Is social action evangelism just poor mission but with good PR?
What would be a good way or word to replace the word “leader(ship)” for the way we need to start thinking about this in post Christendom?
Why hasn’t the house sold?
The difference between knowing of God and about God, how they inter relate and each help sustain a relationship with God. How one comes to prominence at different times.
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Is social action evangelism just poor mission but with good PR?
Or
is poor evangelism just mission without good social action…?
– Thanks for provoking some thoughts and a really resourceful blog
I’ll try not to make this into a rant- as I’ve done that plenty in other places on the ‘social action evangelism’ topic… but my thoughts are:
It’s Arrogant- it assumes that we have the right way to live and will go and make other people’s streets and communities ‘better’ by making them the way we consider to be the ‘right’ way to live.
It’s Oppressive- It generally consists of a team of Christians (often young people) being parachuted into an area on a ‘hit and run’ mission and then pulled out after a week. It doesn’t get communities working out what their issues are and thinking about how to resolve them.
To adapt a quote from Brian McLaren in New Kind of Christian, ‘Social Action Evangelism’ … It can prostitute Social Action, which then invalidates the evangelism. in other words- do social action coz it’s good, not with the hidden agenda of evangelising!
On the other hand, I’m sure there are some places where there is some really valuable community work being done, which is generally shared work and resident led.
with you nicki and would say that the ‘hit and run approach’ no more transforms a community than having someone yelling they need Jesus – and so it gets filed away as inauthentic with friendship evangelism! I don’t define that as social action.
The community work year in year out is what I would champion as social action – not as an excuse to evangelise but at least to demonstrate the values of Jesus.
For me you are right to rant!