Tag Archives: end poverty

Part 3 – Intro to God’s Plan

January 24, 2018UncategorizedBreaking the Broken, end poverty, ministry, Sustainable ChangeRob Kendall

If you read the last post, you know that my wife urged me to close my company and take a year off of work (a sabbatical) to figure out what God wanted to do with our family. That year ended with a Biblical model for serving the poor and our commitment to empower a group of single mothers and help them gain the skills they needed to become everything God created them to be. Now that we’re up to speed, let’s continue with this post.

Watching my grandchildren grow and their thirst for knowledge and independence reminds me of one of the first things I learned during the sabbatical. That day in April 2002 when I read Genesis, it wasn’t the first time I read the creation story. In fact, it wasn’t even the first time I had read through the book of Genesis. I had failed many times at reading through the Bible, although I would always finish Genesis before February came and I abandoned my New Year’s resolutions, but that day was different. My reading began with the same verses that most every “Read through the Bible” venture begins with.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness covered the surface of the watery depths, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. (Gen. 1:1-2)

The statement “The earth was formless and empty” brought up my first set of questions. For the first time, I thought about the fact that God had a completely blank canvas that He was working with. It was a clean slate. God could have made the world, and everything in it, any way He wanted to. Why did He create the things He created? Why did He create them to do what they do? Why did He say that what He created was good?

I did some research and found that the word translated as “good” in the Hebrew means that it was perfect. It was beautiful, better, or even best. He created exactly what He was trying to create, but I didn’t understand why. As I continued to read through the creation story and into chapter 2, that’s where things got interesting. I noticed something I’d never seen before.

This may not shock some of you, but it did me. I learned that God had a plan. He didn’t randomly create things for no reason. God had a plan for how He would take care of humanity and how all of creation would work together within that plan for our good. Click To Tweet My grandchildren’s desire to learn and grow is a perfect example of God’s plan at work.

We see His plan played out in the life of every child. At a certain age they don’t want us to take care of them anymore. They want to begin doing things independently. They want to care for themselves. Their desire is expressed through words that strike fear in the heart of every parent as they ring through their ears: I wanna do it. At that moment they take their stand and begin their journey towards independence.

For some reason, God created Adam with the need for a constant supply of food and water. It’s important we remember that Adam was created with a need for these things. God could have created Adam with no needs whatsoever because, remember, He was working with a blank slate and He is God and could have done it however He wanted. For His creation to be considered “perfect,” humans would die of thirst and starvation without food and water.

God provided for those needs through the garden. God also established a plan for Adam to meet those needs independently. We see God’s plan introduced in Genesis 2. As soon as God created Adam, in verse seven, His plan was put into place. God’s plan included four Fundamental Elements that are required for us to provide for our needs.

The Fundamental Elements are Resources, Opportunity, Instruction, and Relationships. With these four elements, Adam would be able to live and have a full life. In the next post, we’ll look at each element and where they are found in the life of Adam.

If you don’t want to wait for the next overview of Breaking the Broken – click here to order your copy today.

Part 2 – Our Story

December 12, 2017Breaking the Broken, UncategorizedBreaking the Broken, Church, end poverty, Relational Ministry, RestorationRob Kendall

We had made it. After years of struggling we had achieved the American Dream. Our lives were finally working out as we had planned. Meredith and I both owned our own businesses, we had three beautiful daughters, were part an incredible church, had great friends, and were preparing to build the perfect home. We were finally getting everything we had worked and hoped for.

All that changed with a phone call in January of 2002. Meredith was on her way to a business meeting and I was loading up to head towards a job site. Meredith didn’t begin with the usual pleasantries. There was no “hi” or “good morning,” just a simple statement. “If this is the American Dream, we’ve been lied to.”

I didn’t know how to respond, but she continued, “I want you to close your business, take a year off of work and figure out what God wants to do with this family.”

My answer was short and to the point. “No!” We had worked for years to get where we were and I had no intention of changing our course. Long story short, we argued…I lost. I was going to close my business to “figure out what god wanted to do with our family.”

I spent the next year reading, studying and praying. I learned that life was not about me, but more importantly I learned that God has a plan for how we are supposed to serve the poor and many of our services are actually causing additional pain and holding people in bondage.

God has a plan for how we are supposed to serve the poor and many of our services are actually causing additional pain and holding people in bondage. Click To Tweet

As the year ended, Meredith went to a women’s retreat and provided a ride to a young woman at our church. During the 2 ½ ride, Meredith heard her story. She was a single mother in generational poverty with very little hope of changing her future.

Our oldest daughter (Amanda) was also on the trip and was beginning her prodigal stage. During one of the session breaks, Amanda was in Meredith’s face, saying, “You can’t tell me what to do. Just leave me alone. I can make my own decisions.” You know, the normal stuff for a rebellious teenager. Well, this young mother looked at Amanda and said, “If I only had a mother like yours, I wouldn’t be where I am today.” In the excitement of the weekend, Meredith replied, “I’ll be your mom.”

When Meredith came home and told me this young ladies story, I knew exactly what we should do. I ran down stairs, flipped open my laptop and wrote out an outline. I handed it to Meredith and she began to cry. “This is exactly what I thought we should do,” she said. We called the young mother and invited her and her children to our home for dinner that night.

After dinner we talked about how we could help her overcome the challenges that were holding her down. We told her we would not give her money, but would walk with her and help her gain what she needed to live independently. She accepted the help and our lives changed forever. By June we had nine moms with 28 kids that we were working with.

We were both excited and completely terrified, but we knew this was so much bigger than we were and we needed to get some structure around it. While both of us had run our own businesses, neither of us had experience setting up something like this.

I met with my pastor and another local church that was active in the community, but found that the churches were not able to help and they didn’t think it would work. Meredith and I met with the moms and told them that the churches weren’t able to help. Their response hurt, but confirmed everything I had read over the last year.

“That’s ok, we don’t trust the churches anyways,” they said. “They come in, start a program, and we get all excited because we begin to believe our lives could actually change. Then something happens and we are left hanging. So we get out of the church what we can get out of the church.”

Meredith and I learned that our service had been counterproductive. We had been making things worse and adding to their struggle. We were actually breaking the broken.

For the last 15 years we have used God’s plan to help people break negative cycles and become everything God created them to be. In the next post, we will take a look at God’s plan for mankind.

Treating the Symptom Never Ends the Struggle

March 28, 2017Breaking the BrokenBreaking the Broken, end poverty, homelessness, ministry, Restoration, Serve Like Jesus, Sustainable ChangeRob Kendall

783 million people lack access to safe, sanitary water.

I was recently doing some work around the house and had the radio on and heard a commercial for an organization that is trying to address this crisis. I was surprised and encouraged because of what I didn’t hear. I didn’t hear a famous person make an appeal. I didn’t hear that for the cost of a cup of coffee I could provide a case of water for a family on the other side of the world and I didn’t hear about their efforts to load up planes and boats and take bottles of water to villages in third world countries.

Nope, I didn’t hear any of that. What did I hear that encouraged me?

I heard about a group that is actually working to end this crisis by helping people gain permanent access to clean water. I was impressed as I listened to the commercial because they were trying to create “sustainable solutions” to this crisis that claims the lives of millions of people.

Why don’t we deal with other social issues in this same manner? Why do we consistently treat the symptoms instead of providing sustainable solutions for those we serve? People being thirsty is only a symptom of the real problem, which is lack of access to safe, clean water. Many of our ministries treat other symptoms, but treating the symptoms never ends the struggle.

While we must meet the immediate need and provide assistance with our ministry resources, these efforts are lacking. God calls us to do more.

God calls us to provide life and healing in the lives of those we serve. Click To Tweet

The real work is in providing long-term, sustainable change.

Yes, we absolutely must provide a box of food for a hungry family or help a single mother with a light bill, but that’s not that’s not the long-term solution and that’s not where we end. We have to take the next step and provide sustainable solutions. Let’s help them gain the resources, opportunity and instruction necessary to find employment and then let’s walk with them in relationships and help them overcome their struggles.

How about a job’s ministry attached to the food program? What about getting business owners in your church or community to take a chance on someone who doesn’t have the greatest work history and then work with that employer and their new employee to help them build a new work history.

If you are interested in learning more about creating sustainable change in the lives of those you serve, there are a few options as you move forward.

Begin by ordering your co py of Breaking the Broken and learning more about God’s plan to provide life and healing to the poor and hurting.
Contact us and learn how we can help your church or organization develop specific solutions to address the needs of the least, the lonely and the lost in your community.
Click here and join us for the Sustainable Change Conference 2017.

If we really want to “serve like Jesus” then we need to provide sustainable change, because, like I said, Treating the symptom never ends the struggle Click To Tweet.

Albuquerque Mayor Using Breaking The Broken Principles

August 13, 2016Breaking the Broken, End PovertyBreaking the Broken, end poverty, homelessness, poverty, RestorationRob Kendall

It’s great to see the mayor of Albuquerque using some of the principles from Breaking the Broken to end homelessness and panhandling. This is a program that is worth duplicating in other areas of the country.

As written in the Washington Post: “Republican Mayor Richard Berry was driving around Albuquerque last year when he saw a man on a street corner holding a sign that read: “Want a Job. Anything Helps.” Throughout his administration, as part of a push to connect the homeless population to services, Berry had taken to driving through the city to talk to panhandlers about their lives. His city’s poorest residents told him they didn’t want to be on the streets begging for money, but they didn’t know where else to go.

Click here to continue reading the Washington Post article.