Editor’s Note: This is another installment in an interview with Gerry Charlotte Phelps (click her name to see the other articles in this series).
ReformationUCC: You have extensive experience starting effective ministries for the poor. What misconceptions about serving poor people do you believe that the average mainline churchgoer has that prevents effectiveness?
GCP: Our misconceptions about serving poor people that prevent our being effective in helping them? Let me start by saying that my book, “Up and Out: A Guide to True Compassion for the Poor” would be the place to begin. It is a condensation of what I learned about how best to help the poor. That came during 18 years of helping some 5000 poor people move up, in 2
very large homeless shelters plus a charity for non-homeless poor, all of which I started and ran, in 3 cities in 2 states, with a consistent 65-75% success rate. I posted the book online to be read for free, at www.gerrycharlottephelps.com (chapters listed in column on left.)
The most common misconceptions about the poor are about: why they are poor, what are the best ways to help them move up, and what would help society produce fewer poor people.
There are two basic ways to serve those who are already poor: The Hand-Out and the Hand-Up.
The hand-out is easier for us, worse for them. Yet it is what the poor prefer, and what they will try to push you to do. It is what we usually prefer too. It is easy, quick, and gets rid of them. It also brings that wonderful feeling we get when we help the poor, for the lowest cost to us. But the hand-out could actually help kill them, by enabling their addictions. (Most of the old homeless are no longer homeless. Those few left are the hard-core, almost all addicts; plus the few women they can pimp to stand on a street corner and beg.)
Then how should we help them? Try my chapter 25, “Guidelines for Giving”
Giving the poor a “hand-up” is so much better! And that can be much, much better done in a good program, which is the best way you and your churches can help them. Chapter 25 introduces that idea too. Most churches are small, but they can often collaborate with other churches to have a unified program to help the poor.
How to get some churches together to do that? See my Chapter 27, “Churches At Work With the Poor“
What should such church programs look like? See my Chapter 24, “What a Good
Program Looks Like,”
It may be a good idea, in order to limit liability exposure for the churches supporting such a unified program, to make it into a free-standing non-profit. How would you go about that? See my Chapter 28, “Good
Faith-Based Charities,” and my Chapter 29, “Starting Up a Charity”.
What are the poor like? See Chapters 3 - 6. How did they get that way? See Chapters 7- 11. What could we do to change that? See Chapters 12-13. What do the poor need most? See Chapters 14-17. What do volunteers need to know most? See Chapters 18-23.
“Up and Out” is the best beginning I can offer, to learn what you need most to know, in order to be truly compassionate toward the poor. And at least for the present, it can be read for free.
