Implementation Example: NECAP

Famous Abolitionists: Harriot Tubman; John Brown; Angelina Grimké; William Lloyd Garrison; Harriet Beecher Stowe; Frederick Douglass; Abraham Lincoln; Ulysses S. Grant

The New England Center for the Abolition of Poverty

aka the N.E. Storehouse

Why the term Abolition?

Because Jesus has come to “set the captives free” – Isaiah 61

Jesus wants to set people free from :

  • Debt Slavery
  • Poverty
  • Greed
  • Financial Fears
  • The voice of money (Mammon)
  • Career/Corporate Slavery
  • Identity/Conformity Slavery
  • Income/Money Slavery

We know that the person we used to be was crucified with Him to put an end to sin in our bodies. Because of this we are no longer slaves to sin.

Romans 6:1-7

The New England Church has such a rich heritage of standing up for the abolition of chattel slavery in the 19th Century of the United States, that God is now calling again the NE Church into a reprisal of its abolitionist roots to help people get out of any kind of slavery in the 21st century, including economic slavery.


Background Reading / Listening:

Storehouse Vision Cast Presentation


NECAP Inspiration Dream and Word -> Banking for the Working Poor

So, sometime in early 2021, we started gathering a forerunner team every two weeks to put together the beginnings of the NE Storehouse.

This had been catalyzed a few different ways:

1. Jonathan Friz and I started talking about implementing the Storehouse vision in the New England region potentially as part of the New England Alliance in the beginning of 2020, pre-pandemic. Although we wanted to get things going, I felt in my spirit that the New England leaders were not yet ready to receive the fullness of the Storehouse / coming out of Babylon message.

2. Sometime later, Chris Adams and I were discussing how to come out of Babylon practically – and specifically how to cash out some financial market based assets and reinvest into Kingdom driven investments. I was inspired to share with Chris, this is not a passive type of investment we are talking about, but an active one, where we the people of God have to get involved in people’s lives, to help them, disciple them, and incubate their business ideas. Who do you know in Rhode Island that would be a good ministry/business/situation to “invest” in? Instead of me serving up Chris an investment product on a platter, ready-to-buy, I was challenging Chris to start looking for people / investment opportunities that we could bring a group around to invest together. Like – ‘you are part of the solution!’

3. Also sometime after early 2020, Joel Frazier approached me with the question – hey Gregg, are there any Christian debt consolidation firms that can help me payoff my credit card debt? To which I said, sure, but you don’t want to really work with them because they lend money just as any other debt consolidation or consultation firm – i.e. they will follow the same lousy business practices of charging more fees, hard money lending, payday lending, and recourse lending. (All of which actually profit from the poor, rather than simply help them.) I also said – hey before you use more debt to get out of debt (debt restructuring), have you ever considered that God wants to release miracles of debt forgiveness? Let me tell you my testimony…and then we prayed together for debt forgiveness miracles.

4. One night, after the GameStop discussions we had been having on the New Breed of Business roundtable discussions, I awoke hearing/seeing the following: “NE Center ____ Poverty”. As I awoke from this and prayed, I felt the Lord was giving guidance to the NE Storehouse vision specifically. That a core focus was the elimination of poverty. After experimenting with various names, it was like a game of ‘fill-in the blank’ to make an acronym. ‘NE_CP’… so, what might then ‘NECAP’ stand for? Wait a minute, the Lord has already been speaking about the abolition of economic slavery to the body of Christ, so maybe this should be called… “The New England Center for the Abolition of Poverty”. It’s a bit of a mouthful, but boils down to a catchy ‘NECAP’, which is like CAP for Capital, NE for New England, but the NECAP (say knee-cap) is memorable. In fact, instead of being loan sharks – who if you don’t pay will “knee-cap” you (break your legs), we are like loan doves who will help lift people out of poverty and in order to “be fruitful and multiply” as well as disciple people into becoming “the lender not the borrower”.

I presented the name via the dream to the team at the next meeting and we embraced it.

There is more to the story…but we will discuss it by interviewing the founding team of the “NECAP”.

For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed

Romans 8:19

You’ve heard it said “God helps those who help themselves”, but in effect, Jesus actually says: “I will help those who help others”.

Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in…’

Matthew 25:34-35

The generous soul will be made rich, and he who waters will also be watered himself

Proverbs 11:25

Hope you are inspired to imagine what Storehouse the united Church could build in your city or region !