Holistic Outreach: Is it bringing people into a sinking ship?

I had a very good conversation with someone today and wanted to share some afterthoughts on this. Amongst Urban Evangelicals the conviction for community outreach, has become a growing concern. As young Christians move from the ministry philosophy of many of their parents which they feel was the “if you want to know Jesus come to my church” philosophy to the “church without walls” philosophy I wonder if some things have been lost in the transition.

We first have to understand that the human race is always and I do mean always in danger of going from one extreme to the other. For example a person who thinks that reaching the lost is critical, will employ any and all methods to reach the lost or the unchurched thus the birth of the “Seeker Sensitive” model. Or the person who may have a Calvinistic evangelistic mindset may never do any type of invitation and thus miss opportunities to “biblically” evangelize. Another example is the fact of holiness and how legalism becomes the compass of “true Christianity” while on the other hand liberty takes the form of a lack of biblical church discipline. I can think of many instances in my life from everything from cessasionism to other positions that I took as I left the Charismatic arena in which my pendulum swung so far that I almost couldn’t identify the Holy Spirit if He sat next to me at lunch. So once again extremes lurksin the shadows for many of us.

I want to focus on the perspective of outreach in this short exhortation. I am not a pastor, nor do I understand (practically, not theoretically) the life of a Shepherd. So I am not throwing stones just engaging. As we wrestle with reaching the community that we worship in Corporately what should be the health of the church before such an exploration takes place. If marriages are crumbling, congregants are involved in all types of sin, the majority of the congregation has a low view of God and a high view of man, and if the church doesn’t understand the high calling of biblical church membership (which some people disagree with) should we be attempting to “reach out” without first reaching in? Is God displeased if we took a year or two off to help build the local fellowship and invest in families and biblical faithfulness and then go out to try to help others?

A picture came to my mind as I was talking with the individual. It would be like you pulling people into a ship that is sinking. Is our witness before the community and the world primarily how we live out the Gospel in our lives or reaching out to the community abroad with programs? What is funny is that as I read through Acts and the Epistles and even the Gospels, Jesus, nor the Apostles main focus was not holistic outreach but holistic in-reach. I think we are challenged to provide for the widow and orphan, but I think the primary widow and orphan are those within the Body of Christ. We can see that as Paul addresses widow care in his epistle to Timothy. I think we can do more harm than damage to the body if we focus our energy, time and resources in building the community abroad without first using the resources to build the community within.

That may seem “four wallish” but I think I can make a biblical case for it. As Paul is raising funds for the poor in Jerusalem it was for the poor believers, as people sold their goods in Acts it wasn’t so that the community abroad could have “all things in common” but that the believers could have “all things in common”. The Apostle Paul did not exhort the Churches he wrote to to reach out, but to love each other within. I think we can easily lose focus on what and for whom Christ died. It wasn’t for holistic ministry but for reconciliation. I am not saying churches should not reach out and if the resources are available, especially for mega-churches, then go for it. But I don’t think that the local body should get the scraps from the table while we invest in schools and community outreach programs. I don’t think we should charge those who give frequently for a marriage conference when we take those same dollars to help buy books for the community. That is only my opinion but I think there is some validity there.

If we spend our time rebuilding the city while simultaneously ignoring those within our local fellowship, I think we will continue the trend of nominal Christianity. People aren’t being properly discipled because they are busy painting houses and not being ministered to. Many pastors and leaders aren’t even equipped to deal with the major problems many Christians face within their congregtions Christ has granted them charge over, so we substitute keeping busy for biblical ministry. Many of our brothers are struggling with pornography, don’t have a clue how to disciple their families (I wrestle with this in my own life greatly) and have no clue about biblical manhood, but they are busy working within the body. Many of our women don’t understand their roles as women in a Christian marriage, can’t really reproduce other Godly women and are struggling relating to their teenage daughters, but they are busy organizing outreach events.

This isn’t the case for all churches but I know what I have seen across many ethnic and socioeconomic ministries. We are failing at succeeding at what God calls us to do, in the name of reaching the community, which I can’t find biblical where God spends a bunch of time discussing in the scriptures. I think if we want holistic ministries they must start from within. As the brother I talked to said “Get the families inside healthy, then they can aid in getting those outside healthy”. God bless.