Through a Glass Darkly

Helping the poor out of their situation rather than simply enabling their situation is tricky. As previously pointed out, hand-outs on a needlessly long-term basis can actually be more harmful in the long run.

Needy people need permanent solutions to their problems, or “hand-ups.” But helping a needy person find a solution to their problem doesn’t necessarily mean giving them a solution to their problem. That would create a different kind of problem.

I saw a good point that relates to this idea made by Rob at Say Anything Blog in his post yesterday titled When Good Deeds Aren’t Really All That Good. Rob wrote:

Simply giving people things, whether it be a new home or a new car or even some new government entitlement, rarely makes them better. It may improve their situation a bit while whatever you’ve given them lasts, but the key to true success is self-sufficiency. If these people can’t provide for themselves, no amount of help in the form of giving them things is going to change that.

Rob’s thought suggests a key aspect that should be present in programs to help the poor: self-sufficiency. Giving a poor person the solution to their problem (say, for example, lots of money) without helping them gain the ability or resources to maintain what they have newly aquired (like the ability to make wise spending, earning and saving decisions) will ultimately end up with them not keeping what was given them and they will be needy once again.

Whatever solution we help the needy gain, we must also help them gain the ability to maintain, on their own ultimately, that solution.

Real ministry to the poor demands ultimately providing a “hand-up” out of a bad situation. This will usually require temporary and wisely chosen “hand-outs” combined with a committed effort to find an actual solution to a person’s problem. An actual solution requires commitment because it will involve struggles, time, effort, and other resources that most are not willing to give.

Designing a ministry to the poor that ignores the hand-up component of working with a person to get out of a problem is usually little help and most likely worse in the long run.

Consider this study quoted by Bethany Stotts in her recent column
Unhealthy Freedoms:

…studies show that reliance on government welfare programs may also contribute to higher levels of depression among Americans. According to the University of Michigan 2001 Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), Americans on welfare were more than twice as likely to feel “worthless” or “hopeless.” “Holding constant all of one’s personal characteristics, including whether or not one is employed, we find that receipt of public assistance by itself pushes up the chances of saying you have been inconsolably sad over the past month by about 16 percentage points,” writes American Journal writer Arthur. C. Brooks on the subject. “No other single factor—not income, age, education, or anything else—comes close to predicting this much of one’s unhappiness.”

Helping the physical need while leaving the recipient of our ministry depressed about their situation is not really ministry. It might be help, but it’s likely not even that if viewed from a long term perspective.

Real ministry to the poor should result in the one being ministered to having a growing sense of hope, encouragement and determination to overcome their challenge. And a growing sense of God’s presence and help in the midst of their situation. That comes by getting into the trenches alongside the needy person and working with them, at what ever level it takes, to find and implement a solution.

Easy? Not at all. In fact it is pretty much impossible–without God. But it is God who has called us to minister to the poor and He does equip us to do the job. Usually step-by-step as we gingerly inch our way forward assured only by faith that the end of the process will be found at some point.

Don’t have time or other resources? Well don’t waste what little resources God has provided you with. Be faithful with the ones you have and perhaps He will provide more. Helping a whole bunch of people a little bit is not usually as good as helping a couple of people a whole lot.

Who called you to save the world? If God has called you to that, you have the necessary resources. If not, look around to the one or two that you are equipped to help. If every Christian really ministered to just a couple of people in a meaningful way we would probably be amazed at how much suffering could be overcome.

Furthermore, help to the poor would probably be increased exponentially as those we have helped OUT of a situation become empowered with personal insight and experience to help others.

What if someone doesn’t want a hand-up, only a hand-out? Well, actually, that’s all most people seeking you out want. Jesus saw it in His ministry. Remember to minister to needs, not wants. Real ministry to some requires not helping them cover up their need for a solution by providing what they want today. Give or don’t give a hand-out as the Spirit leads. But save your real resources, effort, and commitment for those who realize they need to find a solution for their problem.

Real ministry to the poor does not add up a list of dependants, it sets people free to become our partners in ministry to other poor people.

Food pantries are experiencing greater struggles as times get economically tougher. More people are relying on them at the same time fewer people and businesses are able to donate money and food. Higher demands paired with smaller resources result in less help for less people. Here’s an informative news article about the problem.

In my area many “poor” people rely on food pantries on an ongoing basis. They view the pantries as permanent help supplementing other welfare they receive. Unfortunately, this “help” is often really a subsidization of cable television, cell phones with the latest ring-tones, cigarettes, junk food, and other luxuries that are mistakenly interpreted as needs.

Even more unfortunately, during times of increased demands on the pantries, those going to find help in their legitimate crisis situation are at risk of finding little-to-no help because there is already an established clientele vying for dwindling resources.

This is yet another wake-up call for the church to either rethink or refine its strategy for helping the poor. Too often ministries to the poor stop at providing “crisis solutions” for all situations whether crisis or long term. At best, this practice patches up the pain while never really healing the problem. At worst, and all too often, this practice results in wasting valuable resources for crisis needs on the long term selfish wants of those who have made a livelihood of working the system set up to help the poor.

Crisis solutions are temporary and quick fixes to immediate and desperate need. They are exactly what are required in crisis situations. We make a mistake, though, when we apply them long term. This mistake is highlighted during periods of greater need. If we are really going to help the poor we need to develop strategies for providing solutions, not patches, to those who are really seeking a solution.

Providing solutions to long term problems means giving the poor a hand-up out of poverty eventually while giving them a hand-out for a brief time to cover their immediate needs. This requires setting up a ministry framework that will aid in getting to the bottom of each individual’s unique need, determining their unique resources and then applying persistence, creativity and love to help them get the individual solution to their individual problem.

The end result will be better and more ministry as we leave more adequate resources for those in real crisis. It will also reveal who doesn’t really want to find a solution to the poverty by which they earn a living so that we can stop wasting our time. That is where we must aim in order to hit on a relevant and truly helpful ministry to the poor.

(Note: See working principle No. 1.)

Reality is fast approaching many folks who have conducted themselves as “have-somes” but were really “have-lesses.” They are now “have-nots” because of their foolish game. Many could have become “have-mores” if they had faced reality, saved more, bought less on credit and otherwise made good financial decisions.

But, for the most part, these have-nots-in-denial still play their game and refuse to face the reality of their situation. True, they have a nagging awareness of looming disaster. But they easily push back that feeling by going out and buying something (on credit probably) to reassure themselves that everything is okay. That game is coming to an end. Times are getting tougher for everybody across the board. And it is the have-nots-in-denial that will feel the pain the most.

The have-mores will absorb the increased costs and will often find a way to profit from the situation. Nothing wrong with that. That’s how many of them became “have-mores” to begin with.

The have-nots will make out alright. They already are used to doing money-crunch as a lifestyle. The poor have largely learned to work the system and have already been hard at work building up networks of help around themselves for a long time.

The situation looks bleak for the have-nots-in-denial. Getting more credit will likely become harder in the days ahead because of the current mortgage and lending crisis. The have-nots-in-denial will have less and less access to other people’s money in the days to come. Correspondingly, they won’t have access to a large portion of their own money because they are making payments on their past. What little remains of their cash-flow is buying less and less of the basic items necessary to live. They are being outed. Welcomed to the world of have-nots.

But isn’t the economy doing well? For the have-mores, yes. Not so good for the have-somes. But downright deadly for the have-not-in-denials. All that good news about the economy we read about is really more denial. A kind of denial the rich can afford, a denial the poor aren’t fooled by, and a denial that spells disaster for the have-nots-in-denial.

The reality of our economic standing is that high ticket luxury items are coming down in price, basic commodities for living are skyrocketing. When everything is lumped together the overall picture looks okay, but in reality its only great for those who buy high ticket luxury items (the rich), its pretty bad for those who buy basic commodities for living (everybody, but those basic commodities are already a much greater percentage spent of income for the poor), and disaster for the have-nots-in-denial.

Have-nots-in-denial will borrow money for the high ticket luxury items they “can’t live without” or that they “deserve.” They will pay more for them because of interest payments. Then they will have less to spend on those basic commodities that are increasing in price because they are paying off their debt load.

You can read more about the smoke-and-mirrors manipulation behind the rosy economic pictures we are being fed here, and here.

We are fast approaching a critical need for real ministry to the poor because we are fast approaching an increase in the number of poor among us. Many who have been “have-nots-in-denial” are about to be outed as “the poor.” The same difficult times will also mean the “have-somes” will have less money to give. That presents us with an opportunity.

What the church needs now more than ever is a ministry of hand-ups, not hand-outs. There is an increasing number of people with need and a decreasing amount of people with a decreasing amount of expendable income to share. Pouring money on a problem to hide it is fast becoming not an option. We now need to learn what we should always have been about before: offering real solutions to poverty that will lift have-nots out of their poverty for the rest of their lives.

Why Help the Poor? Reason 2: Because God takes it personally when we do (and when we don’t).

How do I figure? Well, let’s look at a teaching of Jesus:

And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Those being commended by the King are those who helped the needy. They didn’t realize that they were actually serving the King by serving those in need. The King, however, took note of the fact and rewards them for their service to Him.

Next comes something that should be terrifying to those who don’t help those in need around them: God takes it personally when we do not help the needy:

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal. (Matthew 25:32-46 KJV)

Those receiving the condemnation of the King had no clue that they were passing up the opportunity to serve the King each time they passed up an opportunity to help the poor. But again, the King took note and casts them off.

When we come across someone in need, and the poor have many needs, then we must recognize the opportunity to directly minister to our King. To refuse help, when it is in our power to give it, is to directly refuse the King.

Here’s a great question from a young man in the congregation under my care the other day. “Why should we help the poor?” He was hesitant to ask but I was very pleased he did. His attitude communicated a sincere desire for a reason to follow our church in the direction the Lord has been leading us in for over a year now.

This young follower of Christ is at another important threshold in his discipleship journey. The door is opening that will lead to a greater degree of Christlikeness in him. It will also contribute to the maturing of the congregation as a whole as he grows in ability, insight, and desire to serve with the rest of us.

So this is a great time to begin a running list of scriptural answers to that question. Here is the first list entry to that vital question for others who may be at the same threshold.

Why Help the Poor? Reason 1: Real followers of Christ really help the poor and needy. Religious phonies don’t.

It is a mark of a “religious” person to offer morally-high-sounding words while acting in ways that demonstrate their lack of faith and Spirit. Not helping the poor and needy is indicative of something vital missing. At worst, a real faith in Christ is missing. At best, a real growth, or maturity, in Christ is missing. Either way, it’s time for the phony to shut up and get real with God and with him or her self.

Consider James 2:15-17:

If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. (James 2:14-17 KJV)

Here is a real need (food and clothing in this case) that is recognized as such by a church member (”one of you”). The phony doesn’t want to get his or her hands dirty (”depart in peace,” or in other words, “please leave now” with a religious sound to it).

Rather than providing real help as Christ would have done, they do as hypocrites do: They offer nothing while trying to sound pious (”be ye warmed and filled” can be replaced with “I’ll pray for you,” “God will provide,” “I’ve been through that before, God got me through it,” and all kinds of oh-so-cute-and-clever-self-hot-air).

Wrong is done because the hypocrite didn’t give what was physically needed. Right would have been to provide the physical help to the perceived need. Do right. You have a living faith, so use it. Help the poor materially.

Bottom line: James says you can brag about your faith and act religious all day long, but it won’t make any bit of difference in the end. If you can’t show it, you don’t have it.

John also had some strong words for those claiming to be Christlike and yet not acting like Christ when it comes to the poor:

But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him. (1 John 3:16-19 KJV)

Do you have what you need (”whoso hath this world’s good”) and perceive a need another has (”and seeth his brother have need”)? Your faith should kick your action into gear. There’s a problem if you don’t help (”shutteth up his bowels of compassion, ie. heart, from him”). The problem is you don’t have the love of God living and growing in you. John goes on to exhort us to be DOERS of the Word and not hearers only.

Bottom line: Do you see a need someone has that you would be able to help? Then the love of God in you OBLIGATES you to provide that help. You help. Not someone else. Not others that you tell to help. Not others you “share” or discuss the need with. You.

OK. That’s what James and John said. Now how do we do it? Admittedly, the application is tricky. It’s a challenge to determine who has a real need, what the real need is, and how to best satisfy that need. Also, it takes real honesty and generosity (and faith) to make what you have a little less in order to increase the position of someone in need. Furthermore, it requires true humility to give with out judging yourself superior to the person in need.

And yet, the challenge is not impossible to overcome. We just have to be faithful in working at overcoming the difficulties and roadblocks to truly helping the truly needy. But we are not expected to be perfect at it. We only have to be faithful in trying.

As we faithfully try, the Spirit will give the answers, lessons, and experience that lead to Christlikeness in this area. Don’t know the exact path yet? You do know the right direction. All we need to do is what we know is right today. The Lord will then show us the next step from there.