Chapters Nine & Ten

1.  Entitled, “Service with Dignity,” Lupton shares the ongoing conversation that ensued with his longtime neighbor and subsequent friend, Virgil, regarding outside assistance.  Lupton portrays a difficult process of listening, adaptation, trial & error, and eventual limited success. 

What was Virgil’s longstanding gripe with the way those who provided outside assistance conducted themselves?  How did Lupton respond and what was the result?

2.  “Little affirms human dignity more than honest work.  One of the surest ways to destroy self-worth is subsidizing the idleness of able-bodied people.  Work is a gift, a calling, a human responsibility.  And the creation of productive, meaningful employment fulfills one of the Creator’s highest designs.  Because of that, it should be a central goal to our service.”

How does this statement speak to our Christian vocation as co-stewards of God’s creation?  What is the value and goal of work to you as a Christian?

                                                                

3.  “Even as work is essential for life with meaning, so neighboring is essential for meaningful community life.  Becoming a neighbor to less-advantaged people is the most authentic expression of affirmation I know – becoming a real-life, next-door neighbor.”  Lupton goes on to discuss “re-neighboring” as a primary transformation strategy.  “Be an interested, supportive neighbor for at least six months before attempting to initiate any new activity.”  And finally, “Need does not constitute a call!  Focus your efforts in one or two areas that have a compelling interest to you, that maximize your giftedness.”

How have you experienced the effectiveness of such sage advice?

4.  In chapter ten, Lupton argues, “But superbly run betterment programs do little to strengthen the community’s capacity to address its own needs.  And often they can work at cross-purposes with community development.  They are entry points but not ending points.”

Give some examples of where this plays out.

5.  Here are a few nuggets from this chapter.  Briefly discuss each:

- Henry Blackaby, “Find out what God is up to, and get in on it.”

- Ask yourself: What is my parish?

- The best way to assure effectiveness is to spend enough time as a learner, ask enough questions, and seek wisdom from indigenous leaders to gain an accurate picture of both existing realities and future aspirations of the community.

- When we focus on what is wrong, we miss what is right.

- What we look for is likely what we will see.

And finally…

- The poor, no matter how destitute, have enormous untapped capacity; find it, be inspired by it, and build upon it.

(Next week…Martin Luther!)

Toxic Charity, by Robert Lupton

Chapters Seven & Eight

1.  Lupton introduces chapter seven by using Warren Buffett and Bill Gates as models of wise giving.  Time and again, Lupton stresses, “Due diligence is the cornerstone of wise giving.” 

What do we have in common with these two billionaires?  How do they stand apart from ordinary persons/investors/givers?  What can we learn from them?

2.  In, “Controlling the Lake,” Lupton shares the success story of the yucca famers of Nicaragua, aided by the masterful genius and shrewd guidance of community developer, Geralyn Sheehan.  (Did you notice she was Minnesota-bred?  No real surprise, of course!)  “Controlling the lake implies ownership by the community of their community.  This begins with a change of perspective.” 

Why was this such a successful effort?  Who deserves the credit?

                                                                

3.  Lupton goes on to illustrate how Opportunity International’s microlending was further enhanced through careful community development over the long haul.  Turn to pages 117-120 and review Lupton’s bullet-list of questions.

How might each of these apply to Transform Rockford?

4.  While microlending has gone mainstream, it has not been very successful to the poor in our country.  He lists these are central:

(1) an ingrained work ethic, (2) a demonstrated entrepreneurial instinct, and (3) a stable support system. 

Why are these elements so difficult to achieve in our culture?

5.  In chapter eight, Lupton revisits, “The Oath for Compassionate Service,” pages 128-132. 

Briefly review together and comment on each.  

6.  Finally, Lupton shares another important laundry list for successful community development on Pages 138-140.

Again, briefly review.  How do these serve as a template for Rockford and other cities that struggle for renewal?

Toxic Charity, by Robert Lupton

Chapters Five & Six

1.  Lupton introduces this chapter with a deeper examination of organizational charity.  Citing several examples of programs run amuck, he asks, “But isn’t it time we admit to ourselves that mission trips are essentially for our benefit?  Would it not be more forthright to call our junkets ‘insight trips’ or ‘exchange programs?’  Religious tourism would have much more integrity if we simply admitted that we’re off to explore God’s amazing work in the world.”

What is your response here?  Agree or disagree?

2.  Lupton moves on to cite his organization, Focused Community Strategies, as an example of effectiveness.  “By narrowing the focus of missions, by concentrating the collective efforts of the church on specific places and issues, we dramatically increase the chances of effecting significant, measurable, and lasting change.”  

Why is this so difficult for churches to accomplish over a sustained period? 

                                                                

3.  Lupton illustrates another failure…this time brought on by the 1.5 billion dollar donation to the Salvation Army by the Kroc family. 

Why did this ultimately lead to failure?

4.  “Top-down charity seldom works,” Lupton says, noting that “all charity begins at home.”  He offers the example of The Atlanta Project (TAP), launched by President Jimmy Carter in 1990.  His assessment? “Had the President’s council of strategists included an experienced community developer, the decision to target twenty multi-neighborhood school catchment districts would have been immediately challenged.” 

“What lessons can we learn from President Carter’s disappointing mission?”

5.  Lupton discusses “dead aid,” as coined by Zambian-born economist Dambisa Moyo.  This represents the one trillion dollars in charitable aid that has flowed into Africa over the past fifty years.  “Aid has been, and continues to be, an unmitigated political, economic, and humanitarian disaster for most parts of the developing world.”

“So why is humanitarian aid still so popular?  Why does it continue to be a moral imperative among the affluent cultures to impose charity on the less fortunate…all buy(ing) into the belief that giving to the poor is a good thing?”

6.  Finally, Lupton shares the story of a Christian entrepreneur who set out to make Kansas City the first hunger-free zone in the country.  Lupton gives this man a lot of credit, but reflects, “The hard part is rethinking the entrenched giveaway mentality and restructuring an established one-way charity system.  A hunger-free zone may be possible, but developing the dependency-free zone is the real challenge.”

Great!  What happens next?

Toxic Charity, by Robert Lupton

Chapters Three & Four

1.  Lupton begins chapter three with his account of Christmas, 1981, when he celebrated the season as a newcomer to an urban neighborhood.  He highlights the departure of the father during the opening of gifts to his children, provided by others.  Lupton attributes this absence to the emasculation of the father, unable to provide for his own children.  Noting such charity as a perversion and toxic, he concludes, “This thorough look at the anatomy of my charity eventually exposed an unhealthy culture of dependency.” “Doing for rather than doing with those is need is the norm.  Add to it the combination of patronizing pity and unintended superiority, and charity becomes toxic.”  He goes on to cite Haiti and Africa as broader examples.

Can you recall any similar or dissimilar examples from your experience with giving?  Where do you agree or disagree with his conclusions?

2.  Lupton states, “It is difficult work…establishing authentic parity between people of unequal power.  But relationships built on reciprocal exchange…make this possible.  And parity is the higher form of charity.”

What are the challenges to reaching such parity, and how did Lupton succeed?

                                                                

3.  Lupton notes that mercy combined with justice creates:

            - Immediate care with a future plan

            - Emergency relief and responsible development

            - Short-term intervention and long-term involvement

            - Heart responses and engaged minds

He adds, “In a strange twist of divine irony, those who would extend mercy discover that they themselves are in need of mercy.  Out of our own need, we are readied for service that is both humble and wise.”

How do you view this relationship between mercy and justice?

4.  He concludes this chapter by stating, “There is no simple or immediate way to discern the right response without a relationship.  After all the questions, this is the best I could offer John: due diligence.  And if you don’t have time to invest in forging a trusting relationship, give your money to a ministry that does.”

How do you approach discernment and due diligence?

5.  In chapter four, Lupton introduces the Georgia Avenue Food Co-op, which fosters community.  He promotes converting food pantries into food co-ops.  The problem with the former, he notes is that they foster dependency.  “Forging ahead to meet a need, we often ignore the basics: mutuality, reciprocity, accountability.  In doing so, relationships turn toxic.”

What is your experience with food pantries versus food co-ops?  Do you agree with Lupton’s conclusions here?

6.  Finally, Lupton says, “The giver-recipient relationship is doomed from the start.  Such relationships hardly foster trust.  Usually they breed resentment.  If trust is essential for building relationships and making enterprises run effectively, then we have a find a way for outsiders to become insiders.  Recipients must become dispensers, authors of the rules, builders of community.”

“We know these things.  And we have the capacity to accomplish them.  But the will to change our traditional charity systems – now that is the real challenge.”

So, what stands in the way of changing our local charity systems?

What might be required of us to usher in such change?

Toxic Charity, by Robert Lupton

Chapters One & Two

1.  Lupton’s opening statement sets the tone for his book:  “In the United States, there’s a growing scandal that we both refuse to see and actively perpetuate.  What Americans avoid facing is that while we are very generous in charitable giving, much of that money is either wasted or actually harms the people it is targeted to help.”

What was your initial response to that statement?  Did you react with agreement, disagreement…or somewhere in between?

2.  He continues:  “We mean well, our motives are good, but we have neglected to conduct care-full due diligence to determine emotional, economic, and cultural outcomes on the receiving end of our charity.  Why do we miss this crucial aspect in evaluating our charitable work?  Because, as compassionate people, we have been evaluating our charity by the rewards we receive through service, rather than the benefits received by the served.  We have failed to adequately calculate the effects of our service on the lives of those reduced to objects of our pity and patronage.”

Where do you find the truth in this statement?  Where might you counter with, “Yeah, but…”

                                                                

3.  And again,  “We respond with immediacy to desperate circumstances but often are unable to shift from crisis relief to the more complex work of long-term development.  Consequently, aid agencies tend to prolong the ‘emergency’ status of a crisis when a rebuilding strategy should be well under way.”  “When relief does not transition to development in a timely way, compassion becomes toxic.”

Can you recall situations where this assessment played out?  What circumstances contributed to this predicament?

4.  Lupton provides, “The Oath for Compassionate Service,” on pages 8-9.  Quickly review them again...

What are the challenges to meeting these criteria today?

5.  In chapter two, Lupton describes the short-term service industry, emphasizing the shortcomings of various service projects and mission trips.  He does cite “micro lending” as one example of a positive approach to assisting others.  Mostly, the author gives example after example of huge projects gone awry, with the exception of a few in which he was instrumental in leading.

Is there a common thread that runs through these stories of failure and stories of success?

A Door Set Open, by Peter Steinke

Chapter 9 – A Different Future

1.  Steinke begins with a laundry list…“responses that proved beneficial to congregations in the throes of change.”  Laundry, he says, is everywhere.  At the top of his laundry list is “the need for mature and motivated leaders in the congregation.”  Such leadership relies on differentiation…“a process in which a person’s functioning is guided by a direction, supported by beliefs and values, and monitored by thoughtful behaviors rather than emotional reactivity.” 

Edwin Friedman “believed that mature functioning in a leader incites reactivity in the least mature. It is simply not possible to lead successfully through self-differentiation without inciting reactivity. The capacity of a leader to be aware of, to reflect upon, and to work through people’s reactivity may be the most important aspect of leadership. It is ‘the key to the kingdom.’”  “The challenge of change for leaders is to keep one’s eye on the ball (stay focused), take the heat (remain nonreactive), stay connected (talk and listen), and get a good night’s sleep.”

Well, now…that can’t be so hard!  But why is it?  What support can congregations offer its leaders to maintain healthy self-differentiation?

2.  Change is difficult.  “Today’s church should not be looking outside itself or seeking the quick fix. First, a massive educational task is at hand. What do I mean? Church leaders have to reeducate people as to the purpose of the church. The purpose of the local church is not primarily to be one’s church home or extended family, though it can be at times. And it is not to survive by obtaining more people for its support base. Its purpose is to invite people to be part of the true mission of the church. Reception into the church is only a threshold to involvement in its mission. The task of the church is not to accumulate attendees. The church is a school for developing agents of the new creation from among those who are the beneficiaries of God’s grace.”

What do you see as St. Mark’s primary purpose?  What is your role in clarifying and carrying out that role?

3.  Steinke believes change comes from the ground up and by reframing the issues at hand in congregations.  He draws from Jim Collin’s business background.  “Business, he claims, is focused on profit; the social sector, on the other hand, is based on service. Performance assessment in the social realm, therefore, is not dependent on financial returns or resources. The question for those in the social sector is, ‘How effectively do we deliver on our mission and make a distinctive impact?’ To make a special impact, Collins says, social organizations must reframe; that is, they must focus on outputs (services), not inputs (receipts).”  “I think congregations encounter an emotional barrier in highlighting the inputs as what really counts and regarding the outputs as secondary or optional.”

How do we discern an appropriate and healthy balance of outputs and inputs?  How do we define each of these today?

4.  “Churches have a strong tendency to keep difficult things under the table. Little changes because conflict-laden things are hidden. Of course, then, some laundry never gets done.”  Steinke illustrates this with Kohlrieser’s story of the fishermen in Sicily, whose instructions were, “Put the fish on the table.”  That’s the difficult, but necessary, starting place for addressing change. 

“As with the Jews, Christians base their hope through a memory system. “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead” (2 Tim. 2:8a). Hope is grounded in God’s faithfulness and promises. With hope grounded in the expectation of a new world when all is forgiven, all is set free, all is restored, the future is different.”

As we “put our fish on the table” before God, we receive forgiveness and share in the hope of the resurrection.  How does this Christian hope transform our present and shape our future?  How does it create “a door set open” so that you and I can make a difference?

A Door Set Open, by Peter Steinke

Chapter 8 – Where to Touch the Elephant

1.  Steinke asks, “Let’s probe the elephant-touch dilemma as it affects the life of today’s church: If we think of the elephant as representing the congregation’s mission, do all touches have the same value? Is there a place we all must touch? Finally, can we touch the mission in different places, disagree, and still work together?” 

Please offer your responses to these questions.

2.  “Tikkun olam (to mend the world) embraces small gifts and large ones. Your response of mercy, generous offerings, or shared witness makes a difference. In no way is God’s future dependent on our offerings, but the new creation is open to all gifts of our hands and hearts. We are part of God’s creative scheme when we care for something larger than ourselves.” 

How do you see yourself as a participant in “tikkun olam?”

What opportunities are before us as individuals and as a congregation to “repair that which is broken” in our communities and beyond?

3.  “From a biblical perspective, the kingdom of God gives special attention to the poor. The term poor as used in the Scriptures does not necessarily indicate economic deprivation.”

“God is active in behalf of the well being of the world, especially those whose well-being is most tenuous. The God–neighbor relationship is elemental to mission.”

Who are the poor among us today?  What opportunities is God offering us to witness to and serve the poor?

4.  “Next, we will consider what happens when we touch different parts and disagree about the nature of mission. Which part of the elephant best represents the elephant? In our society, we are increasingly clustering into like-minded groups.

The big tent where people could openly express diverse views is giving way to small groups of like-mindedness. People are herded into the cramped space of special interests or value issues or partisan positions. Then, too often, we handle our disagreements aggressively, even viciously.”  “To their misfortune, churches are imitating the wider society and resorting to the ideologue’s frame of reference – either or, this or that, and black or white - which is in reality an emotional reaction.”  Steinke illustrates this with the case study involving Pastor Rex and Valley Church…a sad, but realistic, example.  “Situations like this give the church a magnificent opportunity to disagree profoundly over matters without turning away from one another or turning against one another.”

Why are such scenarios becoming increasingly more prevalent?

How can we address such conflict when it arises?

5.  “We fail to be the agents of God’s mission because we do not know how to answer the blunt question: What more are you doing than others? What we forget is that a congregation’s public face is part of the mission. What do people see when we are at odds? When we are loaded with anxiety? Outside the community of faith, people don’t have a whole lot of interest in our mission statements, only our mission practices. We will from time to time touch the elephant in different places. Indeed, we can fight it out as we would in any other place. Perhaps a more mature response would be, ‘I don’t agree, but the mission takes precedence over my self-interests.’”

Let’s zero in on Steinke’s initial question: “What more are you doing than others?”

How does this question both intimidate and motivate us to be agents of God’s mission?