Ash Barker - make poverty personal | Birkdale Baptist Church

Shane Claiborne's survey of strong followers of Jesus: Did Jesus spend time with the poor? 80% say yes. Do you spend time with the poor? 2% say yes. Why? Ash's answer: fear. We're afraid that we might appear stupid, incompetent, or weak.
Fear: magic vs. faith Where do we go with our fears? Magic: manipulating the spirits to get what we want from the spirits. Western prosperity doctrine is no different to magic. Faith: Surrendering all to God so that God can do through us what God wants done in the world.
Ash and Anji actually gave away a their possessions to the poor when they moved to Bankok. One of the biggest problems with mission in Australia is that people's involvement peaks in their teens and twenties. After they get married they settle down and get comfortable and missions disappears.
Some of Amy's friends (13 y.o.) are already in prostitution!
Far more dangerous to people in this environment than coping with posessions is becoming hardened to it. Ash has to constantly go to prayer for softness to the poverty.
Discouragement comes from thinking things are going well when they are not. Need to detach ego from the results.
The land in the slums is all owned by the port authority. People own the buildings but not the land, and they rent the house from the people who own it.
Ash's day job is the director of the Church of Christ community centre in the slum.
What is it that Christians have to offer the poor? What is a biblical understanding of poverty?
Over 2000 verses in the Bible talk about poverty. The Old Testament has at least 14 different Hebrew words for poverty.
An exercise: what does each word tell us about the nature of poverty? What are the common themes?
Violence, powerlessness, hatred, willful acts, other people benefiting are all concepts
Poverty means oppression
What good news to the poor? If a biblical understanding of poverty means opression and not being free to live as God intends, then what is good news for the poor? Luke 4.18-19 Good news is to encounter, follow and join Jesus so we can be free and help set others free to live as God intends, now and forever.
WWJD about oppression?
- Relief: give a fish.
- Education: teach how to fish.
- Protest: ask why no fish?
- Model: show a new way to fish.
- Transformation: the new way to fish multiplies.
(The whole economy in Thailand relies on the cheap labour provided by the slums. People get rich on the back of these slum labourers.)
Which did Jesus think was the most/least important?
Which does the Church do the most/least of?