Our Poverty Framework
Lovewell Colfax holds to a reframing of poverty*, defining it as the brokenness of four key relationships that happened at the Fall in Genesis 3:
Broken Relationship with God
Broken Relationship with One Another
Broken Relationship with Self
Broken Relationships with Creation
These relationships can be broken for a variety of reasons, such as:
Individual Behaviors
Abusive or Exploitative People
Oppressive Systems
Demonic Forces
Trauma & Traumatic Events
These four key relationships highlight the fact that human beings are multifaceted, implying that poverty alleviation efforts should be multifaceted as well. The best stance to serve the materially poor is from a stance of recognizing the mutual brokenness that exists.
*derived from When Helping HurtsBy viewing poverty in this way, we attempt to eliminate any sense of division between the privileged and the materially poor, valuing one more than the other, but rather recognize that all people are made in the image of God, have experienced brokenness, and are in need of saving by Jesus alone.
