Both Inward and Outward
Understanding and accomplishing the mission of the church is central to the very being of the church. But my concern is not limited to my own experience in the Lutheran community, La Voz de la Esperanza in Des Moines, Iowa. I see a few common errors in how Christian mission is usually approached and I want to share some suggestions.
Common Errors
The first error that I see is when people believe that once they accept Christ and become members of a Christian church all their problems will vanish. They will have no more conflicts in life, their economic situation will become more prosperous, they will neither get sick nor be sad, and surely they will live blissfully to an old age. But when life's problems begin to appear, such people fall into disillusionment. In Mark 8:34 (NLT) Jesus says to the people, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me.” And Matthew 18:7 tells us that stumbling blocks are bound to come in life.
A second way the church sometimes contributes to a state of confusion and distortion about what it means to follow Jesus is in its presentation of the gospel. Often Christianity is presented without cost or demands to the individual. This happens when the church transforms itself either into merely a provider of ecclesiastical services, or an agency offering forms of recreation—neglecting to provide teaching or instruction on Christian life and discipleship. This happens whenever the main thing that matters to a congregation is that there are high numbers of people in attendance. Since attracting people to the church is of greatest importance, the church doesn't take seriously its responsibility to teach the people and provide discipleship training.
In working in Latino communities we commit a grave error if, in order to ensure that the people continue to attend church, we use recreation and social services as the means of engagement and fail to give a clear presentation of the gospel or provide a strong program of Christian education. The only thing we achieve by “doing church” this way is to form a group of people who only attend for the material befits they can obtain—not for faith convictions. For sure these things are not mutually exclusive, but if we delay clear presentation of the gospel and Christian education, only concentrating on the recreational aspect and social services to engage people, the congregation will not understand the depth of the call of Jesus. At some point we will discover that the new community we had hoped for—a vital expression of Christian faith—has not developed and our time has been lost.
Often a state of confusion about what it really means to follow Christ is not only caused by people's presenting the gospel as an easy fix for problems, or by merely providing recreational services without Christian instruction. The greatest danger is much more subtle—an erroneous understanding of what we mean by “the grace of God.” Maybe the best definition of the difference between cheap grace and costly grace is the one given by Dietrich Bonhoeffer:
Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. The world goes on the same old way, and we are still sinners. Well, then, let the Christian live like the rest of the world, let him model himself on the world's standards, and not presumptuously aspire to live a different life. That is what we mean by cheap grace, the grace which amounts to the justification of sin. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without discipline, Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son—“ye were bought at a price”—and what has a cost God much cannot be cheap for us.
Some suggestions
First of all we should remember that God's time is not our time. We live in an “instant” and “immediate” world—instant milk, instant juice, instant coffee, and immediate service. Everything that we want, we want now. Nobody wants to wait. However, when we are dealing with people (especially the people we want to reach with the gospel) the situation changes radically. A profound evangelistic work requires time, patience, and above all, a great love for people. This is where we need to remember that God does not hold us responsible for success, only for faithfulness in our work. The majority of people who make up the Latino communities in the United States have very little formal education and they carry with them the inevitable consequences of poverty and marginality. For this reason, evangelistic work requires time and patience.
Another suggestion as we face the evangelistic work of the church is to take the doctrine of “the priesthood of all believers” as the starting point. We should remember that the whole church should be committed to the work of evangelization. The mission of the church and the work of evangelization cannot be the responsibility of only the “professionals” in the church (pastors and missionaries). Rather, it is the work of the entire body, though each person has a different function.
Next, a complete presentation of the gospel is indispensable. It seems the church has often presented just two perspectives on the Christian mission: a presentation of the gospel that only encompasses the spiritual dimension of people, and a presentation with an almost exclusive focus on the social dimension. The first perspective believes that the church's only mission is to save individual souls, making them useful for the internal work of the church. In this way, the mission of the church excludes attention to the large and urgent needs of society, thus communicating that the only thing of interest is a person's “spiritual life,” not his or her physical life.
On the other hand, problems also arise when the mission of the church is only committed to the social liberation of people from structures of political, economic, and cultural oppression. Certainly the church cannot be absent from these struggles and from the denunciation of such forms of oppression (especially when dealing with sectors of society that are more vulnerable to the abuses). History, however—specifically the history of Latin America—has shown that to focus only on these struggles often creates the risk of forgetting the unique Christian message, and puts an almost exclusive focus on works. Here it is forgotten that the transformation of human beings can only happen from inside out and cannot be realized by any political or sociological theory. Personal transformation happens only by the power of the gospel. The way I see it, Christian discipleship begins a process. First comes the individual's personal decision to follow Jesus, followed by involvement in community life. As a result, the community will begin to realize the power and love of Christ in the individual and will take on its social responsibilities.
The inward and outward mission
The mission of the church should always be both inward and outward. When the church is only concerned with its inward mission (the individual spiritual growth of its members), but is oblivious to what is going on outside the congregation, the church runs the risk of transforming itself into a ghetto. On the other hand, when the church pays attention only to denouncing political and economic injustices, it can very easily fall into noncommittal activism—presenting a gospel that is social or humanist. This causes the church to forget that within its own walls there could easily be people who still don't understand what it means to follow Jesus, understanding the gospel as merely a cultural artifact. For the church to faithfully fulfill its calling, it must present an integral gospel to the whole world, understanding mission as both inward and outward.
