When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett

Week 10: Review & Reflection

Review your notes, journal entries, and highlights from all chapters of When Helping Hurts.

Take this final week to look back across the whole journey — not just to consolidate what you've learned, but to ask what you will actually do with it.

Discussion Questions

8 questions

1.Which chapter or concept in When Helping Hurts was most surprising or most challenging to you? What made it land so hard?

2.The book's central argument rests on a theological claim: that poverty is rooted in broken relationships — with God, self, others, and creation — and that true poverty alleviation requires restoring those relationships. Has that framework changed the way you define poverty? How would you explain it to someone who has never read the book?

3.Reflect on the relief/rehabilitation/development distinction. Before reading this book, which of the three did your church or your personal giving most heavily emphasize? Has that changed, or do you now see it needs to change?

4.The authors consistently point to the danger of the 'god-complex' — the subtle superiority that can infect even the most well-intentioned helper. Looking honestly at your own heart, where has this attitude shown up in your life, and what spiritual disciplines or practices might address it at the root?

5.The book calls for cross-class relationships — genuine friendships with people experiencing poverty, not just programs administered to them. Is there a specific person or community you feel called to move toward in this way? What is the first concrete step?

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Closing Prayer

Full guide

Lord, we have read and discussed, and now we stand at the more difficult threshold: obedience. We ask that you would not let these ideas remain merely interesting. Convert them from concepts to convictions, from convictions to habits, and from habits into a life that looks more like the one your Son lived — moving toward the poor, eating with the excluded, and announcing good news to those who have only heard bad news for a very long time. Thank you for the ways this study has already changed our thinking. Now change our lives to match. We trust that you, who began a good work in us, will carry it to completion. Amen.

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