This is an eye-opening, challenging, and convicting book. Richard Stearns presents the facts well, with both compassion and humility, as he exorts Christians, individually and corporately, to do something about global poverty. If you want to remain blissfully unaware of the urgent needs of people around the world (as I did for a long time, which is why this book sat on my shelf for a year before I actually opened it), don't read this book. If you want your eyes open to the reality of the world outside of the West, read this book prayerfully and ask yourself what God might have you do to make a difference.
As I read this book, I was continually struck by Richard Stearn's humility and genuine love for the Lord and the people of this world. This book is not meant to guilt people into action, but to make us aware of the problems and needs of our time, so that we may consider what God would ask us to do with the gifts and resources He has given us.
One of the most convicting quotes of this book for me:
"Poverty is not our fault in the sense that most of us have not actively and intentionally endeavored to perpetuate poverty or oppress the poor. We are, though, complicit in sustaining poverty through our apathy and our unwitting support of systems that do oppress the poor. When we purchase clothing manufactured in a sweatshop by child laborers or buy coffee from a system that fails to appropriately reward the hardworking farmers who grow and harvest the coffee, we become part of the systems that perpetuate exploitation and poverty. In that sense our sins, with regard to the poor, are more the sins of omission than commission." (p. 295)
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