As someone who has spent much of my life in education, ministry, and community engagement, the question that continually draws me back to the core of our calling is simple yet profound: What does it truly mean to love our neighbor? This question is not abstract theology—it’s a lived reality that shapes how we interact with people from all walks of life, especially those who are struggling, unseen, and under-resourced.
That question is at the heart of Loving Your Neighbor as Yourself: Called, Equipped, Sent, a book Ruby Payne and I wrote to explore how Christian faith, Bridges Out of Poverty principles, and practical understanding intersect to help the church love well.
The Bible clearly calls us to love our neighbor as ourselves. Yet, too often, we assume that means simply feeling compassion or offering charity. True neighbor love begins with understanding—understanding the lived realities of people who are different from us economically, socially, culturally, and experientially. There are mental models and unspoken cues that can help or hinder connection. Recognizing those is not judgment, but sensitivity.
This book brings together two powerful lenses:
- Biblical truth—What Jesus meant when he said the greatest commandments are to love God and to love neighbor.
- Poverty insight—How Bridges concepts (like resources, hidden rules, survival environments, and the “tyranny of the moment”) illuminate why loving your neighbor requires relationship, patience, and mutual respect.
It’s one thing to want to help; it’s another to be equipped to help in ways that are meaningful, sustainable, and rooted in dignity.
One of the central themes of our book is that relationships are not optional. You cannot truly love your neighbor from a distance. You cannot apply solutions without first knowing people’s stories, fears, hopes, and strengths. Loving your neighbor means walking alongside them, not stepping over them—shoulder to shoulder, not hand to head.
Finally, loving your neighbor isn’t passive. We are sent—called into community, into classrooms, into workplaces, into cities with both compassion and clarity. The church has an opportunity to lead not by power, but by presence; not by dictating answers, but by learning and serving together.
If you pick up Loving Your Neighbor as Yourself, I hope you come away not just inspired, but equipped—equipped to understand, equipped to relate, and equipped to love with courage and humility.
