Having Nothing, Possessing Everything: Finding Abundant Communities in Unexpected Places

《Having Nothing, Possessing Everything》摘要

1. 1

   When Helping Actually Hurts

   

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   What if the way we've been trying to help poor communities has been backwards all along? Picture a Methodist pastor arriving in a declining Indianapolis neighborhood in 1986, armed with all the right credentials and good intentions, ready to save people who desperately need saving. That was Michael Mather at Broadway United Methodist Church-the self-described "hoodlum priest" assigned to street ministry. He saw what everyone trained in social services sees: broken windows, economic distress, people who needed fixing. He was the hero; they were the helpless. But then seventeen-year-old Seana Murphy grabbed a broom and pushed away a knife-wielding woman threatening another girl outside the church, praying the whole time. Years later, that same woman became a good mother with a steady job. This intersection of violence and beauty forced a haunting question: What if these "needy" people weren't actually powerless at all?

2. 2

   The Devastating Truth About Good Intentions

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   For years, Mather ran summer programs that earned praise and attention. Then nine young men from within four blocks of the church died violently in nine months. Nine funerals. Nine families shattered. The question hit like a freight train: Were they helping a few people beat the odds, or changing the odds for everyone? Despite decades of programs and social services, nothing fundamental had changed. The breakthrough came on Pentecost Sunday when a congregation member challenged him after hearing Peter quote Joel: "I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh." She asked simply, "If that's true, why don't we treat people like that? We ask people how poor they are rather than how rich they are." The shame was crushing - their practices contradicted their beliefs. They claimed God's Spirit flows through everyone while treating people as if it weren't true.

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   Seeing What Was Always There

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   When De'Amon Harges walked the four blocks to Broadway Church, he saw neighbors, not deficits. The chess player gathering young people. The street-corner watchers. Local artists and entrepreneurs. He began bringing neighbors to church meetings, introducing them by their gifts, not their needs. This simple shift changed everything. In 2005, they hired him as a "Roving Listener" to survey each block. He learned that introducing himself as a neighbor-not an institutional representative-was crucial. People trusted neighbors, not institutions. Through weekly reports, he shared discoveries from visiting homes: awards on walls, cooking aromas, music playing. Rather than asking directly about gifts, he asked neighbors about each other, uncovering what truly motivated action. By March 2008, they knew their approach needed radical transformation. Instead of their traditional summer program serving 25, 50, or 150 kids, they decided to involve all 4,000 people in their neighborhood-no registration forms required.

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   Building on What People Already Have

   They created "Name, Bless, and Connect," hiring young people to identify neighbors' gifts, celebrate them, and connect people with similar passions. Young rovers discovered remarkable neighborhood treasures-a man who created "The Dirty Dozen Hunting and Fishing Club" to teach children, women who were poets and seamstresses, musicians, artists, entrepreneurs. When Joe, a musician and electrical engineer, asked to teach neighborhood kids music, they created "The School of the Spirit." Anyone finding three students could offer a class in anything-cooking, car repair, songwriting-and they'd provide materials. After seven-year-old Columbus Coleman was killed by a stray bullet, they hired fourteen-year-old Aaron as their first "Animator of the Spirit" to channel his talents for the community's benefit. When fifty children collected over a hundred pounds of broken glass during a cleanup, they created a beautiful mosaic proclaiming "You are the light of the world." Even "Fat Mike," a teenager who complained the church "doesn't do anything," ended up organizing his friends to dress as Santa Claus and distribute gifts door-to-door on Christmas Eve-a joyous celebration that grew as they moved down the street.

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   The Power of Getting Out of the Way

   Lucy arrived needing community service hours after a prostitution conviction. Asked what she was good at, she said "I'm really good with people," so they put her in hospitality. When asked what she'd do if money were no object, she surprised everyone: she wanted to own a flower shop. They borrowed $100, bought wholesale flowers before Valentine's Day, and sold them door-to-door as "Lucy and the Rev's Flowers." They made $500. Lucy donated $50 to her daughter's day care center. This sparked Lucy's Fund, a micro-lending program. The principle: never do something for someone that they can do for themselves. After thirty years of neighborhood needs assessments, the problem became clear - these surveys asked the wrong person (outsiders rather than residents) and focused on what was missing rather than what was present. You can't build with what you don't have. When they recognized the abundance around them, grant applications changed. Instead of listing deficiencies, they wrote that their biggest need was "to be needed" and highlighted neighbors' gifts.

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   Money, Hospitality, and Learning from Others

   A neighborhood woman bluntly told an intern that churches should "give some of that money back" instead of "runnin' those programs and not havin' to pay taxes." Her critique exposed a harsh truth: residents had been taught that poverty stemmed from bad decisions or addiction - everything except the simple fact that being poor means not having money. Most poverty interventions fail to address this most powerful factor. They created an "Abundance Fund" - buying cookies from local bakers, hiring singers, connecting mechanics with customers. When De'Amon discovered forty neighborhood gardeners within five blocks, they hired youth to connect them with customers. This project later received $40,000 in hospital funding - an opportunity that would never have materialized through traditional community gardens. They also transformed hospitality through "celebration meals," where young people gathered with family and community members who shared what gifts they saw in the youth. These affirmation experiences often revealed dreams never shared before, with attendees offering concrete support.

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   The Essence of True Transformation

   When you learn to see abundance where others don't expect it, you begin to see it everywhere. Counterintuitively, abundance appears most clearly in communities labeled poor and needy. Miss Rose, in her eighties, sweeps inner-city streets daily, tending sunflowers and beans amid broken pavement. Joe King leads creek clean-ups twice yearly, explaining, "I talk to the creek, and the creek talks to me, and I tell it I will not forsake it." Maya ran her own tutoring program from home, working nights at AT&T while teaching neighborhood children "everything from phonics to Sophocles." When invited to Sunday service, the congregation pledged their support. As Maya turned to see them thundering "WE WILL!" two things became visible: the church saw a neighbor doing remarkable work they hadn't noticed, and Maya discovered a congregation ready to support her calling. This moment captures the essence of transformation-not when we help others, but when we allow ourselves to be changed by recognizing the gifts already present in our communities. There's no replicable system to imitate. Only attention to the wondrous people around us and their gifts will make lasting difference. The best economy is the kingdom of God-an economy where abundance shows up in the most surprising places.

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