What is on everyone’s mind?
Jim Clifton, chairman and CEO of Gallup, claims he has the answer. Take a look at an excerpt of Clifton’s The Coming Jobs War, based on Gallup’s World Poll—where he argues that “more than anything else” people are concerned about finding a job.
Clifton concludes, “…people want to have a good job, and they want their children to have a good job.”
In my recent travels to Congo and in virtually every other country I visit, I hear this same sentiment echoed by the people I met. When I listen to our clients, they don’t want food, aid, or a new home as much as they want a job.
Historically, the Church played an active role in job creation. Puritan minister Cotton Mather encouraged his congregation to find employment for the poor, “Find ’em work; set ’em to work; keep ’em to work.”
This matches Ephesians 4:28 where Paul encourages those who at one point were stealing to “steal no longer, but [to] work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need.”
As the global Church, if we’re listening to the people we’re serving and if we desire to maximize the impact on poverty, we need to get serious about job creation and do so in ways where relationships are established and the hope of Jesus is shared.
To see more posts about job creation in the developing world, see What Christianity Today Missed and Wealth Creation: Taking China’s Story of Success to Africa.
