You never are together [simply] to be together, you’re together because you have something you want to do, work that [needs to be done]. — Stanley Hauerwas In my prior post, I shared Robert Lupton’s challenge to the church to move away from charity that breeds dependency and toward...

Robert Lupton’s book, “Toxic Charity”, issues us all with a strong challenge – to move away from “an entrenched giveaway mentality” that destroys human dignity and damages communities in the long run. For this mentality to shift we have to “restructure our established one-way...

This week, we will launch our first suburban “Dream Team” in Chesterfield County.  A Dream Team is a small group of individuals with a shared passion around a shared mission.  In this case the mission is to help strengthen families in Hillside Court. We have been operating mission...

I love people who are bold enough to tell the truth especially when the truth will mean rocking the boat.  Robert Lupton is a bold truth teller in his book “Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help (And How to Reverse It.”  Below are just a few excerpts from...

Yes, my 13-year-old daughter has political aspirations.  She is a total drama queen, highly photogenic and that red hair is sure to catch the attention of voters.  But she has more than her looks and dramatic personality.  She has a clear platform that will save lives and lead America into...

John Perkins’ book, Beyond Charity, was my first exposure to Christian community development.  It became the text we used in our Unity Works training and was the foundation for the emphasis placed on “indigenous leadership development” that is core to our ministry at Embrace Richmond....

What is “the church?”  I have been wrestling with this question for several years.  I used to think it was a “worshiping congregation.”  But, is that really a biblical definition? When we look at the Christian tradition, I would suggest that the first “churches” could be...

I got very excited when I read these words in a post titled, On Planting Churches That Do Not Cannibalize: The Luke 10 Project, by David Fitch: Let’s stop funding church plants (has anyone noticed it ain’t working?) and fund missionaries here in North America. We need to seed fresh...

These words out of Kathy Escobar’s book “Down We Go” really spoke to me: “We’ll also have to reckon with humanity’s gravitational pull toward comfort and the vast difference between “building a ministry” and “cultivating community.” Over the past several months, I have been...

This past week I spent four days in Chicago with some of the most sold out Christians I know – leaders from Communities First Association (CFA) partner organizations who traveled from across the county to Chicago.  We gathered to celebrate what God is doing in their local context and to...

There is a neon green sign that greets me in the elevator every morning that I go to my office.  It reads: “Hope is the ability to hear the music of the future; Faith is the courage to dance to it today.” No matter how many times I read it, it makes me smile.  It is a constant...

One of the greatest challenges I face in my work as the Executive Director of an Asset Based Community Development organization is explaining to the world what Embrace Richmond does in 30 seconds or less.  Today our board decided to help me tackle that challenge by coming up with a new tag...