October 14, 2025 • 58 mins
Bob Lupton moved into inner-city Atlanta, where he learned the hard lesson that most of his charitable work was toxic. This led him to radically change how he showed up. And to write the bestselling book Toxic Charity that rocked our world and likely will rock yours.
Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premium
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, everybody is Bill Courtney with an army and normal folks.
And we continue now with part two of our feature
on Bob Lupton. Right after these brief messages from our
general sponsors.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
It becomes then the responsibility of those of us who
are stewards and resources to find those ways that our
neighbors can contribute to the betterment of the community. And
and for some folks it's it's harder to find what
those ways are. Like Like the home bound seniors in
(00:51):
our community, You know what, what are they the meals
on wheels? What do they have to contribute? Well, they're
the ones that are looking out through the Venetian blinds,
watching everything that's going on in the street, and they're
talking to their neighbors up and down the street. They're
waking each other up in the morning, they're checking in
(01:13):
with each other. That's your crime watch. Those are very
valuable people. If they're organized, if they're affirmed, if they're encouraged,
they can become significant contributors to the life and health
and safety of the community. What about about those darned
(01:40):
teenagers that are sprayed peyton graffiti all over everything? You know,
what do they have to contribute, they mess up the community.
All of our staff guys was talking to a couple
of these taggers, they call them taggers. They rate their
tag on the bridge and the walls, and he said,
(02:04):
do you think one of the things that he noticed
was that they're some of these kids seemed to have
some significant talent. You could see in their graffiti. There's
some there's some artfulness in this. And so he started
talking with a couple of those taggers and he said,
you guys think you could you could do something like
(02:26):
a mural, something that would make the community feel good
about itself. And they got to thinking about that. Right
down through the middle of our neighborhood, three blocks long
is a eight foot tall corrugated metal fence. It hides
the junkyard. It's it's dead ugly, and it's covered with graffiti.
(02:52):
He said, you guys, you guys think you could draw
something on that wall that would that would look nice
and maybe even help some of the neighbors teach them
how to do this. Well, those kids were interested, and
so over the next several saturdays they were out there
(03:13):
leading little crews. We said, well, we'll provide all the
spray cands. You need, and so they started working on art.
That's one section of that fence. That's that's talent there.
(03:34):
And we said, you know the kid that was leading
this charge, we said, would you be willing, could we
commission you to do a mural on the side of
our ministry center. We'll pay you for that, We'll provide
the spray cans. Would you be willing? He was. He
(03:55):
was excited about that. And so when you come around
the corner into the gateway of our city or into
our neighborhood, that's what greets the eye. On the side.
It was a plain old concrete block wall. That's a
work of art. Everybody has something to contribute. You know,
(04:17):
that's been three years now. There's not a mark of
graffiti anywhere on that wall. And now those young people
are protecting this, they're honoring that everybody has something of
value to contribute.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
When your passion and your ability meets an area need,
amazing things can happen. And that's what grows the army.
That it doesn't matter if you're an eighty three year
old home bound person or a teenager who's attager. I
love what his examples are here, how everybody's talents can
(04:58):
be morphed into positives. It's a great approach. It's brilliant.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
I forget whether he's about to get into it, but
he has a great point from like the negative perspective,
like if you don't do this, you are basically saying
that these people have nothing to contribute. You know, we
just give to you endlessly and you have nothing to contribute,
so there's no dignified I mean you may remember like
the community example, the community cafe that we featured right, like,
(05:28):
rather than just giving people food, they can't contribute, just
like a you know, normal restaurant worker would or or
whether you're paying, you know, as a patron, Like, everyone
has something to contribute, and it's really tearing apart somebody's
dignity to say they have nothing to contribute, So we're
just going to keep giving you stuff.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
I love it, Okay, here we go.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
And then we adopted what we've come to call the
golden rule of effective service, and that's this, never do
for others what they have the capacity to do for themselves.
When you do for others what they can do, you
(06:09):
disempower them. You take a load from them that was
never intended for you to carry. You weaken people. And
so we adopted as our golden rule, will not do
for others what they have a capacity to do for themselves.
(06:35):
Armed with those new ideas, we went through every one
of our programs, the adoptive Adoptive Family program. The next Christmas,
as folks started to call in to get their adopted child,
we asked them if they would give an extra gift
(06:56):
this year, and they said, yeah, what's that said? Would
you give the gift of dignity to the dad's And
here's how you do it. Go shopping, buy the toys,
don't wrap them, bring them down. We'll set up in
a little section of our store, a little storefront. We'll
(07:16):
call it the old toy shop, and we'll put somewhere
between a wholesale and a garage sale price on those toys,
and we'll invite parents to come in and go shopping.
And if they don't have any money, well, we're creating
cash flow here. That means we can hire some of
those parents so that they can work and earn money
(07:37):
to purchase that toy that they knew would delight their children.
So that the parents in our neighborhood have the same
joy as most parents in our culture have of seeing
their kids open the gifts that they have selected and
purchased through the efforts of their own hands, and there
will be dignity in the process of exchange. Well, that's
(08:02):
a quantum leak leap asking folk to let us sell
those toys that they're used to giving to those children.
But when we explain to them, you know what a
kid really needs more than a toy for Christmas, an
effective parent. We're going to use that money through the
(08:27):
sale of those toys, that will start an employment training
program so that those parents who are unemployed we can
train and move out into the economic mainstream so that
this time next Christmas they'll be fully supporting of their
own families. The extra gift, it's the gift of dignity
(08:52):
to those dads. Well, that system worked pretty well. We
found out some very interesting things. That first Christmas we
changed the name to Pride for Parents, and that first
Christmas we learned a couple important things. One is that
(09:17):
parents in our community would much rather work to earn
to purchase those toys they knew would delight their kids.
Then they would stand in the free toy line with
their proof of poverty and accept a gift that someone
else has purchased for their kids. We learned that. We
(09:42):
also learned a universal truth. Universal that means for all people,
of all times, universal truth. It's this, everyone loves to
find a bargain Universal. So Peggy went out Christmas shop,
(10:04):
and this last Christmas, and a grueling day of shopping.
And she brought in all of her packages and spread
out her treasures all around the living room for me
to admire. And she said, and you know what she said,
I saved more than I spent. Well, I'm not schooled
(10:29):
in economics, so it takes somebody understands how I financed
explain the economics of that. But what I do know
is that she was excited about finding bargains. So why
do we think it would be such a blessing to
the poor to set up a system that deprived them
(10:53):
of the joy of finding and purchasing bargains. Why do
we think that would be a blessing the clothes closet.
I didn't know what to do about that adversary relationship.
(11:15):
There was a group of it was a Methodist men's
group that helped us collect a lot of toys. And
so I've talked with them. I was explaining to them
this adversarial dynamic and they said, well, there's a simple
answer to that. Now, Methodist men are particularly smart. I
(11:36):
don't know if you none in this room. They know
the solutions to problems. They don't even have to be there.
And they said, yeah, there's a simple answer to that.
It's called the market. They said, you put a fair
rate of exchange on a desired commodity. It cuts all
that out. Really, I said, oh yeah. They said, would
(12:00):
you help us set that up? Well, they had a
meeting and they said, yeah, we'll take this on his
our men's missions project this year. And so those guys
said about doing what they can't help doing even in
their sleep. Got to have a business plan, traffic flow patterns,
(12:22):
real estate research, got to be on a bus line,
shop the competition. We got to bring this in right
below the goodwill industry's thrift store. They said, if we
do it right, we'll be able to employ folks from
the community, train them in retail merchandising, move them out
(12:44):
into the main thrift of the main stores. They said,
take about two years a small startup to break even.
And they were they're really pretty accurate. Eighteen months later,
that little store or thrift store moved into the black economically,
(13:06):
and it's been a bright spot in the community ever since.
We learned something very important about economics. Everyone loves to
find a bargain, but nobody likes to be somebody's charity case. Now,
(13:29):
it was at first when folks said, you're going to
charge us for this, we were given it away. You're
going to charge us now not a little a little
bit of resistance there. But when they saw that it
was their neighbors that were at work in the store
creating jobs for them, well then that was a little
easier to swallow. And our four trainees figured out very
(13:57):
quickly that in order for them to get a paycheck,
they had to keep customers coming back. It's basic economics
business guys. They know that you got to have sales
to keep the lights on, make payroll. Our training is
figured out real quick, and so there's a lot of
(14:20):
discussion about how how do we make folks want to
come in here. Well, I said, at least we ought
to get everybody's name down, write that down, and if
if we can find out something about them, we should
write that down too. So Miss Jones comes into the
store on Tuesday morning and we say, good morning, miss Jones,
how are you with her name? How's your mother doing?
(14:43):
It's everybody likes to go where everybody knows their name, right,
do a sitcom on that. So they jumped in the van.
They said, well, how do we keep folks coming back in?
Let's find out how the real stores do it. So
we jumped in the van out the shopping malls and
they were taking notes, and the debrief was really fascinating.
(15:06):
They said, well, everybody's very, very friendly. And we noticed
when you walk into those stores, they have the for
sale racks right out there and the big signs on them,
and the clothes are all sized, and some hangars are
all going the same way. They said they had the
latest fashion arrivals, a big sign on that. And so
(15:30):
one of the women said, yeah, you know, and those
stores smell nice too, you know, and you're dealing with
use clothing. Sometimes it can be a little stale. You
can't afford to dry clean everything. So they started talking about, okay,
how could we make our store smell nicer. Well, one
(15:51):
of the women said, we could have a pot of
fresh brewed coffee going in the morning that helped. The
other said, yeah, we could do some microwave cookies that help.
And so you can walk in in the store. The
aroma for coffee and pastries greets your nostril. That's about
making folks feel valued, feel wanted, feel appreciated. Change that
(16:15):
dynamic totally. The dynamic between giver and recipient where the
giver has to guard against the recipient getting too much,
and the dynamic between merchant and customer where the merchant
(16:38):
needs the customer to purchase all that they can possibly
purchase because he needs that customer. And I want to
tell you, folks figured out very quickly that they were
valued and wanted and they were appreciated as customers.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
The economic lessons that came out of this, it was
it was like one of God's magical special gifts to
humanity called the economy, and it functions in every culture, uh,
tribal cultures up to international cultures. And it's real simple.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Larry has been growing tomatoes this year and he's got
a bumper crobb. It's more than his family needs. And
he's been he's been growing corn and he's got more
than his family needs. And so they bring their surplus
to the bargaining table and they work out an exchange
(18:06):
of so many tomatoes for so many ears of corn.
And if the deal has gone well, if it's a
good exchange, they both go away. And here's the magic.
They both go away feeling like they got more value
than they brought. That's magic. That's why Peggy was so excited.
(18:31):
She got more value then she gave in her way.
I think it's called the balance of exchange. It's called
that's how wealth is created. That discussion has going on
politically right now, are we better off doing trade deals
(18:56):
or doing it all to ourselves. In every culture, trade
and exchange benefits the participants, and it's how wealth is created.
So why do we think that it would be a
benefit to the poor to set up a system that
(19:20):
did not enable them to participate in the exchange.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
I can't believe I just heard what I heard in
this speech, But I hope every one of our listeners
pays very close attention to what Brother Lupton just said.
That trade benefits everybody in trade and creates wealth. Which
(19:48):
is also that when you pull back from trade, you
diminish wealth, and you diminish the growth of people. It's
just absolutely true. And it's interesting that that very macro
economic principle, which is ned and the first reader candidly
(20:10):
he's been able to boil down into community development and
serving the poor. It is why economics is everywhere in
our world. And I just I find that phenomenal that
he just said what he said, because it's absolutely I
could not agree more with him, both in a macro
(20:31):
and a microeconomic sense.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
I know it also me and probably a lot of
our listeners know what's going on in your brain too.
There's there's some trade things going on in.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
The I mean that the trade wars right now are
slowing the world economy down by fifty sixty seventy percent
and diminishing wealth because when the economy slows, there's not
as much money or goods or services traded, and therefore
(21:00):
there's not as much money made and wealth slows. This
is not high finance. It is also why I remain
incredulous at our current approach to macroeconomics of what's going
on in the world. That's a discussion for a different time.
(21:23):
But what Bob just said is absolutely true, and I
think it's vastly interesting that the very thing is crippling
the world economy right now is the exact same thing
that was grippling his neighbors, and that he figured out
that that principle when applied in his neighborhood was just
(21:45):
as effective as when that principle over the last thirty
years has been applied to the world to grow wealth.
It can grow wealth on a macro sense for nations
and people in nations, and it can grow wealth in
a community sense for your neighbors. It's just absolutely true.
Find it really interesting?
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Well, they got it back on the charitable front.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Two.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Like some people have a line of like, if you
really care about people you're trying to help, you should
trade with them. You should hire you know, hire them,
you should invest in them, just not treat them as
your charitable recipients. Like actually do this economic stuff with them.
That's actually the most caring thing you could do.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
It's it really is. You can give a man offici
and elite for a day, you can teach a man
officially for a lifetime. It's all the same stuff. So okay, yeah, onward.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
I think it's a steward's responsibility, those who are stewards
of resources to establish those methods whereby everyone has something
of value to bring to the exchange. It's a sign
of a healthy community. Our food pantry, well, it was
(23:03):
one to try to figure out. One of our staff
guys had heard about this idea of a food co
op and he said, anybody here interested in a part
of a food co op? And a couple of women
said what is that? And he said, well, you put
in five dollars and we go over to the Atlanta
Community Food Bank. As a nonprofit, we can get food
(23:25):
over there surplus food for just a processing fee and
get a lot of food for that five dollars. And
so there were a handful of women and said, yeah,
we'd be interested in that. And so he took the
run to the food bank and came back with a
lot of food and the women were just delighted. Well,
(23:50):
the word got out. Now everybody wanted to be part
of the food co op. The first issue that came
up was our staff guy, I wasn't bringing home the
right assortment of food. So there's a little bit of
grumbling about this. They said, well, why don't you elect
a buyer. Somebody takes your grocery list, does the run
(24:11):
for you. So they did. That solved that problem. The
next issue was credit. What if somebody doesn't have their
five dollars this week, do we extend them credit. Well,
that's not our decision to make. That's the decision of
those that have skin in the game. That's it's their
five dollars that are being put at risk. So it
(24:33):
is their decisions. So they went into a lengthy discussion
about who is credit worthy and what do you do
if they don't pay back and you kick them out?
And in the midst of that discussion, somebody said, we
need to be taking some notes here. We're making some
decisions of the elected secretary take notes. And then they
(24:56):
needed somebody who could bill as a checkbook and keep
track of who's who paid and who hasn't and how
long it's taken them to pay. Well, they needed a treasure,
and so they elected a treasure. You see, what's happening
is that out of this group of formerly prideless food
recipients standing in our line waiting for their handout, the
(25:17):
talents and the gifts that were there all along are
finding a way to surface a sense of ownership, a
sense of pride using God given talents that we just
never saw before. They are always food who's are in
(25:39):
folks minds? And one of the women said, have y'all
They said, y'all done that? He said, y'all tasted Emma's
sweet potato pie and nobody had, And they said, Emma,
why don't you bring one of your pies in? And
so they prevailed upon her, and she came in the
next the next food day, and everybody sampled her sweet
(26:03):
potato pie, and ood and odd and that gave rise
to other folks bringing in their culinary treats. A couple
of women came to us some weeks later and said,
would if you all right if we use a church
kitchen here to fix some of the food that we're
getting from the food bank, make a meal for our
(26:26):
co op members. He said, it's a great idea, and
so they started using their culinary abilities to fix some
really good meals for the members of their co op,
which over time eliminated the need for the suburban churches
that came into our community with hot meals to feed
(26:49):
the poor. They're doing it themselves. It's their own talents
and their own abilities. The food co op gave rise
to ownership the dignity to the to the expression of
gifts that were there all along service project. So I
(27:12):
said to Virgil, I said, should we just not do them?
Is it just too hard on the recipients? He said no, No,
he said, they do good. He said, I'll tell you
what would be helpful. He said, be a lot better
(27:34):
if we were the ones here in the community that
we're telling folks what we what our priorities were, and
what we needed help with. Oh. I wrote that one
down community initiated, What are our priorities? He said, I'll
tell you another thing. He said, if we were, if
(27:58):
we were organizing it and and we supervised the work
and had things all lined up, he said, that just
be a whole lot better than outsiders coming in telling
us what to do. I wrote that one down community led.
(28:19):
He said, I'll tell you another thing. He said, some
of those some of those church folk, they don't think
that we are Christians at all. They treat us like pagans.
He said, I think they're the ones that don't have
(28:43):
any faith. He said, I don't know any of those
folks that have ever run out of money and run
out of food and they only had God to cling to.
And they prayed and held on to God, and God
did miracles for him. He said, I don't no, I
don't know if any of them have that kind of faith.
(29:04):
He said, it should be a whole lot better if
we had a chance to sit down together and we
could share with them how God is at work in
our lives and our community. I wrote that one down,
mutual evangelism. We all have something to bring out of
our spiritual journeys.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Well back, about three hundred and fifty years before the
time of Christ, there was a physician by the name
of Hippocrates, and he grew learned about the medical profession
(30:03):
because they didn't really have any code of conduct. Physicians
were making life and death decisions every day and kind
of kind of winging it. He said, it would be
great if we had a kind of a code of
conduct to follow, and so he drew up what has
become known as the Hippocratic oath, and physicians to this
(30:27):
day take the Hippocratic Oath. I thought, would it be
good if those of us that are in the service
end of things had had an oath to take? And
so I gave it a shot, and the first tenant
of that oath is already on the board. Our golden rule.
(30:48):
I'll never do for others, but they have the capacity
to do for themselves. Number two, I'll limit my one
way giving to crises and seek always to find ways
for legitimate exchange. Number three, I'll empower the poor through hiring, lending,
(31:14):
and investing hiring. That's when Michael comes to my door
and says he doesn't ask for money anymore. He asks
if he can wash the ministry van, and usually it
needs it. And I am very happy to give Michael
twenty five dollars he does a good job on the van. Now,
(31:36):
there are some in our staff that say you're just
enabling him. He's going to take that money out and
he's going to get high on it. And I said, no, no,
that is an honorable exchange. Michael has put forth good effort,
done a good job, and fair compensation is a just
(31:57):
reward for that. So that when Michael leaves this transaction,
he leaves a free man. He is free to do
whatever he chooses to do, for good or ill, whatever
he chooses to do with that money, because in fact,
he has earned it. Now that's very different if I
gave him twenty five dollars. Now I would have a
(32:19):
sense of responsibility. Okay, how's he going to use it?
But not in hiring. Hiring is an honorable exchange. Lending, well,
we heard a lot about micro lending small loans to
help folk build her small businesses. Lending lending implies a
(32:46):
certain amount of trust and a certain amount of accountability.
So when Janis comes to my door and asks for
twenty dollars until Saturday, I'd give it to her without
not even asking what she needs it for. You know,
folks struggle with cash flow issues fact to life, and
(33:08):
it's more of a fact of life in a low
income community. I give it to her without even asking why,
because I know on Saturday she'll be back and she'll
have my twenty dollars. There's accountability there. But when Ethel
comes to my door and asks for twenty dollars, I say,
let's talk about the last twenty dollars that I lent
(33:32):
you that you haven't paid back. Let's get that straightened
out first before we talk about any more lending. There's
accountability there. Lending assumes that there's trust in a relationship.
It's it's relationship building investing. That's when Eddie sits down
(33:58):
with me and says, Eddie, he's been paytent houses, worked
for a company's pretty good, and he'd like to start
his own painting business, but he doesn't have the capital.
He's got the talent, but not the capital. So if
I invest in his business, that makes me kind of
(34:19):
gives me an ownership share in that I'm believing enough
in him that he will do an honorable job. He'll
make money for himself, but also enough money to pay
me back, and I should have some some return in that.
If I'm investing with him, I am. I am investing
(34:43):
in his success. I need for him to succeed because
I've got skin in the game, and so I'll connect
him with people that I know that need painting. I'll
help market his business. I'll bring some guys around are
good at bookkeeping and other areas of business so that
(35:04):
he can have he surrounded by good advisors. I'm invested.
That means I am also vested in his business.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Something here to think about is it's honestly just a
lot easier to give somebody twenty bucks that wants twenty
bucks than it is to hold them accountable, lend it
or hire them. If somebody that you semi no says, man,
(35:37):
I really need twenty bucks, it requires effort to come
up with a job for them and to hold them
accountable to it. It requires effort to remember who you
loan twenty dollars to and hold them accountable when you
don't really feel like asking for your money back. It's
really a lot easier just to give somebody twenty bucks.
(35:58):
But the point is the way out it's usually the
wrong one. And what he's saying is by giving them
to twenty bucks, you're making them dependent. You're a paternalist.
But by taking the effort to actually do the things
he's saying to do, you end up empowering the very
(36:20):
people who need to help that hopefully over time, leads
them to be able to care for themselves and not
having to comfort you for twenty bucks in the first place.
But that requires effort. So the oath for helpers sounds good,
but you also have to be really to put in
the work to do it properly.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
That's a number a really good point, Bill. I think
it also speaks to the need for an army in
normal folks like that is hard to do on a
mass scale, Right, we're trying to solve this massive problem
in our city or our state, or the country or
the world, right, and like, you can't possibly do that
in such a large area. And he spoke with that
with his own personal experience. If they're trying to address
(36:59):
all this out Atlanta, and they eventually decided, let's just
do it in our neighborhood. Yeah, So it's it's easier
to do if you just do it one person, right,
and then you can do with five people, Then you
can do with ten, and then you can do it
in a neighborhood. Like start small. That if there's an
army of normal folks doing this on such a microscopic scale, together,
we can address all the problems.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
So good, okay, keep going.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
But gifts, that's a dangerous proposition. The safest way to
do giving is as incentives for achievement, a reward. The
safest way. Four. I'll put the interests of the poor
above my own interest or that of my church or organization,
(37:48):
even when it means setting aside in my own agenda.
I was in Cuba, not it's been a couple of
years ago. Now, I was visiting a little Semon Semon
Airy seminary right that had been operating kind of under
the radar screen for a lot of years, and classes
(38:11):
were out, the faculty and staff are all busy getting
ready for something, cooking food, lining up transportation. And so
I said to the President's what's happening here? And she said, oh,
we're getting ready for a group from the States, a
mission trip that's coming down here. And I said, well
that's good, but what are you going to have him doing?
(38:32):
And she said, well, we we need some floor tile
laid on this little dormitory that we're building. And I said, oh,
that's a great idea. I said, well they got some
they got some skills in that area. Huh. And she said,
well it couldn't be that hard. I said, oh, she said,
looks like a lot of work. She said, oh it is,
(38:55):
you know, preparing American food, lining up transportation, lining up lodging.
I said, is it worth it? She said, oh, they'll
they'll help out a little hesitant there, She's got to
be careful who she's talking to. You know, what's this
American going to do with it? I said, why do
(39:19):
you do it? She said, well, we're in their missions budget.
And if we want their three thousand dollars to come
in continue to come in, we need it badly, then
we need to create a rewarding, a fulfilling mission experience
(39:41):
for them. And so for that three thousand dollars, that
group will come in and spend thirty five thousand dollars
just in airfare to do a job that will have
to be torn up after they leave, so that Cuban
Tyler's can come in and do it right. You have
(40:03):
to ask the question, whose self interest is it? Five.
I'll listen carefully for the both the spoken and unspoken
needs of those I serve, knowing that many clues may
(40:26):
be hidden. We had a group come back recently from Haiti,
and they were telling me that in this one little
remote village, as they were coming through the village, they
saw women sitting outside their little shacks with infants in
their arms, wrapped in newspaper and soiled rags, and it
(40:48):
just broke their hearts. And so they went into the
city and bought up a bunch of baby blankets and
passed those out to those women so that they would
have something clean and warm and soft for their infants.
The following day, when they came through the village, they
(41:10):
saw those same blankets in the shops along the street.
Those women had sold those blankets, and our volunteers were
incensed until a staff person on the ground said they
sold them for food for their babies. Their real need
(41:31):
is to feed their babies. How do you know that?
How do you know what the real needs are unless
unless you're sitting with people over time, unless you're building
relationships over time where they're willing to they're willing to
trust you with the truth. There's lots of reasons why
(41:52):
the recipients of our charity don't give us straight answers.
We're the source of resources and they could lose that.
You know how long it was before Virgil told me
about his concerns about the way we were doing our
(42:14):
service projects. You know how long that was? Five years?
Five years of building relationships, of being neighbors, until Virgil
had the personal courage as well as enough trust in
our relationship to speak honestly about the toxicity in our missions.
(42:42):
Five years. It implies relationships over time. And then number six,
that is the same word for word as the final
tenet of the Hippocratic oath. Above all to the best
(43:03):
of my ability. I will do no harm. Amen.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
Amen, we'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
We got a little time left and uh so, if
you have a comment, question, something that you want to
take on, now's the time. Yes, ma'am, talk real loud,
will you?
Speaker 1 (43:41):
What do you share? Thanks? Yeah? What is what?
Speaker 4 (43:49):
How doing you saw when as a child?
Speaker 2 (43:52):
Oh? That's a tough one, isn't it. That's the toughest
of all dilemmas as far as I'm concerned. You see,
you see a kid that is being neglected or even worse,
abused in a home, and you're trying to work with
those parents, but you know that kid is really hurting.
(44:19):
The best thing I know to do is when you're
a neighbor, be a place of refuge for that kid.
That's the best thing that I know, which doesn't mean
you step in into a parenting role. It does mean
that that kid has a safe place to play with
(44:39):
your kids, and that when he's feeling neglected or abused,
there is a place where he can come and somebody's
somebody's listening. It gets real dangerous when you say I'm
going to intervene and call Family and Children's Service and
(45:00):
report them. That becomes real dangerous because it probably isn't
your choice to make Let me give you another, let
me give you another. Come at that from another direction.
You know. One of the things that's really popular these
(45:22):
days is this call them different things book bag buddies.
The weekend, we hand out book bags full of foods
so that the kids have something to eat over the weekend.
That sort of thing. I'm going to tell you that
(45:42):
that is mostly toxic. It's motivated by very good hearts,
but it's almost totally unaccountable. It's based on anecdotal stories
about kids that teacher said, how can we teach him
when he had anything to eat all weekend? And certainly
(46:07):
there are those kind of situations, no question about that.
Those are real situation that need intervention. But it's a
huge leap from there to say all of the kids
that are in this urban school are in that situation,
So we'll make sure everybody has food over the weekend
(46:31):
that they can carry home. You have no idea what
what's happening with that food and hunger? Hunger in our culture, Well,
there are folks that miss meals, and there there are
some chronic situations, but hunger is not the same starvation
(46:55):
servation is a that's a crisis. That's like when a
famine sweeps through Sub Saharan Africa and people are dying.
That's a crisis. But in our culture, you don't see that.
You know, forty five years now of living and serving
(47:18):
in inner city, I have yet to see the first
starving person, not one. I've seen folks miss meals. I've
seen mom have to feed their kids peanut butter sandwiches
the last three days of the month. I've seen food
in security. I've seen homeless guys dumpster dive. I've seen
(47:42):
lots of bad nutrition. But starvation, no, not once, not
in our culture. And yet our food pantries and our
weekend supplies of food, those are emergency risks, responses to
what is clearly a chronic poverty deed. You know that.
(48:07):
John Perkins gave the example this morning, the old adage
feed a man of fish eats for day, teaching fish
eats for lifetime. John says, yeah, but who owns the pond?
That's a very good that's a very good question there.
But we have set up fish feeding stations that keep
(48:31):
out giving fish, giving fish when we should be teaching
folk how to catch their fish, and so in that
whole food distribution initiative in our country, it's based on
false assumptions. Ah, it's it's harming people through giving emergency
(48:57):
assistance through what is clearly chronic poverty issues. Is that
too harsh?
Speaker 1 (49:05):
Crazy good? I think one for everybody listing we will
put up on all our social media has six points
of both. And I don't know, Alex, I gotta I
gotta review those and start thinking about even some of
the work I do. It makes me think that I
could be inadvertently which is how he opens and advertly
(49:30):
doing some things that could be toxic really makes you think.
Speaker 3 (49:37):
I don't know if you're open to talking about it,
but how how could that be the case. I mean,
maybe maybe you are with some of your giving.
Speaker 4 (49:42):
I don't know all your giving, but.
Speaker 3 (49:44):
I mean, well, you've most people know you for you know,
coaching and living in community and relationship.
Speaker 4 (49:50):
With these kids. That certainly is it. So the meat
of what you've.
Speaker 1 (49:52):
Done is come to me and says coach, I need
one hundred dollars for something, and I just give it
to him.
Speaker 3 (49:59):
Yeah, I'm I'm not hearing him. His talents to be
proud of what he earned. I'm just being paternalistic and
giving it to him and moving on because it's easier.
And I think that's that's really an important point because
(50:20):
at the very beginning I have experience the very thing
he said, which is you give somebody something.
Speaker 1 (50:27):
Once they're appreciative, you give it to him again. They think, well,
maybe this is the way it works, and then fundamentally
it ends up being that they hold you in contempt
because of their expectation of your gift, and by giving
too much and requiring nothing for the gift, you ultimately
create a contemptuous relationship where you created dependency. And that
(50:54):
is the exact opposite of what we got to do.
I think it's very very, very very valuable and something
we need to be really careful to think about.
Speaker 3 (51:04):
We've not really talked about this before, but you know,
I've read one of his books, maybe a decade ago,
called Charity Detox. It's kind of his follow up to
Toxic Charity, and it is more focused on like, how
can we do charity well? And so always after that,
I kind of viewed everything through that lenses. I think
you're experiencing now after listen to Bob's so frankly, like
all of our guests that we've had on have been
people in alignment with you know Bob's oh for you know,
(51:27):
compassionate helpers, and even people like Darren Babcock with Bonton
Farms have actually met you know Bob several times, and
a lot of our guests have really been you know,
inspired by you know him. It is kind of one
of these things. Once you see it, you can on
see it. It really does change everything.
Speaker 1 (51:42):
It really does. And as we've talked about building this
army of normal folks, I think it would only be
appropriate to use his six points as as callings for
the chapters.
Speaker 3 (51:58):
So I've actually drafted in our Chain After handbook something
that's largely based on Bob.
Speaker 1 (52:03):
That's awesome, I think, I mean, I think it's important.
I think Bob is I think not learning from this
man's life work and the lessons he's giving us about
how to do philanthropic work, well, I think we would
be stupid to listen to this and not apply this
(52:24):
blow pointed outline of how to be successful and not
be toxic. I think it's Yeah, I learned a lot.
It was great to look through. Thanks for making me
do it, Alex, You're welcome.
Speaker 3 (52:36):
I know what's outside the box. It's not as same.
Why am I doing this? We're not meeting a guested person.
I know it's a little different and you're probably feeling that, but.
Speaker 1 (52:44):
Well no, at first I was. But I've really hope
all of the members of the Army, people that will
be in our chapters and our listeners today take to
heart what this man said, because this is this good content.
It's good stuff. It's a lot to think about. As
you can tell, I'm still thinking about it and probably
will for a while. I think I'm going to take
(53:06):
an apprize all the work I do and make sure
I'm not doing it the wrong way.
Speaker 3 (53:10):
Yeah, and if people want to dive deeper, you can
read Bob's books Toxic Charity, Charity Detox. One thing I'll
just flag and then we could wrap is I mean,
this can be tough, like even in the chapters, I've
felt through this a little bit like some people will
really push back, Like you know, in Oxford, we want
to have one of these backpack programs where kids.
Speaker 4 (53:29):
Take away you know, food on the weekends.
Speaker 3 (53:31):
And I've always not you know, loved it after you know,
being familiar with Bob's work, because it's like they send
the food home with the kids every weekend, and we're
talking about like hundreds or thousands of kids whatever it is,
and you know, Oxford La Fayette, and they have like
no relationship.
Speaker 4 (53:44):
With these families.
Speaker 3 (53:46):
You're basically just enabling the parents to spend it on alcohol, vape, whatever, TVs,
you know, all the other stuff. You know, You're just
continuing to do it every single week. Is not helping
their situation getting better. You have no relationship with these people.
It's just can completely you know, anonymous. So it's I mean,
it's frankly kind of controversial. So I'm just giving the
Army members notice of that. Of like, if you actually
(54:07):
try to implement this in your live in your local community,
you probably will get some pushback, you know, because there's
a lot of popular programs like this and most of
our talents that people are supporting.
Speaker 1 (54:16):
And obviously we.
Speaker 4 (54:17):
Got to do it in a charitable, loving way.
Speaker 3 (54:19):
And that's something I'm trying to work on as a
person too, of really having full humility, you know, with
all these things, and we shouldn't be fearful of having
those conversations if we are, you know, truly leading humble lives.
Speaker 1 (54:31):
But it's tough, it is true. And look in business
and a and coaching football and just all walks of life,
there's often times well intentioned, well meaning initiatives that have
unintended consequences you didn't anticipate. But if you're so vested
(54:52):
in the idea that you're unwilling to be open minded
enough to address the unintended consequences when you become aware
of them, well then you're just being a closed minded idiot.
So we have to be aware that unintended consequences can happen,
and when they do happen, address them. And Bob just
spent an hour teaching us how he learned of his
(55:15):
unintended consequences, but his willingness to change and adapt to
do things in a better way. Why wouldn't we want
to learn from that? Yeah, I think that's ultimately what
his speech and his lessons and his book are. And
for one, I'm got to think more about it and
see if there's ways I can do better.
Speaker 3 (55:38):
One final thing I already said. I know I said
the final thing a minute ago, but we haven't stressed
it enough. I mean Bob literally moved into that neighborhood,
you know, South Atlanta too, versus a ritzy suburb. There's
actually a whole part of the story we didn't include
or his wife. They're planning on mind, like their dream
house in the suburbs, and then he felt called by
God to.
Speaker 4 (55:55):
Move into the inner city and do this.
Speaker 3 (55:57):
And I know not everybody's going to be called to
do that, but whether it's you know, Bob's example, or
Bob moz a Cowsk in Chicago, or Darren Babcock doing
a Dallas I do hope our storytelling inspires more people,
you know, to consider that in their lives. And that
truly does make this work easier too. If you're actually
living in a relationship with these people and in the
same neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (56:16):
That's it. That's it. He moved in and went to work.
So all right, I think that's a raight Alex, good stuff.
Speaker 4 (56:25):
Thanks Bill, thanks for doing it.
Speaker 1 (56:27):
Yeah, Bob, thanks for joining us today. I'm talking to
Peter Screen. That's very weird, Alex. Good to do this
with you. I appreciate it. Well, Uh, we'll see you, Uh,
we'll see soon.
Speaker 3 (56:38):
And if somehow this gets to Bob Lovedon, We still
love to interview you. Bob you were we will change
your rule. We would love to do it. That's right, Bob,
you can. You could do one more where we're all game.
We would have.
Speaker 1 (56:50):
We would love to hash this out with you in
person if you ever want to, and thank you for
joining us this week. If Bob Lovedon has inspired you
in general, or better yet, to take action by detoxifying
your charity, buying his book Toxic Charity, taking the oath
(57:13):
for Compassionate Helpers, or something else entirely, please let me know.
I'd love to hear about it. You can write me
anytime at Bill at normal folks dot us and I
will respond. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it
with friends and on social subscribe to the podcast, rate
and review it. Join the Army at normal folks dot
(57:35):
us any and all of these things that will help
us grow an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
Until next time, do what you can do,
Hey, everybody is Bill Courtney with an army and normal folks.
And we continue now with part two of our feature
on Bob Lupton. Right after these brief messages from our
general sponsors.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
It becomes then the responsibility of those of us who
are stewards and resources to find those ways that our
neighbors can contribute to the betterment of the community. And
and for some folks it's it's harder to find what
those ways are. Like Like the home bound seniors in
(00:51):
our community, You know what, what are they the meals
on wheels? What do they have to contribute? Well, they're
the ones that are looking out through the Venetian blinds,
watching everything that's going on in the street, and they're
talking to their neighbors up and down the street. They're
waking each other up in the morning, they're checking in
(01:13):
with each other. That's your crime watch. Those are very
valuable people. If they're organized, if they're affirmed, if they're encouraged,
they can become significant contributors to the life and health
and safety of the community. What about about those darned
(01:40):
teenagers that are sprayed peyton graffiti all over everything? You know,
what do they have to contribute, they mess up the community.
All of our staff guys was talking to a couple
of these taggers, they call them taggers. They rate their
tag on the bridge and the walls, and he said,
(02:04):
do you think one of the things that he noticed
was that they're some of these kids seemed to have
some significant talent. You could see in their graffiti. There's
some there's some artfulness in this. And so he started
talking with a couple of those taggers and he said,
you guys think you could you could do something like
(02:26):
a mural, something that would make the community feel good
about itself. And they got to thinking about that. Right
down through the middle of our neighborhood, three blocks long
is a eight foot tall corrugated metal fence. It hides
the junkyard. It's it's dead ugly, and it's covered with graffiti.
(02:52):
He said, you guys, you guys think you could draw
something on that wall that would that would look nice
and maybe even help some of the neighbors teach them
how to do this. Well, those kids were interested, and
so over the next several saturdays they were out there
(03:13):
leading little crews. We said, well, we'll provide all the
spray cands. You need, and so they started working on art.
That's one section of that fence. That's that's talent there.
(03:34):
And we said, you know the kid that was leading
this charge, we said, would you be willing, could we
commission you to do a mural on the side of
our ministry center. We'll pay you for that, We'll provide
the spray cans. Would you be willing? He was. He
(03:55):
was excited about that. And so when you come around
the corner into the gateway of our city or into
our neighborhood, that's what greets the eye. On the side.
It was a plain old concrete block wall. That's a
work of art. Everybody has something to contribute. You know,
(04:17):
that's been three years now. There's not a mark of
graffiti anywhere on that wall. And now those young people
are protecting this, they're honoring that everybody has something of
value to contribute.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
When your passion and your ability meets an area need,
amazing things can happen. And that's what grows the army.
That it doesn't matter if you're an eighty three year
old home bound person or a teenager who's attager. I
love what his examples are here, how everybody's talents can
(04:58):
be morphed into positives. It's a great approach. It's brilliant.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
I forget whether he's about to get into it, but
he has a great point from like the negative perspective,
like if you don't do this, you are basically saying
that these people have nothing to contribute. You know, we
just give to you endlessly and you have nothing to contribute,
so there's no dignified I mean you may remember like
the community example, the community cafe that we featured right, like,
(05:28):
rather than just giving people food, they can't contribute, just
like a you know, normal restaurant worker would or or
whether you're paying, you know, as a patron, Like, everyone
has something to contribute, and it's really tearing apart somebody's
dignity to say they have nothing to contribute, So we're
just going to keep giving you stuff.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
I love it, Okay, here we go.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
And then we adopted what we've come to call the
golden rule of effective service, and that's this, never do
for others what they have the capacity to do for themselves.
When you do for others what they can do, you
(06:09):
disempower them. You take a load from them that was
never intended for you to carry. You weaken people. And
so we adopted as our golden rule, will not do
for others what they have a capacity to do for themselves.
(06:35):
Armed with those new ideas, we went through every one
of our programs, the adoptive Adoptive Family program. The next Christmas,
as folks started to call in to get their adopted child,
we asked them if they would give an extra gift
(06:56):
this year, and they said, yeah, what's that said? Would
you give the gift of dignity to the dad's And
here's how you do it. Go shopping, buy the toys,
don't wrap them, bring them down. We'll set up in
a little section of our store, a little storefront. We'll
(07:16):
call it the old toy shop, and we'll put somewhere
between a wholesale and a garage sale price on those toys,
and we'll invite parents to come in and go shopping.
And if they don't have any money, well, we're creating
cash flow here. That means we can hire some of
those parents so that they can work and earn money
(07:37):
to purchase that toy that they knew would delight their children.
So that the parents in our neighborhood have the same
joy as most parents in our culture have of seeing
their kids open the gifts that they have selected and
purchased through the efforts of their own hands, and there
will be dignity in the process of exchange. Well, that's
(08:02):
a quantum leak leap asking folk to let us sell
those toys that they're used to giving to those children.
But when we explain to them, you know what a
kid really needs more than a toy for Christmas, an
effective parent. We're going to use that money through the
(08:27):
sale of those toys, that will start an employment training
program so that those parents who are unemployed we can
train and move out into the economic mainstream so that
this time next Christmas they'll be fully supporting of their
own families. The extra gift, it's the gift of dignity
(08:52):
to those dads. Well, that system worked pretty well. We
found out some very interesting things. That first Christmas we
changed the name to Pride for Parents, and that first
Christmas we learned a couple important things. One is that
(09:17):
parents in our community would much rather work to earn
to purchase those toys they knew would delight their kids.
Then they would stand in the free toy line with
their proof of poverty and accept a gift that someone
else has purchased for their kids. We learned that. We
(09:42):
also learned a universal truth. Universal that means for all people,
of all times, universal truth. It's this, everyone loves to
find a bargain Universal. So Peggy went out Christmas shop,
(10:04):
and this last Christmas, and a grueling day of shopping.
And she brought in all of her packages and spread
out her treasures all around the living room for me
to admire. And she said, and you know what she said,
I saved more than I spent. Well, I'm not schooled
(10:29):
in economics, so it takes somebody understands how I financed
explain the economics of that. But what I do know
is that she was excited about finding bargains. So why
do we think it would be such a blessing to
the poor to set up a system that deprived them
(10:53):
of the joy of finding and purchasing bargains. Why do
we think that would be a blessing the clothes closet.
I didn't know what to do about that adversary relationship.
(11:15):
There was a group of it was a Methodist men's
group that helped us collect a lot of toys. And
so I've talked with them. I was explaining to them
this adversarial dynamic and they said, well, there's a simple
answer to that. Now, Methodist men are particularly smart. I
(11:36):
don't know if you none in this room. They know
the solutions to problems. They don't even have to be there.
And they said, yeah, there's a simple answer to that.
It's called the market. They said, you put a fair
rate of exchange on a desired commodity. It cuts all
that out. Really, I said, oh yeah. They said, would
(12:00):
you help us set that up? Well, they had a
meeting and they said, yeah, we'll take this on his
our men's missions project this year. And so those guys
said about doing what they can't help doing even in
their sleep. Got to have a business plan, traffic flow patterns,
(12:22):
real estate research, got to be on a bus line,
shop the competition. We got to bring this in right
below the goodwill industry's thrift store. They said, if we
do it right, we'll be able to employ folks from
the community, train them in retail merchandising, move them out
(12:44):
into the main thrift of the main stores. They said,
take about two years a small startup to break even.
And they were they're really pretty accurate. Eighteen months later,
that little store or thrift store moved into the black economically,
(13:06):
and it's been a bright spot in the community ever since.
We learned something very important about economics. Everyone loves to
find a bargain, but nobody likes to be somebody's charity case. Now,
(13:29):
it was at first when folks said, you're going to
charge us for this, we were given it away. You're
going to charge us now not a little a little
bit of resistance there. But when they saw that it
was their neighbors that were at work in the store
creating jobs for them, well then that was a little
easier to swallow. And our four trainees figured out very
(13:57):
quickly that in order for them to get a paycheck,
they had to keep customers coming back. It's basic economics
business guys. They know that you got to have sales
to keep the lights on, make payroll. Our training is
figured out real quick, and so there's a lot of
(14:20):
discussion about how how do we make folks want to
come in here. Well, I said, at least we ought
to get everybody's name down, write that down, and if
if we can find out something about them, we should
write that down too. So Miss Jones comes into the
store on Tuesday morning and we say, good morning, miss Jones,
how are you with her name? How's your mother doing?
(14:43):
It's everybody likes to go where everybody knows their name, right,
do a sitcom on that. So they jumped in the van.
They said, well, how do we keep folks coming back in?
Let's find out how the real stores do it. So
we jumped in the van out the shopping malls and
they were taking notes, and the debrief was really fascinating.
(15:06):
They said, well, everybody's very, very friendly. And we noticed
when you walk into those stores, they have the for
sale racks right out there and the big signs on them,
and the clothes are all sized, and some hangars are
all going the same way. They said they had the
latest fashion arrivals, a big sign on that. And so
(15:30):
one of the women said, yeah, you know, and those
stores smell nice too, you know, and you're dealing with
use clothing. Sometimes it can be a little stale. You
can't afford to dry clean everything. So they started talking about, okay,
how could we make our store smell nicer. Well, one
(15:51):
of the women said, we could have a pot of
fresh brewed coffee going in the morning that helped. The
other said, yeah, we could do some microwave cookies that help.
And so you can walk in in the store. The
aroma for coffee and pastries greets your nostril. That's about
making folks feel valued, feel wanted, feel appreciated. Change that
(16:15):
dynamic totally. The dynamic between giver and recipient where the
giver has to guard against the recipient getting too much,
and the dynamic between merchant and customer where the merchant
(16:38):
needs the customer to purchase all that they can possibly
purchase because he needs that customer. And I want to
tell you, folks figured out very quickly that they were
valued and wanted and they were appreciated as customers.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
The economic lessons that came out of this, it was
it was like one of God's magical special gifts to
humanity called the economy, and it functions in every culture, uh,
tribal cultures up to international cultures. And it's real simple.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Larry has been growing tomatoes this year and he's got
a bumper crobb. It's more than his family needs. And
he's been he's been growing corn and he's got more
than his family needs. And so they bring their surplus
to the bargaining table and they work out an exchange
(18:06):
of so many tomatoes for so many ears of corn.
And if the deal has gone well, if it's a
good exchange, they both go away. And here's the magic.
They both go away feeling like they got more value
than they brought. That's magic. That's why Peggy was so excited.
(18:31):
She got more value then she gave in her way.
I think it's called the balance of exchange. It's called
that's how wealth is created. That discussion has going on
politically right now, are we better off doing trade deals
(18:56):
or doing it all to ourselves. In every culture, trade
and exchange benefits the participants, and it's how wealth is created.
So why do we think that it would be a
benefit to the poor to set up a system that
(19:20):
did not enable them to participate in the exchange.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
I can't believe I just heard what I heard in
this speech, But I hope every one of our listeners
pays very close attention to what Brother Lupton just said.
That trade benefits everybody in trade and creates wealth. Which
(19:48):
is also that when you pull back from trade, you
diminish wealth, and you diminish the growth of people. It's
just absolutely true. And it's interesting that that very macro
economic principle, which is ned and the first reader candidly
(20:10):
he's been able to boil down into community development and
serving the poor. It is why economics is everywhere in
our world. And I just I find that phenomenal that
he just said what he said, because it's absolutely I
could not agree more with him, both in a macro
(20:31):
and a microeconomic sense.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
I know it also me and probably a lot of
our listeners know what's going on in your brain too.
There's there's some trade things going on in.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
The I mean that the trade wars right now are
slowing the world economy down by fifty sixty seventy percent
and diminishing wealth because when the economy slows, there's not
as much money or goods or services traded, and therefore
(21:00):
there's not as much money made and wealth slows. This
is not high finance. It is also why I remain
incredulous at our current approach to macroeconomics of what's going
on in the world. That's a discussion for a different time.
(21:23):
But what Bob just said is absolutely true, and I
think it's vastly interesting that the very thing is crippling
the world economy right now is the exact same thing
that was grippling his neighbors, and that he figured out
that that principle when applied in his neighborhood was just
(21:45):
as effective as when that principle over the last thirty
years has been applied to the world to grow wealth.
It can grow wealth on a macro sense for nations
and people in nations, and it can grow wealth in
a community sense for your neighbors. It's just absolutely true.
Find it really interesting?
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Well, they got it back on the charitable front.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Two.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Like some people have a line of like, if you
really care about people you're trying to help, you should
trade with them. You should hire you know, hire them,
you should invest in them, just not treat them as
your charitable recipients. Like actually do this economic stuff with them.
That's actually the most caring thing you could do.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
It's it really is. You can give a man offici
and elite for a day, you can teach a man
officially for a lifetime. It's all the same stuff. So okay, yeah, onward.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
I think it's a steward's responsibility, those who are stewards
of resources to establish those methods whereby everyone has something
of value to bring to the exchange. It's a sign
of a healthy community. Our food pantry, well, it was
(23:03):
one to try to figure out. One of our staff
guys had heard about this idea of a food co
op and he said, anybody here interested in a part
of a food co op? And a couple of women
said what is that? And he said, well, you put
in five dollars and we go over to the Atlanta
Community Food Bank. As a nonprofit, we can get food
(23:25):
over there surplus food for just a processing fee and
get a lot of food for that five dollars. And
so there were a handful of women and said, yeah,
we'd be interested in that. And so he took the
run to the food bank and came back with a
lot of food and the women were just delighted. Well,
(23:50):
the word got out. Now everybody wanted to be part
of the food co op. The first issue that came
up was our staff guy, I wasn't bringing home the
right assortment of food. So there's a little bit of
grumbling about this. They said, well, why don't you elect
a buyer. Somebody takes your grocery list, does the run
(24:11):
for you. So they did. That solved that problem. The
next issue was credit. What if somebody doesn't have their
five dollars this week, do we extend them credit. Well,
that's not our decision to make. That's the decision of
those that have skin in the game. That's it's their
five dollars that are being put at risk. So it
(24:33):
is their decisions. So they went into a lengthy discussion
about who is credit worthy and what do you do
if they don't pay back and you kick them out?
And in the midst of that discussion, somebody said, we
need to be taking some notes here. We're making some
decisions of the elected secretary take notes. And then they
(24:56):
needed somebody who could bill as a checkbook and keep
track of who's who paid and who hasn't and how
long it's taken them to pay. Well, they needed a treasure,
and so they elected a treasure. You see, what's happening
is that out of this group of formerly prideless food
recipients standing in our line waiting for their handout, the
(25:17):
talents and the gifts that were there all along are
finding a way to surface a sense of ownership, a
sense of pride using God given talents that we just
never saw before. They are always food who's are in
(25:39):
folks minds? And one of the women said, have y'all
They said, y'all done that? He said, y'all tasted Emma's
sweet potato pie and nobody had, And they said, Emma,
why don't you bring one of your pies in? And
so they prevailed upon her, and she came in the
next the next food day, and everybody sampled her sweet
(26:03):
potato pie, and ood and odd and that gave rise
to other folks bringing in their culinary treats. A couple
of women came to us some weeks later and said,
would if you all right if we use a church
kitchen here to fix some of the food that we're
getting from the food bank, make a meal for our
(26:26):
co op members. He said, it's a great idea, and
so they started using their culinary abilities to fix some
really good meals for the members of their co op,
which over time eliminated the need for the suburban churches
that came into our community with hot meals to feed
(26:49):
the poor. They're doing it themselves. It's their own talents
and their own abilities. The food co op gave rise
to ownership the dignity to the to the expression of
gifts that were there all along service project. So I
(27:12):
said to Virgil, I said, should we just not do them?
Is it just too hard on the recipients? He said no, No,
he said, they do good. He said, I'll tell you
what would be helpful. He said, be a lot better
(27:34):
if we were the ones here in the community that
we're telling folks what we what our priorities were, and
what we needed help with. Oh. I wrote that one
down community initiated, What are our priorities? He said, I'll
tell you another thing. He said, if we were, if
(27:58):
we were organizing it and and we supervised the work
and had things all lined up, he said, that just
be a whole lot better than outsiders coming in telling
us what to do. I wrote that one down community led.
(28:19):
He said, I'll tell you another thing. He said, some
of those some of those church folk, they don't think
that we are Christians at all. They treat us like pagans.
He said, I think they're the ones that don't have
(28:43):
any faith. He said, I don't know any of those
folks that have ever run out of money and run
out of food and they only had God to cling to.
And they prayed and held on to God, and God
did miracles for him. He said, I don't no, I
don't know if any of them have that kind of faith.
(29:04):
He said, it should be a whole lot better if
we had a chance to sit down together and we
could share with them how God is at work in
our lives and our community. I wrote that one down,
mutual evangelism. We all have something to bring out of
our spiritual journeys.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Well back, about three hundred and fifty years before the
time of Christ, there was a physician by the name
of Hippocrates, and he grew learned about the medical profession
(30:03):
because they didn't really have any code of conduct. Physicians
were making life and death decisions every day and kind
of kind of winging it. He said, it would be
great if we had a kind of a code of
conduct to follow, and so he drew up what has
become known as the Hippocratic oath, and physicians to this
(30:27):
day take the Hippocratic Oath. I thought, would it be
good if those of us that are in the service
end of things had had an oath to take? And
so I gave it a shot, and the first tenant
of that oath is already on the board. Our golden rule.
(30:48):
I'll never do for others, but they have the capacity
to do for themselves. Number two, I'll limit my one
way giving to crises and seek always to find ways
for legitimate exchange. Number three, I'll empower the poor through hiring, lending,
(31:14):
and investing hiring. That's when Michael comes to my door
and says he doesn't ask for money anymore. He asks
if he can wash the ministry van, and usually it
needs it. And I am very happy to give Michael
twenty five dollars he does a good job on the van. Now,
(31:36):
there are some in our staff that say you're just
enabling him. He's going to take that money out and
he's going to get high on it. And I said, no, no,
that is an honorable exchange. Michael has put forth good effort,
done a good job, and fair compensation is a just
(31:57):
reward for that. So that when Michael leaves this transaction,
he leaves a free man. He is free to do
whatever he chooses to do, for good or ill, whatever
he chooses to do with that money, because in fact,
he has earned it. Now that's very different if I
gave him twenty five dollars. Now I would have a
(32:19):
sense of responsibility. Okay, how's he going to use it?
But not in hiring. Hiring is an honorable exchange. Lending, well,
we heard a lot about micro lending small loans to
help folk build her small businesses. Lending lending implies a
(32:46):
certain amount of trust and a certain amount of accountability.
So when Janis comes to my door and asks for
twenty dollars until Saturday, I'd give it to her without
not even asking what she needs it for. You know,
folks struggle with cash flow issues fact to life, and
(33:08):
it's more of a fact of life in a low
income community. I give it to her without even asking why,
because I know on Saturday she'll be back and she'll
have my twenty dollars. There's accountability there. But when Ethel
comes to my door and asks for twenty dollars, I say,
let's talk about the last twenty dollars that I lent
(33:32):
you that you haven't paid back. Let's get that straightened
out first before we talk about any more lending. There's
accountability there. Lending assumes that there's trust in a relationship.
It's it's relationship building investing. That's when Eddie sits down
(33:58):
with me and says, Eddie, he's been paytent houses, worked
for a company's pretty good, and he'd like to start
his own painting business, but he doesn't have the capital.
He's got the talent, but not the capital. So if
I invest in his business, that makes me kind of
(34:19):
gives me an ownership share in that I'm believing enough
in him that he will do an honorable job. He'll
make money for himself, but also enough money to pay
me back, and I should have some some return in that.
If I'm investing with him, I am. I am investing
(34:43):
in his success. I need for him to succeed because
I've got skin in the game, and so I'll connect
him with people that I know that need painting. I'll
help market his business. I'll bring some guys around are
good at bookkeeping and other areas of business so that
(35:04):
he can have he surrounded by good advisors. I'm invested.
That means I am also vested in his business.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Something here to think about is it's honestly just a
lot easier to give somebody twenty bucks that wants twenty
bucks than it is to hold them accountable, lend it
or hire them. If somebody that you semi no says, man,
(35:37):
I really need twenty bucks, it requires effort to come
up with a job for them and to hold them
accountable to it. It requires effort to remember who you
loan twenty dollars to and hold them accountable when you
don't really feel like asking for your money back. It's
really a lot easier just to give somebody twenty bucks.
(35:58):
But the point is the way out it's usually the
wrong one. And what he's saying is by giving them
to twenty bucks, you're making them dependent. You're a paternalist.
But by taking the effort to actually do the things
he's saying to do, you end up empowering the very
(36:20):
people who need to help that hopefully over time, leads
them to be able to care for themselves and not
having to comfort you for twenty bucks in the first place.
But that requires effort. So the oath for helpers sounds good,
but you also have to be really to put in
the work to do it properly.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
That's a number a really good point, Bill. I think
it also speaks to the need for an army in
normal folks like that is hard to do on a
mass scale, Right, we're trying to solve this massive problem
in our city or our state, or the country or
the world, right, and like, you can't possibly do that
in such a large area. And he spoke with that
with his own personal experience. If they're trying to address
(36:59):
all this out Atlanta, and they eventually decided, let's just
do it in our neighborhood. Yeah, So it's it's easier
to do if you just do it one person, right,
and then you can do with five people, Then you
can do with ten, and then you can do it
in a neighborhood. Like start small. That if there's an
army of normal folks doing this on such a microscopic scale, together,
we can address all the problems.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
So good, okay, keep going.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
But gifts, that's a dangerous proposition. The safest way to
do giving is as incentives for achievement, a reward. The
safest way. Four. I'll put the interests of the poor
above my own interest or that of my church or organization,
(37:48):
even when it means setting aside in my own agenda.
I was in Cuba, not it's been a couple of
years ago. Now, I was visiting a little Semon Semon
Airy seminary right that had been operating kind of under
the radar screen for a lot of years, and classes
(38:11):
were out, the faculty and staff are all busy getting
ready for something, cooking food, lining up transportation. And so
I said to the President's what's happening here? And she said, oh,
we're getting ready for a group from the States, a
mission trip that's coming down here. And I said, well
that's good, but what are you going to have him doing?
(38:32):
And she said, well, we we need some floor tile
laid on this little dormitory that we're building. And I said, oh,
that's a great idea. I said, well they got some
they got some skills in that area. Huh. And she said,
well it couldn't be that hard. I said, oh, she said,
looks like a lot of work. She said, oh it is,
(38:55):
you know, preparing American food, lining up transportation, lining up lodging.
I said, is it worth it? She said, oh, they'll
they'll help out a little hesitant there, She's got to
be careful who she's talking to. You know, what's this
American going to do with it? I said, why do
(39:19):
you do it? She said, well, we're in their missions budget.
And if we want their three thousand dollars to come
in continue to come in, we need it badly, then
we need to create a rewarding, a fulfilling mission experience
(39:41):
for them. And so for that three thousand dollars, that
group will come in and spend thirty five thousand dollars
just in airfare to do a job that will have
to be torn up after they leave, so that Cuban
Tyler's can come in and do it right. You have
(40:03):
to ask the question, whose self interest is it? Five.
I'll listen carefully for the both the spoken and unspoken
needs of those I serve, knowing that many clues may
(40:26):
be hidden. We had a group come back recently from Haiti,
and they were telling me that in this one little
remote village, as they were coming through the village, they
saw women sitting outside their little shacks with infants in
their arms, wrapped in newspaper and soiled rags, and it
(40:48):
just broke their hearts. And so they went into the
city and bought up a bunch of baby blankets and
passed those out to those women so that they would
have something clean and warm and soft for their infants.
The following day, when they came through the village, they
(41:10):
saw those same blankets in the shops along the street.
Those women had sold those blankets, and our volunteers were
incensed until a staff person on the ground said they
sold them for food for their babies. Their real need
(41:31):
is to feed their babies. How do you know that?
How do you know what the real needs are unless
unless you're sitting with people over time, unless you're building
relationships over time where they're willing to they're willing to
trust you with the truth. There's lots of reasons why
(41:52):
the recipients of our charity don't give us straight answers.
We're the source of resources and they could lose that.
You know how long it was before Virgil told me
about his concerns about the way we were doing our
(42:14):
service projects. You know how long that was? Five years?
Five years of building relationships, of being neighbors, until Virgil
had the personal courage as well as enough trust in
our relationship to speak honestly about the toxicity in our missions.
(42:42):
Five years. It implies relationships over time. And then number six,
that is the same word for word as the final
tenet of the Hippocratic oath. Above all to the best
(43:03):
of my ability. I will do no harm. Amen.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
Amen, we'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
We got a little time left and uh so, if
you have a comment, question, something that you want to
take on, now's the time. Yes, ma'am, talk real loud,
will you?
Speaker 1 (43:41):
What do you share? Thanks? Yeah? What is what?
Speaker 4 (43:49):
How doing you saw when as a child?
Speaker 2 (43:52):
Oh? That's a tough one, isn't it. That's the toughest
of all dilemmas as far as I'm concerned. You see,
you see a kid that is being neglected or even worse,
abused in a home, and you're trying to work with
those parents, but you know that kid is really hurting.
(44:19):
The best thing I know to do is when you're
a neighbor, be a place of refuge for that kid.
That's the best thing that I know, which doesn't mean
you step in into a parenting role. It does mean
that that kid has a safe place to play with
(44:39):
your kids, and that when he's feeling neglected or abused,
there is a place where he can come and somebody's
somebody's listening. It gets real dangerous when you say I'm
going to intervene and call Family and Children's Service and
(45:00):
report them. That becomes real dangerous because it probably isn't
your choice to make Let me give you another, let
me give you another. Come at that from another direction.
You know. One of the things that's really popular these
(45:22):
days is this call them different things book bag buddies.
The weekend, we hand out book bags full of foods
so that the kids have something to eat over the weekend.
That sort of thing. I'm going to tell you that
(45:42):
that is mostly toxic. It's motivated by very good hearts,
but it's almost totally unaccountable. It's based on anecdotal stories
about kids that teacher said, how can we teach him
when he had anything to eat all weekend? And certainly
(46:07):
there are those kind of situations, no question about that.
Those are real situation that need intervention. But it's a
huge leap from there to say all of the kids
that are in this urban school are in that situation,
So we'll make sure everybody has food over the weekend
(46:31):
that they can carry home. You have no idea what
what's happening with that food and hunger? Hunger in our culture, Well,
there are folks that miss meals, and there there are
some chronic situations, but hunger is not the same starvation
(46:55):
servation is a that's a crisis. That's like when a
famine sweeps through Sub Saharan Africa and people are dying.
That's a crisis. But in our culture, you don't see that.
You know, forty five years now of living and serving
(47:18):
in inner city, I have yet to see the first
starving person, not one. I've seen folks miss meals. I've
seen mom have to feed their kids peanut butter sandwiches
the last three days of the month. I've seen food
in security. I've seen homeless guys dumpster dive. I've seen
(47:42):
lots of bad nutrition. But starvation, no, not once, not
in our culture. And yet our food pantries and our
weekend supplies of food, those are emergency risks, responses to
what is clearly a chronic poverty deed. You know that.
(48:07):
John Perkins gave the example this morning, the old adage
feed a man of fish eats for day, teaching fish
eats for lifetime. John says, yeah, but who owns the pond?
That's a very good that's a very good question there.
But we have set up fish feeding stations that keep
(48:31):
out giving fish, giving fish when we should be teaching
folk how to catch their fish, and so in that
whole food distribution initiative in our country, it's based on
false assumptions. Ah, it's it's harming people through giving emergency
(48:57):
assistance through what is clearly chronic poverty issues. Is that
too harsh?
Speaker 1 (49:05):
Crazy good? I think one for everybody listing we will
put up on all our social media has six points
of both. And I don't know, Alex, I gotta I
gotta review those and start thinking about even some of
the work I do. It makes me think that I
could be inadvertently which is how he opens and advertly
(49:30):
doing some things that could be toxic really makes you think.
Speaker 3 (49:37):
I don't know if you're open to talking about it,
but how how could that be the case. I mean,
maybe maybe you are with some of your giving.
Speaker 4 (49:42):
I don't know all your giving, but.
Speaker 3 (49:44):
I mean, well, you've most people know you for you know,
coaching and living in community and relationship.
Speaker 4 (49:50):
With these kids. That certainly is it. So the meat
of what you've.
Speaker 1 (49:52):
Done is come to me and says coach, I need
one hundred dollars for something, and I just give it
to him.
Speaker 3 (49:59):
Yeah, I'm I'm not hearing him. His talents to be
proud of what he earned. I'm just being paternalistic and
giving it to him and moving on because it's easier.
And I think that's that's really an important point because
(50:20):
at the very beginning I have experience the very thing
he said, which is you give somebody something.
Speaker 1 (50:27):
Once they're appreciative, you give it to him again. They think, well,
maybe this is the way it works, and then fundamentally
it ends up being that they hold you in contempt
because of their expectation of your gift, and by giving
too much and requiring nothing for the gift, you ultimately
create a contemptuous relationship where you created dependency. And that
(50:54):
is the exact opposite of what we got to do.
I think it's very very, very very valuable and something
we need to be really careful to think about.
Speaker 3 (51:04):
We've not really talked about this before, but you know,
I've read one of his books, maybe a decade ago,
called Charity Detox. It's kind of his follow up to
Toxic Charity, and it is more focused on like, how
can we do charity well? And so always after that,
I kind of viewed everything through that lenses. I think
you're experiencing now after listen to Bob's so frankly, like
all of our guests that we've had on have been
people in alignment with you know Bob's oh for you know,
(51:27):
compassionate helpers, and even people like Darren Babcock with Bonton
Farms have actually met you know Bob several times, and
a lot of our guests have really been you know,
inspired by you know him. It is kind of one
of these things. Once you see it, you can on
see it. It really does change everything.
Speaker 1 (51:42):
It really does. And as we've talked about building this
army of normal folks, I think it would only be
appropriate to use his six points as as callings for
the chapters.
Speaker 3 (51:58):
So I've actually drafted in our Chain After handbook something
that's largely based on Bob.
Speaker 1 (52:03):
That's awesome, I think, I mean, I think it's important.
I think Bob is I think not learning from this
man's life work and the lessons he's giving us about
how to do philanthropic work, well, I think we would
be stupid to listen to this and not apply this
(52:24):
blow pointed outline of how to be successful and not
be toxic. I think it's Yeah, I learned a lot.
It was great to look through. Thanks for making me
do it, Alex, You're welcome.
Speaker 3 (52:36):
I know what's outside the box. It's not as same.
Why am I doing this? We're not meeting a guested person.
I know it's a little different and you're probably feeling that, but.
Speaker 1 (52:44):
Well no, at first I was. But I've really hope
all of the members of the Army, people that will
be in our chapters and our listeners today take to
heart what this man said, because this is this good content.
It's good stuff. It's a lot to think about. As
you can tell, I'm still thinking about it and probably
will for a while. I think I'm going to take
(53:06):
an apprize all the work I do and make sure
I'm not doing it the wrong way.
Speaker 3 (53:10):
Yeah, and if people want to dive deeper, you can
read Bob's books Toxic Charity, Charity Detox. One thing I'll
just flag and then we could wrap is I mean,
this can be tough, like even in the chapters, I've
felt through this a little bit like some people will
really push back, Like you know, in Oxford, we want
to have one of these backpack programs where kids.
Speaker 4 (53:29):
Take away you know, food on the weekends.
Speaker 3 (53:31):
And I've always not you know, loved it after you know,
being familiar with Bob's work, because it's like they send
the food home with the kids every weekend, and we're
talking about like hundreds or thousands of kids whatever it is,
and you know, Oxford La Fayette, and they have like
no relationship.
Speaker 4 (53:44):
With these families.
Speaker 3 (53:46):
You're basically just enabling the parents to spend it on alcohol, vape, whatever, TVs,
you know, all the other stuff. You know, You're just
continuing to do it every single week. Is not helping
their situation getting better. You have no relationship with these people.
It's just can completely you know, anonymous. So it's I mean,
it's frankly kind of controversial. So I'm just giving the
Army members notice of that. Of like, if you actually
(54:07):
try to implement this in your live in your local community,
you probably will get some pushback, you know, because there's
a lot of popular programs like this and most of
our talents that people are supporting.
Speaker 1 (54:16):
And obviously we.
Speaker 4 (54:17):
Got to do it in a charitable, loving way.
Speaker 3 (54:19):
And that's something I'm trying to work on as a
person too, of really having full humility, you know, with
all these things, and we shouldn't be fearful of having
those conversations if we are, you know, truly leading humble lives.
Speaker 1 (54:31):
But it's tough, it is true. And look in business
and a and coaching football and just all walks of life,
there's often times well intentioned, well meaning initiatives that have
unintended consequences you didn't anticipate. But if you're so vested
(54:52):
in the idea that you're unwilling to be open minded
enough to address the unintended consequences when you become aware
of them, well then you're just being a closed minded idiot.
So we have to be aware that unintended consequences can happen,
and when they do happen, address them. And Bob just
spent an hour teaching us how he learned of his
(55:15):
unintended consequences, but his willingness to change and adapt to
do things in a better way. Why wouldn't we want
to learn from that? Yeah, I think that's ultimately what
his speech and his lessons and his book are. And
for one, I'm got to think more about it and
see if there's ways I can do better.
Speaker 3 (55:38):
One final thing I already said. I know I said
the final thing a minute ago, but we haven't stressed
it enough. I mean Bob literally moved into that neighborhood,
you know, South Atlanta too, versus a ritzy suburb. There's
actually a whole part of the story we didn't include
or his wife. They're planning on mind, like their dream
house in the suburbs, and then he felt called by
God to.
Speaker 4 (55:55):
Move into the inner city and do this.
Speaker 3 (55:57):
And I know not everybody's going to be called to
do that, but whether it's you know, Bob's example, or
Bob moz a Cowsk in Chicago, or Darren Babcock doing
a Dallas I do hope our storytelling inspires more people,
you know, to consider that in their lives. And that
truly does make this work easier too. If you're actually
living in a relationship with these people and in the
same neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (56:16):
That's it. That's it. He moved in and went to work.
So all right, I think that's a raight Alex, good stuff.
Speaker 4 (56:25):
Thanks Bill, thanks for doing it.
Speaker 1 (56:27):
Yeah, Bob, thanks for joining us today. I'm talking to
Peter Screen. That's very weird, Alex. Good to do this
with you. I appreciate it. Well, Uh, we'll see you, Uh,
we'll see soon.
Speaker 3 (56:38):
And if somehow this gets to Bob Lovedon, We still
love to interview you. Bob you were we will change
your rule. We would love to do it. That's right, Bob,
you can. You could do one more where we're all game.
We would have.
Speaker 1 (56:50):
We would love to hash this out with you in
person if you ever want to, and thank you for
joining us this week. If Bob Lovedon has inspired you
in general, or better yet, to take action by detoxifying
your charity, buying his book Toxic Charity, taking the oath
(57:13):
for Compassionate Helpers, or something else entirely, please let me know.
I'd love to hear about it. You can write me
anytime at Bill at normal folks dot us and I
will respond. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it
with friends and on social subscribe to the podcast, rate
and review it. Join the Army at normal folks dot
(57:35):
us any and all of these things that will help
us grow an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
Until next time, do what you can do,
Host
Bill Courtney
Popular Podcasts
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.