It has become common-place in Christian philanthropy to ask the question:  “What is the most highly-leveraged way to invest money in order to have the greatest impact for the Kingdom of God?”  The question is legitimate, and it often reflects a godly desire to steward the Lord’s resources faithfully.  Indeed, the Chalmers Center’s five-year plan focuses on breaking through current bottlenecks in order to impact a larger number of people with the resources God has given us.

Different Approach
However, there is also a serious danger in taking this “business investment” approach to kingdom ministry.  The Kingdom of God is upside-down and full of surprises.  For example, God chooses “the foolish, the weak, the lowly, and the despised” (I Corinthians 1:27-28) and weapons like trumpets and jars (Judges 7:19) to establish a kingdom that will increase without end (Isaiah 9:7).  Nobody would consider the son of a carpenter and several fishermen to be a “highly-leveraged investment,” but standard rate of return analysis does not apply in the Kingdom of God.

Relevancy to the Chalmers Center
These considerations are particularly relevant to the work of the Chalmers Center for two reasons.

1. Church-centered, transformational development amongst the poor is inherently different from a running a business that produces widgets.  The Chalmers Center believes that poverty alleviation is fundamentally about reconciling people’s relationships with God, themselves, others, and creation.  Since only Jesus Christ can bring about such reconciliation, the Chalmers Center does not have the capacity to alleviate poverty for even a single person!  It is completely up to God to determine the impact of these efforts.
2. Because the Chalmers Center equips the church to help the poor rather than helping the poor directly, we do not control the number of people reached through our ministry.  Hence, the magnitude of the Center’s impact crucially depends on the extent to which people outside our control—i.e. the local church—use their talents and resources to minister to poor people in their communities.

These comments notwithstanding, the Center is a very highly-leveraged investment.  Because the Center’s strategy is innovation and replication rather than direct implementation, our impact is not bound by our own organizational limitations.  By employing strategies that allow for an unlimited supply of our training, curricula, and tools, the Chalmers Center effectively leverages the capacities of the church around the globe for impacting the lives of the poor.  We cannot predict what God will do with our efforts, but we are faithfully striving to make the gifts He has given to us as accessible as possible to the global church.