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Evangelism and social action

1:00am Wednesday, 12th May 2010

Tim Chester

Daniel was born in Jalap, one of the many slums of Mexico City. His father abandoned the family and his mother turned to drink and to men. To provide for himself and his siblings, Daniel got a job running orders for the tradesmen who operate outside Mexico’s prisons. With a bribe to the guard, children like Daniel supply alcohol, cigarettes and even women to the inmates. In time Daniel was caught and sent to a young offenders’ institution. The judge ordered that on his release he should not live with his mother. But after a short time with his grandmother, he returned to his mother to care for his siblings. One day his half-blind brother was killed in a road accident. Enslaved by his mother and full of guilt about his brother, Daniel was left distraught and suicidal.
What hope is there for the likes of Daniel? What hope is there for the thousands of slums communities around the world? What does the mission of the church look like in such situations? In recent years there has been a growing consensus among evangelicals that we need to combine evangelism and social involvement in our mission to people like Daniel. People are beginning to talk about ‘integral mission’.
The Micah Declaration [devised by a network of evangelicals serving the poor] defines it as follows:
Integral mission or holistic transformation is the proclamation and demonstration of the gospel. It is not simply that evangelism and social involvement are to be done alongside each other. Rather, in integral mission our proclamation has social consequences as we call people to love and repentance in all areas of life and our social involvement has evangelistic consequences as we bear witness to the transforming grace of Jesus Christ.
The declaration group chose the wording of this definition with care. We wanted to retain the idea that proclamation and social involvement are distinct activities. We feared that when they are fused into one entity one or other soon falls away. Furthermore, while good social involvement involves harnessing the capabilities, resources and energies of a community, the proclamation of the gospel addresses us in our total helplessness.
But to say that proclamation and social involvement are distinct is not to say they can operate apart from one another. As the Micah Declaration says, “it is not simply that evangelism and social involvement are to be done alongside each other”. According to the Oxford English Dictionary “integrated” means “made up of parts”, but “integral” means “of, or necessary to the completeness of, a whole”. Integral mission recognizes that proclamation and social involvement are necessary components of the mission or task of the church.
It is a basic rule of hermeneutics that texts make sense only in their context. The same is true of mission. Our text—the message we proclaim—will be interpreted by the context of our lives and our life together as Christian communities. Proclamation cannot take place apart from a context. The question is whether that context is congruent with the message of transforming grace in Jesus Christ.
Thirty years ago the theological struggle for integral mission was the struggle to gain acceptance for the place of social involvement in mission. The Lausanne Congress and the Lausanne Covenant were key turning points in this process. In some quarters this is still an area of debate. Indeed there are signs of a retrenchment—often in reaction to a few proponents of social action who have lost their theological moorings.
Yet at the same time among a new generation of evangelicals it is the necessity of making evangelism integral that needs to be affirmed. Brought up in a postmodern milieu that sees a commitment to absolute truth as arrogant, this generation hesitates to proclaim the revealed word of God. Many Christians today—particularly in the West —readily assent to social action, but are less sure about proclaiming the liberating truth of the gospel. But a commitment to integral mission is as much a commitment to make evangelism integral with social action as it is to make social action integral with evangelism.
Armonia is a Christian agency working among the poor of Mexico. Saul Cruz who co-founded Armonia with his wife, Pilar, teaches a course for development professionals. On one occasion the course participants questioned whether the work of Armonia could really bring genuine change to the poor of Jalap. So the group visited their urban transformation centre and Saul invited them to talk to any of the children. They picked out a middle-class looking boy, thinking that he did not come from the slum and that they had rumbled Saul’s claims. It was Daniel.
Saul and Pilar had met Daniel at the funeral of his brother. They invited him back to the centre for a meal and invited him to join in the centre’s activities. They confronted his mother and threatened her with legal action if she did not stop demanding money from her children. Daniel graduated from the centre’s homework clubs and was given an Armonia scholarship. With strong loving discipline, Daniel has prospered and looks set to go to university. In the context of a caring community, he has become a Christian and participates in the centre’s work with younger children.
I met Daniel at the Armonia youth club. Over pizza—a special treat—I asked the teenagers about their dreams. One told me they hoped a generation touched by the work of Armonia would bring change to the city through the word of God. Another talked of the seed planted in them driving out the darkness of Jalap. A third wanted to see families change through their children. Their dreams were not the dreams of many young people – dreams for success and prosperity. Instead, they hoped to bring change to their communities through the word of God. The challenge of integral mission is to share those dreams.
Dr Tim Chester is a UK-based writer, Bible teacher and church planter. He is a leader in The Crowded House—an international family of church planting networks. His books include Good News to the Poor (IVP), Total Church (IVP) and You Can Change (IVP and Crossway). His blog can be found at timchester.wordpress.com
For more information about the work of Armonia http://www.armoniamexico.net.
Further reading Two articles by Tim Chester (one co-authored with Tony Payne) have been published locally at http://matthiasmedia.com.au/briefing/library/3473/ and http://www.matthiasmedia.com.au/briefing/library/3493