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What is the relationship between evangelical Christianity and democracy in America? In Good News for Common Goods, sociologist Wes Markofski explores how multicultural evangelicals across the United States are addressing race, poverty, inequality, politics, and religious and cultural difference in America's increasingly plural and polarized public arena. Based on extensive original research on multicultural evangelicals active in faith-based community organizing, community development, political advocacy, and public service organizations across the country-including over 90 in-depth interviews with racially diverse evangelical and non-evangelical activists, community leaders, and neighborhoo...
Among the various lines drawn between people in the church--male and female, young and old, black and white, rich and poor, Republican and Democrat--there is the line between the urban and the suburban. The stereotypes of the edgy, socially active, multicultural urban Christian and the middle-class, comfortable, upwardly mobile suburban Christian mix fact and fiction. Linking Arms, Linking Lives looks beyond stereotypes and makes a compelling case for partnership that crosses urban and suburban for effective ministry among the poor. Drawing from a growing network of development practitioners, pastors, and theologians, this book focuses on the experiences of partnership between urban and suburban entities to provide both theological foundations and practical guidelines for those who desire to partner effectively. All who want to find viable ways to help the poor will welcome this thoughtful and hope-filled book. Includes a Foreword by Noel Castellanos.
Soong-Chan Rah calls the North American church to escape its Western cultural captivity and to embody a next evangelicalism that is diverse and multiethnic. This prophetic report casts a vision for a dynamic evangelicalism that fully embodies the cultural realities of the twenty-first century.
The way we as Christians attempt to restore communities can be either harmful or helpful. The purpose of this book on Empowerment is to move us toward more effective involvement and empowerment with the poor. Leaders will learn to see our under-resourced communities and their residents through a new set of eyeglasses; focusing more on developing people's skills and capacities, rather than simply helping the poor live better lives. Empowerment is one of Eight Key Components of Christian Community Development, a Biblical approach to restoring under-resourced communities.
Contents Letter from Editors SECTION I: INDIGENOUS LEADERSHIP AND THE SCRIPTURES Cultivating Oaks of Righteousness: Restoration and Mission in Isaiah 61 Daniel R. Carroll Now is the Time: Reflections on Isaiah 61:1-4 Marshall Hatch Jesus's Model for Us in Luke 4:15-30 and Luke's Gospel Craig Keener Isaiah, Luke, and Jesus on the Corner Patty Prasada-Rao SECTION II: CROSS-CULTURAL LEADERSHIP Rethinking Incarnational Ministry Soong-Chan Rah On Preparing Leadership for a Rapidly Changing Inter-Cultural Urban World Juan Francisco Martinez Cultivating Autochthonous Leadership: Why Ministry in Under-Resourced Communities Should be Led from Within Vince Bantu SECTION III: HISTORICAL, SOCIOLOGICAL A...
With more than 450,000 copies in print, When Helping Hurts is a paradigm-forming contemporary classic on the subject of poverty alleviation. Poverty is much more than simply a lack of material resources, and it takes much more than donations and handouts to solve it. When Helping Hurts shows how some alleviation efforts, failing to consider the complexities of poverty, have actually (and unintentionally) done more harm than good. But it looks ahead. It encourages us to see the dignity in everyone, to empower the materially poor, and to know that we are all uniquely needy—and that God in the gospel is reconciling all things to himself. Focusing on both North American and Majority World contexts, When Helping Hurts provides proven strategies for effective poverty alleviation, catalyzing the idea that sustainable change comes not from the outside in, but from the inside out.
What is the church really for? Some people are members of the church because it’s part of their family tradition or their culture or their identity. Others have left the church because that’s all it is in fact. Is it the best way to salvation or a way of coming closer to God? In any case, the church is not just for us or the benefits we get out of it. Very few of us would say that this is what the church is really for. There is surely something more here, something more generous, life-giving, outgoing, and gracious than what we personally get out of it. This book is about the church’s outreach beyond itself—its purpose beyond any benefits for those already its members. This book is not about a church looking inwards and worrying about itself, but about a church looking outwards. The local Christian community that we belong to is part of that much bigger, much more exhilarating project of the evolving realm of God.