A Few Good Books

Every so often, I like to give some book reviews and recommendations.  A couple of the past must-reads have been When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor . . . and Yourself, by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert, and Spiritual Leadership, by Oswald Sanders.  Well, over the past few weeks, I've been able to read a few good books in addition to the Bible (I get to start every day by reading wisdom from that GREAT book).  And I'm ready to share a few more great reads with you . . .

(1) Toxic Charity: How the Church Hurts Those They Help and How to Reverse It, by Robert D. Lupton -- In this book, Lupton, an urban developer in Atlanta, shares the good, bad, and ugly from his experiences working with the poor and oppressed in Atlanta, and projects the principles onto how to be agents of development, rather than simple relief, around the world.  The book dives into how to do micro financing, missions teams, inner-city projects, and many other things well, in a way that is productive rather than destructive.  If you work with the poor in any capacity, you will learn a ton from this book and will definitely not be sorry that you read it.  At Providence, we are using much of this book to prepare our La Providencia community and summer teams for a very productive summer in Honduras.

Here are a few tidbits from Toxic Charity to whet your appetite (there is a whole lot more where these came from):

• "If we want to see substantial change in a troubled neighborhood, we must concentrate energies and resources there over time."
• "In for-profit corporations on the cutting edge of their fields, research and development (R&D) is key.  Yet seldom do nonprofits spend money on R&D, with universities and medical research being notable exceptions. Innovation and risk taking are at least as important to the world of compassion as to the world of business.  Organizations that test new methods and document their trial-and-error findings are likely to be the ones that shape the best practices of the future." (this is why we at Providence focus on R&D to the extent we do)
• "To do for others what they have the capacity to do for themselves is to disempower them."
• "Anyone who has served among the poor for any length of time will recognize the following progression: give once and you elicit appreciation; give twice and you create anticipation; give three times and you create expectation; give four times and it becomes entitlement; give five times and you establish dependency."
• "Don't presume that because an area is poor and run down it is devoid of leadership and resources."
• "Getting to know community leaders first requires us to listen and respect indigenous leadership and learn the dreams of the people.  And be willing to have our own ideas transformed.  Both the community and its leaders may have different goals from those that volunteers might bring."

(2) The Day Metallica Came to Church: Searching for the Everywhere God in Everything, by John van Sloten.  This is a very different book from Toxic Charity, but just as convicting.  It focuses on how God is working in and through everything in the world - often not in the ways that we would think or see at first blush.  From lyrics of Metallica songs, to Van Gogh's paintings, to movies such as Crash, The Dark Knight, and No Country for Old Men, to several other unexpected examples, van Sloten gracefully provides insightful examination of how we can see God in these things, and challenges us to do the same with everything that we come into contact with in this world.  And he ends the book with the verse that tells us why we should believe that God is working through EVERYTHING in society: "For from him and through him and to him are all things.  To him be the glory forever!  Amen."

(3) Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett - Next on the list is a fun one that is for the serious novel reader, as the 960 or so pages requires quite an investment of time.  This is a great novel based in twelfth century England.  I usually do not read historical novels, but this one came highly recommended and gripped me from the start.  It follows Tom the builder and his quest to build a great cathedral, struggles for power in the church and in the kingdom, and has some great interactions between the characters and within the psyches of the characters that provide us with insights into our own lives and raise questions as to how we'd respond in similar situations.  If you like novels with solid character development, intrigue, and suspense, this is a worthwhile investment.

Several other books that are very good and definitely worth your time are: (a) Fatherless Generation, by John Sowers, which delves into the issues of fatherlessness in our world; (b) The Beckham Experiment, by Grant Wahl, which chronicles the highs and lows of the experiment involving David Beckham's move to the MLS in which we are all participating (whether we know it or not); and (c) Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer, in which Krakauer tells the story of an ill-fated climb to the summit of Everest and examines different aspects of the human psyche in the process.

You won't be wasting your time if you read any of these books.  To the contrary, they will all likely teach you many things about yourself and our world.