Issue 21 – Rediscovering Jesus’ Mission Dream

 

Dear Ray

Thanks for your recent email—and I’m glad that so many of your disciples are becoming members.

But as you say, your whole reason for bringing them into membership is to grow your mission base—so you’ve got the biggest possible group of people to tackle the great challenges of our time.

However, you’ve gone much further. With your foundations now in place, you want to get all your church’s ministry flowing from Jesus’ mission dream (or manifesto) in Lk 4.18-19—because you believe it’s time Christians and churches took on the big poverty challenges of today.

It certainly is time! So let’s start with Lk 4.14-30, the setting for Jesus’ dream, and consider what the dream means for us today.

Jesus’ Magnificent Mission Dream

Sometime fairly early in his ministry, Jesus went to his local synagogue in Nazareth and during the service read and commented on Isaiah 61.1-2 to explain the reason for his coming.

People loved his opening comments, but then they turned on him like a pack of wolves.

However, despite this rough treatment, Jesus’ focus on Isaiah 61 became a milestone in his ministry—suggesting at a first glance that the gospel is for five main groups of people.

It’s for those who’ve missed out on life’s many good things—the poor (Lk 6.20-21 and 24-25 show poverty is wider than spiritual poverty). It’s for the casualties of society—like the prisoners who, in those days, were often dragged away to foreign countries against their will. It’s for the victims of tragedy—like the blind , blindness being very common in Jesus’ day. It’s for the victims of injustice—the oppressed, a very large group then and now . Finally, the gospel is for the entire race needing ‘the Lord’s favour’—because Jesus came, as Bishop Ryle notes, to ‘proclaim that a year of jubilee to all the world had come.’ He came indeed, as the NIV Study Bible says, ‘to meet every human need.’ And he does!

But when we look more closely at these ‘dream’ verses, the focus of the first four groups is clearly on those struggling most with life’s great challenges—whether they’re materially poor, oppressed in various ways, or poor because life is difficult for them as they live out their faith in God (like many of the ‘poor and needy’ people in the Psalms and Prophets—for example, the man in Ps 86).

But however we interpret these Lk 4 verses, John Stott is right when he says that Jesus came to give ‘mission priority’ to the poor—in all their wide-ranging need. And 2000 years later, he’s still calling us to give them the same priority today.

But who are today’s poor and needy, where do we find them, and how do we bring the good news about Jesus to them so they can enjoy the blessings of his gospel too?

The Dream and our Great Challenges

When we move from the smaller scale problems of Jesus’ day, to the global challenges of today, many books could be written about them. But to pick out a few challenges to get us started in healing our Father’s world, several come to mind.

In New Zealand, we’ve been moving for some time from the fairer society of yesterday, to the increasingly unfair society of today—creating a raft of social challenges we’ve not faced in years.

To take a few examples:

There’s the housing challenge that puts owning a home beyond the reach of more and more people – a challenge that’s generating a lot of discussion at the moment. There’s the child abuse challenge that shocks us with greater and greater frequency. There’s the education challenge that leaves some low decile schools struggling to find the resources and support they need to give their children a good start in life (but see later comment). There’s the health challenge that sees some groups struggling with health issues far beyond what other groups experience – and to add to their problems, they may not have enough money to pay for the health care they need. There’s the addictions challenge—including problem gambling. And so on.

But if those are some of the challenges we’re facing here, when we look overseas, the challenges are enormous—and to list just a few (without regard to order):

While our government grapples with obesity here, overseas the biggest risk to global health is hunger and malnutrition, with 16,000 children dying every day from hunger related causes—and often closely linked with that, 3 billion people have no sanitation, and 1.3 billion haven’t any safe water. Wealth distribution is another challenge, with nearly half the world (nearly three billion people) living on less than $2 a day (readers, is that fair—3 billion people?). There’s also the literacy challenge, with nearly a billion people entering the 21st century unable to read or sign their names. There’s the human trafficking challenge—and especially the trafficking of children for sexual purposes (with over a million children entering the sex trade each year). And there’s the unfree labour /cheap labour challenge—where, for example, 25 million desperately poor families, whose livelihood depends on coffee, are struggling to survive in a global trading system that tends to exploit cheap labour to keep consumer prices down.

These are just some of the many challenges that are devastating our Father’s world—and are crying out for the compassionate response of Jesus’ mission dream!

Getting Started with the Dream

But if those are some of the great challenges of our time, can we really do anything ourselves to make the world a better place? The good news is we can—by learning to live counter-culturally.

Consider for a moment:

We often contribute to injustice not by what we do but by what we don’t do. We often contribute to unjust labour laws and even virtual slavery by not thinking about what we buy. We often contribute to unjust attitudes by not challenging them when they are expressed. We often contribute to unjust social policies by remaining silent and not supporting those who protest against these policies. We often contribute to someone else’s poverty by not being concerned about our own over-consumption. And so on.

So here are some things to get us started in eradicating poverty here and overseas—the application varying from person to person.

• We should of course all treat other people fairly—never imposing unjust burdens on those we live with, work with, and mix with.
• We should also try to live more simply—passing on the savings to others so they may simply live; some of us may even be able to work less and use our time and talents to help needy people around us.
• We can buy products that have been made in socially and environmentally responsible ways—even if this costs a little more.
• We can become involved in at least one social justice group—our support and interest no matter how small is a great encouragement to leaders of these groups.
• We can become aware of social justice issues locally, nationally or globally by reading more, by going to meetings and by talking to others.
• And when we give sacrificially to our church’s annual mission focus, we can build one new counter-cultural lifestyle decision into our lives each year—which over several years will profoundly change the way we live.

These are some small but significant steps we can take in a longer journey towards building a just world, where poverty and the suffering of the poor are increasingly reduced. And as Wilberforce, Shaftesbury and Martin Luther King remind us, movements for great social change often start from small beginnings; but over time they grow and grow—until they reach a tipping point from which there is no turning back.

So remembering the Bible’s counsel in Zechariah 4.10, let us never despise the day of small things!

Getting our Church Involved in the Dream

But turning to the local church, made up of groups of individuals, there are many things churches can do to change the social landscape here and overseas.

The Church and the TV programmes

Here’s what one church did recently.

When they were starting 40 Days of Community (40 Days is great for getting a church started on community involvement), the pastor of a growing church called on the Principal of a low-decile school in the area—to see if they could help because the school had big challenges. The Principal was delighted, and said, ‘Even if it turns out you can’t do something, it’s just been a boost for us to know that someone even bothered to think of helping us.’ (What a comment—surpassed only by her ‘tears of gratitude’ letter later, when the work below was finished!)

As it happened, the church could do a great deal!

So on a Saturday in September, they turned out in force to put a path through the soggy ground so the children can use the playing fields in winter, drain the soggy areas, dig over a piece of land that has been unusable and unmowable because of the remnants of an old playground, give the gardens and planter boxes an extreme makeover, repair the swimming pool fence, tidy up the grounds and prune where necessary, and hang the pre-made curtains in the hall. And they’ll continue their growing relationship with the school on into the future—as well as their on-going commitment to overseas mission work.

Interestingly, about the time I wrote this story, I glanced at a couple of early morning Christian TV programmes.

On the first programme, the guest preacher told me how to get more money through giving my ‘seed’ money. On the next programme, Joyce Meyer, with a massive Do Not Disturb sign hung around her neck to make a preaching point, was laying it on the line (as only she can!) that a church really isn’t a church if it isn’t deeply involved with the poor—as the church they started is now doing in their city.

Unlike the first preacher, Joyce got it right, because the church they started captured the essence of Jesus’ mission dream.

So did the 40 Days church with its involvement in the problems at the low-decile school—it also modelled Jesus’ mission dream.

Taking it all further

There are many other things that churches can do to advance Jesus’ mission dream here and overseas.

Like becoming involved in one or two significant community needs that may be quite different to the above school, becoming involved as a church in a pressing social justice cause here or overseas—including denominational social justice projects, partnering with a poor church here or overseas, supporting Christian Aid and Development organisations that prioritise social justice and change, encouraging people to use Fair Trade products, supporting petitions and speakers etc that fight against moral and social injustice, modelling concern for social justice so it becomes one of the church’s values, keeping the church informed about the great mission challenges overseas, and giving as many church people as possible first hand experience of those challenges in places like Africa, the Indian sub-continent, and the small Pacific nations.

And different churches will respond to these challenges in different ways.

But whatever our church or personal response, the important thing for all of us is to actually start—start with an initiative we can manage, however small, and grow our involvement from there; because when we start we sign on for Jesus’ mission dream of caring for people, transforming lives, and reforming society.

Reforming Society through the Dream

But if those are some of the challenges, and some first steps we all can take, can we together really multiply those steps so greatly that one-day we actually reform society here through the power of Jesus’ mission dream? Or is it all just that—a dream?

The best way to answer that question is to go back to Wesley’s Britain, and Finney’s America, and find out.

Reforming Society—the great example

For much of the 18th century, Britain was in a dreadful state—in many ways, far worse than our country today.

Things were so bad that much of the century was marked by deep savagery with shocking torture of animals for sport, bestial drunkenness, trafficking in African Negroes, kidnapping of people to sell them overseas as slaves, an obsession with gambling, a savage prison system and penal code, an avalanche of immorality, political bribery and corruption, lawlessness, superstition and lewdness, an arrogant and wayward church, and so on—so that ‘the British people were then perhaps as deeply degraded and debauched, as any people in Christendom’ (Bready).

But then things began to change—and change so much, that in the 19th century slavery and the slave trade were abolished, the prison system was overhauled and made more humane, conditions at factories and mines were improved, education was extended to the poor, trades unions began, and so on, till a new Britain was born.

So what happened? The answer is simple: the British people got a new social conscience—and with it, a new passion for social justice.

Several forces converged to change the conscience of the British people. But the dominant force was the Evangelical Revival—which Bready says ‘did more to transfigure the moral character of the general populace than any other movement British history can record’. And the central figure of that Revival was John Wesley, the preacher of the gospel and prophet of social righteousness, who ‘restored to a nation its soul’.

But here’s the interesting thing. It all started from small beginnings—with the conversion and ministry of John Wesley, the rise of the next generation of evangelical leaders who first came together over the plight of African slaves, and John Wesley’s dying letter to Wilberforce, assuring him that God had raised him up for the ‘glorious enterprise’ of banishing the slave trade in all its forms!

And the rest is history—reminding us that movements for great social change can start from small beginnings.

Reforming Society—the second example

But if that’s Britain, the same thing happened in 19th century America—where Charles Finney’s ministry swept the reform movement along, as Wesley’s ministry had birthed it in Britain.

Through Finney’s preaching, large numbers came to Jesus—and coming to him, became an army of young converts who, assisted by others, spearheaded the reform movement in America and the anti-slavery struggle in particular.

Finney’s influence on the reform movement in America was phenomenal.

Indeed so strong was his belief, that in his 23rd Lecture on Revival he said that ‘the great business of the church is to reform the world …. The Church of Christ was originally organized to be a body of reformers. The very profession of Christianity implies the profession and virtually an oath to do all that can be done for the universal reformation of the world’ (strong language—and Wesley and his followers would have agreed completely!).

As in Britain, so in America, ‘Social involvement was both the child of evangelical religion and the twin sister of evangelism’ (Stott)—foreshadowing the rise of the Salvation Army later in the century with its passionate commitment to social involvement, evangelical religion, and evangelism.

Conclusion

So returning to our earlier question; is it really possible that one day, with God’s help, we could actually reform society here through the power of Jesus’ mission dream?

Of course it is—totally possible!

It’s already happened twice on a grand scale in the last 250 years. And it can happen again in our much smaller country … if we learn the lessons of history well!

Getting Started on Reforming our Society

So here are some guidelines to get us started on reforming our society.

1.  As far as we’re able, we should do all the personal and church things mentioned earlier in the Letter—because they’re just basic common sense things to get us started with Jesus’ mission dream.

2.  We should do everything in our power to grow our churches through bringing as many people to Jesus as possible—because those people, yet to be won, will become the masses that throw up the leaders of tomorrow and turn the tide in the fight against injustice in all its forms.

This is the clear lesson of the Evangelical Revival in Britain and America: the Revival birthed many of the leaders and followers that drove the social reform movements.  So let’s pitch into evangelism with all our might—remembering the next person we lead to Jesus could be the Wilberforce, Weld (Finney’s key convert), or the later Martin Luther King that saves the nation’s soul.

The Evangelical Revival teaches us that getting a critical mass of believers involved is of paramount importance in renewing the nation’s conscience and saving its soul.

3.  Taking that further, as the reform movement builds we should pray for and expect suitably gifted leaders to emerge who will articulate the reform dream and persuade more and more people to run with it. Remember, a leader is someone who takes us where we may not otherwise go—and to change society, we must have those leaders. This is another lesson of the Evangelical Revival, and Martin Luther King’s later America.

4.  Learning from the Evangelical Revival, and Martin Luther King’s America, we should also gladly and proactively work with all people of good will who share the broad features of our reforming dream.

Some may be non-evangelical Christians, some may belong to other great world religions, and some may not have any religious belief at all; but we as evangelical Christians should work enthusiastically with all who share the broad features of our (i.e. Jesus’) reforming dream.

5.  We should remember God is on the side of truth—and in Isaiah 61 and Luke 4, he has already announced his agenda—just as in other parts of the Bible he has already told us the final outcome of history … ‘he [Jesus] must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet’ (1 Co.15.25).

So signing on to reform society isn’t something we’ll regret later on—because it failed; rather, it’s to join the only team that will win in history.

6.  Finally, if we’re to see any progress in reforming society we should start now , today, because tomorrow may be too late. According to historians, it was Wesley’s influence more than any other that saved Britain from going the way of the French Revolution.

The reform champions of the past didn’t put off their campaigns till more favourable times; they started as soon as they could—even though the odds may have been hopelessly stacked against them when they started. So let’s learn from them … and start today!

The Challenge of Jesus’ Mission Dream

Ray, you’ve done well to get so many dynamic disciples and take them on to membership—so they’re raring to go with Jesus’ mission dream of caring for people, transforming lives, and reforming society.

But now the time to start has come; and as you start, I pass on to you some wise words from Dr Chris Marshall—to encourage you as you launch the dream in your church.

Chris said, ‘Present injustices must never simply be tolerated … We are not meant to resign ourselves to the evils of the world while waiting passively for God’s coming to sweep them away. Instead, we are to work tirelessly in partnership with God for the greater attainment of justice here and now, knowing that God shall ultimately bring our efforts to fruition in the renewal of creation. God’s coming justice is the culmination of, and not the substitute for, human striving for greater justice here and now.’ (The Little Book of Biblical Justice, 2005)

May God bless you and your people as you now rise to this great challenge.

And may all your new mission dreams come true!

Let’s keep in touch.

Gordon Miller
Church Growth & Development Consultant

To discuss at leaders meetings

• To what extent has Jesus’ Luke 4 mission dream been shaping your church’s ministry—and how will it now reshape it in the future? (write down the broad principles of what you’ll do)
• Do many of your people live out the six personal practices outlined—and what steps will you now take to earth these practices in your church’s DNA? (write the steps and action dates down)
• What one or two initiatives could your church take to help eradicate poverty here and overseas? (write the initiatives down, with the steps and action dates)
• And related to that, what moral and social justice issues could your church become involved with so you do your part to reform society here over the long haul? (write the issues down, with the steps and action dates)
• And are there any other steps that you can also take, like having a strong justice emphasis in your preaching, to get your church people passionately committed to Jesus’ mission dream? (write the steps and action dates down)

Download

Download Issue 21 of the Salvation Army Leadership Letter (PDF, 76KB)