I’ve been in Lima for a little over 2 weeks now. It’s been good so far. I know that people are praying for me because I haven’t had any of the overwhelming anxiety or lonliness that I felt the first couple weeks that I was on my own in Chile when I studied abroad there. I have past experience to build on here; I have community here, people to talk to–friends who share my vision, and there is a lot to be grateful for.
I don’t have a ton of responsibilities yet in my work with Paz y Esperanza, so I’ve been spending some of my time reading theology about the mission of the church. Paz y Esperanza uses a term to describe this work as “Integral Mission.” The fact that it is integral means that it integrates all aspects of human life both individually and communally. That is to say that mission is not just about “saving souls” but it is an act of participating in the work of seeing all things reconciled to God, brought under control of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. So the mission of the church is to see our entire lives and our entire world touched by the redemptive power of Jesus, and in particular in contexts of poverty, violence, and exclusion it means reaching out to those who are suffering and extending life and love to them. That is good news, or gospel, and that is the message of the Kingdom of God.
Integral mission is not a new thing, it’s always been the mission of the church, but the church (and in this context the evangelical church in Peru) has not always practiced it; rather, it has often settled for a reductionist version of mission. The result? We sell ourselves short of the totally abundant life that Jesus came to give. This has happened A LOT in Peru. Protestant and evangelical missionaries from the first world came here in the 19th and 20th centuries to share the gospel with Latin Americans, but it came largely in verbal evangelistic campaigns, not in practical actions that touched the social or political life of the community. This has changed a lot in recent years. Especially since the Lausanne conference in 1974, the evangelical church has placed a greater emphasis on social action as an intrinsic part of the mission of the church. The church in Peru is growing in its consciousness of how important it is to be involved in the life of the community and to have a perspective that sees the real needs of the community, city, nation, and world and responds to those needs. A lot of my work with Paz y Esperanza is continuing to raise that consciousness and help the church live out their calling.
But sometimes I feel like rather than having an “integrated” life I am swinging between extremes. On the one hand I want following God to be this totally mystical experience of knowing God intimately in my heart of hearts, of walking in the Holy Spirit and meeting God in prayer, of seeing miraculous healings and supernatural events. On the other hand I want to see all the poverty, violence, exploitation, slavery, objectification, and opression in the world transformed by God’s justice and peace, and I think we need to be practical and strategic to do it–so we do things like form NGOs that come up with programs and projects and 10-year strategies. But in so doing, it seems like sometimes we forget to pray; we forget to let the Holy Spirit be the leader, and the risk is that it becomes an act done by mere human effort.
I DON’T want that. I want to be so connected to God that everything I do flows out of that connection. Because I know that if that were the reality, then I WOULD see miracles and healings, but I would also see very well-run social programs. What I would likely see is miracles happening in the midst of these well-planned programs. I might see little Mariela at the feeding program at “Grace of God Church” getting healed of the emotional wounds that she is carrying around from having an abusive father. I might see Maribel and Nataly and their brothers and sisters from Iglesia Cristo El Salvador (Christ the Savior Church) going out into their neighborhood not just to knock on doors to share the gospel, but connecting to people with supernatural words of knowledge and insight about their lives and inviting them into a community that teaches them how to live in dignity and respect themselves and their neighbors. I want to stay open so that God can work this out in me.
In closing this post, I’d like to quote something from Rene Padilla, one the the theologians/practitioners of integral mission that I’ve been reading a lot lately (translated from spanish, bold wording added by me):
“In reality, to speak about spirituality is to speak of a lifestyle that is oriented toward the fulfillment of God’s purposes for human life and for the totality of all of creation; it manifests in a way of thinking, feeling, and acting corresponding to Jesus Christ as the model for a new humanity, and it depends on the power of the Holy Spirit. Spirituality is putting into practice the discerning of God’s will for personal and communal life in all of it’s dimensions. Spirituality is a gift and it is work; it requires communion with God (contemplation) and action in the world (practice). When these are separate, it produces a true anomaly in life as much as in Christian mission. Contemplation without action is avoiding reality; action without contemplation is empty activism without transcendent significance. True spirituality demands missional contemplation and contemplative mission.”
We’ve decided to have rotiserrie chicken (pollo a la brasa) instead of turkey, since we don’t have an oven and Peruvian chicken is pretty amazing anyway, but we’ll have all the rest of the traditional goodies. As I’ve been inviting my Peruvian friends to our thanksgiving feast they keep asking me what Thansgiving is for. I could tell them about pilgrims and native americans, but that doesn’t explain what Thanksgiving really is for me (it’s always been my favorite holiday to spend with my family). So I tell them that it’s a special day that we set apart to give thanks to God for his provision and abundance, and to EAT with our family and friends. I don’t know if our dinner will communicate to our Peruvian friends the true essence of Thanksgiving, but I hope we can bring at a least a little spark of it here to Lima.
