I just finished this book, "
When Helping Hurts: How to alleviate poverty without hurting the poor...and yourself"
Our
LeverageU staff is reading the book to prepare ourselves for some hard decisions about how we help our local communities. I have to say, this is one of the best books I've read in a while. It reminds me of my days back at the
Pink House (group on
FB)when I lived in Fresno. People, we are not helping the poor by simply giving them stuff. It is so much bigger than that! Read this book before your next mission trip, before your next serve day, before your next neighborhood improvement meeting. Please.
I will write a full book review on this book sometime soon, but I wanted to at least make people aware of it now. It's that important. Check the blog or an update.
I'm excited to hang out with my lovely bride tonight. We will be heading over to
Saint Ann in Uptown. You are welcome to join us, just let us know you are coming and we will see if we can get you a seat at our table.
2010 has been a GREAT Year. God has blessed me and my family. I would not want to be in any other place or doing any other job. I feel like I am right where I am supposed to be. It's a good feeling.
Looking forward to see what 2011 brings for:
The Awakening
LeverageU
Will I finish Seminary?
Will Matthew learn to ride his new trike?
To Be continued in the new year....
In the past two posts I've shared what I've been learning by looking at the life of Boaz in the book of Ruth.
Boaz leveraged his resources to help Ruth, an immigrant in need.
In my last post (
Part 2) I shared the resources he leveraged.
In this post let me share just some of results I've noticed.
First, when we leverage our resources, the impact
ripples through the community.
Verses
2:17-18 show that even though Boaz focused on Ruth, her community, specifically her mother experienced the benefit as well.
Later in Chapter 4 we see that even more of the community surrounds the family in celebration.
More than just the person we serve is impacted when we leverage our resources.
Second, when we leverage our resources, we participate in God's future plans. Because Boaz leveraged his resources, Ruth was cared for and her family lineage was spared. Why is that important? That lineage holds claim to King David, Solomon, and of course, the King of Kings, Jesus Christ. Boaz was able to participate in the grand plan of God because he leveraged his resources to help people in need.
There are many more results to the Leverage
of Boaz but I do not want to write a massive blog post again.
So I'll leave it up to you.
Also, I plan on sharing more of these thoughts at
The Awakening, come check it out on Tuesday night.
What are some of the results you see to the Leverage of Boaz? Have you experienced the results of someone else leveraging their resources?
The last time I wrote, we were 24 hours from launching our first
LeverageU event called
LeverageU @ Rusty Taco. It was a GREAT Success.
We raised $1500 for the No Hungry Child Campaign all by leveraging our meal.
We had about 400 people come out and the 1 hour line literally coiled around the inside of the restaurant.
With live music and plenty of friends, we all had a blast.
We truly leveraged our everyday lives to help hungry children.
As the event approached, and especially afterward, I have been looking at the life of Boaz and learning from his character and action.
I
posted before that he truly leveraged his life.
In this short blog series I want to share some of what I have learned about Boaz.
Boaz was a man who leveraged his resources, but those resources were not just financial. Leveraging was truly a lifestyle for him. Focus in on chapter two and you will see Boaz leveraging his life to help Ruth, an immigrant woman in need. (You will want to read chapter 1 to get the greater context.)
First, Boaz leveraged his PEOPLE. In verse 8, He charges Ruth to glean after his own women and keep close to them. In that time, gleaning was not the safest of jobs. Gleaning means she was picking up the leftovers – what the harvesters had missed. Staying with his women, Ruth gained added safety.
Second,
Boaz leveraged his PROPERTY. In verse 9, Boaz tells Ruth to keep her eye on his field.
Gleaning was that day’s version of the welfare system.
Provisions were made in the law so that gleaning was made available for the poor.
Instead of just following the Law and
letting Ruth glean, Boaz instructs her to stay in His field. He offers his field for her provision.
Third, Boaz leveraged his PROTECTION. As stated, gleaning was not the safest form of labor. Often women were taken advantage of and at a minimum harassed and uncared for by the harvesters. Boaz will not allow this. He commands his harvester not to lay a hand on her.
Fourth, Boaz leveraged his PROVISIONS. Boaz goes beyond her physical protection and moves to Ruth’s physical needs. If you are thirsty, take some of my water he says. This is the same water that his employees are drinking from. In fact, it is the water they picked up for themselves!
Fifth, Boaz leveraged his POWER. Boaz is described as a “mighty or worthy” man in verse 1. Indeed, he had a large amount of influence and authority. By reading this story you can clearly see his power wielded for this young immigrant in need. In verse 15 we see Boaz moving Ruth right up into the harvesters, for her to “glean” among the sheaves. At this point, it seems to me that she is no longer gleaning, but harvesting as well. She is now not only receiving the water these workers drew, but the harvest they are reaping! Boaz continues telling them to even pull out some of their bundles and leave it for Ruth! That is power my friends.
Finally, Boaz Leveraged his POSITION. Boaz was a kinsmen redeemer. Without going into this too much here, basically, Boaz was second in line for the responsibility to care for Ruth and perpetuate the family line. This position of Kinsman redeemer was an important position that he chose not to turn from as the first redeemer had done in chapter 4.
Sorry for the longer post.
I am actually going to go deeper into these characteristics of Boaz this coming Tuesday night at
The Awakening. If you comment, you may be adding to the discussion.
I’d love to hear from you.
The next part in this series will look at the result of Boaz leveraging his life.
As can be seen on the right side column of this blog, I have a new project that seems to be getting a lot of traction. It is called
LeverageU and we are having our first event tomorrow night.
LeverageU gives you and me an opportunity to leverage what we do every day to help people in need. This first event,
LeverageU @ Rusty Taco, will give people an opportunity to help hungry children in the Vickery Meadow community. Rusty Taco has agreed to give $1 for every $2 taco sold tomorrow night from 7-10pm to the “No Hungry Child” campaign.
I've written in far more detail
elsewhere about LeverageU and I may repost it on this blog in the future. If you want to know more about LeverageU, please visit our
Fan Page on Facebook and cruise around there and by all means, become a fan if you like what we are doing.
What I am fascinated with this morning is the story of Boaz (I promise, this connects with LeverageU). You may recognize Boaz more from the story of Ruth, but as I have been re-reading this Old Testament book of the Bible, I am seeing in Boaz, much of the qualities I want to see in my life. Further, and this may sound extreme, I want to see Boaz exemplified in American culture. I am going to spend the next few days discussing the character and actions of Boaz and how we can make a HUGE impact in our communities if we would become more like him.
So why was Boaz such an impacting person in his lifetime and memorialized in the pages of scripture? He was a person who knew how to
leverage. He was a man who leveraged his resources for the benefit of people in need and it had a ripple affect across the community. What would it take for us to be like Boaz? Keep checking out the blog (or subscribe/follow) and I'll let you know. Maybe over the next week, take some time out to read the book of
Ruth on your own time and let me know what you find.
What motivates you to make a purchase? I'm not talking about milk and eggs here. I'm talking about purchasing the new TV, the new car, getting season tickets or just the rivalry game, getting the appetizer or just sticking with the main course. What "pushes you over" to go ahead and spend the extra money, especially in today's market? I have a few thoughts, but I'd like to hear from you most.
1) It's probably not limited to one variable. What I mean by that is, it's probably not only the price. It's probably not only the brand or purchase location, etc.
2) There's a new variable that is gaining "market share" as a purchase influencer. That variable has something to do with making a difference, providing purpose and giving.
The variable seems to be more important among younger people, but it is growing faster than they are. The greatest example I can think of is TOMS shoes, where they give one pair of shoes for every pair sold in stores to children in need. TOMS not only sells shoes, they sell
purpose,
impact and
life change. The secret is, all people involved receive all three.
Are you seeing your purchasing power being influenced in a greater way by giving opportunities? If you could buy the same product for the same price, but a portion of your payment would go to someone in need, would you spend the extra time to make that happen? Why?
Seriously, I'm curious.
