In our attempt to help the poor at our church we were communicating that we, the upper-middle class church people, were better. In giving gifts to their children we were reminding their fathers of their lack. After all, whose responsibility was it to buy gifts for those children? Our church members felt “so good” and satisfied that they had done a good thing but the head of their household felt worse because we hadn’t allowed them to contribute. The church must resist the temptation to do “feel-good” events that don’t address the systemic issues of our community.

After distributing the gifts to the poor children, I left the church with sadness. This was the third year that I had led the “Angel Tree” project at our church. Since I am bilingual, I was the designated pastor to be the mediator between our Anglo, English-speaking church members and the community Spanish-speaking families. This supposed “honor” and “gift” of being able to relate to both cultures was not going well with me. We had good intentions to help these families but a vivid impression was left on me by the fathers of these children.  As our church members distributed the gifts, the children’s faces lit up and their mothers humbly thanked us, but not the fathers. They stood in the back of the church, arms crossed and heads down. When I tried to reach out to the dads, they barely looked me in the eye.

My first thoughts were that they hated church, they were disconnected from their kids, or that they had no manners. But I was wrong. I was not looking deeper into the family dynamics and I was afraid to look at their souls. What if what we are doing for these people is actually damaging them? What if we are exacerbating an existing problem? Could the church be hurting the poor in the process of trying to help them?

Then I read the book by Brian Fikkert, “When Helping Hurts.” Brian and co-author Steve Corbett wrote the book in response to similar experiences in Africa and in America. Their main premise is that the greatest need of the poor is relationship and that we hurt others by doing for them what they can do for themselves. Poverty is rooted in brokenness; it’s the lack of relational “shalom” (Hebrew for “peace”). We are all poor by this definition and must embrace our own brokenness when we work with low-income people. When the church barges in with just material offerings without relationship it tends to lead the materially poor to feelings of inferiority and shame.

In our attempt to help the poor at our church we were communicating that we, the upper-middle class church people, were better. In giving gifts to their children we were reminding their fathers of their lack. After all, whose responsibility was it to buy gifts for those children? Our church members felt “so good” and satisfied that they had done a good thing but the head of their household felt worse because we hadn’t allowed them to contribute.

The church must resist the temptation to do “feel-good” events that don’t address the systemic issues of our community. Before we go and “do something” we must ask the very important question: “Is this mission for us to feel better or is this really helping?” Several years ago I had the privilege of leading our LINC North Texas (LINC NT) team to help benefit a community without hurting it. Many churches donated Christmas gifts to LINC NT and instead of giving them away we set up a Christmas Store and had the families purchase the items at a very large discount. The profits were given back to the community and the families were able to leave with a sense of dignity that they had provided for themselves.

LINC North Texas works with over 1,000 low-income students and their families. In public schools we train students to be leaders and also train parents in relationships. One of our biggest challenges is to reach the fathers. In order to have sustainable change in a community, we must reach the whole family not just the kids.  That led us to launch this fall a new development program called “Faith and Finances.”  It’s a program targeting the heads of household, fathers and mothers in our community that are considered low-income. The goal is to help them manage their finances while learning about God’s stewardship. Through this program we are able to help families organize their expenses, avoid financial pitfalls and develop a plan for savings, both short and long term.  Our hope is that in the process, the fathers and mothers will grow out of all poverty, not just material but also relational.

The church has always had a huge role in helping the materially poor. The Scriptures call us to bring Shalom to the city and it’s much more than just offering free backpacks or evangelism. As “When Helping Hurts” explains,  “material poverty alleviation involves more than ensuring that people have sufficient material things: rather, it involves the much harder task of empowering people to earn sufficient material things through their own labor, for in so doing we move people closer to being what God created them to be. These things tend to happen in highly relational, process-focused ministries more than impersonal, product-focused ministries.” May we as leaders inspire our members to not hurt the poor but to be part of the transformation of our communities by the empowering work of the Holy Spirit.

[Editor’s note: The link (URL) to the article source is unavailable and has been removed.]