Willie Robinson and his wife, Evelyn, moved to Birmingham’s “notorious” Gate City housing development in 1995 hoping to convert their neighbors to Christianity. Despite their zeal, the couple could not even start a successful Bible study.
“The people had needs and hungers for all kinds of things that distracted them from hearing the gospel,” said Willie Robinson, pastor of New Life Harvest Ministries in Birmingham. “We had to redesign the ministry and meet some of the needs.”
Having seen firsthand the generational effects of poverty, Robinson was one of several experts and practitioners who spoke to faith leaders gathered Nov. 15 for a poverty forum led by the Alabama Poverty Project (APP), held at Samford University’s Resource Center for Pastoral Excellence in Birmingham.
Explaining that “rhetoric won’t help the impoverished,” Robinson urged the audience members to leave the four walls of the church and make commitments and sacrifices to effectively communicate with and impact the lives of the people they are trying to serve.
He also said this task may not be easy. After all, it took him and his wife nearly two years to gain their neighbors’ trust and confidence.
“The (residents) immediately identified us as church people, and they were convinced that we wouldn’t last,” Robinson said. “We had to stay long enough to convince them that we were serious, and then we had to find out what their needs were. We thought we knew but we didn’t know.”
Now, 12 years later, the couple have seen much improvement in the residents’ lives.
“We have to get to the root of the problem to begin to change the problem,” Robinson noted. “We have to concentrate on the worse-case scenario and the people that are in the worst conditions. … If people don’t know that they can change, they are going to stay the same. And if we let them stay the same, they are going to multiply. Our numbers are going to get worse instead of better.”
Nick Foster, executive director of APP, said one of the reasons the Robinsons’ ministry is effective is because they work and live among the poor. Yet the tendency for many is to have an “us” and “them” conversation on poverty.
“The reality is that most of us … spend little time with those below the poverty line,” said Foster, former pastor and now member of University Baptist Church, Montevallo, in Shelby Baptist Association. “In so many ways, we need to see ourselves as a community — locally, statewide, nationally and internationally. We need to find a way to be among those folks. We are part of that community.”
During the forum, Angie Wright, co-founder of Alabama Arise and founding pastor of Beloved Community United Church of Christ in Avondale, offered faith leaders ideas on preaching about poverty.
Beginning with a quote from St. Francis of Assisi, “Preach always but, if necessary, use words,” Wright said, “I don’t think you can preach a lot about poverty if you are not doing something about poverty.”
She also said she finds it striking that churches seem “obsessed” with some issues in the Bible that might only be mentioned a few times and yet do “not spend much time facing poverty, when, in fact, it is the main biblical mandate from beginning to end (of the Bible).”
Wright encouraged leaders to find ways to develop mutually enriching relationships with the poor.
“Churches tend to do ministry and missions in ways that are very paternalistic and very patronizing, assuming that we know what [people] need,” she said. “It’s just not the most effective way to be in ministry with the poor.
It’s not the right way, and you have to pay attention to that when you preach about poverty.”
Wright added that the faith community should assume it has something to receive and not just something to give.
She pointed to the fact that in the Old Testament, the word for “deed” is the same as the word for “word.”
“There is not supposed to be any difference between what we say and what we do. … I hope that we might be about bringing the good news to God’s poor,” Wright said.
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