Archives by: Gary Hoag

“How many loaves do you have?” he asked. “Go and see.” When they found out, they said, “Five—and two fish.” Mark 6:38

“Needs-based development focuses on what is lacking in the life of a community or a person. The assumption in this approach is that the solutions to poverty are dependent upon outside human and financial resources…When the church or ministry stops the flow of resources, it can leave behind individuals and communities that are more disempowered than ever before.

Asset-based approach to poverty alleviation should not be seen as denying the fact that low-income people — like all of us — have glaring needs…What’s wrong will come out soon enough; but by starting with what’s right, we can change the dynamics that have marred the self-image of the low-income people and that have created a sense of superiority in ourselves.

Once the assets have been identified, it is appropriate to then ask the poor individual or community the questions: “What needs can you identify that must be addressed? What problems do you see that must be solved? How can you use your assets to address those needs and to solve those problems?”

Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert in When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor . . . and Yourself (Chicago: Moody 2014) 120-121.

It’s important to avoid giving a handout that creates dependency, but rather to give a hand up that builds disciples. We do this by avoiding a needs-based approach which relies on outside resources.

In the face of real need (the feeding of the five thousand), notice in today’s Scripture that Jesus urged the disciples not to assess the need but to see what they had. When they did this, their situation changed.

When we take an asset-based approach, which is using what we have, we encourage people to use what they have faithfully as well. In so doing, over time, we see people in a setting empowered to bring about real change.

Want to learn more about this important topic related to generosity, read my CLA blog that released yesterday: Turn Dependency into Discipleship.

Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise — the fruit of lips that openly profess His name. And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased. Hebrews 13:15-16

“The act of being thankful focuses our eyes on what we do have, not what we don’t have. When we’re thankful, we think of the friends and family we do have, not the ones we don’t have. When we’re thankful, we think of the job and opportunities we do have, not the ones we don’t have. When we’re thankful, we think of the house, vehicle, and possessions we do have, not the ones we don’t have. When we’re thankful, we think of the gifts, skills, and passions we do have, not the ones we don’t have.

It’s so easy to set our minds on all the things we don’t have, which causes us to lose perspective of what we do have. Whenever we walk with a posture of gratitude, we can think less about what we don’t have, and more about what we do have. Doing so breeds humility and contentment. I’m grateful for what I have, every bit of it. But it’s those selfish days or moments when I think about what I don’t have that can sour me. Today, I choose gratitude. Tomorrow, I hope to choose gratitude as well. Each day we have a choice. Let’s choose gratitude every day.”

Travis Shelton in “The Daily Meaning” post on 24 November 2022.

This is a great blog. I subscribe as Travis is a trusted friend who inspires me to think Christianly. Check it out here.

Why do you think the author of Hebrews urges readers to “continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise?” After reading this post from Travis I think I understand the answer.

Daily we need to choose gratitude. It helps us keep the right perspective. It breeds “humility and contentment” and reminds us that we are blessed to be a blessing.

No wonder the author of Hebrews connects this attitude of praise and gratitude with not forgetting to do good. When we fail to choose gratitude, our generosity tanks.

Alternatively, when we live contented and grateful lives, our generosity flourishes. With Travis, let’s choose gratitude today, tomorrow, the next day, and the next day…

And if you want to hear more from Travis and me, download COMMUNITY a 30-day devotional we wrote together and released a few months ago. Enjoy and share it freely.

In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ” Acts 20:35

“It is easy to give money naively, never understanding that your gift made a difficult situation worse. It is also easy to decide that it is best to never give, justified by the idea that outside funding harms people and leads to dependency. The more challenging space is to remain open to the leading of the Holy Spirit and discerning regarding the character of leaders, the viability of financial processes and ministry strategies, and the impact of cultural realities and expectations, to know how to share God’s resources in God’s mission in ways that truly further His purposes and foster ever-deepening growth and spiritual maturity for everyone involved.”

Mary Lederleitner, author of Cross-Cultural Partnership: Navigating the Complexities of Money and Mission in When Money Goes on Mission: Fundraising and Giving in the 21st Century by Rob Martin (Chicago: Moody, 2019).

Lederleitner is a good friend of GTP. She shines light on a huge issue: the danger that our giving might foster dependency. And not giving is not the answer for avoiding it.

She also offers great advice for us on Giving Tuesday about following the Spirit’s leading with discernment. Firstly, let’s look at the dependency issue.

Giving money naively can actually make a bad situation worse. Handouts create unhealthy dependency. Instead, when we aim at giving a hand up, or “help the weak,” we build disciples.

Sadly, most international giving promotes dependency. Charities overseas cry for money. But when the funds are expended, have they built local capacity or just consumed them?

What should we do to avoid continuing the problem and to be part of the solution? This leads well into the second idea: follow the leading of the Spirit and exercise discernment.

Give to ministries that don’t just consume the resources but rather use them grow people, to multiply disciples. Consider using that as your measure and follow the Spirit’s leading from there.

And on this Giving Tuesday, I ask every reader to consider a gift to GTP today.

The video is called Palmful of Maize, and it’s a vision spreading across Malawi. Click here to watch the video and to make a gift. Giving to GTP is turning dependency into discipleship.

Rather than depend on outsiders, which has been the pattern in Malawi for years, your giving deploys a team to train national workers how solve local hunger problems and show God’s love through generosity.

And, it’s and drawing many to Christ. I was there in Malawi in October when we shot the video. And I heard the testimonies of pastors talking about how children were bringing new families to the church.

I saw the impact of training this one teacher (see her the header photo). Watch her passion come to life in the video. See for yourself. Yet, this impact has reached 12 of 28 districts (or states) in Malawi.

It costs only about $5,000 to send the team to reach every church in a district or state. Imagine shaping the future of an entire districts (or states) in Malawi for that small amount.

Your support to GTP helps the weak. And, as it’s better to give than receive, please consider making a gift today. Pray and follow God’s leading about giving to GTP and other ministries.

And pray with me for about $200,000 by year end to spread this vision in the other 16 states and take it to neighboring Zambia and Zimbabwe in 2023.

Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth. Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” Matthew 19:21-24

“He who has attained to love scatters his money. But he who says that he lives for love and for money has deceived himself. He who mourns for himself has also renounced his body; and at the appropriate time he does not spare it.

Do not say that you are collecting money for the poor; with two mites the Kingdom was purchased. A hospitable man and a money-lover met one another, and the latter called the former unintelligible. He who has conquered this passion has cut out care; but he who is bound by it never attains to pure prayer.

The beginning of love of money is the pretext of almsgiving, and the end of it is hatred of the poor. So long as he is collecting he is charitable, but when the money is in hand he tightens his hold.”

John Climacus (579-649) in The Ladder of Divine Ascent, translated by Archimandrite Lazarus Moore (Harper & Brothers, 1959) Step 16 “On love of money or avarice” 3-8.

How do we press on to maturity? What is the path to attain to pure prayer?

Climacus would echo Jesus (and Paul) and say to give God what you have. Remember “with two mites the Kingdom was purchased.” Specifically give the poor a hand up rather than a hand out. Aid them as Christ has aided you.

You can do that today by supporting the Palmful of Maize vision spreading across Malawi. Click here to watch the video and to make a gift.

Giving to GTP is turning dependency into discipleship in Malawi. Rather than depend on outsiders, the generosity is solving local hunger problems and drawing many to Christ. This impact has reached 12 of 28 districts (or states) in Malawi.

Your continued support will help GTP train the teachers to spread this vision in the other 16 states and take it to neighboring Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Don’t tighten your hold. Or let money tighten it’s hold on you. Give God what you have! Include GTP in the list of ministries to which you scatter your generosity on Giving Tuesday.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. James 1:2-4

“Consider all the experience that you have had of God’s doing good to you in the want of many comforts. When God crosses you, have you never had experience of abundance of good in afflictions? It is true, when ministers only tell men that God will work good out of their afflictions, they hear them speak, and think they speak like good men, but they feel little or no good; they feel nothing but pain. But when we cannot only say to you that God has said He will work good out of your afflictions, but we can say to you, that you yourselves have found it so by experience, that God has made former afflictions to be great benefits to you, and that you would not have been without them, or without the good that came by them for a world, such experiences will exceedingly quiet the heart and bring it to contentment.”

Jeremiah Burroughs (1600-1646) in The Rare Jewel Of Christian Contentment (Preach the Word) 131.

I am thankful for the goodness and generosity that comes to us from God both in our afflictions and out of afflictions. These gifts quiet our hearts and bring our hearts to contentment.

As I rest this weekend I give thanks for “God’s doing good” to me “in the want of many comforts.” In other words, in His goodness, He does not always relieve my pain or answer because He wants me to grow in different areas.

For example, I learn patience. I grow in faith. I find joy. And all this experience forms in me perseverance so I mature and am not lacking in anything I need in my service to God. Think about it.

That’s generosity: God not giving us what we want when we want it but allowing us to suffer to quiet our hearts and bring them to maturity and contentment. Thanks God. You are so good.

For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. Matthew 16:25

“Submission a free gift to God. Every soul is called to enjoy the infinite benefits contained in this state.

Therefore do I preach abandonment, and not any particular state. Every state in which souls are placed by Your grace is the same to me. I teach a general method by which all can attain the state which You have marked out for them. I do not exact more than the will to abandon themselves to Your guidance. You will make them arrive infallibly at the state which is best for them.

It is faith that I preach; abandonment, confidence, and faith; the will to be subject to, and to be the tool of the divine action, and to believe that at every moment this action is working in every circumstance, provided that the soul has more or less good-will. This is the faith that I preach. It is not a special kind of faith, nor of charity, but a general state by which all souls can find God under the different conditions which He assumes; and can take that form which divine grace has marked out for them.

I have spoken to souls in trouble, and now I am speaking to all kinds of souls. It is the genuine instinct of my heart to care for all, to announce the saving secret far and wide, and to make myself all to all. In this happy disposition I make it a duty which I fulfill without difficulty, to weep with those who weep, to rejoice with those who rejoice, to speak foolishly with the foolish, and with the learned to make use of more learned and more scholastic terms. I wish to make all understand that although they cannot aspire to the same distinct favors, they can attain to the same love, the same abnegation, the same God and His work, and thence it follows naturally, to the highest sanctity.

Those graces which are called extraordinary and are given as privileges to certain souls, are only so called because there are so few sufficiently faithful to become worthy of receiving them. This will be made manifest at the day of judgment. Alas! it will then be seen that instead of these divine favors having been withheld by God, it has been entirely by their own fault that these souls have been deprived of them. What untold blessings they would have received through the complete submission of a steadfast goodwill.

It is the same with regard to Jesus as with the divine action. If those who have no confidence in Him, nor respect for Him, do not receive any of the favors He offers to all, they have only their own bad disposition to thank for it. It is true that all cannot aspire to the same sublime states, to the same gifts, to the same degree of perfection; yet, if faithful to grace, they corresponded to it, each according to his degree, they would all be satisfied because they would all attain that degree of grace and of perfection which would fully satisfy their desires. They would be happy according to nature, and according to grace, because nature and grace share equally in the ardent desire for this priceless advantage.”

Jean-Pierre de Caussade in Abandonment to Divine Providence (Grand Rapids: CCEL, 1751) 55.

As I rest this weekend, I find refreshment in abandonment.

We get weary when we strive thinking it is our job to sort life’s challenges. Or at least I do! Alternatively, Jean-Pierre points the way to infinite benefits and priceless advantage.

It’s the pathway Jesus marked out for us: lose your life for His sake and find it.

I appreciate the connection Jean-Pierre makes between “abandonment, confidence, and faith” for the Christian. When we choose abandonment, we experience His benefits in exchange for what our own efforts can muster.

We gain confidence and grow in faith, and we receive favors as gifts of mercy and grace in the process.

So, what’s the lesson for those who want to grow in generosity? Realize that letting go is the way to life. Submit to abandonment. Experience infinite benefits, not for selfish gain but for empowered service.

Allow God to shape you on the way of perfection and grasp untold grace on the way.

The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place. But many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things. Mark 6:30-34

“It seems to me that during Thanksgiving one of the big ambiguities has resolved itself out. The fact is, I do not want purely and simply to “be a hermit” or to lead a life purely and ideally contemplative. At the same time I want to break with all the fictions and pretenses, all the facade and latent hypocrisy of the community in which I live. Yet, I truly seek a very solitary, simple and primitive life with no special labels attached. However, there must be love in it, and not an abstract love but a real love for real people.

The conclusion then that God is calling me to a kind of missionary solitude – an isolated life in some distant, primitive, place among primitive and simple people, to whose spiritual needs I would attend. Not a missionary life pure and simple, nor a solitary life pure and simple, but a combination of both. No nonsense about asking permission to live as a hermit here–and raising all the futile questions and pretenses this would involve. It would get me into a whole network of lies for the sake of one grain of truth.”

Thomas Merton (1915-1968) in A Search for Solitude: Pursuing the Monk’s Life, edited by Lawrence S. Cunningham (New York: HarperCollins, 1996) excerpt dated 14 June 1959. IV Sunday After Pentecost.

Thanksgiving in America, hopefully is a time to step away from work and rest. Like responding to the invitation of Jesus to the disciples, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”

To get away alone is to locate solitude. But I like how Merton describes it. The goal is not simply to be a hermit and make solitude the end. The balance he finds in the middle he labels as “missionary solitude.”

While today has been marked with “materialistic shopping” let’s pursue “missionary solitude” instead. Let’s “break with all the fictions and pretenses, all the facade and latent hypocrisy” around us.

And let’s cultivate our souls in solitude so we can go love and serve people generously. This is what happened with Jesus. After their time of rest came their richest ministry. May it be so with all of us.

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people. 1 Timothy 2:1

“And we cannot possibly doubt that this division was not idly made by the Apostle. And to begin with we must investigate what is meant by supplication, by prayer, by intercession, and by thanksgiving…

Of Supplications.
“I exhort therefore first of all that supplications be made.” Supplication is an imploring or petition concerning sins, in which one who is sorry for his present or past deeds asks for pardon.

Of Prayer.
Prayers are those by which we offer or vow something to God… We pray, when we renounce this world and promise that being dead to all worldly actions and the life of this world we will serve the Lord with full purpose of heart…

Of Intercession.
In the third place stand intercessions, which we are wont to offer up for others also, while we are filled with fervour of spirit, making request either for those dear to us or for the peace of the whole world…

Of Thanksgiving.
Then in the fourth place there stand thanksgivings which the mind in ineffable transports offers up to God, either when it recalls God’s past benefits or when it contemplates His present ones, or when it looks forward to those great ones in the future which God has prepared for them that love Him.

And with this purpose too sometimes we are wont to pour forth richer prayers, while, as we gaze with pure eyes on those rewards of the saints which are laid up in store hereafter, our spirit is stimulated to offer up unspeakable thanks to God with boundless joy.”

John Cassian (c. 360-435) monk and theologian in The Conferences of John Cassian.

Consider with Cassian four kinds of prayer on this day of Thanksgiving in USA. If you read this elsewhere in the world, join in giving thanks today with intentionality.

Father in heaven, forgive us our sins, both the things we have done wrong and the good that we have left undone. Guide us in the way of righteousness. Hear our supplication in your mercy.

Regardless of what others around us do, help us live, give, serve, and love generously. Make it so by the power of your Spirit at work in us. Hear our prayer in your grace.

Heal the sick. Bind up the brokenhearted. Give hope to the war-torn. Comfort the sad. Strengthen those who minister. Bring peace to the whole earth. Hear our intercession in your love.

Remind us of your benefits in days past and of the benefits that await us in eternal glory. Help us persevere with gratitude in our hearts. Hear our thanksgiving in your goodness.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. James 1:17

“God does well in giving the grace of consolation, but man does evil in not returning everything gratefully to God. Thus, the gifts of grace cannot flow in us when we are ungrateful to the Giver, when we do not return them to the Fountainhead. Grace is always given to him who is duly grateful, and what is wont to be given the humble will be taken away from the proud.”

Thomas à Kempis in “Appreciating God’s Grace,” chapter 10 of The Imitation of Christ.

I am so excited by the reception to the GTP video Palmful of Maize, which celebrates what God is doing in a nation where the children have been taught to “give God what you have.”

It mirrors precisely what Thomas describes as “returning them to the Fountainhead.” When we give God’s gifts back to God amazing things happen. He pours out grace on the humble and grateful.

They always have enough because the Fountainhead flows abundantly. If you have not watched the video watch it, and click here to learn more and to make a gift to GTP today to help spread the vision.

What you see is the impact of the vision in 12 of 28 districts in Malawi. Now, we are mapping the strategy and praying for funds to reach the other 16 districts and to spread it to Zambia and Zimbabwe in 2023.

Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. Colossians 4:2

“Recollection begins, she says, in the deliberate and regular practice of meditation; a perfectly natural form of mental exercise, though at first a hard one. Now meditation is a half-way house between thinking and contemplating: and as a discipline, it derives its chief value from this transitional character. The real mystical life, which is the truly practical life, begins at the beginning; not with supernatural acts and ecstatic apprehensions, but with the normal faculties of the normal man. “I do not require of you,” says Teresa to her pupils in meditation, “to form great and curious considerations in your understanding: I require of you no more than to look.”

Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941) in Practical Mysticism (Project Gutenberg, 1915) 26.

I am wrapping up a bunch of GTP work today and then taking the rest of the week off to rest, to devote myself to prayer, and to be watchful and thankful. But I don’t want to just eat Thanksgiving turkey and make it a time of self-indulgence. I want this to be a time of recollection.

In short, I want to “look” or or as my wife, who is a spiritual director says, to “notice” how God is at work around me. I think this is what it means to be watchful as a basis for growing in gratitude which births greater generosity. I need to slow down and look or notice God.

If you too are taking time off this Thanksgiving week, join me in this. Devote yourself to prayer, and look or notice God in your situation and give thanks. Then, from what you have recollected, I am confident you too will go forth to live, give, serve, and love more generously.

Open the eyes of our hearts, Lord, to look, to notice, to see You. To discern how you are at work. To celebrate Your gracious generosity, Your abundant provision, Your matchless goodness. Help us by your Holy Spirit to be watchful and thankful. Amen.