When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett

Week 4: Chapter 3 — Giving and Taking: Why Do You Want to Help the Poor?

Read Chapter 3 of When Helping Hurts. Key Scripture: Philippians 2:1–11; Matthew 25:31–46.

Before we can help anyone well, we need to examine our own hearts — this chapter invites an honest look at the motivations, biases, and blind spots we bring to ministry.

Discussion Questions

7 questions

1.The authors argue that our motivations for helping the poor are often mixed — a blend of genuine compassion, guilt, a need to feel good, and cultural pressure. Which of these motivations do you recognize most honestly in yourself?

2.Corbett and Fikkert draw a sharp contrast between 'asset-based' thinking (focusing on what a community or person already has) and 'needs-based' thinking (focusing on what they lack). Why does this distinction matter so much? How does needs-based thinking inadvertently reinforce the poverty mindset it claims to fight?

3.The chapter challenges the assumption that those of us who are 'helping' are the knowers and the poor are the ignorant — that we have answers they lack. Where does this assumption come from, and what damage does it do when it goes unexamined?

a.Think of a time you entered a ministry context already knowing what the community needed. What did you miss by not listening first?

b.What practices would help you enter a new serving relationship with genuine curiosity rather than pre-packaged solutions?

4.The authors introduce the concept of 'poverty of community' and 'poverty of vocation' (among others) to describe the different dimensions of what it means to be poor. How do these categories expand your understanding beyond simply 'not having enough money'?

5.Philippians 2:5–8 describes Jesus as one who, though rich, 'emptied himself' and took the form of a servant. How does the incarnation model the posture we should take in poverty ministry — and how does it expose the posture we often actually take?

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Closing Prayer

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Lord Jesus, you emptied yourself of privilege and became a servant — not because you needed to feel good about helping, but out of pure, self-giving love. Expose in us every hidden motive that is really about us: the guilt we want relieved, the applause we want received, the image we want maintained. Strip us of our paternalism. Teach us to see assets where we have only seen needs, to listen where we have only lectured, to learn where we have only taught. Make us more like you — servants who give not to take something back, but simply because love overflows. Amen.

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