Introduction:
There is growing concern that the rate of growth of the World Christian Movement seems to be declining. The decade of the 1990s revealed a leveling of the rapid expansion that was evident in decades before.
At the same time there is resurgence in growth of Islam. How can this be? The gospel of Christ brings liberty, forgiveness and life in the Kingdom of God. However, there is a growing realization that the strong message of salvation is not balanced with discipling believers to be knowledgeable citizens of the Kingdom of God.
The salvation message has brought an assurance of eternal life, but often not within the context of Kingdom living in the world today.
Believers know they are going to heaven, but don’t know how to appropriate the promises of God in everyday life until they get there!
We are pleased that there are some ministers that presented the “whole gospel for the whole man to the whole world.” Jesus said, “I have come so that you may have life and have it more abundantly.” John 10:10
In much of the world where the church has been planted, believers suffer in poverty and disease, never experiencing the promise of abundant life.
Luke describes the earthly compassionate humanitarian ministry of Jesus, the divine son of God, who helped people in their struggles here on earth and declared to them the pathway to eternal life.
The ministry of Jesus was a balance of meeting physical and spiritual needs. For believers in Christ eternity has actually already begun and there are wonderful promises ahead.
The fractured gospel is prevalent when believers do not see life here and now as a continuum into eternity. Eternal life begins at conception and goes through a gestation period from birth to physical death, the physical life phase. Death is merely a transition to the release of the encumbrances of the spirits confinement to an earthly body.
Acknowledging the Dichotomy Between Secular and Sacred
The confusion about wholistic mission and the church comes from a false premise of the purposes and plans of God for mankind. This premise assumes that God’s only interest is to “save souls,” not to “reconcile to Himself all things.” (Colossians 1:20)
Landa Cope, a YWAM trainer, has studied thoroughly the prevalent gospel message that lacks essential integration of spiritual, physical and social factors. She stated, “A split view of the world entered the thinking of the church and this dualistic view systematically reduced the gospel we preach today to salvation as the primary message. Christians in the main are more concerned about the sacred invisible issues of the faith: salvation, forgiveness, prayer, spiritual warfare, heaven and healing.”
Landa points out that the gospel of the Kingdom that Jesus taught and the early church multiplied was built on the foundation of the entire teaching of God to Israel through Moses and the prophets. It was a message that dealt with sin and salvation, with heaven and hell, with prayer and spiritual warfare. But it also dealt with God’s desires for justice in government, equity in economics, the righteous use of science and technology, communication, family, the arts and all of life.
If we understand that salvation begins now, then what should we do? In certain periods of the history of the church there has been wide swings of what the church fathers considered valid ministry. Among the Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans and other major Protestant denominations, medical, education and other social services were prevalent.
For example: Mission stations in Sudan during the colonial period were assigned a district. In that model (often highly criticized today), the church was evangelistic, established church congregations, schools, medical care and other social services that served the needs of the people. There was a strong sense of partnership between the District Commissioner and the area Archdeacon, and certainly between the colonial governor and the Archbishop of the colony.
When some denominations, especially after World War I and WW II, focused only on social welfare, the spiritual emphases of evangelism, church planting, and leadership training often was seriously neglected. The pendulum swing was too far to the direction of social services.
As an over-reaction to that philosophy, many evangelicals strictly emphasized preaching of the salvation of the soul, seriously neglecting the social needs of people and the pendulum swing went too far the other way.
Both of these extremes were not expressing the full meaning of salvation, the Kingdom of God nor the Shalom of God.
A typical attitude was expressed to me by a veteran missionary, “We are here to evangelize and plant churches, but in order to have permission by the Government to be in the country we must operate schools and clinics.” Many evangelical missionaries were apologetic about doing anything but preaching to get people saved.
Tensions and Change
By the 1970s a small number of missionaries and national church leaders gradually began to see that spiritual, physical and social ministries were all biblical and were genuinely needed. Concurrent with the shrinking of the colonial influence, denominations began to hand over schools, Bible schools, clinics and hospital to the national churches.
In some cases the nationals became so indignant with the missionaries, their denominations and mission agencies that they collaborated with their newly formed governments to have the missionaries ejected from the country. Sudan was an example of this view after gaining independence from Britain in 1956. In that case it was Islamic extremists that influenced the ejection of the missionaries from the country.
Again, this was over-reaction. The nationals now had control of the schools, clinics and hospitals, but once the missionaries were gone so was the source of hard currency to buy pharmaceuticals, medical supplies, school books and equipment spare parts. This was a common occurrence in the 1960s and 1970s.
The newly “freed” church and national leaders were not fully prepared, capable nor funded to take over these valuable, but unaffordable institutions. As a result, assets accumulated during the colonial period such as roads, bridges, communication systems, hospitals, schools and training centers gradually fell into disrepair and in some cases totally inoperative, unusable or dysfunctional.
Great Opportunities Open Up
Forward thinking entrepreneurs, business and church leaders in the new republics and in countries of their former colonial rulers realized that intervention was needed. Some of the church movements in the 1970s began to invite selected Christian missionaries with essential skills and acceptable temperament to return.
Also, after observing the crumbling of infrastructures in many African and Asian countries, some national leaders were moved with compassion to help meet the needs of their own people. They began to realize that this task was too big for them to handle alone.
Independence often brought political instability, civil unrest and a costly season of governmental chaos, suffering and desperation. Certain Christian leaders tried to influence denominational mission agencies to address the terrible human suffering that was occurring in countries in the post-colonial era.
They received an inadequate response because the mission societies were not prepared for re-entry, especially into countries where they were thrown out after making mission investments that were oftentimes systematically ruined or destroyed.
In this time of great need, opportunity and confusion, relief organizations began to emerge. Groups such as World Vision, Compassion International, Food for the Hungry and many others were birthed. In some cases denominations formed a division for relief and rehabilitation of war-torn areas. Later community development became an emphasis as efforts were made to rehabilitate villages and towns that had previously been viable communities.
Conferences of relief and development professionals were held to evaluate possibilities for improving the plight of desperate people. Tragically, conflict developed between these professionals and evangelists, church planters and Bible teachers. In some denominational missions programs there was total separation of their relief and development departments from the evangelism and church planting ministries of the missions organization.
In a time of great need for collaboration and cooperation, the Association of Evangelical Relief and Development Organizations (AERDO), was formed. Through collaboration, cooperation and partnerships, agencies and church-based ministries have been strengthened.
AERDO is a voice appealing to mission leaders globally to present the complete gospel as demonstrated by Jesus. The organization exists to promote collaboration among agencies in a learning environment of cooperation.
EXAMPLES FROM OUR PAST
The Christian Missionary Fellowship (CMF International) in Ethiopia was very active in establishing schools, clinics and leadership training. The pioneer missionaries planting churches in a very primitive environment realized that they had to help communities by meeting the medical needs through medical clinics. Traditionally the people went to witchdoctors exclusively. The clinics and church planting were mutually supportive and beneficial. Many church congregations (house churches) were established by doing medical care in remote areas.
The rate of illiteracy was over 98% when the ministry was begun in that remote area of Ethiopia. As the church emerged, all of the elders were illiterate. After ten years of schools and literacy training, the young future leaders could read the Bible and train others. Dr. Eddie Elliston led the way in developing leadership and Bible training materials. The wholistic ministry resulted in a more caring community and strong sustainable Christian culture as about 40,000 people accepted the claims of Christ over a period of two decades.
In Sudan, my wife and I were assigned to a development agency, ACROSS (Association of Christian Resource Organizations Serving Sudan). The current conflict in Sudan initially developed following independence from Great Britain in 1956. Immediately, an Islamic Jihad was launched against the pro-Christian, Black African South. A truce was negotiated in 1972.
ACROSS was born out of a meeting of a small group of agencies committed to work in Southern Sudan. The first step was to supply relief to the Southerners in exile and in the bush who were destitute. Their immediate needs were for food, clothing and medical care to sustain life. The next step was rehabilitation of infrastructure and relocation of tribespeople to their native villages.
After those emergency processes there developed cooperative efforts among Christian agencies, governmental and foreign aid agencies and World Bank projects to conduct rural, community and agricultural development projects. The churches where previously established were strengthened and Bishop Gwynn Bible College was rebuilt. District medical programs were systematically redeployed, education re-established, and well-drilling and water development helped to bring communities back to life.
An agricultural extension program of nurseries, small animal husbandry and field crop technology was implemented. Initially there was no fresh fruit except native mangoes in season. After 15 years there was an abundance of citrus fruit being sold in village markets and along the roadway, even during the many years of civil war that started in 1982. The model “shamba” using selected keen farmers as demonstration sites was a key factor in the success of the agricultural program.
HEED Bangladesh was a similar cooperative project where a group of agencies formed a community development coalition. The process of relief, then rehabilitation and later community development were demonstrated in this example. When wholistic development, important to successfully sustain communities, is done in concert with church workers, a true message of genuine love for the people is demonstrated.
Results of Wholistic Church/Mission Partnerships
It is a privilege for the church and mission agencies to cooperate with God in working out His plan to restore all of His creation to its original design. He expects His servants to communicate the gospel in word and deed. We cannot look at suffering people, ignore their situation and announce God’s love with credibility unless we also exhibit it in action.
To be a Great Commission Christian in the world requires more than witnessing and preaching. It also requires good works, feeding the hungry, ministering to the needs of the poor, healing the sick, acts of kindness, community development and social transformation.
The Kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. This indicates a lifestyle that is an integral part of discipleship. Equipping the saints for the redemptive purposes of God in the world enables them to address the full range of issues that pertain to the realities of life in this world. A well-balanced wholistic ministry helps to meet needs by people helping people without developing an unhealthy dependence.
When we joined the Calvary International leadership team in 1993, community development – wholistic ministry was virtually non-existent. After several years of training agency leaders in integrated community development strategies, small projects began to emerge. This laid the foundation for more advanced training in community transformation.
By 2000 Calvary’s MedCommission was conducting medical short-term trips, dental clinics were being held, home gardens were being encouraged, water development projects were underway and health clinics were being established. It has been personally rewarding to us to have seen our role of advocacy for wholistic ministry result in numerous effective community lift projects established by Calvary missionaries.
Summary
The ministry of Jesus exemplified a balanced ministry to help meet the spiritual and physical needs of people. This was part of His announcement that the Kingdom of God had come which brought the potential of great liberation.
Through various eras of missionary work the gospel was presented in various ways. After 1920 the Western church denominations began to prioritize social ministry. The evangelicals reacted strongly to this overemphasis and evangelized to the maximum, neglecting essential physical and social needs. This neglect became so prevalent by the 1960s that compassionate and community development agencies began to emerge.
Later, by the 1980s, the concept of wholistic ministries had developed. This brought a balance and integration of the multiple aspects of bona fide salvation in a broader sense into the life of believers in the global church.
Today there is a broader understanding that community transformation is possible. It is a demonstration that the Kingdom of God begins here in this life and believers in Christ transition from the Kingdom on earth into the Kingdom of heaven to spend eternity in His presence. George Otis, Jr. has produced two videos, Transformations and Transformations II, that have been widely acclaimed that show communities in various parts of the world that were changed by the gospel.
We trust that these notes, concepts and examples will motivate a greater integration of medical care, water development, education, marriage and family issues, agricultural and nutritional concepts and many other physical and social aspects into Bible teaching, evangelism and church planting ministries. In this way we can help believers be discipled into wholeness of spirit, soul and body as teaching on the Kingdom of God in the here and now is integrated into the fabric of life, transforming communities into their full potential.