Compassion, Justice and the Christian Life

New partnerships must be formed, new organizational structures must becreated, new funding sources must be identified-these are the essential new technologies of compassion that are needed to do justice in the changing urban world. (Location 52)

Hopefully it will be useful in stimulating new technologies of compassion for the age of gentrification. (Location 61)

Not all community development serves the whole community equally well. (Location 79)

our hearts feel full when we spend ourselves on behalf of the oppressed. (Location 83)

A Christian training institute (or church, for that matter) that steps over these basics on the way to "deeper" theological pursuits can hardly be considered biblically faithful. (Location 111)

He invites us to slip in a little closer so that we can see for ourselves that the darkness of sightless eyes is not as intense as the despair of the soul of one who is discarded. (Location 138)

Receiving, I am beginning to realize, is a humbling thing. It implies neediness. (Location 152)

There is blessedness in this kind of giving, to be sure. But there is also power in it-which can be dangerous. (Location 157)

When my motivation is to change people, I inadvertently communicate: Something is wrong with you, but (quite subtly) I am okay. (Location 158)

Little wonder that we, who have come to the city to "save" the poor, find it difficult to enter into true community with those we deem needy. (Location 161)

I selectively ignore that the moneyed, empowered,learned ones will enter this Kingdom with enormous difficulty. (Location 166)

greater weight of responsibility to honor the despised, share his earthly possessions, model interdependency and encourage the use of gifts concealed in the unlikeliest among us. (Location 167)

Somewhere in the process of ministering, the poor became their adversaries. (Location 182)

Anyone who has been given the unfortunate task of dispensing free (or nearly free) commodities will soon have familiar war stories to tell. Something seems to go wrong when one with valued resources attempts to distribute them to others in need. (Location 182)

The highest level is to provide a job for one in need without his knowledge that you provided it. (Location 186)

lower level is to provide work that the needy one knows you provided. (Location 187)

give an anonymous gift to meet an immediate need. (Location 187)

Perhaps the deepest poverty of all is to have nothing of value to offer in exchange. (Location 189)

welfare depletes self-esteem while honorable work produces dignity. (Location 190)

reciprocity builds mutual respect while one-way giving brews contempt. (Location 190)

Our benevolence dollars could develop mini-economies within the economy-daycare, janitorial, fix-the-widow's-roof services that would employ the jobless in esteem-building work. (Location 192)

Like most of the churches in our neighborhood, Lighthouse Tabernacle Holiness Church, Inc. is a commuter church and neither pastor nor parishioners live in the area. (Location 199)

the church was of the community. (Location 206)

Expressways and multiple-car families have changed everything-especially the Church-over the past 50 years. (Location 209)

This new phenomenon of community resistance to churches is not so much the influence of "principalities and powers" (Eph. 3:10, KJV) subverting the work of God as it is the cry of a people whose churches are no longer part of the life of their communities. (Location 220)

our culture traded front-porch neighborhood life for private backyard patios, (Location 223)

Doing for others what they can do for themselves is charity at its worst. (Location 227)

And although the alternatives to one-way charity may be complex to create, this underlying belief in the necessity for every human to pull his full capacity will guide us toward healthy mutuality with those we would assist. (Location 228)

Doing for a community what it could do for itself is as damaging to community life as it is to an individual. (Location 231)

Deep satisfaction registers within us when we give of ourselves to meet a legitimate human need-like (Location 261)

We raise our children to become self-sufficient, responsible adults. We push them to develop their potential. We try our best to keep them away from drugs and bad influences that would ensnare them. But if our best efforts fail, if tragically, offspring choose a path toward self-destruction, tough love will eventually necessitate our cutting off support. (Location 268)

If you hire a person to do legitimate work for reasonable pay, the exchange is honorable and dignifying regardless of how the person chooses to spend the money. (Location 283)

If you don't have time to invest in forging a trusting relationship, give your money to a ministry that does. (Location 289)

Betterment activities offer relief from difficult situations and improve the existing conditions. (Location 300)

serving people is distinctly different from developing people. (Location 303)

Betterment does for others; development enables others to do for themselves. Betterment improves conditions; development strengthens capacity. Betterment gives a man a fish; development teaches a man how to fish. (Location 303)

efficiency is not the same as effectiveness. (Location 312)

free food distribution does more to create dependency than encourage healthy independency. (Location 313)

The best-run betterment programs, though admirable examples of well-run systems, do little to strengthen the community's capacity to address its own needs. They may even work at cross-purposes with community development. (Location 314)

people-perhaps universally-would far rather engage in legitimate exchange than be the object of another's pity. (Location 339)

One-way mercy ministry, as kindhearted asthe giver may be and as well intentioned, is an unmistakable form of put-down. (Location 341)

How is it that when a transaction is done well both purchaser and seller come away with a sense of gain? (Location 346)

poverty may be defined as having little of value to exchange. (Location 351)

Ours is the task of modeling the highest forms of charity that include even the most vulnerable among us as valued participants. (Location 357)

the Bargain Store has no positive economic impact save that of providing affordable products at a cheap price. It neither provides employment for local residents nor invests its profits in the local economy. (Location 382)

the Bargain Store removes money from the community. Although it does provide a product, at the same time it depletes community wealth. (Location 384)

But how we demonstrate our compassion has everything to do with whether or not the poor actually feel valued. This is very good news indeed to Kingdom-minded people who are also bargain hunters, entrepreneurs, wheeler-dealers and creative types who know the magic of exchange. (Location 392)

Ours is the unique opportunity to use our know-how and our creative energies to design methods of exchange that enable those with little as well as those with much to come to the table, participate in the excitement of making a deal and leave satisfied. (Location 393)

If there was a father in the home, he simply vanished. At first sight of the gift-bearers, he disappeared out the back door. (Location 403)

Although the children were ecstatic, the recipient parents were struggling with a severe loss of pride. In their own homes, their impotence as providers was exposed before their children. (Location 404)

converting a betterment program into a development program, is no simple matter. (Location 421)

It is far easier to streamline a betterment program that serves people than to create a development system that empowers them. (Location 424)

Greed, manipulation, a sense of entitlement, resentment-somehow these darker instincts are never far below the surface among the recipients of one-way charity. (Location 428)

A relationship founded on one's giving and the other's need never yields healthy outcomes. (Location 429)

If we are to rightly care for those in need, the responsibility lies with those with the resources to create systems of exchange built on interdependency rather than dependency. (Location 432)

We start using our heads as well as our hearts to build value into people and relationships-value realized only when authentic exchange occurs. (Location 434)

To do for others what they can do for themselves is to make recipients the objects of our pity and deprive them of human dignity. (Location 442)

to provide free handouts to passive recipients without reasonable bootstrap expectations is to foster unhealthy dependency and promote an entitlement mentality. (Location 444)

Doing good can lead to doing what is best. (Location 458)

good can sometimes become the enemy of best. When our one-way giving becomes comfortable and our spirits are no longer stirred to find the deeper, more costly solutions, good has become the enemy of best. (Location 472)

Perhaps the best giving is the kind that enables the poor to know the blessedness of being givers. (Location 474)

This was at its most basic level a spiritual decision. (Location 495)