Over the summer period we as a Church Leadership have been asked to submit our strategy for how we will engage with young people over the next few years. This has led to a lot of healthy conversations around what this strategy could be, but predominantly for me it has led to a lot of reflection as to what the outworking of the Church should be in how it engages with it’s local community.
My main worries are to do with both resource and the overall goal of the church’s mission. Robert Lupton shares these concerns, saying “What appears to be extravagant, selfless, even sacrificial investments from caring benefactors may well be exposed as large-scale misappropriations of charitable resources.” On a similar line, Zambian-born economist Dambisa Moyo reflects on the $1trillion that has been given across Africa over the past 50 years in aid saying “Aid has been, and continues to be, an unmitigated political, economic, and humanitarian disaster for most parts of the developing world.” With a Nicaraguan Leader saying that Aid has “turned my people into beggars.”
My mind then wanders to here in the UK and the multiple initiatives that are on offer, which we continue to run and multiply in various different formats. Are we actually helping those we are setting out to support? From a faith perspective also, it would be relevant to reflect on the quote from Bryan Stevenson: The opposite of poverty is not wealth, but justice. If we are told to seek Justice and love Mercy, what could change in our mission to the world that would move beyond simply offering help, but seeking holistic transformation in our neighbourhoods that is tangible.
So when it comes to the work that we do in our local communities, there needs to be serious conversation about what needs to be at focus. If our primary desire for mission is evangelism in order for people to experience Jesus and know Him, we must reflect on what it means to know Jesus. We must move beyond people knowing something intellectually, and focus on what it means for someone to experience Jesus and His Kingdom. That is the goal of mission, and what I will be reflecting on here.
Whats the mission?
Before we go any further I need to share with you a quote that sums up most of the tension that I feel in what I believe is beneath the current of most of our missional evangelism. South African theologian D. Bosch has this to say:
“If we as humans drive mission, and humanity is the goal, the mission would be guilty of an implied superiority: Mission becomes an attempt to elevate the unbelieving to the missionaries own social level.”
Jacques Ellul, a French philosopher and theologian, when talking on giving freely, says “It must never degenerate into charity, in the pejorative sense. [charity] is Mammon’s perversion of giving. It affirms the superiority of the giver, who thus gains a point on the recipient, binds him, demands gratitude, humiliates him and reduces him to a lower state than he had before.”
Lupton reflects on this, saying “when we forge ahead to meet a need, we often ignore the basics; mutuality, reciprocity, accountability. In doing so, relationships turn toxic… When we work hard to develop efficient systems to dispense charity, we overlook the costs in human dignity.”
All this to say, it seems that the church, in its desire to grow and evangelise, has missed out on the very thing it is meant to be a witness to; the Kingdom of God. In the Church’s pursuit of relevance and innovating it’s way into being seen as a force for good, we have become accustomed to neglect the relational aspect of journeying alongside communities to collaboratively see positive long term transformation. In other words, we can become guilty of performing and miss out on loving our neighbours.
Parable of the Good Samaritan
While I appreciate this parable seems to be a very one-sided charitable act on first glance, it’s worth noting a couple of things.
What must I do to inherit Eternal life?
This is the question thrown at Jesus. What is eternal life? In Jesus’ high priestly prayer in John 16 we get a pretty definitive answer - This is eternal life, that they might know you. Eternal life is knowing God. The Parable of the Good Samaritan is about how we might know God/know Jesus.
From Jerusalem to Jericho
This is the journey the man took, and therefore is presumed to also be the journey of the Levite, Priest and Samaritan. Which raises the question of what is going on in Jerusalem. What we know from the Old Testament is that Jerusalem is where the temple is located. So when the Levite and the Priest come along, we need to ask what they were doing there. I think we are led to believe (and Klyne Snodgrass agrees with me in his book stories with intent) that they would be journeying back from being cleansed at the temple. So to come close and even touch a person near death would make them unclean, and therefore no longer fully right with God, righteous. Jesus was entering the big debate of what was the most important command, to be ritually pure or to love your neighbour.
To stay ritually pure can inadvertently lead to a focus on self, on our own image. Jesus was provocatively challenging His listeners - if they wanted to Know God, and to experience Eternal Life, they were to put their ego to the side and focus on loving their neighbour even if it appears to stain their image.
The church must learn this lesson. If we are to know Eternal life, we must be willing to get ourselves dirty, and to put our own agendas aside for the sake of not walking past and neglecting relationship with Jesus.
Back to Mission
As I write this, I am drawn to reflect on many initiatives that I have been involved in over the years and even youth work projects that I am involved in now. So often our approach is to entertain and perform. Not just the on stage stuff, but even in our community work I have tended to do things for those I am working with as it’s easier and gives us a good image in a short amount of time. I think of a youth club that I help run where we give out free food each week, where the young people have grown entitled of that privilege. They have become dependant on our service, which yes is a short term win because they come back each week, but is it giving them the tools and resources to thrive in life after our service? Are we teaching them how to be independent of us and not have to lose further dignity down the line?
I might as well walk on by. It’s not done in partnership, it’s not giving the opportunity for us to receive anything in return, it’s not building up anyone.
If we are to be involved in God’s redemptive, reconciling and healing work in the world we must move beyond this notion that it is down to us to convert the world. The Spirit is the one who convicts and reveals Jesus, not us. I wonder, therefore, if instead of pushing agendas onto our neighbours, we instead invested in building two-way relationships where we dedicate ourselves to listening first: to hearing what needs our community genuinely need our help with, to listening so that we might hear how God is already at work in their lives, to dedicating ourselves to the long-haul and loving our neighbour in order that they might trust and believe in our actions and invitations to experience the Eternal Life that flows through us.
Concluding thoughts
So to conclude, we as the Church must re-evaluate its approach to mission and evangelism, recognising that true transformation requires more than simply performing charitable acts or pursuing superficial goals. There is a risk of mission becoming an exercise in superiority if it is driven by the desire to elevate others to our standards rather than fostering genuine relationships based on mutual respect and understanding.
The parable of the Good Samaritan serves as a powerful reminder that our mission should not be about maintaining ritual purity or projecting an image of righteousness but about actively loving our neighbours, even if it means getting our hands dirty. This love requires us to set aside our egos and agendas, to listen and engage with our communities authentically.
As we have reflected, we see that often our efforts to serve can inadvertently foster dependency rather than empowerment. It is crucial to ask ourselves whether our actions truly equip others for independence and dignity or merely offer short-term solutions, which fall short once they move beyond our programmes and clubs.
Ultimately, the Church's mission should focus on building two-way relationships, where we prioritise listening and understanding the real needs of those we serve. By investing in genuine connections and dedicating ourselves to the long haul, we can more faithfully participate in God's redemptive work, allowing the Spirit to guide us, collectively as a community, in revealing Jesus.
So, as we embark on our strategy for engaging young people in our community we must continue to remind ourselves that our work is in vain if it is done alone. If not done in partnership with our local communities and only done for our own praise and because it makes our statistics look good, we miss out on the most important thing for us as a community seeking to love God and our neighbour; the Kingdom of God.
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