Together Again? Word and Deed

David raises some very good points.  What is word and deed ministry?   The Word says that true religion is to look after the orphans and widows (the poor), those who are less fortunate.   But why is this?  It is because we are to "love those of the household of faith", and to "love our neighbor as ourself".   Jesus asked us to even love our enemies.   How do we know that we love God? 

"11 For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 12 Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. 13 Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters,[b] if the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. 15 Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.

 16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. " 

Changing administration will not necessarily improve the connecttion between word and deed.   It might, but it is mostly about an attitude.   The same attitude that causes us to share material possessions also causes us to share the good news of salvation.   Jesus even asked us to use our worldly possessions and goods to reap treasures in heaven.... how?  by opening doors to the gospel of Christ, by leading others to the love of God.   Be wise as serpents.... but for the good of our neighbor.   And for the honor of God's name. 

That attitude will cause those in home missions to talk to those in the Back to God hour.   That attitude will cause those in CRWRC to talk to those in foreign missions and home missions, and vice versa.   Pick up the phone.   Have a video conference.   Cooperate.   Seek better solutions.   Seek the welfare of the other agency or group, to help them achieve their task.   In so doing, you will achieve your own vision.  Because ultimately everyone has the same vision.  Bringing people to the love of Christ. 

It seems to me,  that while the Word and Deed has relevance to this discussion,  it actually pushes us to answer the wrong questions when it comes to organizational unity and the CRCs mission efforts.  It is important that we seek to ask the right questions before we can find the right answers.  A preliminary run on the right questions:

1)     How do we most effectively mobilize our resources (people, time, money, relationships with our partners) to most effectively assist our partners to fulfill the Mission of God  in their part of the world?

2)     What organizational structure would most effectively administer our efforts to reach the lost, and bring shalom into their world?

3)     What principles should we adopt to guide us and help us evaluate our effectiveness?

If these questions are rightly framed,  then we can seek the right answers.

80-90% of our efforts should focus on nurturing church planting.  All of our diaconal/deed efforts should be focused on coming along side our partners in this church planting effort.  It is true that “true religion is to look after orphans and the widows”.   But creating new communities of believers—new churches is the most effective way to accomplish that end.  My wife and children seed $30/month to support a child in Yezelem Minch a community children support program.  We have also raise  $80/month to support a church planter  in Ethiopia.  That church presently has 120 members and has planted two daughter churches.  As a community of believers they help 20-30 children.  Dollar for dollar the  impact both on lost people who need to know Jesus, and on the “looking after orphans and widows” is  far greater than our support of one child.

 I have helped churches in Ethiopia plant over 100 churches, and the multiplier effect will increase that to 300 in a few years.  Mission India has a similar record in India.  I am echoing here Lou’s primary concern—that deed ministry be focused always  as an adjunct to gospel/church planting ministry.  I think this is Dave Feddes concern as well.  The apostles work in the NT was never focused on isolated deed ministry to the poor.  It was always focused on the primary task of preaching the gospel, planting churches, and raising up leaders (which included diaconal ministry workers—so they could keep their focus on the real source of transformational power—the gospel).

Finally,  I support the concept of CHRISTIAN REFORMED GLOBAL MINISTRIES, but only if its mandate is to develop guiding principles that are used to launch multiple organizations that mobilize the resources provided by the CRCNA community.  As Rich DeRuiter indicate—“uniting word and deed is a great idea. Merging these two agencies is not. Something essential is bound to be lost.”

We all know that our mission agencies have certain levels of dysfunction: Sometimes they are in grown,  lacking vision, committed to dependency relationships, and to employing staff or supporting partners even when they are un-fruitful.  Or in the case of CRWRC unable to utilize within their paradigm the very people who could help the poor the most—business people.  Fortunately they were flexible enough to start a new agency—Partners World wide.  By nurturing the development of this new organization

Let me give one more illustration.  In 2007 a CRWM staff member accompanied me to Ethiopia.  I introduced him to denominational leaders that represented 42,000,000 believers.  Our goal was to begin partnering with them to equip and send church planters.  Our organization was small—but our potential was huge.  All we were asking for was the backing of CRWM to raise support among CRC churches in Minnesota—they already supported our vision, but wanted CRWMs stamp of approval.  They chose not to support our efforts at that time and instead sent a professor to an AoG Bible College in Uganda.  I assume that the cost of the ex-pat missionary approached $80-100,000 annual support.  With the same money using the internet and a few trips to Ethiopia we could have planted 500 churches.  Which by now would have multiplied into 1500 churches. 

With the internet, tele-communications, cheap air-travel, net-books, digital video graph Missions can be entirely transformed.  We can, working with CRC churches and pastors in the U.S. develop “missionary swat “ teams that connect and develop church planting partnerships, and diaconal ministry support that will complete the great commission in the 10-40 window.   If CHRISTIAN REFORMED GLOBAL MINISTRIES becomes a heavy, top down, denominational agency it would hinder the advance of the gospel.  But if it was focused simply on guiding a flat organization with multiple “missionary swat teams” focused on doing the main thing—preaching the gospel, equipping leaders for ministry, and developing their capacity to minister to orphans and widows.  Well. . . .

Thanks, John.

I need to say that Dr. Becker was helpful, when he encouraged me to form an organization for the work in Ethiopia.  He and even took a long walk to discuss our church planting efforts.

CRC Global Ministries:

It seems to me that there are two critical issues (the priority of WORD over DEED and Effectiveness)  when we attempt to answer the questions about structure outlined in a previous entry:

1)     How do we most effectively mobilize our resources (people, time, money, relationships with our partners) to most effectively assist our partners to fulfill the Mission of God  in their part of the world?

2)     What organizational structure would most effectively administer our efforts to reach the lost, and bring shalom into their world?

3)      What principles should we adopt to guide us and help us evaluate our effectiveness?

Issue #1   what is the Church’s Mission in the world:

Its instructive that Jesus is the WORD, not the DEED.  But He is also the WORD made flesh,  dwelling among us(DEED).  In the great commission he sent his disciples into all the world to make disciples—WORD  (preach the gospel), and to baptize, teaching them (WORD) to do all that he had commanded—which included loving their neighbors (DEED).  When the apostles went out they placed a clear priority on Preaching the word.  A significant part of their method was raising up leaders who would preach, disciple, and gather the church.  DEED ministry followed these efforts as  Jesus incarnated the gospel of Love.  DEED ministry rarely led the mission, but it accompanied the work of the church.

John Rozeboom and Hank DeRooy once said to me when I first pastored in Salt Lake City.  “The main thing, is to make sure the main thing remains the main thing”.  While they never told me what the main thing was I always knew it was to preach the word, to make disciples, and to train leaders—they assumed I would put the emphasis on the sylable.

This is huge spiritual warfare issue.  Most pastors have  heard people express a willingness to lead good lives, and let their neighbors see the gospel of the kingdom through their good deeds.   But we know they rarely speak the WORD.  No one ever entered the kingdom of heaven without embracing the WORD.  The WORD is transformational—the light we are not to hide under a bushel basket.  People are born again, only when the WORD enters their heart like a sperm entering an ovum that brings new life—re-generation.    People need to hear the WORD before they can follow Jesus.

But WORDs without DEEDs are dead.  The works:  the love for people in poverty must follow our WORDs, our church planting, our disciple making and our equipping of leaders  must be integrated with works of kindness and mercy.

One of the Guiding Principles for restructuring our ministries must be (as it was for the Apostles), the PRIORITY OF PREACHING THE GOSPEL (and the requisite church planting, disciple making, and leadership development).   80-90% of our efforts, and resources must be placed in this basket, if we are truly living under the authority of Jesus and bringing the gospel of His kingdom into the world.

______

Whence Lou’s concern, and a desire to integrate Word and Deed under one agency.    Here I’m guessing

 As a missionary in Nigeria, did he  always have the full forces of CRWRC resources available to him and the churches he was nurturing?  in a way that brought those resources to bear on his and other CRC missionaries work?   Did CRWRC staff  find that working with other partners in their mission field more productive (and easier), than working only with CRWM staff?  

It is also true that CRWRC has been more effective in raising funds from the CRCNA community than has CRWM.   Has their leadership was more visionary, more PR capable, or tech savvy?  Or is it that church planting, and preaching the gospel has less panache  than buying a goat for the poor African family?    CRWRC has been able to attract more gifted college grads who want to do development work.   They have been able to articulate the need for our resources more effectively.  As result DEED ministry supercedes the  WORD ministry in the hearts of God’s people. 

A wise missionary once told me that there four changes that you can bring to a mission field:

1)      Immediate aid—(for hunger and health needs)

2)      Developmental aid—(teach a man to fish and….)

3)      Address structural evil (rule of law, corruption and basic economic transformation)

4)      Heart Change (the gospel, disciplemaking, church planting, equipping leaders)

He went on to say that if you are successful in bringing change in first 3 areas but neglect the 4th the other changes will decay.  If you only address #4, the others will follow from the hearts and lives of the new believers.

So:

Guiding Principle #1:  The priority bringing the WORD to a lost world, Helping people see and hear Jesus---Church planting, Disciple making, leadership development. (everything else will flow out of a transformed community of believers, whom we can assist with our resources)

Guiding Principle #2: The integration of DEED ministry through and with our Partners.  All of our resources should flow in conjunction with the WORD ministries of our partners.

Guiding Principle #3: Our organizational structure should be shaped for Effectiveness with our Partners  (more on effectiveness in another post)

Lou, appreciate your discussion and responses, how are the meetings going now?

Your update is appreciated Lou. Globally great needs arise everywhere and funds available are too often spread too thin.

I will keep praying for the people affected by natural disasters, floods, quakes, landslides, disease, poverty.

Hi Gentlemen, I briefly scanned the posts and it felt like we lookoing at faith imduced actions in various ways. First we must remember that the true model of spreading the gospel is most effective when introduced relationaly via loving actions and words. With that in mind is there ideas on how to evagilize the western world. We are very ineffective in slowing the decline in our back yards. We have stop calling names and kill them with a love that is visable as peace and hope not judgment. I thimk if can stop our inner society from  ignoring God's wisdom and start with telling our parishiners that they have God's power. we could affect a greater change. I once picked up a prostitute paid her rate and took her to dinner where I explained that My belief in Jesus affected my thinking. We talked about her life while she she was crying none stop. I took her back to her hotel and said God loves you when your ready to talk to Him. I have know idea if it made a difference. I never saw her again near the stores I frequent. We newed to all take small steps around us like just talking to the old couple that walks by or say hi to bunch of kids even if they look intimidating. You can walk into a gang if you are genuine. Ask them about their tatoo's or where they are from. It is easy because God does the work if you show respect and kindness.