“The Social Gospel” is regarded by most evangelical Christians as a distortion of the Gospel. Largely it involves a misunderstanding of Christ’s commands regarding the poor and deciding that it’s more important to help people physically than it is to tell them that they are dying and going to hell.
It bothers me that in an effort to avoid “the Social Gospel”, we stop truly ministering to the poor. We refuse to help someone unless they attend our church. We turn our back on ministries unless they have church services, preachers, and full blown evangelistic efforts. We won’t support soup kitchens unless they have chapel services.
Any excuse will do.
Is it WRONG to give money to a secular charity? Is it WRONG to just love someone because they need love? Are we so obsessed with SAVING people that we forget to LOVE them?
I don’t see how we can truly be concerned about someone’s soul if we just ignore their condition.
Yes, I want people to know Christ. Desperately. But do I truly love them, or do I just want to salve my conscience in regards to “soulwinning”? Whatever happened to BEING the body of Christ? I heard some moderately emergent guy say recently that we’ve done a good job, as the church in the past twenty or so years, of being the MOUTH of Christ, but what about the rest of the body? We need arms, feet, hands, and even ears.
Church, we’re entirely too comfortable being ourselves. “Love” is not the act of sitting around feeling sorry for someone who has it worse than we do.
Believe me, this hits home with me more than anybody could believe.
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“The primary activity of the church is to worship” – taken directly out of the Sunday School Bible Study I did this past Sunday. I do heartedly agree – However, for me worship in church takes about 5 hours out of my week – hummm. a lot of hours left, eh? What are we doing with all the hours left? I pray that mama and I are doing as He directs – even yet tonight.
John Stott wrote a book on this very aspect, defining what “Mission” is. It’s called “Christian Mission in the Modern World.” It’s a great read, you would enjoy it.
Thanks for stopping by, Jonathan – love your blog!