Short term effort; long term consequence

Short-term 'holistic' outreaches are a booming business. Year-round, hundreds of thousands of Christians travel the world to dig latrines, build or upgrade school buildings, clean up sections of slums, and much more. The desire to leave a 'Kingdom footprint' seems to have caught on. Such experiences do change a participant's perspective and contribute to his/her overall sense of wellbeing. For some, it can even be a stepping stone to significant, longer-term involvement. Personally, I believe in and advocate for this type of outreach—we can even find Biblical reference to legitimize it! The “cup of water in Jesus' name” is a genuine Kingdom activity, as is any expression of love and care for our fellow human being.

And yet, ironically, withIn this noble search for 'Kingdom Now' activity, lies a serious danger: that the overall mandate Jesus gave His students—to “make disciples of all nations”—becomes an afterthought. Face it: the tangible results of physically-oriented outreach are easier to capture as a slide show or blog photos than 'discipleship' is. It’s probably also easier to raise money for physical causes than for 'soul outreach'. The danger is that these hundreds of thousands of (sincere) Christians, who spend literally millions of dollars to travel to people in need, amidst the busyness neglect their recipients' deepest need which is the same as our own need: spiritual reality and new life in Christ.

Not my problem?

There is also the danger of maintaining the assumption of dependency. I recently saw a picture of a number of young people digging a latrine while 20–30 local men watched idly. A friend told me about an outreach to a small island off the coast of Guayaquil, Ecuador during which houses and bridges were built. The local people were very thankful but, a year later, they discovered that not a single recipient on the island could be bothered to maintain the new buildings. They would wait for the Christians to come back and fix it for them. It takes more than mere generosity to break the vicious circle of poverty.

Transforming lives and communities demands that we invest our lives in coming alongside people long enough to see their worldview change and for them to take responsibility for their part in the story. Most 'soul work' takes place in the slipstream of that process. One huge challenge we face is to find people who don’t care what their slideshow looks like, or how awesome their blog pictures are. In our search for 'Kingdom Now', we should never lose sight of 'Kingdom Then'. The overwhelming need for long-term workers remains; the challenge is huge. Yet, in the light of what is to come, we should never grow tired ofinvesting in souls while also challenging the Church to buy into the whole, much bigger picture.

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