Abigail Genzink

Harry & Joe,

Greg works as the Project Manager for the Salaam Project, an initiative committed to learning how to better love Muslims in the name of Christ. This project takes God's call to love our neighbor very seriously--regardless of whether our neighbor shares our faith. Further, Jesus did not reserve his love only for the "good" people, in fact he often sought out the most wretched of sinners. We should absolutely be outraged and devastated about the violence in Syria, Iraq, and Nigeria taken credit for by Muslims, but that does not mean we should refrain from loving our Muslim neighbors. This may make them all the more difficult to love, but I also believe this then makes the Salaam Project all the more important.   

As Christians we ultimately desire that our Muslim neighbors will find the peace, joy, and hope that we have in Jesus, but we also take Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 13 to heart, "the greatest of these is love" and understand that as Christians we must "love as he first loved us" (1 John 4:19).

Greg sheds light on parts of Islam that can help us to better understand our Muslim neighbors, especially when it is often difficult to comprehend their actions. However, he also points out in his closing that Christians have the Holy Spirit to guide us, which Islam lacks. How grateful we can be for a God who lives in our hearts and convicts us!   

Thanks so much for that excellent and important question, Fronse! 

Susan Van Lopik is a staff person at World Renew and has multiple years of experience in community development overseas. Susan says,

"Not all communities do need or even want “outsiders”.  It is presumptive of international or local community development practitioners to assume that we can enter any and every community.

Personally I think of the community, its members and structures, to be the real change agents, not outsiders. So I agree with what I think you are suggesting here that the leadership comes from the community.

I do think outsiders can play a role within the community to grow their own vision, to strengthen their organizing, and support their mobilizing which are important ways to support community leadership.

In World Renew’s practice, we work with skilled local partners who are known by the community and who also know the community.

World Renew enters communities by invitation. Often that invitation comes from community leadership through a local partner that is already working in the community, and/or a local church in the community. Working through invitation by the community provides a certain amount of legitimacy for those coming from the outside. That legitimacy can only be maintained as long as the community is fully respected."

You bring up some interesting points here, Norman, and I agree with you in a lot of ways. It's so important that our fear of doing something wrong doesn't paralyze us to do something at all. As sinful humans, everything we do is tainted by sin, and regardless of how many books we read, how much we plan, how prepared we are to do community development, our efforts will never be perfect. How awesome is it that even in our fallen state God still is working in our efforts! Still, I believe we need to be extremely careful before we "help" to ensure that we aren't hurting. I also believe that this often is a selfish response--we feel the need to do something to make ourselves feel better and our efforts are more for our own consciences than they are for the person who needs to be helped.  

I also don't think we can set out and try a bunch of things on our own, hoping that trial and error gets us to a good place, meanwhile doing a ton of harm (not that I think this is what you're suggesting, but I think it's often what we do when we "help" without really realizing it). We should come together as Christians and rejoice that God has given us all different gifts, some are gifted in strategy and research, as I believe Corbett and Fikkert are, and take their advice.

I surely hope that When Helping Hurts does not hurt helping, but I also think it could curb a lot of negative efforts and that is a good thing. We hope and pray that we do not have to learn from our mistakes at the expense of others, and even though we know as sinners we will never do things perfectly, I think the ideas laid out in When Helping Hurts are good steps towards renewal.

Thank you so much for sharing your insight. These are important things to remember, especially in light of recent news. 

Thanks for this important post, Jack! The Office of Social Justice has also created a new group study called Live Justly, created in partnership with Micah Challenge U.S., that will be available around September. This could also be a great resource for a deacons' Bible study or another small group!

Plus, you can receive the Live Justly curriculum for free by signing up for World Renew's Deacon's Newsletter (information regarding signing up will be going out soon).