Rich Man / Poor Man

Poverty can be defined in many ways. Some believe it is a lack of community, education, spiritual grounding, emotional or mental health — and the many other resources that make a full life possible — and they are right. But financial wellbeing remains at its heart. And if we’re going to understand poverty honestly, we have to start somewhere unexpected — with an honest peek at our own financial picture. Because how we see ourselves financially shapes how we see the problem, and whether we believe we have any role in solving it.

The truth is, most of us have been measuring our financial status with incomplete information. Not because we’ve been misled — but because the window we’ve been looking through only shows a fraction of the world. And until we see that fuller picture, it is difficult to truly grasp what the absence of money does to a person’s life — whether that person lives across the globe or just across town. A fuller view will change how we see the billions of people living just outside that window — and clarify the role we can play in solving it.

When most of us think of “the rich,” we picture the one percent — Elon Musk, Larry Page, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg — the faces behind names like SpaceX, Google, Amazon, Facebook and the like. And since most of us don’t come close to that level, we never stop to consider whether we might be rich ourselves. That may seem beside the point — especially for those of us who feel like we’re just getting by. But it raises a question worth pondering: rich and getting by compared to whom?

There are eight billion people on this planet. When we measure ourselves against the whole world — not just the wealthiest few — the typical American household lands squarely in the global top ten percent. We may not think of that as “rich.” But most of the world does. It is, in part, why so many seek to build their lives here. And a significant number of Americans sit in the global top one or two percent — most of them with no idea.

Do you know where you stand?

According to the World Bank, if you earn an annual income of eighty thousand dollars, globally, you earn more than 99.5% of all people on the planet — right alongside those names we just mentioned. If you are wondering how your net worth stacks up — your assets minus your debt — globally, a one million dollar net worth (the standard retirement goal for many Americans) places you in the top two percent of wealth holders. Even if your net worth is in the $90,000 range, globally, you are in the top 10%. Let that sink in for a moment. You are richer than 90% of the world.

Now let’s look at the bottom half of the wealth spectrum. Of the 8.2 billion people on this planet, nearly 700 million — almost 9% — live on less than two dollars and fifteen cents a day. They have no reliable food, no clean water, no shelter. 700 million people live like that every day you wake up. Another 2.3 billion survive on less than five dollars and fifty cents a day — no savings, no safety net, just survival. Any one of these people would die for the opportunity to have the same choices that many of us will make today, including many of the homeless we pass on the street corner, despite your assessment of their situation.

Add it all up, and the bottom half of the world — over four billion people — share just two percent of all the wealth on Earth. The world isn’t just different from what you see on your street. It’s like we live on another planet from them — and most of us have never stopped to look or appreciate what we have through their lens.

Perhaps you’re asking yourself — why does any of this matter? I’m doing my best, and you have no idea how hard it is to keep up with my own bills.

That’s a fair response. And this module isn’t here to dismiss it.

But if you are a Christian, a follower of Christ, someone who reads the Bible — this may give you a clearer lens for stories like the Rich Young Ruler, the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, the Widow’s offering, and even Acts 2:45, which says all the believers sold what they had to give to anyone who had need. The Bible is remarkably consistent on this point: generosity matters, especially for those with much. That doesn’t mean we’re called to give everything away. But it may cause us to take a fresh look at what generosity truly asks of us — and perhaps an equally honest look at the choices that make those bills so difficult to pay in the first place.

And here is something remarkable: the secular world arrived at the exact same conclusion.

In 2009, a philosopher at Oxford University named Toby Ord asked a simple question — what would happen if people in wealthy nations gave just ten percent of their income to the most effective charities in the world? His answer led him to found an organization called Giving What We Can. Today, over ten thousand people in more than a hundred countries have taken what they call the Ten Percent Pledge — a public, lifelong commitment to give at least ten percent of their income to fight extreme poverty, preventable disease, and global hunger. Together, they have pledged over three billion dollars in lifetime giving.

No church. No scripture. Just the math — and a conscience.

While it is difficult to quantify the full downstream results of Giving What We Can, best estimates suggest the funds they have donated have saved approximately 340,000 lives.

Now consider what that same principle could look like inside the American church. There are approximately 77 million church-attending Christians in America. If every regular churchgoer gave just ten percent of their income — a tithe — the American church would generate an estimated $165 billion dollars every single year beyond what it currently receives.

To put that in perspective: the annual cost to end homelessness in America is roughly $20 billion. Ending hunger in America costs approximately $25 billion per year. Combined — $45 billion. Less than a third of what full tithing would generate.

But here is the uncomfortable truth: the average American churchgoer currently gives only about 2.5% of their income — less than people gave during the Great Depression, when the average was closer to 3.3%. And of the money churches do receive, research consistently shows that only about 13% goes to benevolence and outreach, while 69–82% goes to staff and facilities. A century ago, that ratio looked very different. The gap between what the church receives and what reaches the world has never been wider.

A secular philosopher at Oxford figured out that ten percent changes the world. The Bible said the same thing thousands of years ago. The only thing missing is the follow-through.

And the cost of that missing follow-through is not abstract. Since 1964, the United States government has spent an estimated $25 trillion on anti-poverty programs. Trillion. And poverty is still the fourth leading cause of death in America. The government fills the vacuum that voluntary generosity leaves behind. When people of means don’t give — when the church doesn’t mobilize — the government writes the check.

And while that intervention is necessary, government programs — by their very nature — are designed for scale, not proximity. They can write policy and distribute funds, but they cannot sit with a neighbor, know a family by name, or respond to the nuances of a local community the way that same community can.

Perhaps you have complained about wasteful spending and bloated government. But the spending and the complaining are symptoms of the same problem: the people who have the most have not yet understood what they have — or what they are called to do with it.

Of course, nothing is ever as simple as it appears. And poverty is no exception. Otherwise this war on poverty would have been won.

Besides, some people are generous. They do give. And the church genuinely does its best to navigate the overwhelming number of agencies, causes, and needs competing for its attention and support. But sometimes the church gets caught up in the same noise vying for all of our attention. That complexity, in fact, is exactly how the parachurch model was born — organizations built specifically to bridge the gap between the church’s resources and the world’s needs. But they aren’t always run in the most efficient manner.

Which is why training matters. This training helps us see where our support is needed most—and where it can do the most good—so our giving is guided by compassion, accountability, and results, not just a moving story.

While the basic premise is sound: if everyone gave what they were called to give, and if those resources were directed wisely, something we will discuss in a later module, focusing on your local community, the most pressing problems of poverty — hunger, homelessness, disease — could be dramatically reduced by you and me.

The problem is real. The resources exist. What’s missing is clarity — and the will to act on it. Moving from awareness to action requires understanding: knowing where the need is greatest, why the gaps persist, and who is actively working to fill them — and whether those organizations are truly worthy of our trust and support. That is exactly what we will explore together in the modules ahead.

Thank you for listening.