Teach a Man to Fish: Engaging the Local Church to Create Sustainable, Transformational Missions

You’ve probably heard the old saying, “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.”

The same basic principle applies to missions work. Too many churches and other missions organizations over-emphasize Relief Aid―no-strings-attached, handouts of vital supplies given in the immediate aftermath of a disaster. While necessary and lifesaving, Relief Aid is only a temporary fix. Once the funds dry up and the ground team leaves, the impoverished community is often no better off than they were before.

In Teach a Man to Fish, the authors illustrate the benefits of “wholistic transformational development,” where―through engagement with the local church― the community is empowered to identify and carry out long-term sustainable solutions to meet its own needs. A few of the steps that “wholistic transformational development” includes are:

• Give dignity to “the least of these”
• Address the root causes of poverty to provide solutions for the affected
• Help the vulnerable to become empowered in their own communities

Filled with real-life stories from the authors’ own experiences, Teach a Man to Fish provides churches and missions organizations with a blueprint for helping people help themselves in order to create lasting change and long-term sustainability and independence.

Dr. Florence Muindi is the founder and president of Life In Abundance (LIA) International (lifeinabundance.org), a faith-based nonprofit headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya. LIA serves the poor and the vulnerable through partnerships with local indigenous churches, while championing the cause of wholistic transformational development.

Dr. Muindi is a medical doctor, an author, and an ordained minister. She and her husband, Dr. Festus Muindi, live in Kenya and have three children and one grandchild.

Charlie Vittitow has served as a dentist, a cofounder of several successful medical equipment companies, and a missions pastor at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. Charlie's greatest delight is seeing the global church leverage the variety of gifts God has placed in each part of the body of Christ, creating an enormously greater Kingdom impact though oneness. His second greatest delight is watching his wife catch fish.