Relentless Love: Living Out Integral Mission to Combat Poverty, Injustice and Conflict

By Langham Global Library

How does the church’s calling to take the whole gospel to the whole world manifest in contexts of poverty, injustice, and conflict? In this collection of essays, drawn from the 7th Micah Global Triennial Consultation in the Philippines, Christians from across the globe reflect on the church’s role in alleviating suffering and developing transformed communities.
At the heart of these reflections is the topic of resilience and its role in Christian community, integral mission, and faith-based development work. Offering both theological frameworks and practical tools for the development of resilient communities, this book ignites a biblical passion for integrating justice and proclamation, witness and social concern, evangelism and community transformation. Relentless Love is a powerful reminder of Christ’s calling to join him in his work to bring wholeness, reconciliation, and redemption to the earth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Langham Global Library
• Release date: Oct 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9781839730382

Book preview

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This book is an exceptional resource in the way it brings to light underrepresented issues in the academy and the church today. In the Middle East the implications of issues around poverty, injustice and conflict are often underestimated or overlooked. The global perspectives in this resource are like a cry in the wilderness to every listening ear. Every page throbs with resilience. It is sweeping, challenging, inspiring and applicable!

Grace Al-Zoughbi

Lecturer in Biblical Studies,

Bethlehem Bible College, Palestine

This book is about resilient communities, and resilience may be a word that is more en vogue lately, but it is as old as humanity’s first couple and God’s care for them after disaster struck. Resilience is not external to who we are as God’s people but is part of the fabric of our being and acting in the world as Christians are enabled by the Spirit to be light and salt even in the most tragic contexts. This extensive volume looks at the multifaceted ways communities have reflected upon their engagement with the world and the biblical-theological bases that frame the church’s mission. This is a book that will engage seminary students, pastors, community leaders and activists alike, with thought-provoking essays and challenging questions for how best we are to live as followers of Christ in our many different ways and places.

C. Rosalee Velloso Ewell, PhD

Principal,

Redcliffe College, Gloucester, UK

Executive Director,

Theological Commission, World Evangelical Alliance

Relentless Love may be the clearest indication to date that a revolution in Christian mission is already underway. Through a diverse collection of voices, this compelling volume reveals new ways of being church that are emerging from the Majority World and are fueled by a shalomic imagination for the common good. This book is a vital guide for operationalizing the love of God as the love of neighbor, while equipping us to appreciate that love of neighbor always invites love of neighborhood.

Dwight J. Friesen, DMin

Associate Professor of Practical Theology,

The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, Washington, USA

The 7th Micah Global Consultation called for a renewal of faith and energy in the face of global scandals – poverty, injustice, and conflict. The authors in this volume meet that challenge resoundingly. In these chapters you will find the biblical, theological, and spiritual reimagining that defines personal and collective resilience in the face of these contemporary realities. With heavy hearts, yet renewed energy and continued resolve, this book encourages us to say No! to injustice and Yes! to God’s shalom!

Rev Darrell Jackson, DTh

Associate Professor and Director of Research,

Whitley College, University of Divinity, Melbourne, Australia

As the contributors to this volume point out, integral mission is intuitively practiced in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania, where 67 percent of all Christians now live. Compared to what has been a largely Western enterprise, these community-based cultures offer solutions to human problems from a fundamentally different perspective. This book presents a starting point for a new global Christian approach; as opposed to a Western theoretical framework that artificially separates evangelism and social justice, this new approach coheres the whole message and story of the Bible, fostering community resilience and redressing injustice at its roots. And, as a bonus, some contributors wisely contend for greater representation for women in every level of leadership – after all, women do most of the work.

Todd M. Johnson, PhD

Eva B. and Paul E. Toms Distinguished Professor of Mission and Global Christianity,

Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Hamilton, Massachusetts, USA

This book is a rich distillation of twenty-first-century practitioner-wisdom; contextually relevant and laced with enduring biblical and theological insight. A recommended read for those thirsty for transformation.

Carol Kingston-Smith

MA Tutor,

ForMission College, Birmingham, UK

Co-founder, the jusTice initiative

The biggest challenge which evangelical mission theology faces today is the augmentation of the integral mission concept. This is an inevitable missional request, and the COVID-19 situation will accelerate this request. I highly recommend this book as the most appropriate resource to respond to these current needs.

Hyun Mo (Tim) Lee, PhD

Professor of Missions,

Korea Baptist Theological University and Seminary, Daejeon, South Korea

Chair, Missions and Evangelism Committee,

Asia Pacific Baptist Federation

It is incredibly exciting to see a book on integral mission from authors around the world, reflecting on mission and resilience in their various contexts! I know of no book comparable to this, and I particularly appreciate the contributions from Africa, because evangelical reflections on mission by leaders here are much needed.

Stephanie A. Lowery, PhD

Lecturer in Theology,

Africa International University, Nairobi, Kenya

This book presents distinctive theological and biblical features of contextual development. Each study is based on a specific theme close to the social and cultural context of the contributor. The list of the contributors reveal a heavy emphasis on Majority World scholars and on the diversity of church traditions. The authors make a remarkable connection between the theology process and the real-life experience of God’s people. This collective contextual theology, however, is also pertinent to the global church. Furthermore, the book succeeds in being both biblically truthful and culturally applicable, emphasizing that the word of God is for the whole of humanity throughout its entire history and various cultures. Each author represents contemporary rationale among an extensive selection of traditional academics. The book will inspire and challenge local and global church leaders and theologians.

Julie C. Ma, PhD

Professor of Missions and Intercultural Studies,

Oral Roberts University, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA

Graham Joseph Hill is a foremost leader in bringing critical conversations and theological reflection from the Majority World to the forefront for the edification of the church worldwide. In this great work, Hill brings leading global voices together around the essential topic of resilience and compassionate Christian witness. The depth and timeliness of this book and its importance in integral mission cannot be overstated.

Lisa Rodriguez-Watson

National Director, Missio Alliance

Relentless Love provides holistic hope in these challenging days. This collection brings together a wide range of profound reflective practitioners whose combined voice helps us better understand how to present the face of Christ with resilience, spirituality, compassion, and reconciliation. Thank you to Micah Global for its rich biblical challenge to act justly, love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God.

Perry Shaw, EdD

Former Professor of Christian Education,

Arab Baptist Theological Seminary, Beirut, Lebanon

Let’s just admit it: bearing witness to the whole gospel among the last, the least, and the lost in the world is exhausting. How do we counter the onset of what can be called integral mission fatigue? Many of us have come to rely on Micah Global to inspire, encourage, and buoy us in the work. This volume, which brings together select voices from the last consultation held in the Philippines, calls us with one voice to resilience in the Spirit, not only to sustain ourselves, but to flourish in our service to the world’s most vulnerable.

Al Tizon, PhD

Executive Minister, Serve Globally, Evangelical Covenant Church

Affiliate Associate Professor, Missional and Global Leadership,

North Park Theological Seminary, Chicago, Illinois, USA

The voices in this book are prophetic and paramount in making a clarion call to the global Christian church to be ambassadors of Christ’s reconciliation and to boldly act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly in serving people to the end of the earth.

Mary Alice Trent, PhD

Professor of English,

Indiana Wesleyan University, Marion, Indiana, USA

In view of the worldwide events in our turbulent time, this book offers readers invaluable insight and understanding of resilience in integral mission of the global church. These multiple voices provide refreshing and compelling ways, in both theory and praxis, to embrace and embody the transforming power of the whole gospel for the whole creation.

Xiaoli Yang, PhD

Research Scholar, University of Divinity,

Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, Australia

Relentless Love

Living Out Integral Mission to Combat Poverty, Injustice, and Conflict

Edited by

Graham Joseph Hill

© 2020 Micah Global

Published 2020 by Langham Global Library

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Langham Publishing and its imprints are a ministry of Langham Partnership

Langham Partnership

PO Box 296, Carlisle, Cumbria, CA3 9WZ, UK

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Published in partnership with Micah Global

Micah Global

www.micahglobal.org

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Contents

Cover

Foreword

Preface: Micah Global 7th Triennial Consultation

Micah Triennials

Integral Mission

Resilient Communities

1 Misión Integral

Misión Integral: The Resilience of World Christianity

Misión Integral: The Shifts of World Christianity

Misión Integral: The Mission of World Christianity

Misión Integral: The Challenge of World Christianity

Part 1 Resilience, the Church, and Integral Mission

2 Resilience and Integral Mission

Conclusion

3 Righteousness, Suffering and Participation in Philippians 3:7–11

Does It Matter?

Summary

Context within and behind the Letter: Paul’s Usage of Dikaio- Words

Theological Reflections

4 Dangerous Resilience?

Pedagogy

Governance

A-Contextualization and Compartmentalization

Conclusion

5 Poorology

Resilient Learning Networks

Credibility and Call

Structuring the Domain of Urban Poor Missiology

Jesus’s Seminary in the Slums: Theological Derivation of a Degree Structure

Global Collaboration

Differentiating the Domain

Expanding Grassroots Learning Networks

Strategy for Scaling to Fifty Thousand

And Beyond: From Slum Leaders to Institutes for City Transformation

6 How Do Missionaries Become Resilient?

Methods

Results

Discussion

7 The Gospel and the Future of Cities

History and Intent of the Call to Action

Our Convictions

A Call to Action: Urban Shalom

Urban Shalom: Some Principles and Practices

A Call to Action Is a Call to Prayer

Part 2 Resilience, Peace, and Justice

8 Biblical Teachings on Social Justice

Vocabulary

The Theological Basis for Social Justice

Views of Social Justice

Justice in the New Testament

Conclusion

9 Addressing Gender and Leadership Gaps in Development-Oriented Organizations

Why Gender Justice Matters

Cultural and National Contexts

Strategies for Encouraging Women to Lead and Seek Gender Justice

Conclusion

Resources for Increasing Gender Engagement in Programmes

10 Deeper Understanding for More Resilience in the Work for Peace and Justice

Why Should Christians Be Resilient in the Pursuit of Justice and Peace?

The Blessing of Shalom/Eirene

The Life and Death of Jesus of Nazareth Invites Us to Be Resilient in Our Pursuit of Justice

What Happens When We Pursue Justice?

Conclusion: True Justice Is Never Separated from Compassion

11 God’s Preference for the Poor

Sketching the Bible in Irish Memory and Culture from the Nineteenth Century to the Present

Two Contemporary Expressions of the Bible and Social Justice in Ireland

Concluding Reflections

12 Worship and Justice

Theology at the Intersection of Worship and Justice

Worship Is Formative

Worship that Embodies and Mobilizes for Justice

Conclusion

13 Proclamation and Demonstration

Proclamation Is Not a One-Event Activity

The Process of Resilience: A Case Study from Jesus

14 What Is Required?

The First Is Salvation

The Second Is Surrender

The Third Is Seeking Prayer

The Fourth Is Sacrifice

The Fifth Is Strategy

15 Beyond Compassion to Solidarity

Question Time

Part 3 Resilience, Spirituality, and Compassion

16 My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?

Lament and the Historical People of God

Yahweh and Lament

A Time to Lament

The Enabling Gift of Lament

Lament and the Majority World

Lament and the Christian Global North

Lament and the Practitioner

Conclusion

17 Building Resilient Communities

Introduction

The Intersectionality of Mental Health

Mental Health, Relationships, and Households

Mental Health Promotion as a Resilience-Building Tool of Community Development

Mental Health Treatment Access as an Equity Issue

Integrated Community Approaches to Addressing Mental Health

Conclusion

Further Reading and Resources

18 Indigenous Voices

19 The Gospel and Resilience in the Pursuit of the Common Good

Questions of the Current Global Social Context

The Power of Stories and Narratives

A Quest for the Authentic Gospel Story

20 Against All Odds – and Ends

A New Sense of Us: Renewing Our Limited and Communal Identity in Light of God’s Sovereign and Communal Identity

A New Sense of Sight: Revising Our Value System

A New Sense of Time: Recognizing into Whose Purposes We are Invited

21 Resilience and Disaster and the Church’s Response

Disasters: Where Do They Come From?

Hell Will Not Prevail

Jesus Is Building the Ecclesia

The World without a Responsible Church

How Should the Church Respond to the Disasters in the World?

Part 4 Resilience, Mobilization, and Partnerships

22 Building Resilience with Local Churches and Communities

Learning from Zimbabwe

Overview of the CCT Resilience Approach

Framework of Resilience

Lessons Learned So Far

What Does the CCT Resilience Approach Add to the CCM Process?

Recommendations to Others

Next Steps

23 Church and Community Mobilization in Cooperation to Build Resilient Communities in South East Asia

Rationale

JAKOMKRIS PBI: Church and Community-Based Disaster Risk Reduction Network in Indonesia

Community of Practice on Church and Community Mobilization to Build Resilient Communities in the Philippines

Lessons Learned and Recommendations

24 Lessons from the Frontline of Global Movement-Building

Introduction: A Restorative Economy

Theory of Change: Movement-Building

What’s Happened So Far?

What Have We Learned?

Resources for Movement-Building

What’s Next?

25 North and South

Part 5 Summaries from the Six Consultation Tracks

26 Church and Community Resilience Consultation Track

Overview

Outcomes

Conclusion

27 Church and Corruption Consultation Track

Rationale for Theme

Key Learning and Issues Raised

Resolutions

Outcomes and Way Forward

Conclusion

28 Formation for Integral Mission (Discipleship) Consultation Track

Some Highlights

Conclusion

29 Urban Shalom Consultation Track

Shalom and the City

Working within the Built Environment

Theology and the City

Strength-Based Approaches to the Creation of Shalom

Continuing the Conversation

30 Reconciliation as the Mission of the Church Consultation Track

Theology of Reconciliation and Peace-Building

The Missionary Praxis Cycle

Sharing Methods of Healing

31 Integral Mission and Community Health Consultation Track

Overview

Local Ownership and Sustainability in Community Health

The Holy Spirit, Modern Medicine, and Traditional Healers

A Billion People Neglected

Pulling the Roof Off the Church

Conclusions

Lessons Learned and Action Points – Participant Quotes

32 Final Remarks

What Does This Mean for Micah? What Are Our Next Steps?

Resilience

Bibliography

About Micah Global

Micah Global Publications – M Series

List of Contributors

About Micah Global

About Langham Partnership

Endnotes

Foreword

Almost half a century ago, a seismic change in evangelicalism’s theological paradigms began. It was articulated in its incipient form in the 1974 Lausanne Covenant and encapsulated more comprehensively in the term integral mission as defined by the Micah Network Declaration in 2001. Since then, the borders of the theology and practice of integral mission (IM) have been stretched and expanded by practitioners out in the trenches, theologizing on their feet from out of the dust and heat of battles waged in the streets, in slum communities, in marketplaces, in moribund seminaries, and in corridors of power.

This book is in a way a marker in the journey towards a more holistic understanding of the gospel and what societies can be like when we take more seriously the fact that the missio Dei – what God is doing in the world – is nothing less than the making of a new heaven and a new earth.

The focus on resilience – the theme of the seventh world assembly of Micah Global held in the Philippines – suggests that we have come to a juncture in this movement where fatigue is setting in and we need to return to the spiritual resources of our faith, even as we explore new paths of social and missional engagement and being church in the doing of it.

The first three parts of the book – resilience as it relates to the church and IM, peace and justice, and spirituality and compassion – are efforts to make theological sense of the concerns and issues that have surfaced in the course of our praxis in proclaiming and demonstrating the whole gospel. The rest of the book is distillations of research on mass mobilization and practical approaches to partnerships with churches and local communities. The closing part of the book reports the insights of various group consultations on such topics as building resilient communities, bringing shalom in the city, the church and corruption, reconciliation and healing the trauma of conflict, and community health.

Let me zero in and comment on the theological significance of this book as it reflects on our work of being the church among the poor.

The first part tries to connect the institution we know as church to the task of increasing resilience.

This section has two chapters reporting research that shows that at the heart of resilience is healthy relationships, both in the recovery of communities in disaster situations and in sustaining missionaries in the field. The good news is that the church is uniquely positioned to heal the walking wounded among us because of its relationship networks – its social capital, if you like – that enable it to pull together resources and succour immediately and compassionately the communities that surround it.

There is a bit of bad news in this, however. Thandiwe Sarah Gamedze raises the phenomenon of churches having a kind of dangerous resilience, perpetuating rigid leadership and governance structures and a received Christology that holds Christians in Africa and elsewhere captive and unable to name Christ for themselves.

Adding to this note of dissonance is the hermeneutical challenge to the way the gospel and its salvific meaning has been reduced to merely securing a ticket to heaven. Andrew Steere makes the case that Pauline letters such as Galatians have been misread as a conflict between the law and grace. Quoting J. D. G. Dunn, he argues that the Second Temple Jews – Jesus’s contemporaries – viewed the giving of the law not as a means to gain righteousness, but as a means of living righteously.

The chapter is a theological corrective to evangelicalism’s undue fixation on assurance of salvation. It is good to be reminded that the Reformers’ theme of "sola fide, sola gratia is actually a sixteenth-century reading, a contextual appropriation driven by the introspective conscience of the West as previously articulated by Krister Stendahl. What originally was Paul’s response to the Jew–Gentile social crisis was read by the likes of the monk Martin Luther as an assurance that he was saved apart from works of the law. Earnestly desiring certainty and freedom from the burdens of penance, Luther located his sense of the good news in justification by faith," a theme that was to shape Protestantism in the face of excessive accretions to the law and church tradition as defined by medieval Catholicism.

The second part groups together peace and justice concerns, and underscores the need for resilience in seeking shalom and the righting of wrongs.

The authors Amy Reynolds and Nikki Toyama-Szeto point out the irony of faith-based development organizations attending to the cause of women and girls in their educational or anti-violence programmes, yet neglecting to address gender dynamics and gaps in their leadership as organizations.

The chapters on justice by Manavala Reuben and Vilma Balmaceda put forward the biblical teaching that justice and shalom, the righting of wrongs and right relationships, must go together. Balmaceda observes that the Old Testament shalom, often understood as merely a personal separate peace, also means restitution or reparation; it has the effect of fulfilling a contract, which leads to relationships restored.

The nineteenth-century religious conflicts in Ireland form the historical backdrop to Patrick Mitchel’s analysis of the theology that frames the social engagement of the Catholic Trócaire and of Tearfund Ireland. Trócaire’s praxis has for its motive force Vatican II and Catholic Social Teaching on such themes as human dignity, option for the poor, and the common good. These are backgrounded, however, by the secular narrative of rights-based development, perhaps as a reaction to the Bible wars of the 1820s. Tearfund sources its foundational beliefs more directly from the Bible and fairly recent theologizing on what is now known as integral mission. Both agencies share a similar concern for the poor and depart from the souperism of an earlier era, which tended to use charity as a means to an end – the end being to disseminate and safeguard the faith and not really to combat social inequality or reform society. We still find traces of this pragmatism in current evangelical efforts to serve the poor.

The Irish context of immense wealth, and even social compassion, side by side with massive homelessness also serves as a disturbing backdrop to Peter McVerry’s moving stories of accompanying homeless people with horrific childhoods. Mostly young people, they usually turn to drugs or alcohol in the effort to forget the trauma of abuse. We must, he says, move beyond compassion to solidarity. In compassion you get to pick and choose who to help and how: people might give big cheques to a homeless charity at Christmas, but if there is any attempt to open a shelter for homeless people in their neighbourhood, they could be the first out picketing to prevent it. "In solidarity I do not decide who I will be compassionate towards . . . I don’t decide that this person is deserving and that person not deserving – it is their pain that causes me to reach out to them."

This solidarity in suffering is a necessary rite of passage for those of us who are called to bear the marks of what it took Jesus to sacrifice for others. Some of us may have romantic notions about living in the slums or forsaking careers to battle evil forces in high places. Florence Muindi holds up the cost of this kind of self-emptying, and the need for readiness to get battle-scarred as we soldier on: The kingdom of God is taken by violence, she warns, and we have to seek it by addressing that warfare.

It is perhaps in worship, the kind that truly brings us face to face with a compassionate and holy God, that we find the collective strength to stand up to the powers. Sandra Maria Van Opstal makes a case for worship leaders to become not merely musicians, but pastors, prophets, or guides who lead people where they need to go instead of where they want to go.

The third part explores the relationship of spirituality and compassion to resilience.

What do we do when we are face to face with situations where God seems to be inexplicably absent? Clinton Bergsma restores to our radar screen a resource that the psalmists relied on in ancient times when utter darkness descended: lamentation. Poverty naturally raises questions of theodicy, and lament offers itself as a powerful and appropriate process for maintaining spiritual resilience in situations of injustice and poverty. He quotes the Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann thus: A community of faith that negates lament soon concludes that the hard issues of justice are improper questions to pose at the throne [of God], because the throne seems to be only a place of praise . . . [and they] are left with only grim obedience and eventually despair. The point of access for serious change has been forfeited when the propriety of this speech form is denied.

Communities that suffer devastating disasters, or individuals exposed to prolonged grief and suffering, usually go through what sociologists call disabling perplexities. They are unable to move forward from out of their emotional and psychological trauma, rendered powerless by mental discomposure. I have seen this happen in Tacloban, Leyte, hard hit by Typhoon Haiyan, the biggest in history to make landfall. Survivors walked around like zombies, as with the story of a woman in a white bridal gown salvaged from among relief goods, who trudged around shoeless, scrounging for food from out of the ruins.

Becca Allchin, Stephanie Cantrill, and Helen Fernandes provide evidence, based on research and community-building experiences, that integrating mental health in development processes is critical to building resilient communities.

Similarly, it is possible that the loneliness of atomized individuals in modern or postmodern societies may be healed by going back to the communal life that now survives mostly among indigenous peoples. Jocabed Reina Solano Miselis tells us that listening to indigenous voices offers an integral vision of community, for it is a sensibility that is acutely aware of the interrelatedness and interdependence of all living beings in the social and cosmic environment. It makes the encounter with different cultures a place not of strangeness, but of conviviality, coexistence, and a sense of plurality.

Zac Niringiye pointedly asks the question, Why don’t we Christians pursue the common good? He notes how preoccupied we are with self-protection, with preserving our wealth and well-being. So, when we enter public space, we are contesting for our space, our views, and not the views of the other. In place of the abstractions of systematic theology, he enjoins a return to Story, to the oral narratives of his people where one could find traces of grace, and to the story of the gospel itself: there is no doubt that not only is the gospel story the common good, but in the gospel there is the common good. We can boldly enter the public square to commend what the gospel teaches about the common good.

And so, like Jesus of Nazareth, we go about doing good like all earnest disciples. But as Ruth Padilla DeBorst reminds us, it is easy to turn our do-gooding into a messianic task, as if we bear the weight of the world upon our shoulders. Overwhelmed by the immensity of the needs around us, we grow tired and lose sight of the big picture, the fact that what God is doing is so much bigger than the success or failure of our mission enterprises. Drawing insights from the example of Mother Teresa and Bishop Óscar Romero, she holds up three things that will renew our work: expanding our sense of identity from the limited us to a communal identity that includes even them; enlarging our vision of what can be done even with our five loaves and two fish, seeing the unseen potential of what is small, personal, and local; and knowing that while we live within limits, as creatures of time and circumstance, the drama of God’s purposes and activity in the world is beyond us and will last and outlive us.

There is, within the Micah fellowship itself, an undercurrent of debate on the role of the institution we call church. Brothers and sisters in the Majority World have raised concerns about transplanted churches whose organizational and theological ethos is mostly made in the image of churches from the imperial West. Against this critique of the church is Johannes Reimer’s ringing declaration: Without the church, the world turns dark, because the light is gone. The world without a church is less fruitful, because salt is not available, and, as a result, God the Father is not praised (Matt 5:13–16).[1]

From where I sit, when the church is truly church it serves as the social context in which the saving power and love of God are made visible. Historically, it has been the institution used by God to save the lost and serve the community in which it is located. But to insist that the church is the only agent of God’s kingdom work is to truncate the gospel and is sociologically naïve.

The church is primarily tasked with the preaching of the Word and the equipping of God’s people for the work of ministry out in the world. This is its institutional mandate; it is not primarily to serve tables, as Peter put it, lest, like liberal churches, we neglect the spiritual needs of our people and simply become a social welfare agency.

Inevitably, as churches grow and societies get more complex, we will need to invent new structures – new wineskins, if you like, which will contain the new wine that God is growing. Part of the paradox of our faith is that the gospel is always new wine; it is always doing new things, for that is what Jesus is doing: Behold, I make all things new. But the wineskins are always getting old and soon become obsolete. There is a time for reinventing, even retiring, things we have always associated with the things of God – be it the Anglican Prayer Book, the King James Bible, or the usual charity institutions that have arisen since the social crisis over the neglect of Hellenistic widows in Acts 6. In our time, in the effort to find new ways of being church in the contemporary world, faith-based NGOs have mushroomed, bearing witness that Jesus is good news for the poor.

The kingdom – the reign of God – is to be made visible not just in the church but in all other structures of society. The kingdom is bigger than the church, and church as an institution does not exhaust the meaning of the visible church.

The ecclesia visibilis is not just the church at worship, but the church in the marketplace, in media and the arts, in academe, or in politics. This is the church scattered, as distinct from the church gathered, in the language of the late John R. W. Stott.

The chapters of this book are explorations from a variety of starting points – moving pictures and narratives mostly coming out of contexts glossed over and unlistened to, at least by dominant theological traditions. It is in this way that Micah serves as a significant catalyst to the growth of the global church: it is a space where the tired soldiers of Christ can rest and have their wounds tended, and their doubts and theological perplexities not so much resolved as attended to and corporately lamented.

Ruth Padilla DeBorst, at the close of her chapter, ferrets out from the treasure trove of Latin America’s struggles these words attributed to Bishop Romero:

The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts – it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.

Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us . . .

We may never see the end results,

but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders;

ministers, not messiahs.

We are prophets of a future not our own.

May this prayer renew our faith and make our hearts sufficiently strong and resilient as together we work for God’s vision of a just and gentle world as a global community.

Melba Padilla Maggay, PhD

President, Micah Global

Preface: Micah Global 7th Triennial Consultation

Integral Mission and Resilient Communities Addressing Poverty, Injustice, and Conflict

Sheryl Haw

Every three years Micah facilitates a Global Consultation, inviting Christian ministries to come together and work through the issues and concerns currently being faced around the world under an overarching theme that resonates with our vision and mission. It is an inspiring week that demonstrates the oneness we have in Christ that bridges geographical, cultural, language, and denominational divides, uniting us around our shared passion for integral mission. We learn together, and challenge one another on how to:

Effectively respond to the scandal of poverty, injustice, and conflict in such a way that God’s shalom is evident in word, deed, and signs.

Discern theologically and practically together to speak and act with prophetic authority so as to disciple our nations and hold leaders to account for their responsibilities for the flourishing of humanity and all of creation.

Walk together in humility, serving one another, as we seek to enable the local church to be an agent of change in each community.

The theme for our September 2018 triennial built on the previous triennial themes (see table), as we explored our understanding of integral mission and community resilience.

Micah Triennials

Integral Mission

The word integral means wholeness, signifying complete and essential components that are necessary for the functioning of the whole.

This term wholeness was expressed in the Lausanne Covenant back in 1974: Evangelisation requires the whole church to take the whole gospel to the whole world. Why did the writers insist on using the word whole? Perhaps they did not want anything or anyone to be left out. In other words:

Whole church: This includes every single believer – all are called, and all are sent. If we don’t have a clear biblical understanding of what the church is, and what is meant by church, we will start to compartmentalize. Our understanding of church is therefore critical: we need an integral or whole understanding. Our M Series booklet Rethinking Church seeks to address this important question. Church is not simply a mechanism commissioned to a task (God’s mission), but it is also the fruit, the impact, and the outcome of the gospel. If we are unhappy with what we see as church today (what it looks like, acts like, and speaks like), then we have to acknowledge that the gospel message that birthed the church has not been whole! This is an outrageous statement. We often say in Micah that the biggest hurdle we face in sharing the gospel today is that people calling themselves Christians are not living it out, hence the world gets a wrong impression about Christianity. Similarly, when the church does not reflect Christ, we get the wrong impression of what the church is meant to be.

Whole gospel: This means the whole Bible (Old and New Testament), the whole revelation of God, and we cannot talk of the gospel without recognizing the centrality of Christ and the cross. Indeed, the gospel, the good news, is the power to bring justice, healing, redemption, reconciliation, restoration, and transformation – life in all its fullness (everything that we long for and work for in Micah). We therefore say that integral mission has to flow from our being in Christ.

We have found that one of the concerning weaknesses in practitioners today is that they are biblically illiterate. We cherry pick verses from the Bible but don’t engage with the whole story of God’s mission. This limits our capacity to respond to all the questions, hurts, and challenges of the world today. Our M Series booklet entitled Living in God’s Story shows that an understanding of our identity and purpose in God’s overarching story is critical to fulfilling our calling. The scope of God’s mission and hence our mission is revealed and summed up well in Colossians 1:20: "to reconcile to [God] all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through [Jesus’s] blood shed on the cross" (emphasis added).

Whole world (creation): This includes every aspect of God’s creation – geographical, chronological, humanity, and all living things, all things visible and invisible, in heaven and on earth. Everything is included in God’s redemptive mission. We need to see God’s mission in much broader terms than that which we sometimes narrowly focus on, which has tended to be a human-centric mission. God’s mission includes redeeming political, economic, social, and religious ideologies, beliefs, and practices. There is no place, no entity, no structure, no aspect of life that God’s mission is excluded from: the public square, the family home, the prison cell, the battlefield – all are included. Our book Missio Politica addresses God’s mission in politics. Indeed, the Greek term for church used in Matthew 16:18 is ecclesia, which is a political term meaning a people called out to take responsibility. Responsibility for what? For God’s creation and God’s mission.

Second Corinthians 5:17–20 says:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: be reconciled to God.

We are the fruit, the new humanity, the expression of all that is to come – and we demonstrate this in and through all we do and say. And we are sent as Christ was sent to preach the good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, and proclaim the year of God’s favour (Luke 4:18–19).

If we feel overwhelmed by this task, we can be encouraged that we are not alone. The power to bring transformation is drawn from our being in Christ and his good news which we are called to proclaim and demonstrate. The Holy Spirit gives us the words, teaches us his ways, and touches people’s lives in and through all we do and say. And God has called a diverse group of people together, bringing gifts, expertise, skills, languages, capacities, and personalities, so that together we can impact every aspect of God’s world.

The Micah Global Consultations give us a taste of this exciting and inspiring diversity and unity in action. From every nation, tribe, and tongue we gather to discern together how we can be more effective for God’s mission in God’s world!

Integral mission is therefore an expression of the whole church, living out the whole gospel in the whole world. Our M Series booklet entitled Five Marks of Mission captures the theology and practice of this well.

To read more about integral mission, see our M Series book Integral Mission: Biblical Foundations.

Resilient Communities

What do we mean by each of these words?

Resilience is the ability to recover quickly from difficulties, and to cope with life’s shocks and challenges.

Resilient communities describes the sustained ability of a community to draw on available resources to withstand, respond to, and recover from adverse situations.

Of course, some resilience can be construed as stubbornness and the resistance to change and adapt. We are