An Army of Normal Folks - Bob Lupton: My Charity Was Toxic. Is Yours? (Pt 2)

Episode Date: October 14, 2025

Bob Lupton moved into inner-city Atlanta, where he learned the hard lesson that most of his charitable work was toxic. This led him to radically change how he showed up. And to write the bestselling book Toxic Charity that rocked our world and likely will rock yours. Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an Army of Normal folks, and we continue now with part two of our feature on Bob Lupton, right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. At 19, Elena Sada believed she had found her calling. In the new season of Secret Scandal, we pulled back the curtain on a life built on devotion and deception. A man of God, Marcial Masciel, looked Elena in the eye and promised her a life of purpose within the Legion of Christ.

My name is Elena Sada, and this is my story. It's a story of how I learned to hide, to cry, to survive, and eventually how I got out. This season on Sacred Scandal hear the full story from the woman who lived it, witness the journey from devout follower to determine survivor as Elena exposes the man behind the cloth

and the system that protected him. Even the darkest secrets eventually find their way to the light. Listen to Secret Scandal, the mini secrets of Marcial Masiel as part of the MyCultura podcast network on the IHeard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get her podcasts.

Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionous History, we're going back to the spring of 1988 to a town in northwest Alabama. where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. 35 years. That's how long Elizabeth's and its family waited for justice to occur. 35 long years. I want to figure out why this case went on for as long as it did,

why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way, and why, despite our best efforts to resolve suffering, we all too often make suffering worse. He would say to himself, turn to the right to the victim's family and apologize, turn to the left, tell my family I love him. So he would have this little practice, to the right, I'm sorry, to the left, I love you. From Revisionous History, this is The Alabama Murders. Listen to Revision's History, The Alabama Murders on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcast. It becomes then the response. of those of us who are stewards of resources to find those ways that our neighbors can contribute to the betterment of the community. And for some folks, it's harder to find what those ways are, like the homebound seniors in our community. You know, what are? The Meals on Wheels, What do they have to contribute? Well, they're the ones that are looking out through the Venetian blinds watching everything that's going on in the street

and they're talking to their neighbors up and down the street. They're waking each other up in the morning, they're checking in with each other. That's your crime watch. Those are very valuable people. If they're organized, if they're affirmed, If they're encouraged, they can become significant contributors to the life and health and safety of the community. What about those darn teenagers that are spray paint and graffiti all over everything?

What do they have to contribute? They mess up the community. one of our staff guys was talking to a couple of these taggers they call them taggers they write their tag their sign on the bridge and the walls and he said do you think you one of the things that he noticed was that there some of these kids seem to have some significant talent you can see in their graffiti there's some artfulness in this and so he started talking to the couple of those tagger and he said you guys think you could you could do something like a mural something that would make the community feel good about itself

and they got to thinking about that right down through the middle of our neighborhood three blocks long is a eight foot tall corrugated metal fence it hides a junkyard it's it's dead ugly and it's covered with graffiti. He said, do you guys think you could draw something on that wall that would look nice?

And maybe even help some of the neighbors teach them how to do this. Well, those kids were interested. And so over the next several Saturdays, they were out there, lean little crews. We said, well, we'll provide all the spray cans you need. And so they started working on art. That's one section of that fence. That's talent there.

And we said, you know, the kid that was leading this charge, we said, would you be willing, could we commission you to do a mural on the side of our ministry center we'll pay you for that we'll provide the spray cans would you be willing he was he was excited about that and so when you come around the corner into the gateway of our city or into our neighborhood that's what greets the eye so on the side it was a plain old concrete block wall that's a work of art everybody has something to contribute You know that's been three years now. There's not a mark of graffiti anywhere on that wall.

And now those young people are protecting this. They're honoring this. Everybody has something of value to contribute. When your passion and your ability meets an area of need, amazing things can happen. And that's across the army. It doesn't matter if you're an 83-year-old home. bound person or a teenager who's a tagger. I love what he's, what his examples are here, how everybody's talents can be morphed

into positives. It's a great approach. It's brilliant. I forget whether he's about to get into it, but he has a great point from like the negative perspective. Like if you don't do this, you are basically saying that these people have nothing to contribute. You know, we just give to you endlessly and you have nothing to contribute. So there's no dignified. I mean, you may remember like the community example, the community cafe that we featured, right?

Like rather than just giving people food, they can't contribute just like a, you know, normal restaurant worker would or whether you're paying, you know, as a patron. Like everyone has something to contribute. And it's really tearing apart somebody's dignity to say they have nothing to contribute. So we're just going to keep giving you stuff. I love it. Okay, here we go. And then we adopted what we've come to call the golden rule of effective service, and that's this. Never do for others what they have the capacity to do for themselves.

When you do for others what they can do, you disempower them. You take a load from them that was never intended for. for you to carry. You weaken people. And so we adopted as our golden rule will not do for others what they have the capacity to do for themselves. Armed with those new ideas,

we went through every one of our programs. the adoptive adopt a family program the next Christmas as folks started to call in to get their adopted child we asked them if they would give

an extra gift this year and they said yeah what's that said would you give the gift of dignity to the dads and here's how you do it go shopping buy the toys don't wrap them bring them down

we'll set up in a little section of our store, a little storefront, we'll call it the old toy shop, and we'll put somewhere between a wholesale and a garage sale price on those toys. And we'll invite parents to come in and go shopping. And if they don't have any money, well, we're creating cash flow here. That means we can hire some of those parents so that they can work and earn money to purchase that toy that they knew would delight their children so that the parents, in our neighborhood have the same joy

as most parents in our culture have of seeing their kids open the gifts that they have selected and purchased through the efforts of their own hands. And there will be dignity in the process of exchange. Well, that's a quantum leap, asking folk to let us sell those toys that they're used to giving to those children.

But when we explain to them, you know what a kid really needs more than a toy for Christmas? An effective parent. We're going to use that money through the sale of those toys. That will start an employment training program so that those parents who are unemployed, we can train and move out into the economic mainstream so that this time next Christmas, they'll be fully supporting of their own families. The extra gift, it's the gift of dignity to those dads.

Well, that system worked pretty well. We found out some very interesting things. That first Christmas, we changed the name to pride for parents. and that first Christmas we learned a couple important things. One is that our parents, parents in our community, would much rather work to earn to purchase those toys they knew would delight their kids than they would stand in the free toy line with their proof of poverty and accept a gift that someone else has purchased for them.

their kids we learned that we also learned a universal truth universal that means for all people of all times universal truth it's this everyone loves to find a bargain universal so peggy went out christmas shop in this last christmas and a grueling day of shopping and she brought in all of her packages and spread out her treasures all around the living room for me to admire and she said and you know what she said I saved more than I spent well I I'm not schooled in economics so it takes somebody who understands I finance to explain the economics of that but what I do know is that she was excited about finding bargains.

So why do we think it would be such a blessing to the poor to set up a system that deprived them of the joy of finding and purchasing bargains? Why do we think that would be a blessing? the clothes closet. I didn't know what to do about that adversarial relationship. There was a group of, it was a Methodist men's group that

helped us collect a lot of toys and so I was talked with them. I was explaining to them this adversarial dynamic. And they said, well, there's a simple answer to that. Now, Methodist men are particularly smart. I don't know if you're none in this.

room. They know the solutions to problems. They don't even have to be there. And they said, yeah, there's a simple answer to that. It's called the market. They said, you put a fair rate of exchange on a desired commodity. It cuts all that out. I said, really? I said, oh, yeah. They said, would you help us set that up? Well, they had a meeting, and they said, yeah, we'll take this on as our men's missions project this year. And so those guys said about doing what they can't help

doing even in their sleep. Gotta have a business plan. Traffic flow patterns, real estate research. Got to be on a bus line. Shop the competition. We've got to bring this in right

below the Goodwill Industries thrift store. they said if we do it right we'll be able to employ folks from the community train them in retail merchandising move them out into the main thrifts of the main stores they said it take about two years

a small startup to break even and they were they're really pretty accurate 18 months later that little store thrift store moved into the black economically,

and it's been a bright spot in a community ever since. We learned something very important about economics. Everyone loves to find a bargain, but nobody likes to be somebody's charity case. Now, it was at first when folks said, you're going to charge us for this? We weren't giving it away. You're going to charge us now?

Well, a little bit of resistance there. But when they saw that it was their neighbors that were at work in the store, creating jobs for them, well, then that was a little easier to swallow. And our four trainees figured out very quickly that in order for them to get a paycheck, They had to keep customers coming back. It's basic economics. Business guys, they know that. You've got to have sales to keep the lights on, make payroll.

Our trainees figured out real quick. And so there's a lot of discussion about how do we make folk want to come in here? Well, I said at least we ought to get everybody's name down. Write that down. And if we can find out something about them, we should write that down. too. So Ms. Jones comes into the store on Tuesday morning, and we say, good morning, Miss Jones. How are you with her name? How's your mother doing? Everybody likes to go where everybody knows their name, right? Do a sitcom on that. So they jumped in the van. They said, well, how do we keep folks coming back in? Let's find out how the real stores do it. So we jumped in a van, went out to shopping malls.

They were taking notes, and the debrief was really fascinating. They said, well, everybody was very, very friendly. We notice when you walk into those stores, they have the for sale racks right out there and the big signs on them. And the clothes are all sized, and hangars are all going the same way. They said, had the latest fashion arrivals, a big sign on that. And so one of the women said, yeah, you know. No one of those stores smell nice, too.

You know, when you're dealing with used clothing, sometimes it can be a little stale. You can't afford to dry clean everything. So they started talking about, okay, how can we make our store smell nicer? Well, one of the women said we could have a pot of fresh-brewed coffee going in the morning. That'd help. Another one said, yeah, we could do some microwave cookies.

That'd help. And so you come walking in the store and the aroma of fresh coffee and pastries greets your nostrils. That's about making folks feel valued, feel wanted, feel appreciated. Change that dynamic totally. The dynamic between giver and recipient, where the giver has to guard against the recipient getting too much, And the dynamic between merchant and customer, where the merchant needs the customer to purchase all that they can possibly purchase because he needs that customer. And I want to tell you, folks figured out very quickly that they were valued and wanted, and they were appreciated as customers. We'll be right back.

At 19, Elena Sada believed she had found her calling. In the new season of Sacred Scandal, we pulled back the curtain on a life built on devotion and deception. A man of God, Marcial Massiel, looked Elena in the eye and promised her a life of purpose within the Legion of Christ. My name is Elena Sada and this is my story. It's a story of how I learned to hide, to cry, to survive and eventually how I got out.

This season on Sacred Scandal hear the full story from the woman who lived it. Witness the journey from devout follower to determine survivor as Elena exposes the man behind the cloth and the system that protected him. even the darkest secrets eventually find their way to the light. Listen to Secret Scandal, the mini secrets of Marcial Masiel, as part of the My Cultura Podcast Network on the IHeard Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get her podcasts. Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionous History, we're going back to the spring of 1988, to a town in northwest Alabama. We're a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. 35 years. That's how long Elizabeth's and its family waited for justice to occur.

35 long years. I want to figure out why this case went on for as long as it did, why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way, and why, despite our best efforts to resolve suffering, we all too often make suffering worse. He would say to himself, turn to the right to the victim's family and apologize, turn to the left, tell my family I love him.

So he had this little practice. To the right, I'm sorry. To the left, I love you. From Revisionous History, this is The Alabama Murders. Listen to Revisionous History, The Alabama Murders on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The economic lessons that came out of this,

it was like one of God's magical, special gifts to human. called the economy and it functions in every culture tribal cultures up to international cultures and it's real simple Larry has been growing tomatoes this year and he's got a bumper crop it's more than his family needs and he's been he's been growing corn and he's got more than his family needs and so they bring their surplus to the bargaining table and they work out an exchange of so many tomatoes for so many ears of corn and if the deal has gone well if it's a good exchange they both go away and here's the magic they both go away feeling like they got more value than they brought.

That's magic. It's why Peggy was so excited. She got more value than she gave in her way of thinking. It's called the balance of exchange. It's called, that's how wealth is created. That discussion is going on politically right now. Are we better off doing trade deals? or doing it all to ourselves.

Sure. In every culture, trade and exchange benefits the participants, and it's how wealth is created. So why do we think that it would be a benefit to the poor to set up a system that did not enable them to participate in the exchange? I can't believe I just heard what I heard in this speech, but I hope every one of our listeners pays very close attention to what brother Lupton just said that trade benefits everybody in trade and creates wealth, which is also that when you pull back from trade, you diminish wealth. and you diminish the growth of people.

It's just absolutely true. And it's interesting that that very macroeconomic principle, which is Ned and the first reader candidly, he's been able to boil down into community development and serving the poor. It is why economics is everywhere in our world. And I just, I find that phenomenal. that he just said what he said, because it's absolutely, I could not agree more with him,

both in a macro and a microeconomic sense. I know it also, me and probably a lot of our listeners know what's going on in your brain, too. There's some trade things going on in the country. Yeah, I mean, the trade wars right now are slowing the world economy down by 50, 60, 70 percent and diminishing wealth. because when the economy slows, there's not as much money or goods or services traded, and therefore there's not as much money made and wealth slows. And this is not high finance. It is also why I remain incredulous at our current approach to macroeconomics

and what's going on in the world. That's a discussion for a different time. but what Bob just said is absolutely true. And I think it's vastly interesting that the very thing that is crippling the world economy right now is the exact same thing that was crippling his neighbors. And that he figured out that that principle, when applied in his neighborhood, was just as effective as when that principle over the last 30 years has been applied to the world. to grow wealth. It can grow wealth on a macro sense for nations and people and nations and it can grow wealth in a community sense for your neighbors. It's just absolutely true. I find it really interesting. Well, they got it back on the charitable front too. Some people have a line of like if you

really care about people you're trying to help. You should trade with them. You should hire them, you know, hire them. You should invest in them. Just not treat them as your charitable recipients, like, actually do this economic stuff with them. That's actually the most caring thing you could do. It really is. You can give a manoeuvre for a day. You can teach a man to fish and eat for a lifetime. It's all the same stuff. So, okay. Onward. I think it's a steward's responsibility, those who are stewards of resources, to establish those methods whereby everyone has something of value to bring to the exchange.

It's a sign of a healthy community. Our food pantry, well, it was one to try to figure out. One of our staff guys had heard about this idea of a food co-op. And he said, anybody here interested in being a part of a food co-op? And a couple of women said, what is that? And he said, well, you put in $5. And we go over to the Atlanta Community Food Bank. As a nonprofit, we can get food over there, surplus food for just a processing fee.

And you get a lot of food for that $5. And so there were a handful of women that said, yeah, we'd be interested in that. So he took the run to the food bank and came back with a lot of food. and the women were just delighted. Well, the word got out. Now, everybody wanted to be a part of the food co-op. The first issue that came up was our staff guy wasn't bringing home the right assortment of food. There's a little bit of grumbling about this.

They said, well, why don't you elect a buyer? Somebody takes your grocery list. Does the run for you? So they did. That's all of that. problem the next issue was credit what if somebody doesn't have their five dollars this week do we extend them credit well that's not our decision to make that's a decision of those that have skin in the game that's it's their

five dollars that are being put at risk so it's their decision so they went into a lengthy discussion about who is credit worthy and what do you do if they don't pay back and you kick them out and in the midst of that discussion somebody said we need to be taking some notes here we're making some decisions of the elected secretary take notes and then they needed somebody who could balance a checkbook and keep track of who's who paid and who hasn't and how long it's taken them to pay well they needed a treasure and so they elected a treasure see what's happening is that out of this group of formerly prideless food

recipients standing in our line waiting for their handout, the talents and the gifts that were there all along are finding a way to surface, a sense of ownership, a sense of pride, using God-given talents that we just never saw before. There are always food was on folks' minds, and one of the women said, If y'all, they said y'all tasted Emma's sweet potato pie, and nobody had. And they said, Emma, why don't you bring one of your pies in? And so they prevailed upon her, and she came in the next food day. And everybody sampled her sweet potato pie and ooed and awed.

And that gave rise to other folks bringing in their culinary treats. couple of women came to us some weeks later and said would it be all right if we use a church kitchen here to fix some of the food that we're getting from the food bank make make a meal for our co-op members we said that's a great idea and so they started using their culinary abilities to fix some really good meals for the members of their co-op which over time eliminated the need for the suburban churches that came into our community with hot meals to feed the poor they're doing it themselves it's their own talents and their own abilities the food co-op gave rise to ownership to dignity to the to the expression of gifts that

were there all along service project so I said to Virgil I said, should we just not do them? Is it just too hard on the recipients? He said, no, no. He said, they do good. He said, I'll tell you what would be helpful. He said, it'd be a lot better if we were the ones here in the community that were telling folks what our priorities were and what we needed.

help with. Oh, I wrote that one down. Community initiated. But are our priorities. He said, I'll tell you another thing. He said, if we were, if we were organizing it and we supervised the work and had things all lined up, he said, that'd just be a whole lot better than outsiders coming in telling us what to do. I wrote. Looked that one down. Community led. He said, I'll tell you another thing. He said, some of those church folk,

they don't think that we are Christians at all. They treat us like pagans. He said, I think they're the ones that don't have. any faith. He said, I don't know any of those folks that have ever run out of money and run out of food and they only had God to cling to and they prayed and held on to God and God did miracles for them. He said, I don't know if any of them have that kind of faith. He said, it sure be a whole lot better if we had a chance to sit down together and we could share with them, how God is at work in our lives and our community.

I wrote that one down, mutual evangelism. We all have something to bring out of our spiritual journeys. We'll be right back. Elena Sada believed she had found her calling. In the new season of Sacred Scandal, we pulled back the curtain on a life built on devotion and deception. A man of God, Marcial Masciel, looked Elena in the eye and promised her a life of purpose

within the Legion of Christ. My name is Elena Sada, and this is my story. It's a story of how I learned to hide, to cry, to survive, and eventually how I got out. This season on Sacred Scandal hear the full story from the woman who lived it. Witness the journey from devout follower to determine survivor

as Elena exposes the man behind the cloth and the system that protected him. Even the darkest secrets eventually find their way to the light. Listen to Secret Scandal, the mini secrets of Marcial Masiel as part of the MyCultura podcast network on the IHeard Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get her podcasts. Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionous History, we're going back to the spring of 1988 to a town in northwest Alabama, where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. 35 years. That's how long Elizabeth's and its family waited for justice to occur. 35 long years. I want to figure out why this case went on for as long as it did.

Why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way. and why, despite our best efforts to resolve suffering, we all too often make suffering worse. He would say to himself, turn to the right, to the victim's family, and apologize, turn to the left, tell my family I love him. So he would have this little practice, to the right, I'm sorry, to the left, I love you.

From Revisionous History, this is The Alabama Murders. Listen to Revisionous History, The Alabama Murders on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Well, back about 350 years before the time of Christ, there was a physician by the name of Hippocrates, and he grew concerned about the medical profession because they didn't really have any code of conduct. Physicians were making life and death. decisions every day and kind of, kind of winging it. He said, he said, it would be great if we had

a kind of a code of conduct to follow. And so he drew up what has become known as the Hippocratic oath. And physicians to this day take the Hippocratic oath. I thought, wouldn't it be good if those of us that are in the service end of things had a, had an oath to take. And so I gave it a shot. And the first tenet of that oath is already on the board. Our golden rule I'll never do for others, what they have the capacity to do for themselves. Number two, I'll limit my one-way giving to crises.

And seek always to find ways for legitimate exchange. Number three, I'll empower the poor through hiring, lending, and investing. Hiring, that's when Michael comes to my door and says, he doesn't ask for money anymore. He asks if he can wash the ministry van, and usually it needs it, and I am very happy to give Michael $25. dollars. He does a good job on the van. Now there are some on our staff that say you're just enabling him. He's going to take that money out and he's going to get high on it. And I said no, no. That is an honorable exchange. Michael has put forth good effort, done a good job, and fair compensation is a just reward for that. So that when Michael leaves this transaction,

he leaves a free man. He is free to do whatever he chooses to do, for good or ill, whatever he chooses to do with that money because, in fact, he has earned it. Now, that's very different if I gave him $25. Now I would have a sense of responsibility, okay, how's he going to use it? But not in hiring.

Hiring is an honorable exchange. Lending, well, we hear a lot about microlending, small loans to help folk build their small businesses. Lending implies a certain amount of trust and a certain amount of accountability. So when Janice comes to my door and asks for $20 until Saturday, I give it to her without even asking what she needs it for you know folks struggle with cash flow issues fact of life and it's more of a fact of life in a low-income community i give it to her without even asking why because i know on saturday she'll be back and she'll have my twenty dollars there's accountability there but when ethel comes to my door and asks for twenty dollars i say let's talk about the last

$20 that I lent you that you haven't paid back. Let's get that straightened out first before we talk about any more lending. There's accountability there. Lending assumes that there's trust in a relationship. It's relationship building. Investing. That's when Eddie sits down with me and says that he's been painting houses, worked for a company, he's pretty good, and he'd like to start his own painting business. But he doesn't have the capital. He's got the talent, but not the capital.

So if I invest in his business, that kind of gives me an ownership share in that. I'm believing enough in him that he will do an honorable job he'll make money for himself but also enough money to pay me back and I should have some return in that if I'm investing with him I am I am investing in his success I need for him to succeed because I've got skin in the game and so I'll connect him with people that I know that need painting. I'll help market his business. I'll bring some guys around that are good

at bookkeeping and other areas of business so that he can have, he's surrounded by good advisors. I'm invested. That means I am also vested in his business. Something here to think about is, it's honestly just a lot easier to give somebody 20, bucks that wants 20 bucks than it is to hold them accountable, lend it, or hire them. If somebody that you send me know says, man, I really need 20 bucks, it requires effort to come up with a job for them and to hold them accountable to it. It requires effort to remember who you loan $20 to and hold them accountable when you don't really feel like asking for your money back. It's really a lot easier just to give somebody

20 bucks. But the point is, these are way out, it's usually the wrong one. And what he's saying is by giving them 20 bucks or making them dependent. You're a paternalist. But by taking the effort to actually do the things he's saying to do, you end up empowering the very people who need to help that hopefully over time leads them to be able to care for themselves and not having to come for you for 20 bucks in first place. But that requires effort. So the oath for helpers sounds good, but you also have to be willing to put in the work to do it properly. That's a number one, a really good point, Bill. I think it also speaks to the need for an army of normal folks. Like that is hard to do on a mass scale. We're trying to solve this massive problem in our city or

state or the country or the world, right? And like, you can't possibly do that in such a large area. And he spoke with that with his own personal experience. If they were trying to address all of South Atlanta, and then they eventually decided, let's just do it in our neighborhood. Yeah. So it's easier to do it if you just do it with one person, right? And then you can do it with five people and then you can do it in a neighborhood, like start small. That if there's an army of normal folks doing this on such a microscopic scale, together, we can address, you know, all the problems. So good. Okay. Keep going.

But gifts, that's a dangerous proposition. The safest way to do giving is as incentives for achievement, a reward, the safest way. Four, I'll put the interests of the poor above my own interest or that of my church or organization, even when it means setting aside my own agenda. I was in Cuba, not, well, it's been a couple years ago now. I was visiting a little seminary, seminary, right, that had been operating kind of under the radar screen for a lot of years. And classes were out, the faculty and staff were all busy, getting ready for something.

cooking food, lining up transportation. And so I said to the president, what's happening here? And she said, oh, we're getting ready for a group from the States, a mission trip that's coming down here. And I said, well, that's good. What are you going to have them doing? And she said, well, we need some floor tile laid on this little dormitory that we're building. And I said, oh, that's a great idea.

I said, well, they got some skills in that area, huh? And she said, well, it couldn't be that hard. I said, oh. She said, it looks like a lot of work. She said, oh, it is. You know, preparing American food, lining up transportation, lining up lodging. I said, is it worth it? She said, oh, they'll help out.

A little hesitant there. You've got to be careful who she's talking to, you know. What's this American going to do with it? I said, why do you do it? She said, well, we're in their missions budget. And if we want their $3,000 to come in, continue to come in, we need it badly, then we need to create a rewarding, a fulfilling mission experience for them. And so for that $3,000, that group will come in and spend $35,000 just in airfare

to do a job that will have to be torn up after they leave so that Cuban-tylers can come in and do it right. You have to ask the question, whose self-interest is it? Five, I'll listen carefully for both the spoken and unspoken needs of those I serve, knowing that many clues may be hidden. We had a group come back recently from Haiti. And they were telling me that in this one little remote village, as they were coming through the village, they saw women sitting outside their little shacks with infants in their arms wrapped

in newspaper and soiled rags and it and it just broke their hearts and so they went into the city and bought up a bunch of baby blankets and passed those out to those women so that they would have something clean and warm and soft for their infants the following day when they came through the village they saw those same blankets in the the shops along the street. Those women had sold those blankets. And our volunteers were incensed. Until a staff person on the ground said they sold them for food for their babies, their real need is to feed their babies. How do you know that? How do you know what the real needs are? unless you're sitting with people over time,

unless you're building relationships over time, where they're willing to trust you with the truth. There's lots of reasons why the recipients of our charity don't give us straight answers. We're the source of resources, and they could lose that. You know how long it was? Before Virgil told me about his concerns about the way we were doing our service projects. You know how long that was?

Five years. Five years of building relationships, of being neighbors, until Virgil had the personal courage, as well as enough trust in our relationship to speak honestly about the toxicity in our missions five years it implies relationships over time and then number six

that is the same word for word as the final tenet of the Hippocratic oath above all to the best of my ability I will do no harm Amen? Amen.

We'll be right back. We've got a little time. And so if you have a comment, something that you want to take on now's the time yes ma'am talk real loud

will you what you share it's amazing thank you so much yeah waiting to read the question is what

how can you respond when it's a child ooh that's a tough one isn't it that's the toughest of all dilemmas as far as I'm concerned you see

you see a kid that is being neglected or even worse abused in a home and you're trying to work with those parents but you know that kid is really hurting the best thing

I know to do is when you're a neighbor be a place of refuge for that kid that's the best thing that I know which doesn't mean you step in into a parenting role it does mean that that kid has a safe place to play with your kids and that when he's feeling neglected or abused there is a place where he can come and somebody's listening it gets real dangerous when you say i'm going to intervene and call family and children's services and report them that becomes real dangerous because it probably isn't your choice to make let me give you another let me give you

another come at that from another direction you know one of the things that's really popular these days is this call them different things book bag buddies the weekend we hand out book bags full of food so that the kids have something to eat over the weekend, that sort of thing. I'm going to tell you that that is mostly toxic. It's motivated by very good hearts, but it's almost totally unaccountable. It's based on anecdotal stories about kids that a teacher said,

how can we teach him when he hadn't anything to eat all weekend? And certainly there are those kind of situations. No question about that. Those are a real situation that need intervention. But it's a huge leap from there to say all of the kids that are in this urban school are in that situation. so we'll make sure everybody has food over the weekend that they can carry home. You have no idea what's happening with that food. And hunger in our culture,

well, there are folks that miss meals and there are some chronic situations, but hunger is not the same starvation. Servation is a, that's a crisis. That's like when a famine sweeps through sub-Saharan Africa and people are dying. That's a crisis. But in our culture, you don't see that. You know, 45 years now of living and serving in the inner city, I have yet to see the first starving person. Not one.

I've seen folks miss meals. I've seen mom have to feed their kids peanut butter sandwiches the last three days the month. I've seen food insecurity. I've seen homeless guys dumpster dive. I've seen lots of bad nutrition. But starvation? No. Not once.

Not in our culture. And yet. Our food pantries and our weekend supplies of food, those are emergency responses to what is clearly a chronic poverty need. You know, John Perkins gave the example this morning, the old adage, feed a man of fish, eats for a day, teach him fish, eats for lifetime. John says, yeah, but who owns the pond? That's a very good, that's a very good question there.

But we have set up fish feeding stations that keep out giving fish, giving fish, when we should be teaching folk how to catch their fish. And so in that whole food distribution initiative in our country, it's based on false assumptions. It's harming people through giving emergency assistance through what is clearly chronic poverty issues. Is that too harsh? Crazy good. I think, one, for everybody listening, we will put up on all our social media, his six points of both. And I don't know, Alex, I got to review those and start thinking about even some of the work I do. It makes me think that I could be inadvertently, which is how he opens, inadvertently doing some things that could be toxic.

It really makes you think. I don't know if you're open to talking about it, but how could that be the case? I mean, maybe you are with some of your giving. I don't know all you're giving. But, I mean, most people know you for of coaching and living in community and relationship with these kids, that certainly isn't. the meat of what you've done is when a kid comes to me and says, coach,

I need $100 for something and I just give it to him. Yeah. I'm not you could more your grass or him, he's his talents to be proud of what he earned. I'm just being paternalistic

and giving it to him and moving on because it's easier. Yep. And I think that's really an important point because at the very beginning, I have experienced the very thing he said, which is you give somebody something once they're appreciative, you give it to them again,

they think, well, maybe this is the way it works, and then fundamentally it ends up being that they hold you in contempt because of their expectation of your gift. And by giving too much and requiring nothing for the gift, you ultimately create a contemptuous relationship where you create a dependency, and that is the exact opposite of what we've got to do.

I think it's very, very, very, very valuable and something we need to be really careful to think about. We've not really talked about this before, but I read one of his books maybe a decade ago called Charity Detox. It's kind of his follow-up to toxic charity. It is more focused on, like, how can we do charity well? And so always after that, I kind of viewed everything through that lens as I think you're experiencing now after listening to Bob.

So frankly, like all of our guests that we've had on have been people on alignment with, you know, Bob's oath for, you know, compassionate helpers. And even people like Darren Babcock with Bontan Farms have actually met, you know, Bob several times. And a lot of our guests have really been, you know, inspired by, you know, him. And it is kind of one of these things.

Once you see it, you can't unsee it. It really does change everything. It really does. And as we talk about building this army of normal folks, I think it would only be appropriate to use his six points as as callings for the chapters. So I've actually drafted in our chapter handbook, something that's largely based on Bob. That's awesome. I think it's important.

I think Bob is, I think, not learning from this man's life work and the lessons he's giving us about how. how to do philanthropic work well, I think we would be stupid to listen to this and not apply this below-pointed outline of how to be successful and not be toxic. I think it's, yeah, I learned a lot. It was great to look through. Thanks for making me do it, Alex. You're welcome. I know it's outside the box.

It's not as, hey, why am I doing this? We're not meeting a guest in person. I know it's a little different, and you were probably feeling that. Well, no, at first I was, but I really hope all of the members of the Army, people that will be in our chapters and our listeners today take to heart what this man said, because this is this good content. It's good stuff. It's a lot to think about. And as you can tell, I'm still thinking about it and probably will for a while. I think I'm going to take an appraisal of the work I do and make sure I'm not doing it the wrong way. Yeah, and if you'll want to dive deeper, you can read Bob's books, Toxic Charity, Charity Detox. One thing I'll just flag and then we could wrap is, I mean, this can be tough. Like even in the chapters, I've thought through this a little bit. Like some people will really push back.

Like, you know, in Oxford, we won't have one of these backpack programs or kids take away, you know, food on the weekends. And I've always not, you know, loved it after, you know, being familiar with Bob's work. Because it's like they send the food home with the kids every weekend. And we're talking about like hundreds or thousands of kids, whatever it is. and, you know, Oxford Lafayette, and they have, like, no relationship with these families. You're basically just enabling the parents that spend it on alcohol, a vape, whatever, TVs, you know, all the other stuff. You know, you're just continuing to do it every single week is not helping their situation getting better. You have no relationship with these people.

It's just completely, you know, anonymous. So it's, I mean, it's frankly kind of controversial. So I'm just giving the Army members notice of that of, like, if you actually try to implement this in your live and your local community, you probably will. get some pushback, you know, because there's a lot of popular programs like this in most of our talents that people are supporting. And obviously, we got to do it in a charitable, loving way. And that's something I'm trying to work on as a person, too, of really having full humility, you know, with all these things. And we shouldn't be fearful of having those conversations if we are, you know, truly leading humble lives. But it's tough. It is true. And look,

and business and, hey, in coaching football, and just all walks of life. And, life, there's oftentimes well-intentioned, well-meaning initiatives that have unintended consequences you didn't anticipate. But if you're so vested in the idea that you're unwilling to be open-minded enough to address the unintended consequences when you become aware of them, well, then you're just being a close-minded idiot. So we have to be aware that unintended consequences can happen. And when they do happen, address them.

And Bob just spent an hour teaching us how he learned of his unintended consequences, but his willingness to change and adapt, to do things in a better way. Why wouldn't we want to learn from that? I think that's ultimately what his speech and his lessons and his book are. And I, for one, I'm going to think more about it and see if there's ways I can do better. One final thing I already said. I know I said the final thing a minute ago, but we haven't stressed it enough. I mean, Bob literally moved into that neighborhood, you know, South Atlanta, too,

versus a ritzie, you know, suburb. There's actually a whole part of the story we didn't include where his wife. They were planning on buying like their dream house in the suburbs. And then he felt called by God to move into the, you know, inner city and do this. And I know not everybody's going to be called to do that. But whether it's, you know, Bob's example or Bob Mosikowski in Chicago or Darren Babcock doing it in Dallas, I do hope our storytelling inspires more people, you know, to consider that in their lives. And that truly does make this work easier, too, if you're actually living in a relationship

with these people and in the same neighborhood. That's it. That's it. He moved in and went to work. So, all right. I think that's a wrap, Alex. Good stuff. Thanks, Bill. Thanks for doing it. Yeah, Bob. Thanks for joining us today. I'm talking to a computer screen. That's very weird. Alex, good to do this with you. I appreciate it. We'll see you. We'll see you soon. And if somehow this gets to Bob Lupton, we'd still love to interview you, Bob. If you were, if you will change your rule, we would love to do it. That's right, Bob. You can do one more where we're all game.

We would have, we would love to hash this out with you in person if you ever want to. And thank you for joining us this week. If Bob Lupton has inspired you in general, or better yet to take action by detox. your charity, buying his book, toxic charity, taking the oath for compassionate helpers, or something else entirely, please let me know. I'd love to hear about it. You can write me any time at Bill at NormalFolks. Us, and I will respond. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with friends and on social. Subscribe to the podcast, rate and review it. Join the Army at NormalFolks. Us. Any and all of these things that

will help us grow, an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. Until next time, do what you can do. was a nun for the Legion of Christ. This season, she's telling her story. When I first joined the Legion of Christ, I felt chosen. I was 19 years old when Marcia and Masel, the leader of the Legionaries, took me in the eye and told me I had a calling. Surviving meant hiding, escaping took courage, risking everything to tell her truth.

Listen to Sacred Scandal, the many secrets of Marcial Masiel on the IHeart Radio app, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. Malcolm Gladwell here, this season on Revisionous History, we're going back to the spring of 1988 to a town in northwest Alabama where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. And he said, I've been in prison 24, 25 years, that's probably not long enough. And I didn't kill him.

From Revisionous History, this is The Alabama Murders. Listen to Revisionous History, The Alabama Murders on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.