People are drawn to the gospel when they see Christians acting like Christ. This is the impulse behind many churches engaged in ministries of justice and mercy.
Julie Clawson, author of Everyday Justice, says, "Justice is not about causes or issues. It is about people.
It is about loving our neighbors as ourselves. When you are acting like Jesus with people they begin asking questions such as, 'Why are you doing this for us? Where is this love coming from?' Unfortunately so many people have developed such a negative perception of Christians as all talk and no deeds, that in these days if you just start talking about Christianity they will shut you down. But when we lead with acts of mercy, acts of justice, acts of love and we do it in Jesus' name, it opens a whole new realm of conversation."
Here's how three churches are putting justice, mercy, and the gospel into practice.
Ginghamsburg Church
Tipp City, Ohio
Quick Facts: • Weekly attendance: 4,500 • Multi-site, including house churches • Association: United Methodist
Since 2004, Ginghamsburg Church has built 173 schools in Darfur that serve 22,000 students and have sponsored a sustainable agricultural project that has now helped to feed an estimated 80,000 Darfuris. The church has also built systems to provide clean water and sanitation.
Ginghamsburg's work in Darfur has not been without risk and danger. In the past year they have had one staff member shot and another kidnapped. However, the sacrifice and work is yielding fruit. Pastor Michael Slaughter tells of sitting with a group of Muslims just after the completion of a school. "Their question to me was, 'Why are you doing this? You're the church.' Now, by this time, we had been working there for three years … before the question was ever asked. We can't preach the gospel there, but we can demonstrate the gospel, and this question gave me the opening to say, 'As a follower of Jesus this is what we believe … that God loves you and your situation is our situation.'"
Slaughter continued to explain that he is now into a five-year conversation explaining what Jesus Christ taught about himself. His position is that in a pre-Christian or post-Christian world, evangelism is by demonstration before proclamation. Proclamation comes after they've seen the gospel in action.
"To Jesus, the church was an active verb and not a passive noun," Slaughter said. "Jesus' followers practiced mission evangelism. The heart of God's mission is serving, and ultimately we must bring people to faith and new birth in Jesus."
The Renew Community
Landsdale, Pennsylvania
Quick Facts: • Weekly attendance: 150 • House Church Network • Association: Ecclesia Network
J.R. Briggs is founding pastor of the Renew Community, a handful of house churches that gather twice monthly for corporate worship in a small borough 30 miles northwest of Philadelphia. Theirs is a prime example of a small church getting big things done.
Many of the church's ministries have been initiated by partnering with other groups and agencies. For instance, Manna On Mainstreet, a soup kitchen and food pantry, and ACCESS Services, which serves people with mental and developmental disabilities. As a result several folks with disabilities have become members of the Renew community. The church also works with the local Boys and Girls Clubs, especially with single-parent homes.
Evangelism through justice is at the heart of this congregation, Briggs says. "It might be easy to label these ministries as compassion ministries, but they are justice issues if you consider that no child or adult should be hungry in the midst of our community, with the abundance the rest of us have in the cupboards and refrigerators of our homes. Not having food is wrong."
As the leaders of Renew sought where they might become involved in global ministry, they chose to focus on Southeast Asia. This led to a partnership with Daughters, a Christian organization based in Phnom Penh that rescues girls out of human trafficking in Cambodia.
Another cause Renew champions is adoption. "To open our home to an orphan is to act out the very thing God did with us," says Briggs. "The metaphor of our sonship in Christ is based on the spirit of adoption." Briggs and his wife have adopted two boys and several families within their church have adopted children as well. He said there are currently 100,000 orphans in the U.S. while there are 350,000 churches. Briggs reasons that if one family in just one out of three churches would adopt an orphan, the orphan issue would be eradicated in the United States, at least for a while.
Asked if social justice is part of the day-to-day vocabulary of the Renew Community, Briggs said, "Very seldom do we use the term social justice. We just use the word justice because if you put the word social in front of it then it all seems to become political jargon. To me, justice is justice. We always need to remember from Micah 6:8 that justice must always be balanced with mercy and humility."
Renew Community identifies its ministry direction by continually asking: If Jesus were here in Landsdale, on today's date, what would he be doing? How can we be allies and advocates in the name of Jesus? and simply, How can we help?
"We look for how we can join God on missions of redemption and renewal in our community," Briggs said. "I think if we are trying to be like Jesus, justice will show up because that's what he cared about. So we've never really tried to focus on 'social justice' because that seems to be political jargon. We just use the word justice, the biblical word. From Micah 6:8 we remember that justice must always be combined with mercy and humility.
Briggs wants people in Landsdale "to know that God cares about what is happening in our community. And that is where the evangelism part comes in. People are constantly asking us why we do what we do. This opens the door for us to share that we are living out the gospel, the good news that Jesus came with."
Metro Community
Kelowna, British Columbia
Quick Facts: • Weekly attendance: 300 • Part of multi-site Willow Park Church • Association: Mennonite Brethren
Metro's vision began when Willow Park was helping AIDS/HIV orphans in India. Members evaluated their own city and became aware of the growing drug culture and rising tide of homelessness. They discovered that Kelowna (pop. 120,000) had the most disproportionate homeless population (500-600) of any Canadian city of a similar size. The core members viewed this as a justice issue relating to a lack of dignity and hope. They wondered how Jesus would respond. For the members it meant a decision to not just serve the poor but to live among the poor. This was the beginning of Metro Community.
Laurence East was Willow Park's mission's pastor. Living in North America for just three years (having grown up in Asia, the Middle East, and England), he was caught off guard by this commission (he calls it his "Nineveh." He was a reluctant missionary).
Beginning in a local homeless shelter, the group sponsored a weekly coffee-shop-type ministry. "We started with about 15 drunk guys hanging out, and after about nine months we had about 75 guys on a Saturday night," East says. "We had outgrown the place. Across the street was a nightclub that we decided to rent on Sunday mornings and we began a worship service. Word got out, and a whole bunch of middle-class people showed up to join us."
At first East was concerned that the new mix of people would change the dynamics and cause the people they were initially trying to reach to stop coming. Happily, he was wrong. "What I had not figured out from a justice perspective is that brokenness is not the preserve of the homeless or the poor, but there is a deep brokenness among the middle class who are looking for a place where they don't have to hide their own brokenness."
Today the Metro Community is a body of 300, a mix of street people, the working poor, and middle class. The church asks, "What does it mean to create an environment where people can feel broken but accepted?"
The leaders are very careful to define themselves as a church and not a social agency. They do lots of things not typically identified as church activities, such as their art studio, community kitchen, coffee shop, offering small business loans and a matching savings program in partnership with local banks and credit unions.
How does evangelism come in? "The people we are trying to reach would say, 'We have a lot of churches that come down here and try to convert us. But this is our church, where we are accepted for who we are,'" says East. "And many times I have heard them say, 'But now our need for Jesus is something we understand because of this community of Jesus followers.'"
Much of the justice aspect centers on advocacy. They call it navigation. Navigating through the social and government system. The town's strict rules against loitering in various places often result in significant fines for the homeless. Often a homeless person begins a rehabilitation process that results in freedom from drug and alcohol addictions, and the first thing he needs in order to obtain employment is a driver's license or government identification. If they have unpaid citations, it is impossible to obtain a driver's license.
East said, "We believe that Kingdom justice calls for us to advocate on behalf of these people because they are voiceless and oppressed. They don't know what they are entitled too because the system is so confusing."
East is quick to acknowledge the danger of swinging the pendulum so far that the focus becomes all about social justice, with evangelism and discipleship getting shortchanged. He said, "The message of Jesus cannot be delivered among the poor, the dispossessed, and the voiceless without clearly addressing justice."
He reasons that good news to a homeless person is to have a home. "So, for us, our journey has been to create a home for the homeless." He continued, "What is good news for a person that has no friends? It is that I belong to a community. That is good news. When you join that with the message of who Jesus is and what he wants to do in your life and through you, the two become one in a very powerful way and the people it affects don't separate them and they don't want to separate them."
East's message to his congregation is that if you choose to live your life among the poor and marginalized you cannot function without the message of Jesus. He said, "We are not interested in downplaying the gospel. If there is one thing the street community knows, they know a fake when they see one. So if the words aren't accompanied by action, and heart, and conviction in terms of a life direction, they aren't interested. They get plenty of propaganda elsewhere.
Lance Fordis editor and director of Shapevine.com. His forthcoming book, Right Here Right Now: everyday mission for everyday people, co-authored with Alan Hirsch, will be released by Baker Books in January 2011.
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