Fast forward later in the year: a young man from the Mission starts attending our church. Initially, he comes with a mentor, but after one Sunday he comes enthusiastically Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday evening by himself, because he wants to. After taking our 10 week membership class and being assigned a mentor from the congregation, this young man was baptized and joined our church. Before graduating from the mission he invited another young man in the program who has also been attending our church regularly. This past week, new men from the mission visited for the first time.

What a thrill to see God at work!

But why are men from the City Rescue Mission of Lansing finding our church? And why when they come do they ask me about Mark Dever, R.C. Sproul, and Jeremiah Burroughs? I had to find out more about this Mission and its director.

I’ve met Mark Criss, Executive Director of the Mission, several times now. I’m extremely grateful for the work they are doing. I thought it would be good for me and for all of you to get to know him a little better.

(The interview has been edited for the sake of clarity and brevity.)

1. Thanks for taking the time to be with us Mark. Why don’t you start by giving me some of your personal background. Where are you from? How did you become a Christian? Do you have a family? Who are your ministry or theological influences?

I currently reside in East Lansing with my wife, Diana, and our four labradoodles. Before entering into the ministry, I spent fifteen years in the information technology industry. I had no intentions of entering into the ministry. My involvement began as a volunteer at the Mission in 1999 and later joined the Mission’s Board of Directors in 2001. In July 2003, I began serving as Associate Director and became Executive Director in August 2004.

Although I “grew up as a Christian” in the Assembly of God church, I quickly began to live for myself as a young adult and pursued my own goals in life. I decided that I was going to make a lot of money and earn a good living. My goal was to make “over six-digits” by the time I was thirty years old…then my goal was to double that goal. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun” (Ecc. 2:11). Since I had this heavy conviction, my wife and I began attending church at the First Baptist Church of Okemos (around 1995). God began to work on my heart through Pastor Doug Phillips (now at South Church in Lansing) and the faithful presentation and application of the Word of God.

I started helping at the City Rescue Mission of Lansing (1999) and little did I know that God would use that ministry to change my heart. I thought I was “helping the poor” but, in reality, it changed my heart and enabled me to prioritize what is important in life. It’s not about “what we have”, it’s about our allegiance to a sovereign and holy God. My wife and I were awakened by God and we were water baptized in December 1999.

Much of my “theological influence” has to do with Pastor Doug Phillips’ preaching/teaching as well as a love for Jonathan Edwards, Charles H. Spurgeon, Oswald Chambers, and John Owen.

2. What is the goal of the Lansing City Rescue Mission? Tell us about your ministry philosophy and what the program looks.

The purpose of the Mission is to “meet physical needs in order to bring those with spiritual needs to Jesus Christ.” We feed, shelter, and clothe, for the purpose of presenting the Gospel.

The Mission will be celebrating 100 years of ministry in 2011. Last year alone, we provided over 31,000 beds for the homeless and 90,000 meals to the homeless and working poor. We also have an addictions program that is Bible based. We are one of the only Bible based substance abuse programs licensed by the State of Michigan. We provide nouthetic (biblical) counseling to men and women that need to make a significant change in their life. We address addiction as it really is…as a sin issue.

Our “Transformation Program” is based on Romans 12:1-2. The program provides good sound doctrinal teaching as well as regular counseling and mentoring. By the time a man or women completes the twelve month program, they’ll have a wonderful grasp of biblical truths.

They are also required to become a member of church before they can graduate the program. Our goal is the share the Gospel and disciple the new believer until he/she is able and ready to be a part of a local body of believers.

3. How is the Mission supported?

God provides through his children. It’s really that simple. We do not receive any government funding and our budget is $1.2 million each year. We pray about our needs, communicate our needs, and God provides for His own glory and purpose. 5% of our income comes from churches, 5% from organizations, and 90% from individuals.

4. I’ve met some of the men in your program and they are into the Puritans and Reformed theology. That’s very impressive. What do you have them read? What role does theological training play in your ministry?

I will have to blame (give credit) to Mike Hayes [one of the Bible teachers]. Most of our required reading is focused on the Bible. We start in Genesis and work our way through the Old Testament as well as the Gospels and some of the epistles.

Mike also assigns (depending on ability to absorb) some extra reading assignments such as Pink’s “Attributes of God”, MacArthur’s “Sufficiency of Christ”. And for those really hungry men, they may get the opportunity to read Jeremiah Burroughs’ “Evil of Evils” or John Owen’s “The Mortification of Sin”. Also, we often utilize Jay Adams’ pamphlets.

5. What advice would you give to church leaders or pastors reading this blog who want to “do something for the poor” but don’t know what that looks like? How can churches best serve the poor in our cities?

I would encourage church leaders and pastors to partner with Christian agencies in their area that “puts the Gospel first.” It is very easy to get sidetracked by worldly problems or “social justice” issues that never rise to the importance or the significance of the Gospel. There are many people that are in need out there…but their most important need is reconciliation to a holy God.

I believe God continues to provide for the ministry of rescue because we are so committed to the Gospel. Our true mission is to cause the dignity, majesty and worth of Jesus Christ to be manifest and acknowledged by all those that we come in contact with. Our mission field happens to be the poor and homeless. It does no good to “show the love of Jesus Christ” if you don’t tell them of it as well.

Don’t be ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for the salvation of all those that believe. Live it and proclaim it!

Thank you, Mark, for the serving the Lord. Your commitment to the poor, the gospel, sound theology, and the local church is wonderful to see. May God be praised.

Why is it that Africa, alone among the continents of the world, seems to be locked into a cycle of dysfunction?  Why is it that out of all the continents of the world Africa seems unable to convincingly get its foot on the economic ladder?  Why in a recent survey did seven out of the top ten ‘failed states’ hail from that continent?  Are Africa’s people universally more incapable?  Are its leaders genetically more venal, more ruthless, more corrupt?  Its policymakers more innately feckless? What is it about Africa that hold it back, that seems to render it incapable of joining the rest of the globe in the twenty-first century?

The answer, says Moyo, “has its roots in aid” (6-7).  Not everyone will agree with every part of Moyo’s analysis (for example, see this debate between Moyo and Hernando de Soto on one side of the aid issue and Stephen Lewis and Paul Collier on the other).  But no matter your opinion on aid, a conversation about its effectiveness is long overdue.  Everyone would do well to investigate Moyo’s claims and carefully consider her recommendations.

Dead Aid is a short, pungent, provocative book.  The thesis is simple and controversial: aid is the problem, not the solution.  “In the past fifty years,” she writes, “over US$1 trillion in development-related aid has been transferred from rich countries to Africa.  In the past decade alone, on the back of Live 8, Make Poverty History, the Millennium Development Goals, the Millennium Challenge Account, the Africa Commission, and the 2005 G7 meeting (to name a few), millions of dollars each year have been raised in rich countries to support charities working for Africa.”  Sounds good, right?  But has the more than one trillion dollars in assistance made Africa made people better off?  Moyo says “no.”  In fact, she argues that aid has helped make the poor poorer and growth slower.  “The notion that aid can alleviate systemic poverty, and has done so, is a myth…Aid has been, and continues to be, an unmitigated political, economic, and humanitarian disaster for most parts of the developing world” (xix).

The history of aid to Africa is more than fifty years old.  Through the decades, there have been different agendas, from industrialization in the 1960s to poverty in the 1970s to development in the 1980s.  More recently, Moyo argues, we’ve seen the rise of “glamour aid.”  In the last decade, “Africa became the focus of orchestrated world-wide pity.”  From Bono to Bob Geldof to Brangelina, Africa has become the cause du jour of the stars.

When Moyo talks about aid she is not thinking so much about philanthropy and emergency assistance.  These have pluses and minuses of their own, but what Moyo protests is aid in the form of government-to-government transfers of wealth or transfers from international institutions like the World Bank or the IMF.  This kind of aid does more harm than good.  And yet giving money to the poor (or telling others to do it for us) feels so intrinsically right, even necessary for our moral authority, that there is rarely serious debate about the merits and demerits of aid.  You’d have to be ethically backward or at least pathologically uncool to question foreign aid.  As one critic says, “my voice can’t compete with an electric guitar” (27).

What’s Wrong?
Why doesn’t aid work?  Moyo offers several reasons.

(1) Aid encourages graft and corruption.  With so much money being handed over, and given the sin nature we all share (my point, not hers), it’s no wonder aid often gets redirected to the wrong places.

(2) Aid politicizes a country, diverting people’s attention from productive economic activity to political life where the “real money” is.  Likewise, aid has often been used as a political tool by rich countries to prop up failing regimes in the interest of advancing ideological agendas (e.g., advancing democracy over communism or vice-versa).

(3) Aid erodes trust among people. “By thwarting accountability mechanisms, encouraging rent-seeking behaviour, siphoning off scarce talent from the employment pool, and removing pressures to reform inefficient policies and institutions, aid guarantees that in the most aid-dependent regimes social capital remains weak and the countries themselves poor” (39).

(4) Aid encourages conflict as competing parties try to snatch up foreign wealth.

(5) Aid causes a number of macro-economic problems: reduced savings and investment, inflation, and a stifled export sector.

(6) Aid creates dependencies.  One you adjust to living with aid, you have a hard time learning to live without it.  Countries become dependent on outside benevolence for continued survival.

(7) Aid kills local initiative.  It may sound like a great idea to send free mosquito nets to Africa and you or your church may feel great doing it, but what happens to the indigenous net-makers once our freebies arive?  He can’t compete with free nets.  So he and his employees will lose their one means of livelihood.  Even more devasting is the lesson learned: “Don’t bother trying to match supply with demand on your own.  Someone else will just give the supply for free.”  Any solution which takes away from the Africans’ ability to come up with their own solutions is not the right solution.

So What is the Solution?
Obviously, there is no quick fix for Africa’s woes.  Nevertheless, Moyo outlines a promising strategy.  In addition to cutting off aid (yes, she wants it cut off), Moyo argues for a host of free-market solutions.

African countries with the sufficient credit ratings should issue bonds in the emerging-market.  Africa should welcome the flow of foreign direct investment (FDI), even from China.  Accordingly to Moyo, the Chinese are actually doing more to help Africa because they are not giving away something for nothing.  The Chinese are investing in African infrastructure so they can make money. This investment provides jobs and encourages African initiative instead of giving aid, which creates a coterie of political elites.

Not surprisingly, Moyo is a strong proponent of free trade, especially in the agricultural sector.  Americans and Europeans frequently place tariffs on agricultural imports.  This protects home-grown products and locks emerging markets out of the global economy.  In the long run both sides lose with high tariffs because other countries usually respond in kind with high tariffs of their own.  To make matter worse, African countries impose the highest tariffs of all on goods coming from other African countries.

Similarly, because the United States subsidizes its agriculture sector to the tune of 15 billion annually, Africans have no room to compete.  “These subsidies have a dual impact. Western farmers get to sell their produce to a captive consumer at home above world market prices, and they can also afford to dump their excess production and lower prices abroad, thus undercutting the struggling African farmer, upon whose meagre livelihood the export income crucially depends” (116).

Finally, Moyo also encourages smaller reforms, including micro-financing ventures, increased savings, and less taxation on remittances–the money Africans abroad send home to their families in Africa.  Above all, good governance, rule of law, and established property rights are necessary if Africa is to prosper as so many other emerging nations have in the last fifty years.

The Take Home
No doubt, Moyo’s descriptions of the problem and prescriptions are not shared by all economists. But almost every economist now agrees that (1) aid has very often not worked well and (2) aid by itself is not the answer.  As Christians we too often settle for the futility of good intentions.  We don’t want anyone to interrupt the feel-good express that is charity and the chiding of governments to give more aid.  But we don’t have to choose between heartfelt concern for the plight of the “bottom billion” and careful thinking about how to help them.  We can and must do both.  The passion of Bono and your college advocacy group may be inspiring, but their ideas may still be deeply flawed.  If just giving Africa more stuff were the answer, the problem would have been fixed decades ago.  Tackling poverty in the developing world requires more than generous hearts and stricken consciences.  It requires careful research, honest inquiry, and an understanding of economics that enables us not only to try to do good, but actually to do it.