When Helping Hurts

Review by Brynna Hughes:

I have recently read the book “When Helping Hurts” by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert.  “When Helping Hurts” is all about how to alleviate poverty without hurting yourself or others.  Simply giving food to homeless people or giving the poor money will not alleviate poverty, often times the people will end up worse than how they began.  Most Americans believe that by giving material things to those in poverty they can solve their problems, but Steve and Brian disagree.  They believe that by giving the people things, we can do more harm than good.  They suggest lack of food, money, and shelter is only the surface of the real problem.  The real problem lies behind all of that in how the community is run, and their relationship with others.  The real way to alleviate poverty is to help the people rather than give them everything, work alongside them and establish a relationship with them; do the work with them rather than for them. This book truly challenged me to contemplate how I do ministry and to take a step back and see the big picture of poverty.  The love that Steve and Brian have for those in poverty became very apparent as I read this book.  He uses lots of good examples that certainly help to establish his point and make it easier to understand. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has a heart for ministry and missions.  I guarantee this book will change your view on poverty as you read it, it sure did mine.