All We Can Lent Devotional March 29 - April 4
Week Six:
Changing Our Mindset
Bible Study
2 Kings 4:1-7 – The Widow and the Jar of Oil
Victor, the Director of All We Can’s partner
Eagles, has a phrase he often uses to describe
their approach – “software, not hardware.”
I wonder if you’ve ever bought a replacement
phone or laptop thinking yours was broken,
only to later find out all it needed was a
software update.
When Victor uses this analogy, he means
the focus of their work in communities is
transforming people’s mindsets so they can
take charge of their own development, not
an external agency coming in and introducing
some fancy bits of kit. He believes in equipping
communities to tackle problems with what
they have, rather than inducing dependency on
solutions from outside.
Structural problems are still real, of course.
This is not to say that the only thing which
limits people is their perspective, but Eagles
have developed an approach which truly
transforms local communities using existing
local resources. And yet most community
initiatives, whether in Malawi or the UK, still
focus on hardware rather than software. ‘Our
process’, says Victor, ‘targets the mind, the
belief, the heart of the person.’
This is a bible passage Eagles take inspiration
from and frequently use in their training with
community members. In the passage, the
miracle is not Elisha coming in and solving
the woman’s problem for her, but Elisha
showing the woman that her life can still
be transformed by trusting God with the
resources she already has. She was still reliant
on God, but what she needed most was a
mindset shift from an assumption of scarcity
to an assumption of abundance.
Victor says it is incredible when people in
communities ‘see for the first time they are
capable, they are not incapable.’
I wonder if this is something we need in our
churches, too? How easy is it to echo the
words of the widow in verse 2? ‘your servant
has nothing at all.’ Sometimes it may feel that
way, sometimes we may have less than we
did in the past, but this passage shows us that
when we use what we do have as a starting
point, God can do immeasurably more with it
than we imagine.
If the widow with only a jar of oil can change
her mindset to trust God with what she has,
then what might we do?
If people facing poverty in Malawi can change
their mindsets to serve the most vulnerable in
their communities, then what might we do?
Questions for discussion or reflection:
What role did the widow, Elisha, and God play in this story?
What needs did the widow have?
What was the mindset of the woman at the start of the passage? What was it at the end?
Do you think you/your church needs a mindset change?
What are your greatest resources as an individual/church? How might you harness them?
Story from All We Can
Eagles, supported by All We Can, pride themselves on investing in
people’s skills, knowledge, and mindset to enable them to tackle
problems in their lives and their communities.
Through training sessions where people
reflect on their current mindset, study
scripture, assess their resources, learn moneymanagement
and planning skills, and develop
a vision for themselves and their community,
people shift from feeling dependent on outside
help to having confidence in their own abilities.
While Eagles may talk about mindset change,
the transformation the approach creates is
really more holistic than that.
It is a transformation Gladys can attest to.
Gladys lives in Mvula village with her husband
and four children and is a member of the
congregation at Pastor Christopher’s church,
whom you might remember from the story
in Week 1 – Practising Presence. She loves
singing in the church choir and is looked up to
by the younger women in the congregation.
Gladys has not received training from Eagles
directly, but she is a testament to Eagles’
insistence that the church can itself be a
centre-point of development.
Following his own training from Eagles,
Pastor Christopher started preaching and
teaching about the importance of the church
engaging with the wider community and
serving the most vulnerable. In one sermon,
Gladys remembers, Christopher said ‘if you
see your friend is in need and you don’t do
anything, you are not a Christian.’
Gradually, this started prompting a change
in the congregation’s mindset.
‘we felt convicted – we said we need to start
doing something.’
Christopher encouraged the church to set up
a Social Action Committee and it was Gladys
who stepped up to become its Chair and leader.
Each week they meet to either assess who
currently might need help in the community or
to enact the help they have decided they can
offer. They pool their own resources and meet
the needs of community members without
outside help.
If this was all Eagles’ approach achieved
–the church serving vulnerable people in the community, then it would be laudable. What is more remarkable is the effect that participating in community
development has had on Gladys’ character, faith, and wellbeing.
‘[in the past] I got angry so fast…but after doing
this work I have that peace that if someone
provokes me, I don’t react,’ she says of how being
part of the committee has changed her.
“In helping the vulnerable I found myself to be very
strong and resilient, my faith has grown and I enjoy
the word of God so much.”
The work they do as a committee has also spilt
out into how they conduct themselves in their
own time:
‘we do this as a committee, but we also do this
individually – when we see our neighbour in need
we help individually.’
The most wonderful aspect of Gladys’s story is
that she feels indebted to no one but God. All
We Can invests in Eagles’ capacity-building,
leadership skills and strategy-development,
Eagles train Christopher and other Pastors
in the importance of churches participating
in community development and social action,
Pastor Christopher passes on that training to
his congregation who start their own initiatives
like Gladys.
Gladys has never heard of All We Can, and that
is the way it should be. Her own autonomy in
the process is the basis for her mindset being
transformed.
All We Can asked Gladys what her message
might be for churches in the UK who are not
doing similar work. This is what she had to say:
‘The message that I have for churches and
Christians that are not helping the poor and
vulnerable is: please start doing this work because
we have a responsibility to help the poor and
vulnerable. We help people in our church but also
we help people in the community who are not part
of the church…it is my plea to all the churches,
wherever you are, please start doing such work.’
Questions for
discussion/reflection
“The only thing people experiencing
poverty need is more money” – what
do you make of this statement?
Gladys feels no indebtedness to
All We Can – how does that make
you feel?
Does your church have an
equivalent of a Social Action
Committee? Could it?
Challenge
In October 2022, I got the opportunity to visit
the work of Eagles in Southern Malawi and see
for myself the impact their innovative approach
has on the ground. I came away invigorated
by the transformation people were creating
for themselves, angry at the stories I heard
of development done badly, and personally
ashamed at how much I underestimated the
potential of people experiencing poverty.
I was surprised by the intelligence community
members showed when talking about
their problems and their plans to alleviate
them, their resilience in the face of climate
breakdown, and their deepness of faith. I
should not have been.
I also underestimated Eagles and their staff – I
was blown away by the respect they commanded
across so many communities, the eloquence with
which they could describe the issues with the
development sector, and their clarity of vision for
the future. I should not have been.
In the process I also underestimated myself. In
seeing the way these communities developed
themselves and how churches served the
vulnerable so effectively despite limited
resources, I realised the excuses I make for not
doing mission in my context are flimsy at best.
Some context: before visiting Malawi, I had
been working for All We Can for six months
and had written and spoken extensively to
our supporters about why we should trust
communities to be in the driving seat. But
my mindset towards them only truly shifted
through those encounters where I gained
a deep understanding that these people do
not need me at all. My role is to raise money
for All We Can, All We Can’s role is to help
make Eagles the strongest and most resilient
organisation it can be, Eagles’ role is to
unlock the potential that is already present in
communities experiencing poverty.
As we come to the end of this resource and
take stock of all we have learnt and reflected
on, there are three ways I want to challenge
you to change your mindset. You might want to
explore these questions as a group:
Could you or your church change how you
view yourself?
Are you in a mindset of scarcity where
you presume you are not capable of
achieving anything for the Kingdom
without outside help?
Eagles’ work, and Scripture, show us that God
can use what we currently have to do great
things. Resist the urge to say ‘if only we had
xyz.’ Identify the resources you are not making
the most of and trust God with them.
Could you or your church change the way you
view the people you serve?
In social action, are you treating symptoms for
people? Or, like Eagles, are you tackling causes
alongside people?
In evangelism, are you concerned only with the
end point of more people coming to church? Or,
like Eagles, are you coming alongside people,
helping them to discover for themselves what
human flourishing looks like for them?
Could you or your church change the way you
view charitable giving?
I hope through this resource you have seen
how All We Can’s partnership with Eagles
and other local partners genuinely puts local
experts in the driving seat.
Prayer
Complete what you have begun in me, O Lord. Transform and renew my mind, That I might see the world with your eyes, And love my global neighbours with your
Selfless, empowering, grace-filled love.
Complete what you have begun in me, O Lord, And show me what is mine to do,
Show me, Show me, Show me, Lord. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.