Robert D. Lupton

Bob Lupton has invested the past 40 years of his life in inner-city Atlanta. In response to a call that he first felt while serving in Vietnam, he left a budding business career to work with delinquent urban youth. Bob and his family sold their suburban home and moved into the inner-city where they have lived and served as neighbors among those in need. His life’s work has been the rebuilding of urban neighborhoods where families can flourish and children can grow into healthy adults.

Bob is a Christian community developer, an entrepreneur who brings together communities of resource with communities of need. Through FCS Urban Ministries—a non-profit organization which he founded—he has developed three mixed-income subdivisions, organized two multiracial congregations, started a number of businesses, created housing for hundreds of families, and initiated a wide range of human services in his community. In addition to his latest book Toxic Charity, he has authored four other books: Theirs Is the Kingdom; Return Flight; Renewing the City; and Compassion, Justice and the Christian Life; and the widely circulated Urban Perspectives: Reflections on the Gospel, Grace and the City. Bob Lupton has a PhD in psychology from the University of Georgia. He serves as a speaker, strategist and inspirer with those who seek to establish God’s Shalom in the city.

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Christian Living

Politics and Religion

Toxic Charity

How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help (And How to Reverse It)

Talking Points

Robert Lupton has invested almost 40 years of his life in inner-city Atlanta. In response to a call that he first felt while serving in Vietnam, he left a budding business career to work with delinquent urban youth. Lupton and his wife Peggy and their two sons sold their suburban home and moved into the inner-city where they have lived and served as neighbors among those in need. He is the founder of FCS Urban Ministries (Focused Community Strategies) through which he has developed two mixed income subdivisions, organized a multi-racial congregation, started a number of businesses, created housing for hundreds of families and initiated a wide range of human services in his community. He is the author of the books Theirs Is the Kingdom, Return Flight, Renewing the City, Compassion, Justice and the Christian Life and the widely circulated “Urban Perspectives,” monthly reflections on the Gospel and the poor. Lupton has a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Georgia.

Description

In this groundbreaking guide, veteran urban activist Robert D. Lupton reveals the disturbing truth about charity: all too much of it has become toxic, devastating to the very people it’s meant to help.

In his four decades of urban ministry, Lupton has experienced firsthand how our good intentions can have unintended, dire consequences. Our free food and clothing distribution encourages ever-growing handout lines, diminishing the dignity of the poor while increasing their dependency. We converge on inner-city neighborhoods to plant flowers and pick up trash, battering the pride of residents who have the capacity (and responsibility) to beautify their own environment. 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 toward thoughtful paths to community development. He delivers proven strategies for moving from toxic charity to transformative charity. Proposing a powerful “Oath for Compassionate Service” and spotlighting real-life examples of people serving not just with their hearts but with proven strategies and tested tactics, Lupton offers all the tools and inspiration we need to develop healthy, community-driven programs that produce deep, measurable, and lasting change. Everyone who volunteers or donates to charity needs to wrestle with this book.

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