Stephens Ministry of Memphis aim is to teach churches and ministries in concrete poverty alleviation tools that they can use in their communities. Through these tools, churches can form relationships with low-income people and empower them with the skills to support themselves and their families. As a result, the materially poor experience lasting spiritual, social, and financial transformation.

 

Learn how you can use these tools in your local church and community:

By starting a Faith & Finances class, local churches and  can empower the materially poor with money management skills and unpack how our money is part of God’s work in the world. Stephens Ministry of Memphis can empower low-income people with the skills and attitudes to find work and also encourage entrepreneur training that fosters economic development.

 

 

Poverty Alleviation

Relief, Rehabilitation or Development:

If we only treat the symptoms of poverty or if we misdiagnose its root causes, we can actually hurt the poor in our well-intentioned efforts to help them.

 

The development of effective assessment tools can help us to discern the nature of a person’s situation.

 

Our Missionary work is equipping local churches and their communities they serve to empower the poor using Rehabilitation and/or Development as a platform to serve the poor.

 

We believe in the resources share in the book titled “When Helping Hurts” in which Stephens Ministry of Memphis has adopted a more healthier framework of engaging with low-income communities.

 

Savings Group Training

Restore: Savings

Through partner denominations and  equips church leaders to form gospel-driven, church-centered savings groups in their own communities.

 

Why Savings Groups?

Restore: Savings program is rooted in three basic commitments:

• Local Churches: Stephens's Ministry of Memphis trains local church leaders to promote and support savings groups. Thus, the local Body of Christ – not a foreign worker or organization – serves as the channel for Christ’s reconciling work in the community. Beyond saving their financial resources, participants also study scripture, pray, and fellowship together, experiencing social and spiritual restoration.

• Local Resources: Savings groups aren’t driven by money from outside the community. Participants learn stewardship principles and business skills together, saving their hard-earned wages. In the process, group members are empowered to use their own resources to support themselves and their families.

• Lasting Change: Because savings groups are rooted in local churches and local resources, they are sustainable. And as savings groups address participants’ spiritual, social, and financial challenges, individuals and communities experience long-term transformation. Group members discover who God is and who He created them to be, moving from isolation to community and from dependency to dignity.

 

Our Role in the Community

"Working to reconcile the four foundational relationships so that people can fulfill their callings of glorifying God by working and supporting themselves and their families with the fruit of that work."

 

 

 

• Download select Restore: Savings resources, exploring how savings groups can equip churches and ministries in the Majority World to empower the poor. 

 

Get Resources

 

• Invest your God-given resources to empower the poor to steward theirs. Your gift equips church leaders to promote and support savings groups, transforming communities from the inside out. 

 

 

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