:  “To restore people to a full expression of humanness, to being what God created us all to Be, people who Glorify God by living in right relationship with God, with Self, with Others and with the rest of Creation.” [i] 

So this week we:  DIVIDE & CONQUER!

We do that by dividing Poverty into different segments.  Why?  Because Poverty at different stages requires different responses in order to be as effective as possible at Achieving Our Goal of Transformation.

Let’s look at each of these separately: [ii]

#1 RELIEF:  Urgent temporary aid to reduce suffering from either a natural or man-made crisis primarily through a Provider-Receiver dynamic.

#2 REHABILITATION:  An effort to restore people back to a pre-crisis state.  People begin to contribute to improving their situation.

#3 DEVELOPMENT:  Walking with people ACROSS TIME in ways that move ALL the people involved—both the “Helpers” as well as the “Helped”– closer to being in right relationship with God, Self, Others & Creation than they were before.  It avoids “doing for” and focuses on “doing with.” 

Makes sense, right?  I know only too well from going through a major MS relapse in 2013 (aka My MS “Splat”) what those feel like.  But I also tasted true Transformation through good people working alongside me and not simply doing everything for me.

The Poison of Paternalism 

PATERNALISM:  Habitually doing things for people that they can do for themselves. [iii] 

So many of us are dealing with disability!  And we ALL need a little help.  But NOTHING is more disabling than never allowing someone to DO for THEMSELVES whatever needs doing to the best of their ability.  Otherwise well-meaning and compassionate people may actually make things worse and hamper or prevent altogether people ever becoming what God created them to be.  What a shame!

Is Transformation easy?  Nope.  But is it worth it?  Priceless! 

In His Accessible Grace,

Linda

• [i] Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert, When Helping Hurts:  How To Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting The Poor—And Yourself (Chicago, IL:  Moody Publishers, 2009), Kindle edition:  Location 74.

• [ii Location 512.

• [iii Location 492.

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