Churches and individual Christians typically have faulty assumptions about the causes of poverty, resulting in the use of strategies that do considerable harm to poor people and themselves. Don't let this happen to you, your ministry or ministries you help fund! A must read for anyone who works with the poor or in missions, When Helping Hurts provides foundational concepts, clearly articulated general principles and relevant applications. The result is an effective and holistic ministry to the poor, not a truncated gospel."Initial thoughts" at the beginning of chapters and "reflection questions and excercises" at the end of chapters assist greatly in learning and applying the material. A situation is assessed for whether relief, rehabilitation, or development is the best response to a situation. Efforts are characterized by an "asset based" approach rather than a "needs based" approach. Short term mission efforts are addressed and economic development strategies appropriate for North American and international contexts are presented, including microenterprise development.Now with a new preface, a new foreword, and a new chapter to assist in the next steps of applying the book's principles to your situation, When Helping Hurts is a new classic!

    Stearns' journey there took much more than a long flight to Africa. It took answering God's call on his life, a call that tore him out of his corner office at one of America's most prestigious corporations--to walk with the poorest of the poor in our world."The Hole in Our Gospel" is the compelling true story of a corporate CEO who setaside worldly success for something far more significant, and discovered the full power of the gospel of Jesus Christ to change his own life. He uses his journey to demonstrate how the gospel--the whole gospel--was always meant to be a world changing social revolution, a revolution that begins with us.ECPA 2010 Christian Book of the Year Award Winner!"Read this compelling story and urgent call for change--Richard Stearns is a contemporary Amos crying 'let justice roll down like waters....' Justice is a serious gospel-prophetic mandate. Far too many American Christians for too long a time have left the cause to 'others.' Read it as an altar call." --Eugene H. Peterson, translator of The Message, Professor Emeritus of Spiritual Theology, Regent College, Vancouver, BC"Rich Stearns calls us to exhilarating obedience to God's life-altering, world-changing command to reflect his love to our neighbors at home and globally. The Hole in Our Gospel is imbued with the hope of what is possible when God's people are transformed to live radically in light of his great love." --Gary Haugen, President & CEO, International Justice Mission"Richard Stearns is quite simply one of the finest leaders I have ever known.... When he became president of World Vision I had a front row seat to witness the way God used his mind and heart to inspire thousands.... His new book, The Hole In Our Gospel will call you to a higher level of discipleship.... Now is the time...Richard Stearns has the strategy...your move!" --Bill Hybels, Founding and Senior Pastor, Willow Creek Community Church, South Barrington, IL"Rich Stearns has given us a book that makes absolutely clear what God hopes for and expects from each of us.... He reminded me of my personal responsibilities and the priority I must give them and also where life's true rewards and fulfillment are to be found." --Jim Morris, former executive director, United Nations World Food Program"World Vision plays a strategic role on our globe. As the largest relief organization in the history of the world, they initiate care and respond to crisis. Rich Stearns navigates this mercy mission with great skill. His book urges us to think again about the opportunity to love our neighbor and comfort the afflicted. His message is timely and needed. May God bless him, the mission of World Vision and all who embrace it." --Max Lucado, author of 3:16--The Numbers of Hope, Minister of Writing and Preaching, Oak Hills Church, San Antonio, TX"With passionate urging and earnestness, Rich Stearns challenges Christians to embrace the whole Gospel of Jesus Christ by embracing the neediest and most vulnerable among us. After reading the moving stories, the compelling facts and figures, and Stearns' excellent application of scripture and his own experiences at World Vision, you will no doubt be asking yourself: What should I do?" --Chuck Colson, Founder, Prison Fellowship

    The 10th-anniversary edition of this popular book challenges you to take time to pray, to listen to God, to respond to what God is saying to you, and to overcome prayer barriers.

    Pastor Keller demonstrates that the biblical viewpoint is far more sophisticated than either extreme. He sets forth scriptural principles for mercy ministries, suggests practical steps to begin and persevere in active caring, and deals perceptively with thorny issues. Balanced and informative! Includes discussion questions.

    As a result, churches today are filled with people who believe they are Christians . . . but aren’t. We want to be disciples as long as doing so does not intrude on our lifestyles, our preferences, our comforts, and even our religion.Revealing a biblical picture of what it means to truly be a Christian, Follow Me explores the gravity of what we must forsake in this world, as well as the indescribable joy and deep satisfaction to be found when we live for Christ.The call to follow Jesus is not simply an invitation to pray a prayer; it’s a summons to lose your life—and to find new life in him. This book will show you what such life actually looks like.

    But even so, the Christian faith includes many controversial beliefs that non-Christians find hard to accept. This book explores 12 issues that might cause someone to dismiss orthodox Christianity--issues such as the existence of suffering, the Bible's teaching on gender and sexuality, the reality of heaven and hell, the authority of the Bible, and more. Showing how the best research from sociology, science, and psychology doesn't disagree with but actually aligns with claims found in the Bible, these chapters help skeptics understand why these issues are signposts, rather than roadblocks, to faith in Christ.

    However, when the Bible calls Christians to be hospitable, it's calling them to much more. In this book, Rosaria Butterfield invites readers into her home and shows from her own life and experience how "radically ordinary hospitality" can be a bridge for bringing the gospel to lost friends and neighbors—something that she experienced herself on her journey to Christ. Such hospitality welcomes those who look, think, believe, and act differently than us into our own everyday, sometimes messy lives. Christians will be inspired and equipped to use their homes and tables as a way of showing a skeptical, unbelieving world what love and authentic faith really look like.Table of ContentsPreface: Radically Ordinary Hospitality1. Priceless: The Merit of Hospitality2. The Jesus Paradox: The Vitality of Hospitality3. Our Post Christian World: The Kindness of Hospitality4. God Never Gets the Address Wrong: The Providence of Hospitality5. The Gospel Comes with a House Key: The Seal of Hospitality 6. Judas In the Church: The Borderland of Hospitality7. Giving Up the Ghosts: The Lamentation of Hospitality8. The Daily Grind: The Basics of Hospitality9. Blessed are the Merciful: The Hope of Hospitality 10. Walking the Emmaus Road: The Future of Hospitality Conclusion: Feeding the 5000: The Nuts and Bolts and Beans and Rice

    It is inspirational. It is practical. And it has the potential to revolutionize your life.” Mark Batterson—Lead Pastor, National Community ChurchA movement is rumbling through the body of Christ—a revolutionary army of people giving hope to a hurting world through practical, personal acts of service.In Servolution, Dino Rizzo shares the story of his relentless pursuit of ways to bless the lost, poor, and hurting people of his community in Jesus’ name. You’ll be amazed and inspired by the incredible ways God has used Healing Place Church to meet the needs of thousands of people. Each chapter includes practical suggestions and resources for use in any church. Be encouraged by the testimony of how God’s Spirit can use a simple passion to serve to revolutionize your approach to ministry. Wherever you are and whatever your gifts, you can play a vital role in this revolution through serving.

    Toxic Charity provides proven new models for charitable groups who want to help—not sabotage—those whom they desire to serve. Lupton, the founder of FCS Urban Ministries (Focused Community Strategies) in Atlanta, the voice of the Urban Perspectives newsletter, and the author of Compassion, Justice and the Christian Life, has been at the forefront of urban ministry activism for forty years. Now, in the vein of Jeffrey Sachs’s The End of Poverty, Richard Stearns’s The Hole in Our Gospel, and Gregory Boyle’s Tattoos on the Heart, his groundbreaking Toxic Charity shows us how to start serving needy and impoverished members of our communities in a way that will lead to lasting, real-world change.

    Andrew Murray calls this "our true nobility" and "thedistinguishing feature of discipleship." With insightful, penetrating clarity, Murray calls all Christians to turn from pride, empty themselves, and study the character of Christ to be filled with His grace. Often called the best work on humility ever written, this edition has been edited for today's reader.

    Sarah Bessey didn’t ask for Jesus to come in and mess up all her ideas about a woman’s place in the world and in the church. But patriarchy, she came to learn, was not God’s dream for humanity. Bessey engages critically with Scripture in this gentle and provocative love letter to the Church. Written with poetic rhythm, a prophetic voice, and a deeply biblical foundation, this loving yet fearless book urges today’s church to move beyond man-made restrictions and fully welcome women’s diverse voices and experiences. It’s at once a call to find freedom in the fullness, hope, glory, and work of Christ, and a very personal and moving story of how Jesus made a feminist out of her.

    We can write a check to feed starving children or hold signs in the streets and feel like we’ve made a difference without ever encountering the faces of the suffering masses. In this book, Shane Claiborne describes an authentic faith rooted in belief, action, and love, inviting us into a movement of the Spirit that begins inside each of us and extends into a broken world. Shane’s faith led him to dress the wounds of lepers with Mother Teresa, visit families in Iraq amidst bombings, and dump $10,000 in coins and bills on Wall Street to redistribute wealth. Shane lives out this revolution each day in his local neighborhood, an impoverished community in North Philadelphia, by living among the homeless, helping local kids with homework, and “practicing resurrection” in the forgotten places of our world. Shane’s message will comfort the disturbed, and disturb the comfortable . . . but will also invite us into an irresistible revolution. His is a vision for ordinary radicals ready to change the world with little acts of love.

    That may be bad news for America, but it can be good news for the church. What's needed now, in shifting times, is neither a doubling-down on the status quo nor a pullback into isolation. Instead, we need a church that speaks to social and political issues with a bigger vision in mind: that of the gospel of Jesus Christ. As Christianity seems increasingly strange, and even subversive, to our culture, we have the opportunity to reclaim the freakishness of the gospel, which is what gives it its power in the first place.   We seek the kingdom of God, before everything else. We connect that kingdom agenda to the culture around us, both by speaking it to the world and by showing it in our churches. As we do so, we remember our mission to oppose demons, not to demonize opponents. As we advocate for human dignity, for religious liberty, for family stability, let's do so as those with a prophetic word that turns everything upside down.   The signs of the times tell us we are in for days our parents and grandparents never knew. But that's no call for panic or surrender or outrage. Jesus is alive. Let's act like it. Let's follow him, onward to the future.

    Emerson and Christian Smith probed the grassroots of white evangelical America. They found that despite recent efforts by the movement's leaders to address the problem of racial discrimination, evangelicals themselves seem to be preserving America's racial chasm. In fact, most white evangelicals see no systematic discrimination against blacks. But the authors contend that it is not active racism that prevents evangelicals from recognizing ongoing problems in American society. Instead, it is the evangelical movement's emphasis on individualism, free will, and personal relationships that makes invisible the pervasive injustice that perpetuates racial inequality. Most racial problems, the subjects told the authors, can be solved by the repentance and conversion of the sinful individuals at fault. Combining a substantial body of evidence with sophisticated analysis and interpretation, the authors throw sharp light on the oldest American dilemma. In the end, they conclude that despite the best intentions of evangelical leaders and some positive trends, real racial reconciliation remains far over the horizon.

    T. Wright, are the very echoes of a voice we dimly perceive but deeply long to hear. In fact, these questions take us to the heart of who God is and what He wants from us.For two thousand years, Christianity has claimed to solve these mysteries, and this renowned biblical scholar and Anglican bishop shows that it still can today. Not since C. S. Lewis's classic summary of the faith, Mere Christianity, has such a wise and thorough scholar taken the time to explain to anyone who wants to know what Christianity really is and how it is practiced. Wright makes the case for Christian faith from the ground up, assuming that the reader has no knowledge of (and perhaps even some aversion to) religion in general and Christianity in particular.Simply Christian walks the reader through the Christian faith step by step and question by question. With simple yet exciting and accessible prose, Wright challenges skeptics by offering explanations for even the toughest doubt-filled dilemmas, leaving believers with a reason for renewed faith. For anyone who wants to travel beyond the controversies that can obscure what the Christian faith really stands for, this simple book is the perfect vehicle for that journey.