Vic Bernales

Each of us knows someone who is hearing, visually, or mentally impaired, or physically disabled. Millions more suffer from invisible disabilities that can be just as devastating. Writing from her own experience as a person with a disability, Joni Eareckson Tada joins with her fellow disability advocate, Steve Jensen, to share how you can overcome obstacles that have kept you from becoming friends with those who may be limited by their bodies or their circumstances.

In his four decades of urban ministry, Robert D. Lupton has experienced firsthand how our good intentions can have unintended, dire consequences. We fly off on mission trips to poverty-stricken villages, hearts full of pity and suitcases bulging with giveaways - trips that one Nicaraguan leader describes as effective only in "turning my people into beggars." In Toxic Charity, Lupton urges individuals, churches, and organizations to step away from these spontaneous, often destructive acts of compassion and toward thoughtful paths to community development.

Churches and individual Christians typically have faulty assumptions about the causes of poverty, resulting in the use of strategies that do considerable harm to poor people and themselves. When Helping Hurts provides foundational concepts, clearly articulated general principles and relevant applications. The result is an effective and holistic ministry to the poor, not a truncated gospel.