My personal vision for World Impact is to impact 100 million people in urban poverty with the gospel through empowering urban leaders. I don’t use this number for shock value. I believe it’s achievable through the power of the Holy Spirit.
As the body of Christ, we have a problem. I read an article recently on research which showed Christians are twice as likely to blame a person’s poverty on lack of effort. People who believe this don’t understand the numerous reasons the Bible provides for why people end up poor. In his book Toxic Charity, Bob Lupton states when ministering to the poor most people are trying to solve problems they don’t understand for people they don’t even know. This virtuous but awkward approach happens often in foreign missions.
For instance, the African continent is littered with “white elephants”—a slang term Africans use to describe good works that were started with good intentions by Westerners who never planned to empower the locals. The result is problems never get solved in a sustainable way. We see this same dilemma in urban neighborhoods.
Instead of blaming the poor for his or her condition, we believe the solution is empowerment. If you drop a large rock into a still pond what happens? A splash that creates ripples which vibrate across the surface in a series of circles. Drop multiple rocks in a pond and countless ripples smash into each other producing little waves moving the whole surface. Empowerment is the rock that creates the ripple effect. Christ rippled on his disciples, they rippled on the new believers in Jerusalem, who in turn rippled on the whole world as they were forced out of town by persecution. It was one ripple at a time that changed the course of civilization forever.
At World Impact, we have one focus of empowering urban leaders. Think of it as the plate our seven initiatives sit on. We invest in highly-capable but under-resourced leaders, trusting in their creativity to lead relevant ministry. We’ve found these leaders will achieve ministry success outsiders couldn’t dream of. And the ministries are sustainable since they are community-based efforts.
The ripples we desire is transformed lives within communities of poverty. Everything we do is to empower the urban poor to advance God’s Kingdom through the local church. Check out our August Bulletin to learn how God is using our one-focus, seven-initiative strategy for Kingdom expansion.