I apologize to those of you who checked the blog on Monday for the regular update, and found only last week’s blog entry. I’ve been a little busy lately, and I completely spaced on Monday regarding the blog, and didn’t remember until about 11:00 at night. I didn’t really know what to write about, to be honest, but I was faced with something very interesting today, an issue I have thought about before, but have never really dealt with it very much. Before I get into that issue, I will tell you what’s been happening here with me.

Things are going along pretty normally. There are small issues here and there, but nothing worth writing home about, so I won’t. In class we learned about Christian education, being that there is a well-developed Christian school on site. Much of it was pretty straight forward, but not particularly challenging to me personally, to be honest. I can’t believe I’m coming home in a little over four weeks! It’s going to be strange being back in the States. I’ve sort of become used to living here, and it’s strange to think of going back. I will be glad to be home, mind you, but it will be a bit strange at first, I think. I’ve been totally out of the loop on current events, especially on the REALLY important things, like the Cubs or the Bears (Chicago sports teams, not the animals). I hear things at times, but the seasons have moved along and will end before I know it. If anyone knows of current events I should know about, leave me a comment! (Except if Hillary is up in the polls- I don’t want to hear that.)

Tuesday and Wednesday of this week have been/will be unique days. A parachurch organization called CHE(Christian Holistic Empowerment), which exists in many countries including Uganda, came to do a presentation for the Institute and a lot of the staff. Their vision is to partner with local churches, particularly in third-world countries, and minister with them in a more holistic ministry to the whole person- physically and spiritually. They seek to promote health, get people out of poverty not by handouts(which ironically has been a powerful agent in crippling much of Africa’s economy) but by teaching people how to live, and using all of this as a means to bring in the gospel.

I really don’t have anything bad to say about this group. From what I have seen so far they are on the right track, in my opinion. Poverty, as you know, is a real problem in Uganda. Many of the small village church pastors really struggle to get their people out of a poverty mindset. People grow crops and get just enough to live on, and it never occurs to them to try to get out of that kind of living. The West has tried to fix the situation by giving handouts, but this merely takes away responsibility and ownership, and in the end leaves people worse off than before. What they need is people to go in and teach these people basic things like cleanliness, sanitation, first aid, how to multiply your crops and money, how to raise cattle and fish, etc. This takes time and attention. I like that this group emphasises the local church, and goes so far as to say that there is no hope without the local church. They seek to minister the physical, long-term needs of people, as well as the spiritual.

Yet what is the goal of all of this physical ministry? It’s easy to explain why we should preach the gospel and do discipleship. But why the ministry to the physical? Some people say that it is a MEANS to spiritual transformation, that by showing them the love of Christ a door is open to explain the gospel. This is basically what I heard from this parachurch group. The other extreme is that it’s basically pointless to minister to the physical needs of people, because they are going to die and spend eternity in hell if we don’t just give them gospel. So don’t waste your time on those other things. This second approach is easy to refute, based on a host of Old and New Testament passages which talk about helping widows, orphans, remembering the poor, doing it “unto the least of these”, visiting those in prison, etc. Yet I think many Christians believe that physical ministry is secondary to gospel ministry. There is a dichotomy between gospel ministry of the Word, and meeting physical needs, between the great commandment and the great commission. Most honest, Bible-believing Christians I think would agree that yes, we need to meet people’s physical needs, but it’s only a means to giving them the gospel, which is the first approach stated above.

This is certainly true, yet I think there is a deeper, richer foundation for the meeting of physical needs, and it is in no way separated from real gospel ministry. It goes hand in hand with what God seeks to accomplish through the gospel, and we must not separate the two. Physical needs ministry is just as gospel centered and necessary as spiritual needs ministry, and we want to have a Biblical perspective on the matter which, I believe, expresses this more holistic view.

The churches here in the villages are very poor. It’s not like a lot of our American churches that have money set aside in case a homeless man comes to their church seeking food, or if a family can’t afford to fix their car or something. Here everyone is in poverty, and so a vital, key, frontline ministry for every church here should include a strategic ministry to the impoverished people.

But why exactly? Let’s take a step back and ask this: Why should we as Christians meet physical needs at all? There is a deep sense in us that we should, which is good, but why? I think that when we can articulate why, we will have a much greater drive and motivation to carry out God’s ministry to the the world in need.

The answer, I believe, is rooted in our role as God’s image-bearing, vice-regents on the earth. When God created mankind, He created us in His image, and we were given the charge to rule the earth. One primary aspect of this image of God includes our purpose on this earth, which is to rule and live in it under God rule, with the charge to rule it as he would, as his representatives. When man decided to get out from under God’s good rule, that image-bearing role was severely marred, and we became virtually incapable of bearing this image. The image was still there, but it was a dead image, needing resurrection. The man was cursed, as was the whole earth. Hate, murder, pride, vanity, lust, greed, lies, and rebellion became the dominant traits on the earth, all of which can lead to the war and poverty which we see today. Perhaps the poverty might not come about until generations later, but it did come.

In Christ we see the true image of God. Jesus perfectly modeled for us what it means to reflect God’s image. He was the perfect image of God, the true man. He showed us what it means to be truly human, in an unfallen state. He perfectly exemplified love in his life and death. Yet he did not just preach and teach. He healed the sick, caused the blind to see, and raised the dead. He felt compassion for the crowds, and fed them, both physically(feeding 5,000), and spiritually (I am the bread of life).

In Christ, the image of God is restored, and this image is being made new in us. We are in the process of transformation. We are beginning, right NOW, to live out the new creation, which has broken in to the present day, these last days. It has begun in the church, and will one day be consummated finally. 2 Cor. 5:17- “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, the new has come.” We are now able to be true humans, and Christ has shown us how to live as true humans. He has also enabled us to be this way by his work on the cross and resurrection from the dead. We can begin to clearly reflect His glory to this earth, and once again rule the earth as He intended us to do it, to govern it under His rule as He would rule it. We are His redeemed representatives.

I know I’ve stated this truth quickly and not very completely, it has vast implications for the church’s impact on the world. It means that we should seek to redeem our culture and world through the gospel. So in this African context, the goal should be redeem people in Christ from the inside out. I think there are two angles from which we can come from in ministering to physical needs. First, we should minister to others because of who we are as image bearing, glory-reflecting people. We want to show God’s love to people by doing what Jesus did on the earth, simply because it puts God’s glory on display, which God delights in. We demonstrate the love of God. Those who fail to show this kind of love in physical ministry to others make it evident that they do not belong to God. This is seen the story of the sheep and goats in Matthew 25:31ff. “The he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you crused, into the eternal fire prepared for the devila nd his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did no welcome me, nake and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ ” Jesus goes on to say that when you did not do it unto the least of these, you did not do it unto me.

I mentioned above that there were two reasons, but I guess there is just one. Our ministry is reflection of God, and a reflection of who we are in him. To ask the question presented in the title of this blog, should I help the poor, of preach the gospel? The answer of course, is both. In helping the poor were are preaching the gospel. Helping the poor is a great part of gospel ministry. It’s like asking if we should live out what we believe, or just talk about it. We want to stay away on the one side from the extreme that says we should just help the poor because of our compassion for them, which is humanitarian and good, but it’s not the essence of the gospel. We must not lose sight of the gospel! Keep it central! We must also stay away from the other extreme which says we should just preach the gospel, and leave the physical ministry up to others who enjoy that kind of thing. If we go to either extreme we fail to clearly reflect the gospel, and fail to fully live out our purpose on this earth.

I hope this has been food for thought. It faces all of us in one way or another every day. I’m very challenged by this. It’s so easy to lose sight of the big picture of what God is doing on this earth. I need to remind myself of it every day, so I don’t get lost in the trees. Please leave me a comment if you disagree with anything I’ve said here, or would like to add to it. I welcome your input.

I will be leading worship this Thursday through Saturday for a staff retreat here. It’s for the foreign staff, which means it’s ok to sing songs with lots of words and content, which will be nice. Pray that it would be a spiritually(and physically!) refreshing time for all, and that affections would be highly raised.

Grace and peace. 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 16th, 2007 at 1:48 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.