Faith Is a Verb

Faith is a Verb is both an account of the author’s five years volunteering with Habitat for Humanity and a history of the organization, which Goodrich sees as a model institution founded on grassroots, Jeffersonian principles. The reader looks over his shoulder as Goodrich helps restore a burned-out drug den to its Victorian glory in Bridgeport, Connecticut; understands the yawning gap between the rich and poor as he straightens nails with an impoverished teenager in the Dominican Republic; senses the importance of volunteer work as he watches, while laying a stone foundation in Paraguay, the Twin Towers fall on 9/11. Goodrich traces Habitat’s history back to an unsung American hero, Clarence Jordan, who in the 1940’s founded a Christian community in Georgia, Koinonia Farm, dedicated to social and economic justice. Millard Fuller, a millionaire businessman, visited at Koinonia in the early 1970’s, and under Jordan’s guidance realized he was a “money-holic,” gave away his fortune, and in 1976 founded Habitat for Humanity. Goodrich shows how Fuller's Southern Baptist, Friday-night-revival personality helped turn Habitat into the world’s largest non-governmental home-builder, his inspirational leadership greatly abetted by the support of former president Jimmy Carter. In a postscript the author describes the crisis Habitat faced when Fuller was forced out following allegations of sexual harassment in 2005. This edition updates the story to 2013, when the organization had “helped build or repair more than 600,000 houses” world-wide. What readers have said about Faith is a Verb: “A great record of how [Habitat for Humanity] got underway and became so significant.” — Tony Campolo, PhD., author of Pray Give Go Do “[S]pirited and intimate.…Anyone interested in learning about or volunteering for the organization will find his account richly detailed.” — David Bornstein, author of How to Change the World