You’re Being Lied to About Money: Kelly & Tabitha Kapic

Normally we come in and whoever the we is it's often North Americans or people with wealth and we say we are here to help you with your needs and here are all the the answers.

When it's much better because of how God has worked is when you come in to look for what God is already doing because these people have gifts and abilities we need to help them recognize the dignity God has given and help them use the gifts that God has given and that is a very different equation because that all of a sudden realizes we are impoverished if we're not there to receive if we're just there to give. Welcome to Family Life Today where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Shelby Abbott and your hosts are Dave and Anh Wilson. You can find us at familylifetoday.com. This is Family Life Today.

We've got Kelly and Tabitha Kapic back in the studio. Welcome back guys to Family Life Today. Oh it's good to be with you.

It's your favorite place to be in the world right? There you go. Fantastic. Yeah and you guys you know we've talked about different things with you but a book called Becoming Whole.

Hmm. Kelly how long has this been out? It's been out I don't know three or four years I'm not very good at judging but I wrote this with an economist Brian Fickert.

Many of your listeners will know Brian's work. He wrote When Helping Hurts which is a really important book. Yeah. So that it came out about ten years or so afterwards to try and say there's concerns about ways we've tried to help the poor in problematic ways but the problem was some people were taking that book and saying therefore we don't need to care for the poor and so we're trying to help think through a positive constructive vision which is called Becoming Whole. Yeah the subtitle why the opposite of poverty isn't the American dream.

I thought it was. That sounds interesting. I think it is the American dream isn't it? Let's talk about it. So we're gonna sort of get into this because this is more than a book for you guys.

This is your life. Tabitha you travel to countries in poverty and do what? We do training trying to teach others how to apply Becoming Whole in their churches whether they're in a village in West Africa or a church in Ukraine in the midst of a war. So we've been all over the place kind of making Becoming Whole into a training that the church and Christian nonprofits can use. And you're not necessarily going overseas and just dumping a bunch of money onto the problem.

What do you do because it feels different to me? The Chalmers Center which is where Brian Fickert is the founder and president. I work with Brian and our goal is to go in and help communities solve their own problems. So we don't actually as Americans go in and do that directly. We equip local leaders who then go and work in community with folks. So people that speak their language and know their culture work with community to help them see their own God-given assets and gifts which can be really hard when you're under the chronic pressure of poverty. And to creatively find ways to serve your community, fix challenges in your church and community using your own resources. It's really a transformational way of looking at it.

So when we all say I could just be happy if I just had this much money. Are we gonna tackle that today in our Friday five? Friday five is you know something we created where we have five thoughts, ideas. Today we thought we'd do five fresh thoughts about how to alleviate poverty. And you got to bring us all five.

Okay. Actually you bring us three or four we'll come up with one. I mean read your book was enlightening and I think I don't think this is just gonna help people that are living below what they want. This is for all of us.

So if you think of the first one, what would it be? The first thing is to remember we are all poor. And so we use this phrase material poverty which can confuse people but it just means you're normally like you don't have income or you don't have a job.

You're financially under resourced. And this is where you know the provocative subtitle the opposite of poverty isn't the American dream. We don't realize our own poverty.

In an American church often what we do is we try and help materially poor people but without realizing it the gospel we're bringing is the American dream which is not exactly the gospel. And we talk about some of the data in the book from an economic perspective and economists talk about this all the time. You expect as economies get stronger and people's yearly wage goes up. Standard of living increases. And there's actually a thing called the happiness index and that should go up and it doesn't.

Actually you find economies that can do be doing better and better and suicides go up different challenges go up some of those things. I thought that concept was kind of incredible because you have listed some of the countries in the world whose happiness factor is that what you called it? Happiness index. Happiness index.

I thought oh America has to be close to the top yet we weren't even in the top ten. It shows how we we link affluence with happiness or wholeness and for me one of the great examples is in the United Kingdom also a very prosperous country they now have a minister and they don't mean by this like a gospel minister it's a government official who heads up a whole thing on loneliness and he's a minister of loneliness for the government because it's such a massive problem. That's what it's called?

Yeah. The minister of loneliness. And you find there you know there's a recent book in the States on this and on the loneliness epidemic in America. And so part of what we're trying to help people see is material poverty is a problem but the answer to that is not to give them another kind of poverty. The opposite of poverty isn't isn't the American dream it's the kingdom of God. It's basking in the love of the Father the grace of the Son the fellowship of the Spirit.

It's experiencing God's love and extending that to our neighbors and rightly relating to creation again those kind of things. So starting to recognize it is not that we come in with all of the strengths to people who are in need but all of us have needs. We are all poor but our poverty often looks different. It could be economic poverty but it could be relational poverty emotional poverty it could be all kinds of different things that are affecting us. And so the first step to rightly helping the material poor is recognizing it's not us them we're all in this together. Yeah and I would add too that even though the United States is one of the most affluent nations on the planet we have huge gaps between those who have in America and those who we would say have not. We have so much material poverty in the US right alongside those who are living what they might call the American dream.

Yeah. You're saying if we have the right perspective about our spiritual state and brokenness it changes the way we view the world. Yeah it's to help the poor we do have to realize we are poor. I mean this is part of what's going in Isaiah 1 where God is really upset with Israel and they're like well we're offering sacrifices and all of these things that and people think well God must be upset because they're being formal in worship. No they're doing the very things they're honoring the Sabbath things that God told them to do so why is God upset and he's very clear it's because they've been neglecting the poor the widow the orphan the marginalized and what happens is the reason why that matters is when you forget the poor you start to have a distorted view of yourself and God you start to think we have power and strength that we don't we must be so great that's why God loves us but when you're with the poor you realize oh this is all of us in different ways it helps remind us who we all are and material poverty is just a way into that often. Yeah one thing we talk a lot about at the Trauma Center is these two metaphors the soup kitchen versus the potluck and if you think of a soup kitchen you can kind of imagine a line of tables and you've got people on one side the haves ladling out soup to people on the other side the have-nots and it's very transactional it just goes in one direction but we like to think about a potluck where everyone brings the dish their best at and we all enjoy a meal together and that's really the ideal for poverty alleviation it's that potluck mentality what do we all bring. I like that the potluck idea. I mean it's Acts 2 Church.

Yes. It's really a community that's equal. Yeah I mean I'll give you an example because we work with churches and Christian ministries all the time at the Trauma Center and there was one community that had a food pantry it's very much like that soup kitchen they're giving out food what they started doing through going through innovate was they started asking the people that use their food pantry what are you good at what do you like to do and one of their clients they call them said I really like drawing cartoon characters so they said great do that for everyone here and so he taught a little class on how to draw a particular cartoon character now what that did for his the way he viewed himself the way other people viewed him the way that ministry staff it completely changes it. I love the illustration that you gave in the book about the homeless woman named Tammy share that story. Part of what happened is this was someone who had gone through a tremendous amount of difficulty and ended up in need and the person in this church was a deacon and tried to help and so part of what they did is they gave her some food and some resources and said here you go this is for you and what we found out is she ended up going back she was living under a bridge and she gave almost all of it away to these other people she was living with we found out and the guy who met with her is like wait what are you doing you can't this was for you it's not for them right and she was like how could I not hmm and that's one of these examples where it was a wonderful rebuke where she's like how can I receive and not give.

She's bringing food to the pot. Yeah exactly and she wanted not just to be someone who receives but who gives. Do you think we all have that in us? Oh absolutely yeah yeah. So we are all poor that's step number one. Okay I've got a quick story from you. This is number two. This one's called remember the frog we're back in the pandemic and we have two teenage kids at home trying to make it through high school we decide to go for a hike I want to take them to a place I found years before an abandoned mineshaft and I think this is great we won't see anyone so we're on the trail. So we're hiking out there we're not really seeing a lot of people but when we get to the mouth of this cave we're going in there's actually a family coming out and I love animals and I see that the man has his hands cupped you know like this and I say oh what do you what do you have there and he says oh it's this frog it was in the cave freezing to death and so we brought it out here so it could be safe and warm and I just didn't say anything we let him pass like okay guess what we found when we walked in that cave more frogs lots of frogs what these well-intentioned people had done well-intentioned had taken something that was in an environment that had a consistent water supply water dripping down the walls consistent temperature year-round consistent food source there were cave crickets and other things to eat and buddies you know there were other frogs these well-intentioned people had taken that frog out of a place where it was thriving in a place that was good for it and moved it to a place that they felt more comfortable in and I think we do this with people in poverty we think what you need is for your life to look like mine or what you need is to be in a place that I feel comfortable we project yeah what makes us thrive on to people who have a totally different experience and so that's why we have to remember the frog don't do interventions that take people out of a place where they can thrive and put them in a place where we think we'd feel more comfortable what could that look like in a healthy way then I'll give you an example that's kind of stark and doesn't have a real solution just for fun people who have to go through drug rehabilitation programs or detox and these sorts of rehab things it often takes six or seven times going through rehab for it to take one of the reasons is because what traditional rehab programs do is take the person out of their community and put them in a weird environment and then they don't have a community or a support system and they don't know how to do it once they get back home right those are wonderful programs that have saved people's lives but how can we reimagine it with community so that when we put them back out in the world you know we've taken everything we say delete all your phone numbers how do we get the community in there it's not just about getting the drugs out of the system it's having supportive relationships I remember the first time I did a mission trip to the bush in in Africa and I mean literally they told us don't bring anything you like because you're not gonna take it home yeah whatever and they're right I gave every t-shirt every jacket I just left it because they had nothing but the one of the biggest memories of that trip I mean we're trying to build wells because they suffer from drought and we're trying to put them in there I was blown away and we all were by their joy they see every meal as a blessing from God every drink of water they're in poverty do you know they would like to not be poor to provide for their families but they have different forms of resources that we don't know about they had their family and friend relationships they had this beautiful ability to praise God these are resources we just don't see them as resources that add to a rich life good point all right I've got the third one all right and I and it's really right about in your book but it's the thought that we become what we worship you know we think money and wealth is just a nice thing but when it determines our happiness it's an idol it's the source of our happiness and we say God's the source of our happiness but are we those are revealing things right we all say the right things like we want our kids you know we have college a kids we want our kids to love God and all of those things but it is interesting since I work in a college environment as a professor parents say that but it becomes clear sometimes what is the biggest desire and that is that these kids will be financially set yeah and none of us want to say no there's nothing wrong with wanting your kid to be able to make a living and all of that but it does become revealing that we say God is this high value and other things but sometimes as parents it gets exposed by decisions we're making by what we're communicating really to our kids and we do become what we worship and that's sobering I was gonna add to that because it would have been mine of remember to allow your kids the gift of serving sometimes we'll take our kids on great vacations and we had one friend that his parents would always have them do a project of serving before they would go on a vacation at the place where they're going yeah and they said really and when they got older the best part of the vacation was the serving part and I think we forget that yeah we want to create these amazing experiences for our kids when sometimes the most life-changing experiences are seeing people serving them oh and really loving them just being in their community loving them and knowing them that can be one of the best gifts one of the just little practical things I've started doing with one of my nieces and grandkids is we'll go out for a little shopping day but I've gotten in the habit of getting a gift card and we'll get in the car like we're gonna have some fun shopping but as we shop let's pray I have this gift card let's pray that God will take us to just the right person that needs it and so we'll pray in the car and then we'll be looking isn't that cool looking for the gift let's be looking for the person that God wants to give this to and then I let them give it to them and I'm just gonna say that feels way better to me than just getting some cool gift for them I'm not saying that the cool gifts aren't fun cuz I'm all about but just to be able to see people and look for them to teach our kids that when they're little all right we have like three minutes left and we have more to go I'll give you two and then we'll talk about how about that one would be focused on an asset based rather than need based approach which we've kind of alluded to it means you know normally we come in and whoever the we is it's often North Americans or people with wealth and we say we are here to help you with your needs and here are all the the answers when it's much better because of how God of work is when you come in to look for what God is already doing what are the assets what are the strengths because these people have gifts and abilities we need to help them recognize the dignity God has given and help them use the gifts that God has given and that is a very different equation because that all sudden realizes we are impoverished if we're not there to receive if we're just there to give and then the last one I would say is enter the movement of divine generosity I mean God's love he loves to give this is the God who gives and he most clearly gives by giving himself the Son and the Spirit and God's love moves toward the vulnerable to the weak to the materially poor to the lonely and the hurting I remember talking to someone a deep depression and I just said and I want to be careful you know take this advice in the appropriate kind of way but I remember saying listen next time when it's that dark and you just want to go into that hole pick up the phone or get on your bike and you go to someone who you know who's hurting more hmm you know that single parent who's really struggling you go and you play with their kids and everything God's love goes to the vulnerable and when you don't feel God's love well actually if you start extending God's love to someone else his love moves through you to someone else and it feeds you it nourishes your soul in the process it's kind of a it's a life hack for God right God can't help but be loving to the needy but we always make it just God's love toward us but actually he likes to love through us does that make sense yeah so entering into that movement I think is is a joyful thing this is not a guilt trip like oh you got to care about the poor like no we are all poor we get to participate in what God's doing is called grace you guys have done a lot of things all over the world of helping people give us a story of something that's impacted you that you've seen at the Chalmers Center in our innovate training we have a tool called a journey map and you can use it in a lot of different ways some people in the marketplace user experience map but we had a team that did one with a woman trapped in prostitution and addiction they did a day in her life and they tracked what she did and her emotion on a really simple form and it was one of the most gut punch moments of my life to see what it was like to be her and that line went down and stayed down and I think until you really come with questions to the materially poor come with questions and be ready to listen before you start doing things because I think we can do a lot of damage if we if we go in there without understanding but you've seen so many of things where then people do that kind of exercise and then eventually you start to see some of the beautiful things that come out of it an amazing team in Nicaragua who was trying to work with people who are struggling with addiction and mental health and somebody realized they had sewing machines and they said well let's do a sewing school then the Holy Spirit brings a textile local textile mill owner and said to this group whoever graduates from your sewing class I will hire and they just didn't have anything but all of those resources came from in their community I think what the tools do is they give people more attentiveness to the Holy Spirit yeah and it's like that story with Hagar the waters right there but she didn't see it until the angel pointed it out to her and that a friend just told me that story and I love it but yeah so there's some beautiful stories some heartbreaking stories what's one action step as listeners are hearing this they're like yes yes I agree is there an action step that we could take with our families or spouse yeah I mean there is in some ways it is the listening thing you know for us as a family for example there's a ministry called vision of mercy in Tennessee the guy and his wife who heads it up Markel had been homeless himself for 22 years it's a beautiful thing and we go and we don't provide a bunch of suggestions on ways that might change we're there we do what Diane tell we do it we do it Diana Markelle's say and it is very interesting like this guy he like memorized the Bible I don't know it's just one of these kind of things where they've been through so much hardship and yet there's so much love there's so much depth and wisdom but I do think associating with people who are poor in different ways of poverty is so helpful it can breed self-understanding and also it does reshape how we think of resources that we do have I remember one day I was praying like Lord I what do you want me to do today and this thought came to me of going into Pontiac which isn't a great city near us and just just sit with some people so I went I'm looking for anybody like okay you know I'm thinking that and I sit down with a homeless man on a bench stinky he had some mental health issues going on and the only thing I asked was tell me your story you guys I was there for like 40 five minutes it was one of the most heart-wrenching and yet beautiful privileges I got to take I got to experience of just hearing his journey and it felt good just to kind of Lord what do you want what do you want for me today and maybe it's just sitting hearing anybody's story yeah and I would just add and I really gathered it from becoming whole because we often think becoming whole means I get what I want right and it's American dream and it sort of comes back to Jesus saying it's more blessed to give them receive yeah and I often says a preacher's two ways to live tight-fisted open-handed hmm and we tend to and it's true and it's even statistics prove it the more you get the tighter you hold on yes absolutely which you would think the more I get the self more satisfied be no it's actually I get more fearful and I and I stress out more because I have more to hold on to and it's like you can't until you let go and once your hands are open and it's like maybe I could bless somebody else and I end up being blessed like you said it's like that's what Jesus was getting at we are blessed to be a blessing that theme is all over scripture from the Old Testament to the new and it's a hundred percent true for us today too I'm Shelby Abbott you've been listening to David and Wilson with Kelly and Tabitha Kapic on family life today you know we're gonna hear more from Tabitha with some encouragement for those who feel overwhelmed about what they can do about poverty here in just a second but first Kelly has written a book called a little book for new theologians why and how to study theology if you feel overwhelmed by theology or you think it's boring this book is for you you could go online to family life today calm to get a copy just click on the today's resources link or you could get the link in the show notes or you can give us a call at 800 3 5 8 6 3 2 9 again that number is 800 F as in family L as in life and then the word today or feel free to drop us something in the mail if you'd like to our address is family life 100 Lake Hart Drive Orlando Florida 3 2 8 3 2 now if you know anyone who needs to hear conversations like the one you heard today would you share it from wherever you get your podcasts and while you're there you can really help others learn more about family life today by leaving us a review we are so excited to dive into the new year with events in over 40 locations this spring now through Monday January 22nd all of our weekend to remember getaways are 50% off you can find out more by heading over to weekend to remember calm okay here's Tabitha Kapic with some encouragement about what to do when you come face to face with the topic of poverty people get overwhelmed Christian while many people get overwhelmed thinking about poverty but none of us were meant to do it alone and so like we said you know look around for ministries that are already happening and just be a helper build relationships if you are just someone who can only give financially that's beautiful too but it really matters to show up and hear people's stories carry the plate of food to the person and have a chat with them pray with them don't think you have to fix it all because I worry that people shut their eyes because the problem is so big but we're gonna do it as a body we're gonna do it as a community so we're not alone now coming up next week we're gonna explore diversity unity and faith with author and speaker Trilia Newbell that's next week we hope you'll join us on behalf of David and Wilson I'm Shelby Abbott we'll see you back next time for another edition of family life today family life today is a donor supported production of family life a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most