From Handouts to Relationships – Building a Better Benevolence Ministry, by Justin Lonas of The Chalmers Center

From our 2025 True Charity Summit national conference ('Ascend'): a breakout session by Justin Lonas of The Chalmers Center. 

Local churches and community ministries that provide goods and services often struggle to develop and implement an effective benevolence ministry.

• You may feel overwhelmed by the needs in your community.
• You may feel powerless to help people in the "right way."
• You may feel frustrated because long-term change is hard to see.
• You may be afraid of "doing it wrong" or enabling destructive habits.

Helping someone move from crisis to long-term change feels overwhelming, messy, and complicated. Without the skills and confidence to apply a biblical framework for poverty alleviation to your benevolence ministry, it can be hard to move your ministry forward from just a transactional meeting of needs to a healthy, relationship-based, transformational approach.

In this breakout, we'll unfold a biblical vision for effective benevolence and talk about five key elements of a sustainable church or nonprofit benevolence program:

1. Defining your mission and policy
2. Building a welcoming intake process
3. Building participatory action plans with ministry participants
4. recruiting, training, and retaining volunteers
5. Building effective church and community partnerships for wrap-around services.

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