Churches and individual Christians typically have faulty assumptions about the causes of poverty, resulting in strategies that do considerable harm to poor people as well as to themselves. When Helping Hurts is a book by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert of the Chalmers Center for Economic Development that directly addresses these assumptions.
The book provides foundational concepts and clear principles for helping the poor without hurting them. It then presents proven interventions and relevant applications for churches to use when ministering to the poor both at home and abroad, including advice about short-term missions programs. Many of the principles in the book are from the Chalmers Center's highly regarded "Foundations and Principles of Holistic Ministry" distance learning course.
The "When Helping Hurts" webinars are one-hour web-based training seminars about how to effectively minister to the poor. They review and expand upon the topics presented in the "When Helping Hurts" book. Each webinar session covers one or more chapters of the book and were facilitated by the authors. Download and listen to these previously recorded webinars here:
http://chalmers.org/when-helping-hurts/
