Ever since high school, I’ve been interested in the idea that I’ve come to understand as “incarnation ministry.” From personal study about “God became flesh and lived among us,” I became interested in the idea of doing mission from the “inside,” and felt a call to live as part of a poverty/violence saturated neighborhood in a way that the distinctive lines between “me” and “them” are removed so that together we can bring about much needed change to the neighborhood. With this goal in mind, I took classes in college and participated in opportunities outside of the classroom that gave me what I considered “training” to live and work among the poor in order to bring about transformation to both the neighborhood and lives within it (my own life included).
And then I took a class called Missional Church and got all confused. I had always seen this “incarnational ministry” thing as being directed towards social improvement of a neighborhood. In Missional Church, I was hearing that it was something that the church does in order to fulfill God’s sending mission for the church to “go and make disciples.” The discussion had me confused about what I thought was my calling. In my mind I couldn’t understand the connection between incarnational ministry as a church thing and of incarnational ministry as a thing for social improvement.
In class today the gap in my mind was bridged. We spent the day talking about “Practical Missionary Engagement for the City.” We talked about Jeremiah 29:7. When we got to the part where God says to exiled Israel, “seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile,” the curtain was removed. The distinction in my mind between the “church” part and the action part of incarnational ministry was unnecessary as they naturally flow with each other. We are called by God to bring Shalom to the place we dwell. This involves both discipleship (restoring relationships between people and God) and improving the neighborhood (shalom amongst people and between people and their environment). This means that, while incarnational ministry is something the church does, it has profound social implications. I have permission to pursue tangible change for the neighborhood God calls me to, in fact, it’s a God-ordained mission as part of bringing shalom.
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My heart singeth. I am glad it has helped. Shalom!
I completely get this. Even still I have trouble binding the two different “ideas” of incarnational ministry in practice, but it makes a lot more sense after seeing it described this way. The Jeremiah passage gave me much to think about also. I’m glad that the class has shaken up someone else’s ideals too.