Church Protected, Mission Ignored! Part-9

           Holistic Mission

God is holistic and therefore the Church mission is holistic too! It is an integration of spiritual and physical component. Jesus’ intervention was both physical and spiritual. His mission statement in Luke 4:18-19 states, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”.  The greatest two commandment is an emphasis to love God and love others. Loving others is not necessarily a spiritual deal always. It is demonstrating the gospel of love in action.

David Bosch reminds with these words about the purpose of the Church, “the Church is both a theological and a sociological entity, inseparable union of the divine and the dusty.”.  The early Church carefully followed the holistic model of a Church. They existed with a vibrant evangelism model, active Church fellowship and with a structured social intervention. Acts 4:32-35 displays a divine purpose of the Church movement. “ Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul; neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common. ³³ And with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all. ³⁴ Nor was there anyone among them who lacked; for all who were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of the things that were sold, ³⁵ and laid them at the apostles’ feet; and they distributed to each as anyone had need.”.  Is this ever followed in today’s Church fellowship? This has become almost impossible to be followed today. Then, they never rationalised much. It was spontaneous expression of commitment to the holistic Church mission model. The outcome of this approach is found in Acts 2:47 “praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.”. The movement received favor from the community and then we see daily people were saved and were becoming part of the Church fellowship. Today many Churches are stagnant with zero growth and in many other cases people just float from one fellowship to another.

Quite often James 1:27 is quoted, “Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.”. How many Churches are taking it seriously? Today even the most vulnerable the widows, orphans, the abused are hardly recognised by majority of Churches today. Their value is gauged by how much they are able to give to the Church. They are spoken as an example where Pastors challenges the congregation by saying, if these people can pay why not others. All becoming  part of business transaction. We live in such a pathetic condition unfortunately.

We cannot pass by without referring to Job who fits into a perfect category of following the Holistic Mission. He was not only a righteous and blameless before God but was reaching out to the poor, needy and the vulnerable. Read this carefully, Job 29:11-17 “When the ear heard, then it blessed me, And when the eye saw, then it approved me; ¹² Because I delivered the poor who cried out, The fatherless and the one who had no helper. ¹³ The blessing of a perishing man came upon me; I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy. ¹⁴ I put on righteousness, and it clothed me; My justice was like a robe and a turban. ¹⁵ I was eyes to the blind, And I was feet to the lame. ¹⁶ I was a father to the poor, And I searched out the case that I did not know. ¹⁷ I broke the fangs of the wicked, And plucked the victim from his teeth.”. Church, is this your model you are following? How are you preserving the mission? Is the Church consciously willing to stand with the poor and the needy? Karl Barth notes that when we see an image of the cross, we would do well to always include the other two crosses next to Jesus. Jesus spent his dying moments associated with the lowest of the low, keeping company with those the world condemns. The point of the gospel writers telling the story of Jesus next to two thieves is not to emphasise  who believed in him and who didn’t. The major point (my opinion) is to locate God.

Click HERE in case you have not read Part 8 of this series.

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