When Helping Hurts

Westminster Bookstore is running a two-day special on the book When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor…and Yourself. You can pick it up for $4.98 until 5 pm on Saturday. It looks like a thought provoking read. It could be a good book for a discussion group.

Here’s a blurb:

“I confess to becoming irritated when I read something—such as When Helping Hurts—that makes me reconsider my methods and ministry, but am usually thankful when it helps me be more effective in serving the Lord. The authors struggle with an ambivalence that arises from the desperation of poor people around the world and the often stumbling efforts of those of us who try to help them. Poor people need help, but what is the best way to help them, and how do we keep from hurting them? These are the issues at stake.
  This book has wonderful stories that illustrate the dilemma faced by those who would do good. It may be a bitter pill to swallow that, having invested in a worthy cause, you hear that the results have caused damage to the very people you meant to bless. Please see this book as an encouragement to do things right and not as a condemnation of anyone’s sincere motive to help the needy.
  Though the authors are men of education, knowledge, and experience, they confess their own struggles in the application of these principles. As someone who has once been poor, and has worked all of his years in ministry to help the poor, I encourage you to read and ponder the principles in When Helping Hurts”
 
– Randy Nabors, Pastor of New City Fellowship, TN (PCA)