Watch: What does the Bible have to say about the poor?
In today’s video podcast, watch Session 4: “Developing our Heads” from the 2015 VJN Forum: Jesus, the Kingdom, and the Poor. Dr. Liz Theoharis helps us to deepen and press into our Vineyard Kingdom-worldview when reading what the Bible has to say about the poor. What does it mean that the “poor will always be with us?”
Watch the response panel to Liz’s talk: Andrew Lee TUMI, Lyn Burnhope Aylesbury Vineyard Church (UK), Michael Raburn Vineyard North
Liz Theoharis Co-Director, Kairos Center | Founder & Coordinator, Poverty Initiative | NYC
The Reverend Dr. Liz Theoharis is the Co-Director of the Kairos Center and a Founder and the Coordinator of the Poverty Initiative. She has spent the past two decades organizing amongst the poor in the United States, working with and advising grassroots organizations with significant victories including the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, the Vermont Workers Center, Domestic Workers United, the United Workers Association, the National Union of the Homeless and the Kensington Welfare Rights Union. She has led hundreds of trainings, Bible studies, and leadership development workshops; spoken at dozens of conferences and keynote presentations across the US and globally; and published several articles and book chapters sharing her vision that poverty can be ended and that the poor can be agents of social change. Liz received her BA in Urban Studies from the University of Pennsylvania; her M.Div. from Union Theological Seminary in 2004 where she was the first William Sloane Coffin Scholar; and her PhD from Union in New Testament and Christian Origins. The title of her dissertation was “Will the Poor Be with You Always’: Towards a Methodological Approach of Reading the Bible with the Poor.” Liz is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Andrew Lee Director of Ministry Support, The Urban Ministry Institute/TUMI (PA)
Andrew served as an urban missionary with World Impact in Chester, PA for 11 years. Andrew has a BS in Mechanical Engineering (Drexel University) & was pursuing his Masters in Mechanical Engineering (Virginia Tech) when God called him to urban ministry. He started as a middle school teacher at the Frederick Douglass Christian School, & subsequently served as a church plant team leader, project manager for the Grace Dental Clinic, founder of TUMI Chester, and the City Director for World Impact Chester. In 2013, he Mid Atlantic Field Director for Prison Fellowship.
In 2015, Andrew returned to World Impact and joined TUMI International as the Director of Ministry Support. Andrew oversees TUMI’s web-based support systems and will also help design, maintain, and update all administrative and ministry support systems. Andrew enjoys sharing what God has taught him over the years in ministry and believes that God has a great vision for the poor and incarcerated to do great things for His Kingdom. He and his wife Karen have a son named Christopher and a daughter named Karis.
Lyn Burnhope senior pastor, Aylesbury Vineyard Church (UK)
Together with her husband Steve, Lyn is Senior Pastor at Aylesbury Vineyard Church in Buckinghamshire in England, and their children and grandchildren keep them busy in their spare time! Lyn specifically takes responsibility for their compassion ministry, with a special interest in how issues of justice work holistically within a kingdom paradigm in our worshipping communities, both on a local level and on a wider level as part of the global community. She studied at the London School of Theology for a Bachelor of Theology Degree and then a Masters Degree.