Previous Post – When Mission Becomes An Idol

This past week has been a very generative week for online discussion here, especially around the conversation that David Fitch, Wendy McCaig & I have been having about David’s proposed Luke 10 Project.  (Wendy posted here & here, I posted here)  Today, David responded to Wendy in a post called “I Love Asset-Based Community Development but it’s not the Church”.  He sums up his point here:

“I affirm asset based community development as God’s work, but I personally place more emphasis on planting local communities of Mission where people gather to witness to “the Kingdom” (it’s my calling, while still applauding those called to ABCD). Through the humble gospel presence of communities of Christ, we participate in what God is already doing in our local context to bring the Kingdom into visibility.”

I am with David on this.  A wholesale adoption of ABCD can muddle the mission of the church in a local context.  David does not accuse Wendy of this (and I think Wendy would largely accept David’s cautions about ABCD), but as I have said previously, I am not sure the division between these two dynamics needs to be so pronounced.  This is where I think a better understanding and engagement of shalom is critical.  ABCD is to shalom what activism is to justice- important expressions, but not to be mistaken for the fullest or primary models.

In Matthew 5:9, Jesus states, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be call sons of God”.  For Jesus, the peace he is referring to is all-encompassing, including health, harmony and justice that even extended to his enemies- in short, he is talking about shalom.  John Driver defines shalom like this:

“It meant well-being, or health, or salvation in its fullest sense, material as well as spiritual. It described the situation of well-being which resulted from authentically whole (healed) relationships among people, as well as between persons and God. According to the Old Testament prophets, shalom reigned in Israel when there was social justice, when the cause of the poor and the weak was vindicated, when there was equal opportunity for all, in short, when the people enjoyed salvation according to the intention of God expressed in his covenant.”

With this, Jesus puts to rest the notion that his people are called to only (or even primarily) the spiritual needs of the world, to “save souls.” Shalom destroys the false dichotomy between the so-called social gospel and spiritual gospel, leaving instead the fullness of God’s truly good news for all of creation. An emphasis on either end of the spectrum that excludes or minimizes the other misses the heart of the true gospel. We must resist the temptation to reduce or simplify the gospel in order to make it more accessible or acceptable; we must seek to embrace it in this fullness.

Therefore, shalom provides the paradigm in which the tensions that David names can find resolution and expression.  As church communities embrace their vocations as makers of shalom, grounded on the source that shalom (and not merely out of altruism or spiritual activism, though both have a place), we will begin to enter into the mutual transformation with our neighbours and our neighbourhood in ways that reflect the present and coming kingdom.

Does this paradigm help bring the two perspectives that Wendy & Dave present?  Does this further complicate matters?  What do you think?