It is essential to the Agape House Board of Directors that the volunteers and staff of Agape House are educated on how to help people in need. It isn’t as simple as writing a check to a family in need; it is much more than giving someone in need money; it is walking alongside them and giving them opportunities to make a change.
It is also essential to donors who support the Agape House of Prescott that they know they are supporting an organization that truly helps the families of Prescott rebuild and transform their lives.
Recommended Reading
When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor . . . and Yourself
by Steve Corbett (Author), Brian Fikkert (Author), David Platt (Foreword)
Churches and individual Christians typically have faulty assumptions about the causes of poverty, resulting in the use of strategies that do considerable harm to poor people and themselves. Don’t let this happen to you, your ministry or ministries you help fund! A must read for anyone who works with the poor or in missions, When Helping Hurts provides foundational concepts, clearly articulated general principles and relevant applications. The result is an effective and holistic ministry to the poor, not a truncated gospel.
People and Processes, Not Projects and Products… “The goal is to see people restored to being what God created them to be: people who understand that they are created in the image of God with the gifts, abilities, and capacity to make decisions and to effect change in the world around them; and people who steward their lives, communities, resources, and relationships in order to bring glory to God. These things tend to happen in highly relational, process-focused ministries more than in impersonal, product-focused ministries (77).”