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Christianity Today, January, 2009 |

The Greatest Social Need

It happens to be something that evangelicals are specially gifted to meet.

A Christianity Today editorial | posted 1/19/2009 10:15AM

The greatest social need in the world today is not HIV/AIDS outreach. It's not hunger. It's not global warming. Not ending poverty or eliminating malaria or tuberculosis. Not clean water. Not racial reconciliation. ...

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beth sheffield (Registered User)

Posted: January 24, 2009 3:52 PM

Spiritual needs are far more important than social needs. The God-Man Christ is mankind's greatest need because He is the ONLY ONE who can solve ALL of our problems, including social problems that we have. Depraved mankind does not have the power or ability to solve any problem without Christ, and that includes misguided politicians who wrongly and arrogantly make themselves out to be a "messiah". People need the good news of Christ more than they need anything else, so if I had an opportunity to give the gospel to a homeless person I would. I would also give them Bible doctrine if I had it on me. I would then give them money for a meal and direct them to a shelter to get the help they need. I am not a pastor or an evangelist, but as a believer in Christ (Christian), I have my first and most important responsibility to people is to be an ambassador for my Lord and only Savior of the world, Christ. This editorial is actually one of the better ones that I have read.

Ruth Wilkinson

Posted: January 24, 2009 9:26 AM

In the context I live and work in (sgworship.blogspot.com), I've found that most people GenX and older have heard the gospel repeatedly as kids and in soup kitchens. Most have 'prayed the prayer' at least once because someone in authority wanted them to. It's made no difference in their lonely addicted lives. All of the 'preaching' has accomplished little if anything in bringing them to a Jesus filled life. So, we've chosen very deliberately to not go down that road. We don't even say grace at our weekly and monthly meals. (Feel free to tell me why that's wrong. I've heard all the arguments.) But we do have conversations with friends (and they are truly friends) which are painful and challenging in both directions. The rest is up to the Holy Spirit. To tweak Mr. Green's quote, we do a violence to "the poor" by treating them as a group and not as individual people, and the church fails by trying to solve the problem as an organization, rather than as individual people.

Beau in NC

Posted: January 22, 2009 5:14 PM


Why are we even debating this after 2000 plus years? It's not an either/or. 'Tis a both/and.

Paul Maurice Martin

Posted: January 21, 2009 9:18 PM

" Billions of men and women who do not know the love and grace of their Creator" - it's difficult to see this as the fundamental social problem in the world. Buddhists, for example, don't share our tradition in this regard, yet Buddhism strikes me as perhaps the most peacable of all religions - there's certainly not much in the news about fanatical Buddhists doing violence! However, it seems to me that your definition of the problem does work if one's perspective is that God is ineffable and that someone like the Dali Lama may be profoundly connected to God even without a cognitive understanding of God that's the same as someone from the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Joe Chan

Posted: January 21, 2009 10:03 AM

The greatest social need is the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is troubling that many so-called "mission works" are merely social works. Yes, they are in and of themselves are not bad, but they are not mission works or evangelism according to the Bible Clothing and feeding the poor and needy are noble acts, but they are temporal. The great need for the church and believers is to tell the gospel of Jesus Christ. I know many will say that we need to earn the right, or develop the relationship. OK, but do not let these be excuses and distractions from telling the gospel. Jesus did not come to feed the hungry or clothe the poor, He came to die for our sins to save us from eternal damnation.

Peter

Posted: January 21, 2009 6:52 AM


True, the evangelical churches have caught on, but they have been following the lead of others, some would say those "godless secular humanists," to be a wee bit polemical.

Roger

Posted: January 21, 2009 12:37 AM

Most Christian churches are spending all their time trying to be a half-baked imitation of a department of social services. If this continues to be the case. I will have thithed many times over every April 15. The only message that churches are giving is for the downtrodden, the sick, the poor. The churches seem to scream out that Christianity is only for losers. The church's prime responsibility is too minister to all, as sinners, not as life's losers.

ketch22

Posted: January 20, 2009 4:12 PM


It is not the main social problem... it is the main problem. Let us not localize or limit the problem to just social. All other problems stem from this problem.

john p

Posted: January 20, 2009 3:29 PM

After doing an excellant job summarizing and affirming the fantastic social ministry that the evangelical church is currently addressing, this editorial butchered the issue by suggesting that spiritual needs could be and should be equated with social needs. The two are distinct and require two distinct approaches. One does not minister to a person with homeless person by preaching salvation. Nor can one provide eternal salvation by building someone a new home. While the evangelistic call should never be neglected it is not a social need. Yes, social needs are often caused by spiritual ones but to suggested that our spiritual need for Christ is the greatest social need is a terrible misconstruction. Often social needs are not caused by the spiritual depravity of the poor by the rich. This editorial is extremely disappointing.

JohnS

Posted: January 20, 2009 3:27 PM

While I agree with the premise of this article, I think the writer has it completely backwards. Yes, a lack of relationship to God is the World's greatest problem. However, the way to improve on that is NOT by taking the route of the modern evangelical churches and focusing on prostlytizing and hammering moral codes, but to follow the path of the mainstream Churches and show Jesus's love through doing good works. Yes the point of a soup kitchen is not just to feed the poor but to lead them to Christ, but a soup kitchen is a much better vehicle to accomplish that then a sidewalk preacher or, even worse, an abortion clinic protestor. Lets make an effort to show God's LOVE to the world and not just preach "family values" and maybe you'll find a lot of people who have been resisting you suddenly interested in what values that God of love teaches as well....

stan baldwin

Posted: January 20, 2009 1:01 PM

It's a good article. We do need to keep the Gospel at the center of the Church's life. HOWEVER, I have not found that doing so automatically results in civil behavior. Thus, I have taken to reminding Christians that loving your neighbor as yourself is very high on God's priority list, second only to loving God. And, in fact, John writes that if you don't love your brother whom you have seen, how can you possibly love God whom you have not seen. Right doctrine, even when accompanied by warm fuzzy worship, doesn't cut it. Does your love of God make you treat other people with respect, even if they are "wrong." Or does it mean you can torture and kill bad guys in the name of preserving us good guys? Hate others, lie about them, mistreat them? Some so-called Christians are the meanest people you would ever hope not to meet, except in their treatment of their own. But even Hitler was nice to his own dog.

Martin VanDyk

Posted: January 20, 2009 12:18 PM


Amen. If leaders of 'missio Dei" do not lead...they mislead. The 'health & wealth gospel' is a dead end. Let us stop going to church, and start being the church.

David

Posted: January 20, 2009 9:57 AM


The biggest social need is the fear of God, from which wisdom comes. Jesus said you will always have your poor. Regarding widows and orphans-- it has always been the resposiblibity of Jews and Christians. But they are the only persons mentioned for that type of care. It does not refer to the beggers on the street per say. Some are poor because of disobedience towards God.

tr.2	Posted: January 20, 2009 9:39 AM

It is hunger that we have to minister to: Just remember the times you have skipped a meal and have been hungry and felt miserable and how the enjoyment and filling of the meal has brightened you up and made the world seem like home again. Well so is it written that the word of God brightens the eyes and the path ahead seems manageable again after a time of misery. Psalm 119:105 "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path."

David Ogletree

Posted: January 20, 2009 9:14 AM


Amen. Amen. And Amen. It is refreshing to be encouraged to do the best thing as well as to do good things; maybe this should be reprinted every few months.

Ed S	Posted: January 20, 2009 8:28 AM

I agree whole-heartedly with this article. There has been an over-emphasis in the church in meeting the needs of the poor, the disadvantaged, the homeless, etc. This, of course, is important. The most important thing is to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom. Why is this so important? Because all of our best efforts serve to only to put band-aids on a much bigger problem that only the Gospel, which is the work of God, can truly solve. I would remind folks of Acts 6:1-7. The apostles knew their primary mission was the proclaiming of the "word of God" (vs. 2). They appointed others to the duty of "serving tables". Serving tables meets a temporary need while preaching the Gospel meets an eternal need. In my opinion, the agenda of the world has infiltrated the thinking of the Church and this is why it has gotten out of balance.

Ayodele Iyiola

Posted: January 20, 2009 6:10 AM


Thanks a lot for reminding us about what is in fact our primary assignment.It is so easy without this rememberance, to plunge oneself into social work and in the end found out that the MAIN work had been abandoned.

Mary Jane Q Cross

Posted: January 20, 2009 5:36 AM

It may start as a spiritual problem but ends in multiplied social problems. Isn't where One ends, where the other begins? Generally we are not socially in trouble (on a personal level) until we are bankrupt spiritually. We still need to clean the whole house, not just where people visit and see the outside. White washed on the outside, unclean on the in. Alienation from our Creator is a point of slippery separation and descent, then consumes more and more of who we individually are until we are spiritually bankrupt, then socially(and perhaps publicly in trouble. It always finds it's way to the surface and then begins to rule. Are not the big social issues souls in agony of separation played out in the horizontal for all to see. There seems nothing clever about it.

Chris

Posted: January 20, 2009 3:51 AM


A wonderful balance. We can often hear a 'social gospel' being preached forgetting the redemptive nature of the truth, or we can preach the gospel and forget the poor, leaving them in their difficulties. I like John Green's quote as it assumes a working with the poor and the necessary knowledge to impart to them - the gospel. Again - a wonderful balance.

Douglas

Posted: January 19, 2009 11:29 PM


"He ... forgives guilt ..."? (3rd pg from bottom on 1st page) Grrrrr. Jesus died to provide forgiveness for sins, not forgiveness for guilt. Guilt is usually just the symptom of sin and hopefully something that leads us to repentance. Are we providing the gospel of feel good pop-psychology? Or the gospel of repentance and forgiveness that we learn from the Bible?

Jim S

Posted: January 19, 2009 10:35 PM


Well done. May we just not offer a cup of cold water but do it in Jesus name with His message as His ambassadors.

Lloyd Syvertsen

Posted: January 19, 2009 9:42 PM


Well said

William

Posted: January 19, 2009 8:48 PM


I agree with Robert. The weakness of the editorial is that is does not honor the "whole counsel of God" as reflected in Scripture. The evangelical church has come a long ways toward the whole counsel, but the editorial moves back away from where CT has been moving in recent years. Wesley said I know no holiness than social holiness.

Warren Aldrich

Posted: January 19, 2009 6:16 PM

I believe that it doesn't matter how we get into relationship with others, what matters is that we be clear from the start that we know very little or nothing about someone's relationship with God. My assumption is that God is always in some relationship with every person so my task is to effectively come alongside whatever God is doing in that person's life. Sometimes I wonder if we followers of Christ are more alienated from God that the average person on the street. That means I enter every encounter with every human from a position of curiousity and respect even to the point of wondering if they might have some healing of the alienation from God that can exist in my life. It seems that much of what we Christians present to the world is all about our opinions, our judgements, our agendas. If it's the Holy Spirit's responsibility to bring conviction then I'm left with the admonition and duty to love God and then love my neighbor in whatever way feels like love to them.

tr.	Posted: January 19, 2009 5:13 PM

House of God is where God is to be "met" and encountered and loved and held in awe and hope and reverence. We should all be building House-of-God, or at least "rebuilding" it, so that all people have love and a special hope in abundance. House of God also includes working the Father's business, planting and working the Father's vineyard which includes being loving and generous to those who are needy and jobless. Embracing others is the overflow of God's love for us when we encounter him in the house of prayer. This house is where we belong and where we will be most at home and comforted. Too little do we own our home in heaven and share generously the abundance of comfort and compassion we receive from Father. This must mean that too few of us are receiving the embrace we are entitled to as children of Father. So we should all make sure we return to House and Home and dwell there until we have feasted and rested in love and can pour out from our abundance what Father has given to us.

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