Welcome to the final episode! Not only of our four part “what to do about it” series, but also (for now!) to the podcast itself. Today, we bring the last 23 episodes together to talk about setting a Rule of Life in the context of possessions, time, and living a lifestyle of justice and righteousness. I encourage you to sit with Jesus, pick a problem, and run to the pain - putting practical and real-life action to our Biblical mandate to care for the poor. In all areas, our aim is the same: to not just have “a heart for the poor” but to get our hands (and lives) dirty in the process of building relationships with people, learning from them, and being a very real and tangible part of global good. We have one shot at living out our limited lives on earth to the best of our ability, in obedience to God, and for the advancement of His Kingdom. And so, let us give away our money, yes, but also our lives in the pursuit of biblical justice and the glory of God. Let us frame and live our lives with great purpose and intention.The solution to poverty is not simple, because human beings are not simple. We are whole, multi-faceted, and complicated beings, which means that our response to poverty must be the same. We simply cannot throw our riches at the poor and call it a job-well-done, and neither can we ignore the poor as an excuse to avoid dependency. Neither of these options work, and it’s not what we were designed for. Instead, we were and we are designed for lifestyles of justice, and to be a generous, sacrificial people as we follow and obey our holy King. Thank you so much for being with me on this journey! Thank you for listening, caring, sharing, subscribing and supporting me. It has truly been an honor, a privilege and a pleasure. Thanks for being along for the ride!

What to do about it part three! This one is all about setting up a Rule of Life in regards to our finances. We talk about asking and answering the following questions as a means to put action to our faith, and align our lives to both the heart and the commands of God when it comes to financial giving: Step one: Take an audit. ·    What are your assets, debts, and earnings?·    How much have you made in your lifetime?·    What do you spend your money on? Daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly?·    How much money (if any) do you currently give away? To whom?2. Step two: Set a rule.·    What financial practices and philosophies make up your current rule of life?·    What kind of person are you becoming because of them?·    What financial and giving practices would you like to add, cut out, or change? 3. Step three: Test it.4. Step four: Refine, and commit.

Today’s podcast is part two of our “what to do about it” series, and this  episode is all about setting what is called a Rule of Life. A Rule of Life is an intentional set of practices that are used to guard our habits and guide our lives;  structure upon which our greatest desires are brought into alignment with the practices and habits of our everyday existence. In the episode today I reference John Mark Comer and his fantastic resources on the topic which can be found below:The Ruthless Elimination of HurryNote: The Rule of Life Workbook and sermon have been removed from the Bridgetown website, so unfortunately I can no longer link them here for you.I also reference the four-part Rule of Life process which is as follows:Step 1: Take an audit.What practices and habits make up my current rule of life when it comes to (this topic)? What do I do hourly, daily, weekly, monthly and annually? And then, What kind of person am I becoming because of them? Step 2: Set a RuleWhat practices and habits would I like to add, cut out, or change from (this topic)? What kind of person do I desire to become because of themStep 3: Test it for one month and see how it feels.Step 4: Refine and commit.

We are on the podcast home stretch! This episode is part one of four “what to do about it” episodes. This one is all about where we have come so far over the past 20 episodes (a long way!), and what I believe is the foundational ingredient to eradicating global poverty and being a part of positive, practical change, which (spoiler alert) is: getting upset and raising our expectations. We all need to find a way to move forward from simply having a heart for the poor, and move instead into living a lifestyle of redemptive justice. This episode starts the process of unpacking what that can look like practically.

Today’s episode is the second half of the two-part series on materialism and minimalism. Minimalism is the intentional choice to live with less. It is a set of deliberate life choices designed to to simplify our lives in order to magnify what really matters; including (but not limited to) the Kingdom of God, service, and relationships with others.We cover some practical tools for pairing down our possessions, and I recommend five resources to further assist on the journey to living an intentionally simplified life:The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark ComerMoney, Possessions and Eternity by Randy AlcornMinimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things  Your Money or Your Life:9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence by Vicki Robin Soulful Simplicity: How Living with Less Can Lead to So Much More by Courtney Carver.

Today’s episode launches a two part series on materialism and minimalism. Materialism is the belief and supporting actions that money, possessions, and comfort are the most important matter to obtain in life. It is a set of lifestyle and worldview practices that is so deeply entrenched within our current culture; a culture that depends and feeds upon our perpetual dissatisfaction and discontentment.  Our current levels of material consumption are not only unprecedented in all of human history, but they are also unsustainable and un-Biblical. Our new level of “normal” is doing great damage to both our planet, and our souls. Randy Alcorn puts it well like this: “To set our heart on earthly riches not only deprives God of glory, others of help, and ourselves of reward, it also destines us to perpetual insecurity. Materialism has no upside.”

Today’s episode is all about the (horrible and awful) global fashion, textile, and clothing industry. Here are some highlights (lowlights?):1 in 6 people around the world currently work in some part of the fashion industry, making it the largest labor force on earth. It is a $3 trillion annual industry that currently produces over 80 billion new pieces of clothing per year, which far exceeds either necessity or demand. This is a production increase of 400% in the last two decades. As late as the 1960s, 95% of clothing purchased in the United States were made within the country. Now, this number is just 3%, with the other 97% being outsourced to majority nations with low-wage economies. 80% of the people who work in the fashion industry are women.Fewer than 2% of textile workers are paid a livable wage. The average American throws away 82 pounds of textile waste each year, which creates 11 million tons of waste from the United States alone. 85% of this waste will never be recycled or reused.The fashion industry is also the second most polluting industry on earth, contributing 10% of  total global greenhouse emissions, and producing 20% of the world's wastewater.There is no upside to our current system of clothing and textile production, and we do not have to buy into it. Instead, we can make intentional lifestyle choices that have a direct and positive impact on the world’s poorest people. It’s a simple way to do some true global good, which is what this podcast - and this episode - is all about.Today's Resource Room Highlight: The True Cost

Today’s episode is all about the earth! And specifically the fact that 82%  percent of the costs associated with climate change are burdened on the poor, and often by the countries who contribute the least to global emissions. This is obviously deeply unfair, as 50% of global emissions are created by the wealthiest 7% percent of the world’s population. And thus, the poor majority are paying the cost of the wealthy minority’s unsustainable lifestyle habits.On this episode we talk about simple daily solutions, and I highlight 2040 as my resource room of the week.

Today’s episode is all about the global inequality of food. We live in a world of food crisis; with starvation and obesity epidemics co-existing side-by-side, and food (on mass) going to waste in the midst of it. On the podcast today, we talk about what we can do to close this gap both locally and globally, to be a part of daily and Biblical justice and righteousness, and to provide all people with their basic human right to food.

This week’s episode is all about health and education - and the vast, deep and terrible inequalities that exist within both arenas globally.Both healthcare and education are huge, important, and life-changing things that we who live within the minority world too often take for granted. Suggested resources for continued education:BOOKSCorbett, S., & Fikkert, B. (2009, June 24). When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty without Hurting the Poor and Yourself. Chicago, Illinois: Moody PublishersTodd, S. C. (2014) Hope Rising. Nashville, Tennessee: Nelson Books Alcorn, R. (2003) Money, Possessions and Eternity. Carol Stream, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers Lupton, R. D. (2011, October 11). Toxic charity: How churches and charities hurt those they help (and how to reverse it). New York, New York: Harper OneFikkert, B., & Kapic, K. (2019, March 5) Becoming Whole: Why the Opposite of Poverty Isn't the American Dream. Chicago, Illinois: Moody Publishers Keller, T. (2012, August 7). Generous Justice How God's Grace Makes Us Just. London, England. Penguin Books.Comer, J.M.,  (2019) The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. Colorado Springs, Colorado: WaterBrook DOCUMENTARIESMiller, M.M. & Fitzgerald J.F. Jr. (Producers). (2014). Poverty Inc. Available from https://www.povertyinc.org/

Today’s episode is all about short-term mission trips! The $2 billion annual industry that takes 2+ million Americans on national and international trips each year. Why do we do this, and what (if any) are the benefits short and long-term?At their best, short-term trips are powerful and transformative experiences both for those who are going, and for those who are receiving the team. However, at their worst they can be a tremendous waste of time and resources, and conduits for harm and exploitation. This episode details the differences between terrible and fantastic trips, concluding with nine check-list questions that every short-term leader and team member should work through before planning on going to serve:Do they have a respectful presence in the community?  Does your work continue when you leave?Are you invited? Are you actually helping?Who gets to decide the need and the response? Are you stuck in emergency principles?Are you creating dependency issues? Are you (or your team) going for the right reasons?Are all levels of leadership employing best practice?

Part three and final of our mini-series on the problem! Namely why we can hurt people when our intention is to help them. This week, we talk about the problem with emergency principals, and the difference between relief, rehabilitation, and development. By seeing poverty through a strictly material lens, and giving others ongoing emergency relief, not only do we assert ourselves as in every way superior, but we also undermine the God-given abilities of those receiving our aid. We become active participants of instilling cycles of hopelessness and shame within their lives, we undermine and destroy local business opportunities and market systems, and we create cycles of generational dependence. And this does very little if anything to bring about positive and sustainable change.And thus, in order to effectively assist the global poor, we simply must move on from emergency principles. This is both much more difficult, and tremendously more effective - requiring not only our finances, but our lives, and our time.  This episode concludes with a Tuesday tip that encourages asking the following questions: Do I know, and can I measure the long term impact of my assistance? Am I involved in any method of helping that ultimately hurts the poor?Am I doing for anybody what they could do for themselves?Am I using emergency relief principles in non-emergency situations?Are the recipients of my assistance an active part of the process?

Today’s episode is part two of our three part mini-series on the problem, and this one is all about the foundational roots - which find themselves in paternalism and on the back of WWII.We talk about Poverty Inc, the Haitian rice market, TOMS shoes, and aid as a new form of colonialism, and conclude that with more aid comes less independence, which in turn creates dependency issues that fuels the $153 billion per year global aid and development industry. At the end of the day, we cannot reduce the poor to objects of philanthropic fulfillment for ourselves. Our wealth, or most often simply where we were born, has not qualified us to decide what is best for those who have less than we do.

Today’s episode introduces a whole new mini-series all about the problem! The problem being that often when we try to help the poor, we cause them harm. On this episode, I introduce the series with a case-study on the global orphanage industry, and conclude that we, as Christians, as the church, and as individuals need to look at the systems of help within our world, analyze them, and act in accordance to both the mandate of scripture and the reality of the world in which we live. We all need to be okay asking and answering some really tough questions. Questions like:·  Is our helping hurting people?·  Is the system of help and aid that we are a part of effective in the long-term?·  Who is truly benefiting from the assistance that we are giving?·  Are we meeting true needs or felt needs, and what is the difference?·  What are the unintended consequences of our assistance?·  Who benefits the most from our methods?·  How could our money and resources be better spent?·  And, are we improving or disabling this community’s ability to steward their own lives and resources?It is only when we answer these questions honestly and critically that we will begin to discover effective and sustainable solutions to the global poverty problem.

Today’s episode is all about HOPE! The eternal and never-ending forever kind of hope we have in Jesus, and the real-life-tangible hope we have in the world of global poverty alleviation. Ending extreme global poverty within our lifetime is a very real possibility, as evidenced by the abundance of past success. The past thirty-ish years have seen extreme poverty cut in half! We do not have to live in a world where people do not have their basic needs met, and on this episode I invite you not only into an abundant life in Jesus, but also into a hurting and broken world. Not only into personal, but also global restoration and redemption. There is an abundance of hope to be had!

Today’s episode is all about WATER!! A tangible dive (I hate myself for saying that) into the state of the water world, and what it looks like for the poor.We are living in a world where one third of the world’s population lacks access to safe water, and in today's episode we talk about why, and what we can do about that.

Let’s talk about justice and righteousness! Or as they saw in Hebrew, mishpat and tzadeqah.These two power-couple words are paired together many, many times within the Bible, and for good reason.  The lives of Jesus followers are to be marked not simply by the absence of sin, but by the presence of justice and righteousness: acts of doing that actively care for the vulnerable, the sick, the poor, and the immigrant.

Welcome to the misconception! Our second ever bonus episode, and this one all about the so-very-often misunderstood verse where Jesus says “you will always have the poor with you.”Did Jesus mean this as an eternal promise for all people, for all time? Or, is it better understood within its cultural context?We talk about Alaskan old people, alabaster perfume, mid-sentence context shifting, misrepresenting the heart of the Lord, and having Jesus with us always.

Part four and final of our Bible series, this episode is all about the tithe and why Christians do not give.We take a look at both sides of the to-tithe-or-not-to-tithe argument by going back to the beginning and working our way through the word.  As it turns out, the tithe is not so much about straining gnats and swallowing camels (as I always say), but instead it comes down to the bigger and more beautiful picture of God’s heart for justice, mercy, and faithfulness.

Part three of our four part Bible series, and this one is all about the controversial Bible-y topics of works and rewards. We start off in 1878 with a group of Armenian monks, and soak up the goodness of what it means to be a new people with something divine amongst the midst of us. Part of following Jesus is a way of being; one which has always been characterized by moral character, human dignity, and care for the poor.  Our works matter, and have eternal consequences - and for both the believer, and the unbeliever, our compensation is deferred. For the believer, this is good news! For we can be assured that the giving away of our lives is not without its point or purpose, and in fact will eventuate in our ultimate and eternal good.