Have you ever thought of friendship as a key to systemic change in our approach to poverty? If you lost everything, how long would it take you to get something to eat, find a place to stay, and a get some work? Tough situation? Yes! But nothing compared to the isolation of having no friends. This is real poverty.

What if each one of us committed ourselves to develop a personal friendship with someone who is poor? What a change that would make!

Brazilian crazy pastor, Claudio Oliver, offers up a definition of poverty that gets underneath the usual statistical arguments…and a path that would be a very radical systemic change in our approaches to poverty.

Claudio lives in Curitiba, Southern Brazil and has been working with urban poor, young people and communities for 25 years. In 2011, Claudio and others launched an International Learning Community based on spirituality, organic farming, dialogue and mentoring on a small farm.

Visit his website for more insightful videos.

For further thought… How many people considered themselves FOJ – friends of Jesus? How many poor people consider us friends?