Christians Against Poverty (CAP) is one of God's great successes. Paul Luckraft reports on what CAP is doing today and how you can get involved.

Christians Against Poverty (CAP) is one of God's great successes. This week on Prophecy Today we are reviewing the book Nevertheless, which records CAP's origins and early progress. Our Resources Editor Paul Luckraft decided to investigate further and caught up with Helen Norris, CAP's Partnerships Manager for London, to find out what CAP is doing today and how you can get involved. Here is his report.

Transforming Lives

It is always encouraging and stimulating to discover how God is at work in society and how each one of us can take part in the transformation of lives. CAP provides such an opportunity as it always works in partnership with local churches. CAP's aim is not to do it all but to empower Christians to serve Christ within their own communities. There are now four ways in which this can happen. The primary method remains the Debt Centre.

Debt Centres

With 1 in 12 people in the UK now in unmanageable debt, a Debt Centre is a lifeline to many. Every church can become a Debt Centre. CAP will train a Centre Manager to oversee the deliverance of the most comprehensive debt counselling service available anywhere. A Centre Manager doesn't need in-depth financial knowledge. He or she is backed up by over 150 professional Caseworkers and Specialist Advisers at head office.

CAP takes care of all the basic elements of debt counselling centrally, putting together budgets and negotiating with creditors. It assesses the best route for each client to become debt free and equips the volunteer workers and befrienders to take this solution into people's homes, together with the love of Jesus - for it is an essential ingredient of CAP to offer the gospel alongside the financial service. As people find relief from the misery and stress of debt then new hope grows and they become more open to the Christian message.

With 1 in 12 people in the UK now in unmanageable debt, a Debt Centre is a lifeline to many - and every church can become one.

To date CAP has 290 church-based Debt Centres, covering 60% of the UK. The aim is for 500 to cover the whole of the UK. Could your church become a CAP Debt Centre?

Money Courses

More recently CAP has started running Money Courses as a preventative measure. As financial illiteracy is a major cause of debt and poverty this is a vital practical tool to help people avoid getting into debt in the first place. As always this venture is done in partnership with local churches and blended with their passion to share the gospel at the same time as passing on skills that will have a lasting impact on people's finances.

The CAP Money Course has become their greatest weapon against debt. In a society increasingly reliant on credit cards and loans this course provides the simple principles of how to budget, save and spend wisely, giving people a better chance to take control of their finances. CAP is now the largest provider of adult face-to-face money education.

CAP trains volunteers to run these courses in their local churches. Could this be your way of contributing to CAP's work? If you have the confidence and basic skills to present the material, then with extra specialist training you could make a real difference. The course is usually run over three 90 minute sessions, one per week, but this can be flexible. Each session involves a DVD and interactive discussions. By the end of the course those attending will know how to build a good budget and keep it balanced, understand the importance of savings and how to deal with debt. The motto is, prevention is better than cure!

Although primarily designed for adults, there is no reason why these courses cannot be used with youth groups or taken into schools and colleges. Such basic money management is often ignored among young people, at a time of life when it is most needed.

Job Clubs

A CAP Job Club is another tool in the fight against poverty and is designed to equip people to find employment while rebuilding their confidence and self-esteem (often lost when unemployment strikes). These Clubs are, as usual, run through local churches and have become nationally recognised and recommended by the Department of Work and Pensions.

The CAP Money Course has become their greatest weapon against debt, providing people with the simple principles of how to budget, save and spend wisely.

The Club meets once a week and is run by a trained CAP Job Club Manager. A key aspect is the Steps to Employment course, an interactive course that covers practical topics such as CV writing and interviewing techniques, all designed to improve employability. Coaching sessions are then run alongside the course to give members chance to discuss their individual needs in more detail and set goals for themselves. All this is set in a friendly and inclusive environment that combats isolation and also provides members with the taste of a church family.

The first Job Club was opened in 2013 and there are now 140 such clubs, but more are needed. Is this an area where you can help? CAP offers the necessary training so you can provide one-to-one coaching over an 8 week course. The format is flexible enough to run successfully in both small and large churches.

Release Groups

The fourth way to help is the most recent to be developed. A Release Group aims to tackle addiction and dependence in whatever area is needed, not just financial. CAP Release Groups provide a safe, confidential place for people to seek help alongside the support of others who understand what they are going through. The groups teach people practical steps to tackle their dependency head on through interactive sessions and individual coaching.

The eight week course is run by a trained CAP Release Group Coach and offers a place of trust and security for people to take steps to find freedom from their life-controlling habits. Clearly over-spending is one such addiction and one of the main causes of debt and poverty, but the course is flexible enough to cover other addictive behaviours. If your heart is to see people released from addiction then perhaps this is where you could become involved!

Release Groups aim to tackle all kinds of addiction and dependence, providing people with a safe place and practical help to find freedom from life-controlling habits.

Funding

CAP is well respected in the credit industry and in 2015 was the UK Debt Advice Provider of the Year, as awarded by Credit Today.

As their mission statement declares, CAP is passionate about releasing people from a life sentence of poverty, debt, unemployment and addiction. Their vision is to serve the poor and save the lost through 1,000 church based CAP services, so that anyone in the UK can access their life-transforming help.

But how is this funded? There is no Government funding as this would force CAP to give up their Christian emphasis. Sharing the gospel and God's love is key to their mission and all workers do this (90% of the clients accept this as they understand the help is from a Christian organisation and provided via local churches). Funding is provided by 27,000 regular givers (or Life Changers) who give monthly. All donations are welcome, however small. This provides 70% of the annual £10 million budget. The rest comes from legacies and other one-off gifts.

It is important to stress that money is never given out to those in debt. Handouts are not provided. All the money goes towards training and support so that people find their own way out of debt and dependency.

Get Involved Now

Debt is a very pressing social problem. It cripples lives and often leads to other problems. Families and relationships can be destroyed, and medical issues frequently follow as fear and depression set in. The very nature of Christ and his love means that necessarily Christians are against poverty. The only question is what they do about it. Through CAP there is a very real and successful way of putting our faith into action.

How you can help:

• Could you run a CAP Money Course and help give people the basic skills to take control of their own finances?
• Could you start a Job Club and work to equip people to find employment?
• Could you become a CAP Release Group Coach and help free people from addictive behaviours?
• Could your church become a CAP Debt Centre to serve the local community?

To help in any way or to get further details about any aspect of CAP's work, email the Church Partnership Team at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 01274 760580, or visit capuk.org. All enquiries are welcome.

"...one man's mission to change thousands of people's lives": We review the exciting story of how Christians Against Poverty (CAP) was founded.

'Nevertheless' by John Kirkby (Christians Against Poverty Books, 2014, 229 pages, RRP £6.99 with proceeds going to CAP, but also available free from the CAP website)

In 'Nevertheless' we have the exciting account of how John Kirkby founded Christians Against Poverty (CAP). Both he and his family had gone through the experience of debt and dire poverty themselves, which meant he was both well qualified for the task and compassionate towards those he was seeking to help.

Faith in Adversity

In 1996, Christians Against Poverty was started in Bradford with few financial assets but with an incredible example of faith and trust in God. With encouraging words from Scripture and the assurance that God was leading him, the first centre was set up to deliver people from the misery of debt. Through much adversity and many hard times John and his team persevered and in 2001 CAP purchased Jubilee Mill in Bradford as their headquarters. John has kept a diary (set out in the book) of the faith shown by CAP staff through financial problems along the way.

It is wonderful to read how this was achieved and the way that the staff supported a network of church-based debt centres throughout England. Thousands of lives have been changed and there are amazing testimonies from people who have become free from debt – and many are also now Christians.

Growing Network

As well as changing lives in the UK, CAP has now an international ministry with centres established in Australia, Canada and New Zealand. In 2008 the CAP Money Course was formed to teach people how to manage their finances. By 2014 there were five thousand trained CAP Money Coaches from churches and an estimated thirty-two thousand people had been through the course.

As John says in his acknowledgement at the beginning of the book: "I have always known that it is not about me, and as CAP now helps more than 30,000 individuals worldwide each year, it is still all about bringing glory to God" (p7).