0:08

It is the pastor's heart and Dominic Steele and why

0:10

church planting is the Bible's answer

0:13

to poverty , with David Williams . David

0:15

says , in the Bible's view , poverty

0:18

is fundamentally relational

0:20

. When you think about the

0:22

Bible's terms for the poor , the widow , the

0:24

orphan and the alien , they're all relational

0:26

terms describing somebody who has lost

0:29

relationships . But what might a theology

0:32

of caring for the poor look like ? David

0:34

and his wife Rachel started serving as

0:36

missionaries in Nairobi and Kenya

0:38

back in 1999 . More

0:41

recently , he's been principal of the Australian

0:43

Church Missionary Society Training College , st

0:45

Andrews Hall in Melbourne , where

0:47

Australian missionaries are trained for six

0:49

months or so before heading out to the field , and

0:52

has just given a provocative

0:54

paper at the recent Anglican

0:56

Aid Conference at Sydney's Moore Theological

0:58

College Under that heading why

1:01

church planting is the Bible's

1:03

answer to poverty . He's agreed to come

1:05

and talk about it , david , if

1:07

we could start with your pastor's heart , because

1:10

for you this issue is not academic

1:12

, not just academic . Your engagement

1:14

in poverty goes right

1:16

back to the slums of Kenya 20 years ago

1:18

.

1:19

That's right . I was

1:21

working in a theological college

1:23

in Nairobi , carlisle College , and we

1:25

were asked to train some Anglican

1:28

pastors whose parishes

1:31

were either in or overlapping informal

1:34

settlements in Nairobi . And

1:36

out of that very early engagement we realised

1:38

that the informal settlements

1:41

in Nairobi are home to probably 50%

1:43

of the population and actually they're

1:45

full of churches not many

1:48

mainline Protestant

1:50

denomination churches , but lots of informal

1:52

churches and pastored by

1:55

people with little or no theological

1:57

training . And so from that early

1:59

engagement we started thinking

2:01

about how we might do leadership

2:04

training and theological education

2:06

for pastors and church

2:08

leaders from informal settlement

2:10

churches .

2:11

So describe informal settlement

2:14

to me .

2:15

So we landed up planting a

2:18

classroom of our college into

2:20

Kibira slum . So

2:23

Kibira is very

2:27

densely crowded , housing

2:30

very usually either

2:33

mud floor , occasionally cement floor , mud

2:35

and stick walls , tin roofs

2:37

and I was there

2:39

, all single story . No high rise accommodation

2:42

, no mains

2:45

sewerage , no mains water

2:47

, so people are buying their water from standpipes

2:49

in the street . No rubbish

2:51

collection and

2:54

homes would have some electricity , but

2:56

usually that wasn't

2:58

a legal electrical supply and

3:01

in each home you

3:03

would have typically anywhere

3:06

between 6 to 14 people living

3:08

in one or two rooms . So

3:10

very , very densely populated People's

3:13

homes inside were

3:15

usually spotlessly clean

3:18

, but as soon as you went out onto the street

3:20

there's a lot of rubbish , just

3:23

a lot of people around , and

3:25

the poverty and deprivation

3:27

in the informal settlements was very

3:30

, very significant .

3:31

And you've got informal churches

3:34

and a problem with the prosperity

3:36

gospel .

3:37

Yes . So for many of those

3:39

churches what

3:42

they knew , what they heard from

3:44

TV ministries , was prosperity

3:46

theology . And most

3:48

of the prosperity theology that I heard

3:50

in the informal settlements was what

3:53

I would call well-intentioned

3:56

but misguided . So I don't think

3:58

it was deliberately

4:00

trying to be deceptive or

4:02

fleece people of money . But

4:05

if you like , it was reading the Bible very

4:07

flat . You know open the blessing , cursing

4:09

passages in Deuteronomy and going well

4:12

, dominic , you want to be blessed . Do this

4:14

this is what it says in Deuteronomy . We believe

4:16

the Bible , so biblical

4:18

theology then became very important as part

4:21

of a theological college response

4:23

into that situation .

4:25

And you went in there , into this slum

4:28

, informal settlement area , and

4:30

you decided to try and work through local

4:33

churches , not through an

4:35

NGO or

4:38

even through the development department of a denominational

4:40

structure . That's

4:42

quite a significant decision . How did that come about ?

4:45

Well , I spent a long time trying to work

4:47

out why I and my colleagues had gone

4:50

down that route , because I

4:52

think we had this theological

4:54

sense that we wanted to work through

4:57

local churches . But at least for

4:59

me at that point I haven't perhaps really thought

5:01

it through . In

5:03

lots of ways it would have been much easier to have started

5:05

an NGO , but actually informal

5:09

settlements , in Nairobi

5:11

at least , are full of churches and

5:14

so if you can work through those churches

5:16

, you've got multiple small

5:18

communities scattered right

5:20

throughout the slum . One of

5:22

the slums in Nairobi , when I was

5:24

there , had more churches than toilets . It's

5:27

a shocking statistic . I

5:30

don't know if you're at that point

5:32

, and I think we were also , having

5:35

had a presence in

5:37

the informal settlements , perhaps a little

5:39

bit disaffected from what very

5:41

large NGOs sometimes

5:44

not always , but what they sometimes did . We in

5:47

our little area , we saw a big NGO

5:49

come in and just start a pharmacy

5:52

and offered free pharmaceutical

5:55

care to the community . They put

5:57

out out of business all the local pharmacies

6:00

, they all shut down and

6:02

then , after I think , about a year , this big

6:04

NGOs funding ran out

6:06

, so they just closed it down and moved on

6:08

, and so for

6:10

a year it was fantastic . People were getting

6:12

free pharmaceutical care , but

6:15

18 months in they were

6:17

worse off than they had been at the start and

6:20

I think I found that

6:23

disheartening . And working

6:26

through local churches seemed to be a response

6:28

to some of the problems that we saw being

6:31

created .

6:32

You went through quite a journey

6:34

then , theologically trying

6:36

to work out what the right response was

6:39

to poverty . Maybe you could take us

6:41

through some of that .

6:43

Yeah . So I had that

6:45

experience in Kenya and was doing a lot of thinking

6:47

about what it looks like to

6:49

help local churches to

6:51

engage with the poverty in their

6:53

church family and then in

6:56

the community in which they

6:58

were working and serving and witnessing

7:00

for the Lord Jesus . Then

7:02

I came to Australia and started

7:04

teaching at St Andrews

7:07

Hall , started engaging

7:09

with theological

7:11

themes here , and then that

7:14

led me to want to try and think

7:16

through more carefully a

7:18

biblical theology of care for the poor , because

7:20

I felt like I didn't see that

7:22

and I

7:25

knew I didn't have all the answers . I needed a

7:27

brain's trust to help me . So

7:30

I asked Mark Thompson if I could

7:32

pick the brains of the faculty

7:34

at More College and

7:36

then I studied for some

7:38

postgraduate research through Fuller

7:41

Seminary that

7:43

led to academic paper

7:45

on all of this . So what

7:48

that enabled me to do was just to think

7:50

through where

7:52

theologically you locate

7:54

care for the poor and

7:57

particularly asking that question from within

8:00

the Sydney Anglican tradition

8:02

.

8:02

So what's the answer ?

8:05

Well , I think the

8:07

answer is complicated . Nearly

8:12

everyone I spoke to at More College initially

8:16

answered that question . So when I said

8:18

, where do you locate care

8:21

for the poor theologically , nearly everyone

8:23

I spoke to answered that question by saying

8:25

it's part of our godliness

8:28

as our

8:30

response to the

8:32

command to love our neighbours as ourselves

8:34

. So

8:36

, as a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ

8:38

, part of the outworking

8:41

of my godliness is to care for the

8:43

poor , and the parable

8:45

of the Good Samaritan makes it clear that

8:47

those I'm responsible for caring

8:50

for might

8:52

be my most serious

8:54

enemy . So

8:57

that's a wonderful thing , I think

8:59

. My question

9:01

then , following on from that

9:04

, is to then

9:07

explore a little bit about

9:09

whether there's a corporate component

9:11

to caring for the poor , and

9:14

I think that both

9:16

in the Old Testament and the New Testament

9:19

, there's a sense clearly

9:21

in which care for the poor is located

9:24

not just as an individual responsibility

9:27

but also as a corporate

9:29

responsibility . Where do you get

9:31

that ? So , in the

9:33

Old Testament , I think one of the things

9:36

that the Covenant document is doing

9:38

is asking Israel

9:41

, as the people of God , and

9:43

in particular , communities of

9:45

people within Israel towns or villages

9:47

or whatever to organise themselves

9:50

around the principles of the Covenant

9:52

. And as they do that

9:54

, as they organise and

9:56

live out the Covenant , what they're

9:59

doing is relationally

10:01

reincorporating the

10:03

poor who are , like you said earlier , the

10:05

widow , the orphan and the alien .

10:08

So just a little digression , give

10:11

me the little relational poor

10:13

, unpack that for me for

10:15

a moment .

10:19

In the way that the Old Testament talks about poverty

10:22

, the words

10:24

that are used reference

10:27

a number of things . So they certainly reference

10:29

material lack and hunger

10:32

and weakness , but

10:34

they also reference things like

10:36

vulnerability , oppression , injustice

10:39

. So the cluster of words

10:42

that are used for the poor in

10:44

the Old Testament include a range

10:46

of things from weakness and hunger

10:48

through to injustice and oppression . But

10:52

then the widow , the orphan and the alien

10:54

are used as a kind of catch-all

10:57

, a symbol of who

10:59

the poor are , and all

11:01

of those people are relationally disconnected

11:04

. The widows lost her husband , the

11:06

orphans lost her parents , the

11:08

alien has lost her community

11:10

. And

11:13

I think if you follow that through

11:15

in , for example , the book of Proverbs or

11:17

you could do the same exercise in the Psalms

11:19

you see that poverty

11:23

is multifaceted

11:25

and includes lots of relational

11:27

components to it . So

11:29

one of the Proverbs talks about the rich having

11:32

many friends , but the poor kind

11:34

of being on their own . That's

11:37

the lottery winners' testimony , isn't it ? I

11:39

never knew I had so many friends when I won

11:41

the lottery . But when you have nothing

11:43

, people abandon you and walk away

11:45

from you . And

11:48

I think that sense in the Old Testament

11:50

, that poverty is a

11:53

relational category , is also

11:55

where modern development thinking has

11:58

landed , that poverty

12:00

is relational and community-based

12:03

, and all modern secular

12:05

engagements with poverty alleviation would

12:07

Talking about

12:10

development , not so much about emergency

12:12

aid but long-term development , would all

12:14

be using community-based development

12:16

strategies and trying to engage

12:19

with the community . So

12:21

I think Old Testament Israel got there

12:23

thousands of years earlier .

12:25

I mean that is fascinating actually that the , if

12:28

you like , the biblical

12:30

message on this is

12:32

quite in sync with modern , contemporary

12:35

thinking about how to care for the poor .

12:37

I think it is , and I think what you see in

12:39

the Covenant for

12:42

example , the laws of gleaning the

12:44

whole community has to not

12:47

harvest to the edge

12:49

of their wheat fields or not go through their

12:51

olive groves more than once . The whole community

12:54

has to do that , and then that allows

12:56

the marginalised to

12:58

come into those fields , and that

13:00

wouldn't work if only one person did

13:02

it .

13:03

The whole community has to work together .

13:06

And what you see then in the book of Ruth

13:08

. I mean , ruth is doing lots of things

13:10

, but one of the things that Ruth is doing is showing

13:13

you how the Covenant works out for

13:16

a widow and an alien , or

13:18

widows and an alien . And

13:20

you get the Deuteronomy

13:22

Covenant being worked out in practice

13:25

as gleaning and the Kinsman-Redeemer

13:27

laws reincorporate

13:30

Ruth and Naomi into

13:32

the community of the people of Bethlehem . So

13:34

at the beginning of End of Chapter One

13:36

they're marginalised . At

13:38

the end of Chapter Four Naomi

13:40

is sitting at the centre of the community

13:42

with everyone gathered around her . So

13:45

it's a beautiful move from exclusion

13:47

to inclusion through

13:49

the story of the book New

13:53

Testament . So in the New Testament

13:56

I think you see the early church starting

13:58

to struggle to work out what

14:00

it means now in

14:02

an urban setting , not a

14:05

land-based kind of farming community in

14:08

Jerusalem or in Corinth

14:10

or Macedonia . And they're starting

14:12

to work out what does it mean for us now

14:15

, as the people of God , to take

14:17

responsibility for the poor ? And

14:19

I think the widows

14:21

and orphans , but particularly widows , feature

14:24

a number of times . Right at the beginning

14:26

of Acts , the early church is trying

14:28

to work out how do we care for the widows in

14:31

our community . And again

14:33

you see very clearly in Acts

14:36

and also in pastoral epistles that

14:38

that's a corporate thing

14:40

. The church , corporately

14:43

, as a local gathering

14:45

, is taking responsibility

14:47

to care for the widows

14:50

. So , first line

14:52

of responsibility care for your own family

14:54

In one team of you five . But what about the

14:56

widows who don't have family

14:58

? Well , the church now

15:00

feels a responsibility

15:02

as a gathering to care

15:04

for those who

15:08

are part of the family . And then

15:10

I think you know Galatians

15:12

. They have a sense of responsibility not

15:15

just to the church family but to any

15:17

that the Lord kind of brings into their sphere

15:20

of influence Care

15:22

for the poor , especially those in the household of God

15:24

.

15:26

And that's going to play out as an individual level and

15:28

a corporate level .

15:31

Yes , and I think the challenge in

15:33

this space for us in

15:35

Australia , or in the UK

15:37

particularly

15:41

, is that the value of a government

15:43

safety net in our countries

15:45

is quite strong . So

15:47

in Australia we have this wonderful thing called

15:49

Centrelink . You

15:52

know you've got to persist to get help

15:54

from central , but if you do persist there

15:56

is help . There there is a safety net .

15:58

Yeah , I mean , often I find in

16:00

my engagement with people

16:02

when they come to

16:05

ask for help as a local

16:07

pastor , it's often

16:10

well helping them relationally

16:12

and helping them navigate the

16:14

social security network that actually is

16:17

there and is quite good but impossible

16:19

to navigate .

16:20

Yeah , and that's a beautiful way of practically

16:22

loving people , but for most

16:25

church families

16:27

, in most contexts around

16:29

the world , the church

16:31

is operating in a place where there isn't much

16:34

of a governance safety net or any kind of .

16:36

You made the observation the other day . Even

16:38

the United States has much

16:40

lower safety net provisions than

16:42

the UK or Australia .

16:44

Well , that's my understanding and

16:46

as

16:48

I observe that I look at

16:51

big conservative evangelical churches in

16:53

the States and they often have very

16:55

extensive ministries

16:58

, both practically

17:00

to people within the congregation but

17:02

then also out into the wider community

17:04

.

17:04

And so a better developed practical

17:09

expression of what they're doing , but potentially also

17:11

a better theologically thought out expression

17:13

as well .

17:17

Yeah , I mean . I think that the

17:19

Bible makes it clear that if

17:22

you follow the Lord Jesus Christ

17:25

, you care for the poor , because

17:27

that reflects the heart of God , and

17:29

that if you are a gathering of those kinds

17:31

of people , you will want

17:35

, out of love , to care

17:38

practically for those who are in

17:40

your church family and in

17:42

your wider community .

17:45

Yeah , you made the observation in your presentation the

17:47

other day that it would be

17:49

lazy application to jump straight from the

17:51

application to Israel and

17:53

apply that to Australia .

17:55

Yeah . So I think we need to be careful

17:57

with our biblical theology . Israel

18:00

, as a nation , cared

18:03

for the poor . To

18:05

jump from Israel as a nation to

18:08

Australia as a nation is

18:10

a misstep , isn't it ? We need to go from

18:12

the people of God in the Old Testament

18:14

to the people of God in the New Testament

18:16

. I'd be delighted for

18:18

Australia , as a nation , to care for the poor . I

18:20

think that would be a good and a wonderful thing , but

18:22

we can't abrogate

18:25

responsibility of caring for

18:27

the poor to the government . As

18:29

local churches , we do

18:32

have a responsibility

18:34

to think about the material

18:36

, practical needs of those

18:38

who God has entrusted

18:41

to us , and that might mean

18:43

very , very different things in different

18:45

contexts . In the slums of Nairobi

18:47

, it might be around hunger

18:51

and malnutrition

18:53

. In my suburb

18:55

in Melbourne , it might be around

18:57

loneliness and divorce

19:00

and isolation and all sorts of

19:02

other kinds of social needs .

19:05

What does it mean to say the gospel is good news

19:07

to the poor .

19:10

So if we

19:12

think about the

19:14

nature of poverty as

19:17

fundamentally flowing out of

19:19

broken and damaged relationships

19:21

, if poverty at

19:24

its core is a relational thing

19:26

, that is a consequence of a broken

19:28

relationship with God , a broken

19:30

relationship with other people and

19:33

a broken relationship with God's world

19:35

, Then actually the

19:37

message of the gospel , the proclamation

19:39

of the gospel message itself , is

19:42

the very thing that brings healing

19:44

and reconciliation to those broken

19:47

relationships . So

19:49

when Jesus comes in Luke 4

19:51

and says that he's quoting

19:53

Isaiah , he's come to proclaim good news

19:55

to the poor , I

19:58

think we sometimes have a

20:00

slightly lazy application of that

20:02

and think well , the gospel is good news

20:05

for the poor because that means

20:07

that nice people

20:09

will come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ

20:11

and then those nice people might go and help

20:14

care for the poor . That

20:16

I don't think is what the Lord Jesus is saying . I

20:19

think he's saying that the very act

20:21

of proclaiming the gospel and

20:25

then people believing in Jesus

20:27

and following him is healing

20:30

the fundamental brokenness

20:32

that lies at the root cause

20:34

of poverty .

20:36

And at that point you're right

20:38

on the , if you like , the

20:40

fulcrum of the title of your presentation

20:42

of why church planting

20:44

is the solution to poverty .

20:47

So I think church

20:49

planting as a solution to poverty was really

20:51

a provocative , just trying

20:53

to get people thinking . Obviously

20:56

, I think it's more complicated than that

20:58

. But

21:00

yes , I think that

21:03

we need to hold on

21:05

to the confidence that

21:07

the gospel message itself

21:09

people coming to faith

21:11

in the Lord Jesus Christ , and then being

21:13

gathered into confessing communities

21:16

that in and of

21:18

itself will start

21:20

to transform the poverty of the poor

21:22

, if God's people are doing their job

21:24

right .

21:25

How have you seen that happen in practice ?

21:29

Well , we had the great privilege of seeing

21:33

informal settlement pastors

21:35

in Nairobi come into

21:37

training at our college , start to rethink

21:42

their theology . For many of them that

21:44

meant reassessing their prior commitment

21:46

to some prosperity

21:49

messaging . But then you know , if you're going to

21:51

let go of prosperity theology you

21:54

need another message for the

21:56

poor in your church . And

21:58

essentially what that looked like for

22:01

informal settlement pastors was to

22:03

start working with their church community to help them

22:06

to care for each other . So

22:09

I got a beautiful letter from one of the first students in that program

22:12

who was

22:14

in really the poorest

22:17

informal settlement in Nairobi . I had

22:19

visited him . His church

22:22

was completely destitute and

22:24

he'd started a very small savings program

22:26

with members of his church and

22:30

he was mentored by a CMS Australia missionary called

22:32

Joe Radkovic for a number of years

22:35

. Joe and I then lost touch with

22:37

him for a couple of years and

22:39

he wrote to us a little while later

22:41

and said that what had started

22:44

off as this tiny little savings program with just a few people had

22:47

now expanded to the point where

22:50

they had something like 40 or $50,000

22:52

in circulation . They'd

22:55

put I think it was something

22:57

like 10 children through high school . They had six church member

23:01

families , children . In university , they

23:03

had a collective of widows who were supporting and caring

23:06

for each other and

23:08

that he had then taken this message

23:10

that he'd learned at our college and

23:14

had engaged with , he said , 2,500

23:17

pastors across six countries

23:19

in East Africa .

23:20

Now , what

23:23

a remarkable story which has got

23:25

to be better than starting a free chemist shop in a slum ? Well

23:29

, I think so .

23:30

Yeah , I think so and I

23:32

praise God for that . I mean , that has all happened through

23:37

some training , but really

23:39

that pastor has just taken his own

23:41

initiative , put into practice

23:45

the principles that he learned . He's by far the

23:47

best person to work out what it means to follow

23:50

the Lord Jesus Christ in Corrigos and praise God , he's done

23:52

an amazing job at it .

23:55

Now , what about the issue of campaigning

23:57

for social justice versus hands-on caring or preaching Christ

24:02

? And you referenced a paper that Broughton

24:04

Knox wrote on this topic .

24:08

Yeah . So Broughton Knox , former

24:11

principal at Moore College , wrote a paper a long time ago in which

24:13

he

24:18

was arguing that

24:20

the reason that Christians

24:22

should care for the poor is because of compassion , not

24:25

because of justice , and

24:28

that paper has often

24:30

been quoted or

24:32

used as if to say that

24:35

Broughton Knox didn't

24:37

believe in social justice and

24:39

that therefore he didn't think that

24:42

Christians had a responsibility to

24:44

care for the poor , which is extremely

24:46

unfair because the point of the

24:48

paper was Christians should care for the

24:50

poor out of love . So he

24:52

was arguing that Christians should care for the poor

24:55

. So it's unfair . Just on the basis of the paper

24:57

, I think and I've never met Broughton

24:59

Knox , but reading his biography

25:02

and talking to those who knew him , I've

25:05

heard that he had a remarkable ministry personally

25:07

of caring for poor people who came to his

25:09

house . So the charge

25:12

that Knox didn't

25:14

think that Christians should care for the poor

25:16

is unfair and clearly

25:18

not accurate . But I think what

25:20

he was saying was really similar

25:23

to what I was hearing from more college faculty

25:25

members . Caring for the poor flows

25:27

out of our godliness as

25:30

an obedience to the love

25:32

command , so compassion in

25:34

his article , and

25:36

then

25:39

we need to work out what it means to

25:41

express that not simply as

25:43

individuals , but also to

25:45

express it as local gatherings

25:47

, keeping that corporate component

25:49

that I think both Old and New Testament point

25:51

us to .

25:55

How's all this thinking changed your

25:57

practice ?

26:02

Well , it certainly changed my practice

26:05

as a theological educator

26:07

and as

26:09

someone who's seeking to equip

26:12

long-term gospel

26:14

workers . What

26:16

I'm wanting to do for our

26:18

CMS missionaries is

26:20

encourage them to think through carefully

26:23

and in depth what the Bible says

26:25

. Poverty is what caring

26:28

for the poor in biblical perspective might

26:30

look like .

26:31

Because lots of them , when they go to the field , they're going to

26:33

confront it immediately .

26:34

Yes , a vast majority of our

26:36

gospel workers would be serving

26:39

in contexts of either

26:41

absolute or relative poverty and

26:44

often that starting

26:47

to live in a poverty context is one of the

26:49

biggest causes of culture shock and

26:51

ongoing cultural stress

26:53

. And so thinking through really

26:55

clearly what our responsibilities

26:58

are , what God's word says into

27:00

this , I think is important

27:03

, and certainly for

27:05

many of our gospel workers this can feel overwhelming

27:08

. It's easy to get sucked

27:10

into kind of white saviour syndrome

27:12

and to think that we have a responsibility

27:14

to fix all the problems in the world

27:16

. But I can't

27:18

fix world poverty

27:21

and I don't believe that world poverty

27:23

will be fixed until the Lord Jesus comes

27:25

back Now . That doesn't mean

27:28

that we shouldn't be caring for the poor

27:30

and working to

27:32

proclaim the Lord Jesus to the ends of

27:34

the earth and , as I've said , I think that will

27:36

make a difference to the poverty of the poor

27:38

.

27:40

Thank you so much . I mean

27:43

, there's lots , lots , lots more to talk

27:45

about , but we're out of time . Thanks so much

27:47

for coming and sharing this with us this morning .

27:49

It's been a great joy to be able to chat . Thank

27:51

you , dominic .

27:51

David Williams has been my guest , david , the principal

27:54

of St Andrews Theological College

27:56

, st Andrews Hall in Melbourne

27:59

, and they , of course , are engaged

28:01

in training up the missionaries

28:03

for the Church Missionary Society Australia to

28:06

go out and serve all around the world . You've been

28:08

with us on the Pastor's Heart and we will look forward

28:10

to your company next Tuesday .