Doing Justice and Loving Mercy: Compassion Ministries, Mentor's Guide, MG16

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D O I N G J U S T I C E A N D L O V I N G M E R C Y : C O M P A S S I O N M I N I S T R I E S

Doing Justice and Loving Mercy (2) The Urban Community and Neighborhood

Welcome to the Mentor’s Guide for Lesson 3, Doing Justice and Loving Mercy: The Urban Community and Neighborhood . The overall focus of this lessons is to explore the kinds of ways the Church throughout history has come to understand their relationship to the world, and therefore, how it has determined what are the best ways to both do justice and love mercy in the world. As always, we will not take our cues from the latest fad or phase of teaching in current evangelical practice, but root our understandings in the doctrine of the Church revealed in Scripture and affirmed in the Nicene Creed. As we understand the role of God as Creator and Sovereign Controller of all things, and his appointment of the risen Jesus as Lord of all, we will then have a framework for understanding a Christian view of love and justice. Christian thinkers and practitioners throughout history have explored their conception of church/world relationships in a number of ways, and often their experimentation has led to compromise of the Word (on the one hand) as well as terrible persecution (on the other). Your role this lesson is to help your students gain a historical perspective on these issues, and once that is acquired, to help them develop their own personal ministry strategy that will allow them to pursue love and justice in the most effective, wise, and collaborative fashion possible. One of the things you will emphasize throughout this study is the need for wisdom and simplicity as we explore models and ways to live out the implications of the Kingdom in our urban neighborhoods. As you explore the church and world relationships covered in this lesson, it may provide you with an adequate background to see how D. S. Lim describes the plan of action that the earliest followers of Jesus used as they considered how to fulfill the Great Commission throughout the world. Notice especially his emphasis on simplicity and responsiveness in their approaches to touching their world for Christ: Was there a general plan of action to evangelize the world? In terms of geographical expansion, it was spontaneous via the existing networks of sea and land trade routes, perhaps even to India and Armenia. Like Paul, most evangelizers settled in cities of Roman governance, Greek culture, Jewish influence and commercial importance, such as Antioch, Philippi, Corinth, Paphos, Ephesus, Rome. Paul chose to set up churches in only a couple of urban centers in each province (cf. Acts 19.10; Rom. 15.19–23; see Centers of Christianity) to serve as outreach centers in their respective

1 Page 101 Lesson Introduction