When it comes to poverty, actions speak louder than words.

Last month, I helped launch The Poverty Forum (www.thepovertyforum.org) a unique effort to find consensus among a very diverse group of Christians with expertise in poverty initiatives and policy reform. The project’s goal was to identify ways to reduce domestic poverty and make concrete policy recommendations to Congress and the new administration.

The initiative began last summer when I started working with Mike Gerson, senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations and former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, and Rev. Jim Wallis, president of Sojourners. Our concern was that the poor would be left out of the national discussion during the presidential campaign. We agreed that despite the outcome of the presidential race, we would find a way to present our recommendations on poverty reduction at the White House and on Capitol Hill. Who knew when we started that this effort would be launched  during at a time when experts predict that an additional nine million Americans will fall into poverty due to the current economic recession?

The project was very successful, with some positive results: Twenty-eight recommendations, ranging from strengthening marriage and fatherhood, expanding individual development accounts, creating lifetime savings accounts, fully funding the Second Chance Act and eliminating the marriage penalty within the earned income tax credit.

Responses from the Right and the Left about our initiative came as no surprise. The conservative critique fell along two lines: a focus on poverty either “dilutes” attention from fighting abortion, same-sex marriage and pornography or leads to an overarching dependence on government that ultimately stifles individual acts of charity and the work of faith-based organizations. Liberals, on the other hand, lambasted our effort as not going far enough with government assistance, insisting that recommendations made are too “cautious,” while others claimed it was too “deferential toward a regnant conservative ideology” with “emphasis on inculcating and reinforcing traditional values.”

In both cases, I think critics missed the forest for the trees.  The Poverty Forum was, by design, meant to be incremental and, by outcome, to propose the allocation of current government spending to strengthen such values-laden concepts as family, savings, work and civil society.  It is a positive, albeit humble, step forward.

But evangelical critics missed another aspect of the initiative, that it is also a humble effort to share the Good News by expressing concern for the poor through an effort of Christian unity. At the launch of The Poverty Forum, I read from St. John’s account of Jesus’ final prayer in the garden. It was about Jesus’ conversation with his Father, in which he proclaimed what theologian John Stott called the cultural commission: “Just as you sent me into the world, I am sending them into the world” (John 17:18).

In his book, Issues Facing Christians Today, Stott wrote, “It is sadly still the case that some believe that Christians do not have social responsibility in this world but only a commission to evangelize those who have not heard the gospel. Yet it is evident that in his public ministry Jesus both 'went about . . . teaching . . . and preaching' (Matthew 4:23; 9:35) and 'went about doing good and healing' (Acts 10:38). In consequence, 'evangelism and social concern have been intimately related to one another throughout the history of the Church . . .Christian people have often engaged in both activities quite unselfconsciously, without feeling any need to define what they were doing or why.'" Preaching and doing good should not be mutually exclusive. To truly proclaim the Gospel, man is called to do both.

Later in that same prayer, Jesus pleaded that we, His followers, may “experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me!”  (John 17:23).   After 16 years of working on Capitol Hill and being entrenched in the bowels of party politics, I realized how infrequently believers in Washington step out of their ideological and partisan shells to undertake the truly challenging effort of consensus building, and in the process, model the unity that Jesus said would help reveal Him to the world.

Most evangelicals believe professing the Gospel though the written and spoken word takes precedence over less direct methods of “witnessing.” But the witness of Christians united in compassion speaks volumes. As St. Francis said, “Preach the Gospel always, and when necessary use words.”

The Poverty Forum is a unique opportunity to witness to the world—by word, unity and deed.  If some evangelicals cannot in good conscience support the policy recommendations we made, I know they can at least applaud our efforts to help the world know we are Christians by our love.