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As I noted before, I took a class this month on "Mission in Context," which took nine of us seminarians into Chicago for 5 days to observe how various churches in the city approach mission in an urban context.
The title of the course, Mission in Context, creates the logical conclusion that the inverse is true, that we can perform mission out of context. As I immersed myself in the culture of the various churches that we visited during our experience, I came to realize that effective mission cannot be done out of context.
Despite this, it would seem that most congregations operate as though this weren’t the case, that in fact mission is something that exists completely out of context, in the form of money sent to starving countries, of short term mission trips that amount to small construction jobs, of patronizing support. These programs pass for the “mission” aspect of the church, while it neglects the mission that is needed in its own community, in its own congregation. Mission out of context, as enacted by actions such as those listed above, while well intended and needed, are little more than outreach – social programs. Yes, people need shelter, food, clothing, and physical care. However, when this is all that mission becomes, we have reduced mission to something that pure meets the physical needs.
In this way, the people of the Gulf Coast become little different to us than the people of Ghana or India. They simply become the “poor and needy,” a nameless “other” that we can help without ever having to recognize. It is akin to placing a dollar in the cup of a homeless person on the street, and continuing on down the sidewalk without a second thought.
The reality of the situation is that the people of the Gulf Coast are completely different from the people of Ghana and India. They share the same physical needs, but their needs do not end there, they merely begin there. When truly undertaken, mission in context in the Gulf Coast will likely look nothing like mission in the context of India. It is this understanding of “context” that can help us to move mission beyond merely outreach to sharing of community. As we begin to recognize the importance of an adaptive mission, one that looks different for each community that we are serving, we begin to realize that the goals of the mission that we are called to is to do more than just meet one’s physical needs, but also to meet and address the personal and spiritual needs.
Jesus gives a prime example in Luke 5, when he forgives the paralyzed man’s sins first, meeting the man’s spiritual needs, restoring him to God before healing his paralysis. In this passage, Jesus is recognizing something that we often miss in modern approaches to missions: that we are called to serve the person’s personal and spiritual needs as much as we are to meet their physical needs. This is why context is so important. Without understanding one’s context, we can’t begin to understand one’s personal needs. I learned this lesson over and over at the sites we visited in our mission immersion.
Mission is not just outreach and service. It is first and foremost relational. Ministry is mission. Discipleship is mission. Mission takes time, energy, and most of all love. You don't love someone by putting up a house anymore than you do by putting a dollar in a cup. To truly show love to someone take more than that. It involves showing someone that you value them enough to get to know them, to get to know what it is that they really need, rather than telling them what they need.
Putting a dollar in a cup is a good start or building a house is a good start, but that's all they are: a start.
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