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...

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...

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...

What if every social services agency, the police department, the churches, non-profit agencies, and the educational institutions all started working together, not around a “cause” but instead focused on a particular “community?”  That is the question I have been asking myself this...

Through the last several posts, I have been sharing insights from “Friendship at the Margins” by Chris Heuertz and Christine Pohl.  One distinction made in the book that I found helpful was that of cause verses community.  Most efforts to address the needs of those trapped in poverty are...