I did not find the topic of threshold concepts particularly exciting, certainly not one I would study by choice, but I understood the idea. After numerous starts and stops, and with a bit of prayer and coaching from my spouse, I opted to illustrate my notion of concept thresholds as it applies to social services, particularly food pantries.
In Oklahoma, where I live, the poverty level is above the national average, ranking 8th highest (Shrider and Cremer 2023), which stems from and fuels numerous related challenges. My work in that space was the provision of food assistance for our most vulnerable neighbors. As a fundraiser, I performed my duties to build relationships, share inspiring stories, and invite people into our mission of feeding people. I was comfortable using the organization’s talking points because, as a well-respected and high-performing nonprofit, I trusted their research and operations experience. It was a very surface way of operating, which was my threshold barrier.
Materially poor people often feel a deep sense of shame. They feel powerless, unheard, and depressed at the inability to change their circumstances. Too often, these painful feelings are compounded by Christians misbehaving, which drives them away from faith. The troublesome knowledge came after reading When Helping Hurts by Dr. Brian Fikkert, who said, “Instead of seeing themselves as being created in the image of God, low-income people often feel they are inferior to others. This can paralyze the poor from taking initiative and from seizing opportunities to improve their situation, thereby locking them into material poverty.” (Corbett and Fikkert 2009). While providing food to people in need is indeed a short-term fix, I began to wonder if we were truly helping them or if there were unintended consequences that we were unaware of. I became concerned about sustainability and human dignity as I reconsidered our food distribution systems.
After talking with a friend, he recommended a book by former think tank president and policy expert Arthur C. Brooks called The Conservative Heart: How to Build a Happier and More Prosperous America. In it, Brooks describes four moral principles: people are assets, not liabilities; work is a blessing, not punishment; values matter most in lifting people up; and help is important, but hope is essential (Brooks 2017). Here it was! This threshold concept helped me recognize the differences and interconnectedness between material poverty and spiritual poverty.
Jesus spoke to me through two very direct and affirming experiences in the liminal space of meditating on the discovery. The first involved a brief exchange with an unhoused gentleman. At an outdoor fundraiser for my employer, I saw a man riding his bike down the street. Without much thought, I grabbed a donut and held my arm out for him to “grab and go” as he rode by. But instead, he stopped and motioned to me to wait. He searched the satchel attached to his bike and pulled out a simple fingernail file. Handing it to me with a nod, I understood the Holy Spirit telling my heart, “This is dignity.” He may not have had money to pay for a donut, but exchanging a fingernail file was his way of holding up his purpose to society. Harvard Professor David Perkins describes this as action poetry (Meyer and Land 2006).
The second experience was an unexpected encounter with Father Sebastian Vazhakala in Rome. After working alongside Mother Teresa for over 30 years through her nonprofit, Missionaries of Charity, Father Sebastian developed Missionaries of Charity: Contemplative Brotherhood, enabling priests to do similar work. During our 30-minute conversation at his kitchen table in a homeless shelter, he shared, “You can feed people, shelter them, and even give them a place to rest each night. But unless you address their spiritual poverty, none of those things you teach them will stick” (Fr. Vazhakala, Personal Communication, November 2021). In other words, unless you help people find dignity in a higher power, Christian or otherwise, the everyday life skills learned won’t stick because they won’t hold the core value of dignity, what people ultimately seek. They want to be loved, respected, and have a purpose on this earth.
Learning is a continuous cycle. Getting too comfortable living with a surface perspective is easy until a barrier is identified. A curious person would seek to address troubling knowledge, leading to a breakthrough – the threshold concept, followed by rest in liminal space. And soon, the cycle repeats.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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