Picturing Theology, Revised Edition

Picturing Theology, Revised Edition | 349

Missionary activity is centered around the proclamation of “good news” that calls people into the Kingdom of God through an experience of salvation and regeneration. It focuses on bringing unreached peoples, cultures, and subcultures into the community of the redeemed (i.e., “bringing the world into the Church”). All of this is done with an eye toward creating churches which can disciple their members to acknowledge God’s rulership and live out the values of his Kingdom in their individual and corporate life. Missionary activity also encompasses development that seeks to call every area of life into conformity with God’s kingdom rule. It evaluates every concrete life-situation in light of the Lord’s Prayer (“thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”) and engages in deeds of compassion, love, and justice that demonstrate the nature of God’s divine plan for all peoples. It focuses on bringing God’s rule to bear on every human relationship and structure (i.e., “bringing the Church into the world”). A Partnership Relationship Missionary evangelism and church-planting and Christian development work are partners in the process of proclaiming, demonstrating, and extending the rule of the King. Both are responses to the fact that God has announced his desire to reconcile the world to himself through the gift of his Son. Although each is a legitimate response to God’s plan for the world, neither is a sufficient response in and of itself. Both word and deed are necessary components of the Church’s announcement of, and faithfulness to, the Kingdom of God. 3.1

3. Theological Relationship between Evangelism and Development

3.2 Interdependence and Interconnectedness The relationship between Missions and Development is not a simple one.

Their interconnectedness has many facets. • They are connected by a common goal.

Neither missionaries nor development workers are satisfied until God’s reconciliation with man and man’s reconciliation with man is completely realized. We believe that this makes both missions and development work Christocentric in orientation, since it is “in Christ” that God is reconciling the world to himself. Christ is the King. It is his sacrificial, reconciling death that provides the objective basis for reconciliation between humanity and God, and within human relationships and structures. It is his kingly authority and presence that allows the Kingdom to break into this present age destroying the works of darkness and creating authentic communities gathered under God’s rule.