#integralmission

My grandfather was an evangelist. Like apostle Paul, he didn't marry so he can devote his time and his life for the sake of the Gospel. I remember, when I was a child, he would have two things that he treasured dearly. One is his motorcycle which serves as his ride for visiting people and telling them about Jesus. My grandfather believed with his whole heart that Jesus alone can change people's lives for the better. Then he has his notebook, with a long list of names of people he has encountered, shared the Good News, and engaged repeatedly so that they will accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. As a child, it looked to me like the "Book of Life" described in the Apocalypse of John. Every night he will pray for the names, one by one. For those who were 'born again' that they will continue to mature in faith, for those who haven't yet that they will one day surrender their lives to Christ, and for those who have forsaken the faith that they will realize the error of their ways and like the prodigal son return once more to the loving embrace of the Father. For quite a while, this vivid image is what I have of a life fully-devoted to the cause of mission.

Then I also have a grandmother. She was not an evangelist like my grandfather. She was an entrepreneur who raised two kids whom she sent to college as a single mother. While my grandfather mastered the Bible, my grandmother specialized in business. I remember when I was a child, day by day, my grandmother would hustle her way in the market, trying to crack the secrets of making money. She was convinced that the only way she can help others is by making sure she can help herself and help herself so well that she would have enough to spare and share with other people. But unlike my grandfather, she did not keep a notebook. She didn't have a list of names who borrowed money from her. She gave as she is able to whoever is in need. As a child, it looked to me like my grandmother was fashioning her life after the story of the feeding of the five thousand whom Jesus refused to send home with an empty stomach. But it will take me a while to understand that my grandmother’s life is in itself a vivid image of what it means to do mission.

I studied theology but it did not so much help me to realize that "giving a glass of water" is also an indispensable part of sharing the Gospel. You may wonder why. It is not that theology in itself is unhelpful, otherwise I would have stayed away from the Theological Commission of the WEA. But I realized that it is a certain kind of mission theology that restricted my peripheral vision. John Stott identified it as the 'Great Reversal' among the conservative side of Protestants. Ron Sider calls it the 'uneasy conscience' of evangelical Christianity. Or more recently, Richard Stearns spoke of the 'hole in the Gospel'. But what helped me the most to see the real face of the problem is what Carlos Rene Padilla, an evangelical theologian from Ecuador, described as a mission that is 'mutilada' (or 'mutilated' in English).* A kind of mission that has been so refined that in the process it also loses much of its essential ingredients. Just like refined sugar or bread made from refined flour, it may be tasty but it sure is lacking already the things that can make it healthy. Likewise, mission can be so mutilated that it hardly resembles the multi-faceted character of Jesus' ministry. Or it can be so refined that it neglects the one thing that Peter, James, and John reminded Apostle Paul when he was reconfiguring how missions would look like for the non-Jews, that he should continue to "remember the poor" (and you can read that in Galatians 2:9-10).

As an alternative to 'misión mutilada ', Padilla spoke of mission that is complete, not missing any component. In Spanish, he calls it 'misión integral' after a familiar bread among his people, 'pan integral' or 'whole wheat bread' which he himself often bakes at home. This he does as the necessary response to the specific context and need of Latin America at that time. As campus workers doing student ministry, together with Samuel Escobar and Pedro Arana, they could not possibly dismiss the deep questions of poverty, injustice, and oppression that were probed deeply in the universities of Latin America. They need to give their young people a vision of life that is as compelling if not even more convincing than the promise of armed revolution. What they did in Latin America was mine the Bible for the breadth and depth of what it means to follow Jesus in the most trying condition of their nations. And the Word of God led them to rediscover the revolutionary edge of the Gospel, so radical that it exposes how mutilated mission has unfortunately been in the Christianity of the Western world and how it would be so out of context for them to adopt that paradigm of mission.

Today, 'misión integral' has been embraced more and more by evangelicals globally. Sometimes translated as integral mission. Sometimes as holistic transformation. And it has been a tragedy.

Yes, a sad tragedy. ‘Misión integral’ could have been an invitation for the other regions of the world to reimagine missions as demanded by the very specific contours of their respective contexts. But what started as a solid example of local or context-rooted way of doing mission has been 'globalized' or should I say hijacked into the mold of 'Western-oriented missiology.' You see, 'integrate' in English can mean so differently from 'integral' in Spanish. Integrate can be used in the sense of fusing things that were otherwise taken apart like evangelism and social action or proclamation and demonstration. But integrating two things does not necessarily equate to being whole. You can integrate things together and still be missing something essential. And so the whole debate in the past two decades or so about whether political engagement or creation care should be part of the church's mission actually missed the bigger picture. The question rather is what else are we missing aside from these two that shall make our grasp of mission even more whole and complete?

Is beautiful poetry mission? How about health-conscious culinary? Or responsible artificial intelligence? For sure there is more to mission than water, gender, and fair trade coffee. But there can't be mission without all these because the Gospel best comes across as good news when it confronts the composite dilemma of human existence, social ills, and historical evils. Jesus was good news to the Samaritan woman, to Nicodemus, and the Garasene demoniac. But he was bad news to the Sanhedrin, to Herod, and eventually to the Roman Empire. So terrible a news that the people who are called by his name were put in jail, fed to the lions, and burned as torches in the Coliseum of Rome. They were caught defying Caesar’s decree by saying that there is another king, the one called Jesus" (Acts 17:7). Someone once said, "well, if everything is mission, then nothing is mission." I think this is an unfortunate case of mixing categories. It is like asking, Is violet delicious? Are roses compassionate? Do elephants short-circuit? For how can mission not be about a lot of different things if God is in the work of reconciling all things back to Himself through the peace accomplished at the cross by our Lord Jesus? (Colossians 1:19-20). And so this means that shalom is coming not only to people but to the whole planet, bees, rivers, and trees included, and all the rest of what Apostle Paul called as “things invisible.”

If that is so, then let us push the envelope further as we might still be missing something important. Bishop Hwa Yung of Malaysia often issued a reminder that one of the unfortunate impact of having Christianity that is molded in the worldview of Western Enlightenment is being blind to the supernatural realm that is very much a part of the world we inhabit. And unless we are able to shake off this deficient worldview, our mission will not gain traction in most parts of the world that remains to be attuned to the reality of the spirit world. To this day, Christianity remains to be a tiny fraction of the population in Asia. I will not forget a trek to the mountains that I had when I was traveling a few months ago in Chiang Rai, Northern Thailand. The driver was telling me how interested he is in many religions. But what he found most fascinating is Christianity. I can still hear him saying, "You see Christianity has been here in Thailand for more than 100 years and yet the number of Christians remains to be less than 1% of the population. There must be something wrong in how you are doing Christianity in this country."

So, what am I saying here? There is a clear and present danger when we fail to undo the 'single-story' of how to do missions. A hegemonic narrative that leaves little space to the likes of my grandmother. But Rene Padila and his Latin American friends have shown us what it takes to do a decolonial approach to mission. Likewise, how can we, in our time today, encourage the crafting of multiple stories of doing mission that is rooted in the specifics of different cultures, languages, and contexts? How can we undo the logic of copy-paste missiology in the new landscape of re/emerging centers of Christianity in the Majority World?

Maybe, we can get started with some more gastronomic reimagination... How about khao soi missions in Thailand? Phin coffee missions in Vietnam? Or 'sapin-sapin' mission, as suggested by Ian de Ocampo, when in the Philippines? The possibilities are exciting!

-Rei Lemuel Crizaldo (delivered as plenary talk for the Emerging Leaders Summit 2023, Sentul City, Indonesia) Watch the video recording here. *Notes:

Romans 15:23 onwards is a fascinating passage in Scripture.

"23 But now that there is no more place for me to work in these regions, and since I have been longing for many years to visit you, 24 I plan to do so when I go to Spain. I hope to see you while passing through and to have you assist me on my journey there, after I have enjoyed your company for a while.  25 Now, however, I am on my way to Jerusalem in the service of the Lord’s people there. 26 For Macedonia and Achaiawere pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the Lord’s people in Jerusalem. 27 They were pleased to do it, and indeed they owe it to them. For if the Gentiles have shared in the Jews’ spiritual blessings, they owe it to the Jews to share with them their material blessings.  28 So after I have completed this task and have made sure that they have received this contribution, I will go to Spain and visit you on the way." (NIV)

On one hand we see Apostle Paul's vision to extend his missionary work to Spain, the far end of the Roman Empire (v. 23-24), and, on the other hand, we see his immediate preoccupation to be of service to the poor and the needy in Jerusalem (v. 25-28).

His passion for preaching the Gospel comes interwoven with his sense of social responsibility to help out in relief work, a ministry that the apostles themselves reminded him never to neglect,

"All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along." (Galatians 2:10, NIV)

To him, and to the pillars of the early church, the urgency of responding to earthly, material, needs is not a distraction to any thing that can be called matters of eternal significance.

Much has been said of Apostle Paul's cross-cultural evangelism, but I have not seen so much work done on his international (or at least, inter-Mediterranean) humanitarian relief work.

No doubt, the good apostle is a passionate preacher, but it is also clear from Scriptures that that he is a compassionate brother.

What we need to be reminded here is that there need not be any artificial dichotomy between the two. Stephen himself, one of the seven 'deacons' of the church, appointed to the work of "serving in tables" (distribute food to the needy), when the opportunity presented itself, readily shared the Good News to the Ethiopian eunuch (cf., Acts 8:26-40). He didn't bother to regard himself merely as a 'server' and call someone else more knowledgeable than himself about the Scriptures.

Similarly, Apostle didn't complain that doing relief work for the poor in Jerusalem is outside of his expertise, calling, and job description. Only 'modern' churches like ours, today, are so prone to make such hair-splitting distinctions...

"In every situation, our job is not to assume – based on experience with people/communities, formulas or preconceived notions – how we should interact with the world around us. Understanding integral mission helps us break out of the mould of assuming that we know best to prioritise either proclamation or demonstration because I believe that there is hardly any “fixed” answer.

Last week, I spent some time with friends who are exploring ways to help churches and their leaders work out a wider conception of what it means to do Christian ministry.

We talked about holistic mission and how people find the different terminologies being used in talking about it helpful (or not) especially in the very polarized religious contexts of the Philippines.

I came home really gripped by our conversation and recall similar/parallel reflections especially after the 4th Congress of the Lausanne Movement in South Korea last year. There were intense conversations on how still, in 2025, the tension continues between those who emphasize the work of evangelism (aka #prioritism) and those who feel it should come alongside and inseparable from works of social justice (aka #integralmission).

So, can't we just say 'mission' and not put any qualifier/adjective before it? One observer at the 4th Lausanne Congress actually said that in the resulting Seoul Statement, it ignored Integral Mission* totally and in its place offered a brand new emerging mission framework: the 3Ps of presence, proclamation, and practice. (see Evangelical Review of Theology Journal, 49/1)

But consider this line from the Radical Discipleship group of the 1st Lausanne Congress in 1974:

"Men will look as they listen and what they see must be at one with what they hear. The Christian community must chatter, discuss and proclaim the gospel; it must express the gospel in its life as the new society, in its sacrificial service of others as a genuine expression of God’s love, in its prophetic exposing and opposing of all demonic forces that deny the Lordship of Christ and keep men less than human; in its pursuit of real justice for all men; in its responsible and caring trusteeship of God’s creation and its resources."

To which, Rene Padilla, remarked, "This definition of holistic mission as including what the church IS, what the church DOES, and what the church SAYS can hardly be improved." So, well, go figure...

That being said, I guess, it remains helpful to have Integral Mission as a point of reflection in the pursuit of a more innovative, impactful, and authentic ministries in different parts of the world. Some reasons, top of my head, below: Theological Reason: Mission is the mother of theology or it ought to be. Unfortunately, in the course of time and history, there are theologies that were developed which practically 'maimed' mission and reduced it to the sensibilities, demands, and context of a particular geographical region. A study in Korea, for example, revealed how Dispensational Theology, the version imported from the US, can be closely linked to the local churches' apathy towards responsible dealings with the environment and the rest of creation. And so, you need a robust theology of mission that could serve as an alternative and give people a firm grounding for a more well-rounded approach to Christian witness, one that is more life-giving than death-dealing. Historical Reason: Integral Mission is a critical moment in the history of evangelicalism. It is what happens when North American missiology encounters the missiology of the Majority World. In 1974, Rene Padilla carried the voice of the then so-called Third World leaders when he delivered what is called as the "speech that shook the evangelical world." Basically, he critiqued certain influential brand of missiology developed from the West as a kind of "Gospel with no teeth." A gospel that brought forth ministries with nothing much to say to people's oppression brought about by social inequality perpetuated by the powers that be. Rene issued an invitation to reimagine the mission of God's people in the world in such a way that is not truncated, not 'mutilado' (mutilated) but instead more 'integrale' (whole, not lacking anything). Hence, Integral-Mission. Today, young people will describe it as a 'decolonial' moment which surely disrupted the old imperial order of things. Decolonial Reason: It is unfortunate that later on Integral Mission was also hijacked by the habits and structures of imperial imagination. Whereas Integral Mission is a solid and concrete example of a locally-rooted theologizing from Latin America with profound missional implications, and provides as well a sharp decolonial pushback to the hegemonic mission models of its time, it soon was universalized, objectivized, exactly in the mold of Western missiology. Instead of seeing it as a starting point, it got framed as 'the' end point. But it did miss the point, right?

I spent a week in Dubai this month to join a consultation on what it means to have an impactful Christian presence in restricted contexts of Asia.

Participants came from Pakistan, India, Philippines, Indonesia, and Nepal. What I really like about the gathering is that it was designed to be intentionally small to foster deep conversation, serious interrogations, and collective reflection. True enough, we enjoyed an intense but joyous time together. I'm sharing below some of the key insights I heard from the plenaries, table talks, and the coffee breaks!

New Ways to Understand the Theology of Integral Mission

Within the church, there exist theologies which celebrate the things that are 'life-giving' and those that actually reinforce things that 'threaten life.' Discernment must be made to ascertain the kind of theologizing that takes root in local churches. These theologizing animate the kind of missiology and missional practices that shape the ministry of local churches. 

In countries like Indonesia, there are societal visions that reflect pursuit of personal wellbeing and social development, e.g., commitment to the SDGs, but these national agendas can lack serious attention to the vital role of the spiritual aspect/dimension of human life. 

Amidst such gap, Christianity can provide a clear alternative, one that speaks of a more holistic vision of social transformation. In this regards, the theology of Integral Mission lays a foundation for the pursuit of wholeness and everything that makes life good as God intends it, e.g., portraits of ‘shalom’ in the Old Testament and the ‘fulness of life’ in the New Testament. 

The restoration of four broken relationships (with God, with one's self, with other people, and with the rest of creation) provides a helpful framework to understand holistic transformation as the outcome of doing Integral Mission. This relational framework has helped churches and Christian organizations in identifying not only specific aspects of wellbeing in need of attention, but also how specific ministry initiatives contribute to the broader vision of "life in all its fullness."

Integral Mission can also be thought of from within the classical doctrinal articulations of most churches, i.e., the four-fold function of the church: kerygma (saying/proclamation), diakonia (doing/practice), koinonia (being together/presence), and leitourgia (worshipping/praying). What needs emphasis is that each of the functions contribute to the doing of Integral Mission. In restricted contexts, the winsome character of the church's 'koinonia' can be the most important of all. Oftentimes, people think of fresh ways to communicate the idea of Integral Mission, but how can we also tap into existing categories, like this four-fold function, that local churches are already familiar with?

In Pakistan, one organization promotes what they call as the ‘Integral Disciple-Making Model’ (IDMM)

Carrying out Integral Mission in Restricted Contexts

With regard to Integral Mission, experiences on the ground show that works of compassion and community development serve as helpful bridges and provide lots of opportunities to open doors for the sharing of the Gospel. And at the same time, the message of the Gospel becomes more concrete when people in the community see the selfless sacrifice of its witnesses.

And yet, while Integral Mission, usually understood as a careful balance between ministries of word and works, has been found to be helpful, there continues to be tensions, apprehensions, and resistance in certain segments of the church with regards to engaging in so-called holistic ministries. This includes concerns about the Social Gospel, Liberation Theology, and the many other things that people fear will distract the church and cause it to drift away from its mandate.

These concerns arise from theological convictions, denominational traditions, and actual cases wherein the balance is far harder to maintain than usually assumed. There is difficulty, for example, in terms of clarity, on how ministries of good works eventually pave the way for the sharing of the Good News. Or how the restoration of the three other relationships circle back to opportunities to talk about restoration of relationship with God? A blunt question not a few pastors have voiced out: "How do we make sure we are not sending healthy people to hell?"

In restricted contexts, most especially, this question has to consider the complex process wherein trust, respect, and goodwill is earned by the minority Christians in the community. It is the building of goodwill and good relationships, not necessarily the delivery of social services or fervent works of apologetics, that serves as the indispensable prerequisite to get the good news a good hearing among the people. 

More so, it must be noted, that in restricted contexts, the issue is not just about the opportunity to do both the proclamation and demonstration of the Gospel, but on how the doing of these two actually contributes to shaping a positive impactful presence for the Christian community and the perception of the people that surround them. 

In not a few times, good initiatives of a Christian NGOs (CNGOs) can be tainted with suspicions of insincerity upon being linked to the evangelistic work of the local church/es. At the same time, and in the same way, the indigenous witnessing work of a local church is being hampered by the presence of CNGOs associated with a foreign religion. In both, the community sees the work of Integral Mission tied to a proselytizing agenda. 

As a result, instead of the works of the churches and the CNGOs being a complement to each other, it can end up that one harms the other, and at the end of the day, what gets tarnished is the integrity of the Christian community itself, thus losing favor from the people. CNGOs will have to remember that being successful in evangelism is a non-negotiable aspect for local churches, if not, at all, the paramount concern. Most especially for churches in restricted countries, they pray to grow as a community of faith, not only in terms of impact but also in numbers as well.

Churches and Christian NGOs in Collaboration

Historically, CNGOs developed out of ministries and committees within the local churches which eventually grew big and spun off as independent institutions, foundations, etc. One theological framework that has shaped CNGOs self-understanding of its existence is Abraham Kuyper’s idea of ‘church gathered’ and ‘church scattered’. Christians working in CNGos are also doing ministries as the scattered people of God in the world but focused on specific areas of service (diakonia).

However, as CNGOs became more organized and professionalized, the link with the church also grew weaker. It is a common experience wherein access to funding agencies with strict policies on faith and spirituality has hindered CNGOs to work closely with church institutions and accompany the latter more intimately with its mission.

A very interesting dynamic came to develop over time between local churches and CNGOs which brings to the fore questions about: external resources, local ownership, and most important of all, sustainability. These are three interrelated concerns that CNGOs oftentimes encounter in their work with local churches (and vice-versa). In many place and in so many times, churches struggle with continuing the work that the NGOs have started. 

Approaches to Integral Mission like church and community mobilization (CCM) can bring some alternative ways of working and even some pathways for resolutions to the said concerns.

To know more about CCM, click here for the presentation that I gave in one of the sessions on how CCM has helped the church to grow in one of the most restricted contexts of Southeast Asia.

But when processes like CCM were promoted by CNGOs in ways that are antithetical to the very logic and values of CCM, the whole thing shoots itself in the foot. Models of a more sustainable expression of Integral Mission have to be pursued consistent with the demands of the model itself. If ‘use of local resources’ is a core feature, for example, then the work of scaling-up CCM has to be done accordingly. Otherwise, it sets-up the CCM initiative for failure from the very beginning.

And so, it will help greatly if CNGOs and local churches can take a serious effort to look into how they can work together, what each can bring and contribute to strengthening and complementing each other’s work, and how, by being together, they provide a really vibrant and life-giving Christian presence in the community. An ecosystem approach, instead of the usual transactional ways of partnership, may help address some of the problems by committing to the following: organic growth, flexible and informal relationship, shared and joint leadership, and complementarity (acknowledging the role of a variety of specialized organizations).

Another approach is to nurture the formation of communities of practice (COPs) which locate the role of CNGOs as 'servants' setting-up tables of conversation, helping make connections and develop friendships across geographical areas, with the shared aim of creating a joyous space to explore insights and innovation.

Role of Theological Education Institutions in Integral Mission

A critical aspect in need of further reflection is the role of institutions and organizations that provide training for Christian leaders and workers, e.g., seminaries, Bible colleges, and other educational organizations. A good example is STT Bandung, a seminary in West Java, which has put Integral Mission as among the key elements that permeate and shape their program offerings. In particular, they offer a Master of Ministry degree designed for professionals who have a vision of creating a significant but faithful Christian impact in the marketplace.

Initiatives as such from seminaries can play a pivotal role in sustaining the embrace and commitment of churches to Integral Mission. Church leaders need to see how Integral Mission is consistent with their denomination's theological tradition, history, and present missional priorities. One church denomination in Indonesia drafted a supplemental catechism to the Heidelberg Catechism which lays down a clear doctrinal position in support of Integral Mission. This provided the social arm of the denomination with a clear mandate to engage local churches within their church network and even beyond.

Fortunately, today, both the sectors of formal (accredited seminaries) and non-formal (church-based training programs) theological education are paying attention to the value of courses that equip students for Integral Mission/holistic ministries. The INCREASE Association is now developing a TEE course for CCM. The Asia Theological Association (ATA), a member of ICETE, has been working to promote Integral Mission and CCM within their member-schools. 

But what else can be done to help theological educators in equipping future and current Christian leaders with an Integral Mission perspective and approaches like CCM that can help in carrying out sustainable expressions of IM within and through the local churches? This is a question that needs to be addressed amidst present experiences on engaging seminaries yielding several challenges: difficulty in developing and adding new courses that express Integral Mission in the curriculum, finding people in the faculty who can teach such courses not just theoretically but from actual experience, teaching such courses in a way that is participatory and not mere lecturing, and ensuring that the learning process shall provide opportunities for students to put into practice what they are learning.

Critical Role of Cultural Identity

It doesn’t help that especially in restricted contexts, CNGOs are associated with foreign entities and at the same time local churches carry with them practices and views that are more properly features of Western cultures than the gospel itself. The unhappy combination of both renders Christianity in such contexts as a foreign belief system. In the eyes of the people in the community, it is, for all purposes, a new faith which will disrupt and threaten the religion of their ancestors, and with it, the cherished values, traditions, and ways of life of the community. 

This issue brings up questions of coloniality (in its historic and contemporary iterations) and the need for truly context-rooted expressions of the Gospel. Especially in restricted contexts of Asia, people almost always come to faith in Christ when they experience the supernatural work of God, e.g., miracles, healing, etc. How do people working along the lines of Integral Mission account for this critical element in the pathway of faith formation? 

How much of Integral Mission work looks into very real issues of identity, culture, and other aspects of indigeneity? When the Gospel takes root in a community: what does it change? but also what does it celebrate? and lastly, and perhaps, most important of all, what aspect of that culture does the Gospel enrich?

The consultation in Dubai was convened by GZB, an organization committed to Integral Mission, based in the Netherlands.

In Dubai, culture is still very much alive and an integral part of its bustling cosmopolitan and urban neighbourhoods.

The launch of 'GOOD NEWS FOR ALL THE EARTH' on December 12, 2024 was a happy coming together of the global creation care community. This new document by the Lausanne Movement and the The World Evangelical Alliance complements the previous one in 2012, i.e., Jamaica Call to Action, by including a more robust theological section which outlines the biblical foundations of what it means to live well with and exercise care for all of God's creation.

I was given a few minutes to share some thoughts and I highlighted that the next curve taken by the evangelical community, at this particular season, could have been the recovery and re-affirmation of a more cosmologically-oriented missiology, one that goes beyond the too often anthropocentric orientation, and instead leading towards having all of God's creation, e.g., bees, rivers, and the trees, among others, at the very heart of Christ's redemptive work.

It is good that in the past Lausanne Congresses, there has been an increasing emphasis on addressing the holistic dimensions of what it means to be a human being, e.g., kick-started by integral mission in 1974.

The next logical turn for mission theologizing could have been to recognize that the welfare of people is closely intertwined with the wellbeing of the planet they inhabit.

In fact, if we are going to read the vision of the book of Revelations a bit more carefully, the eternal destiny of God's people in His future kingdom includes life in all its fullness surrounded by non-human beings, in a city reclaimed for the better by a thriving garden, complete with rivers, trees, etc.

Good News for All the Earth is a good step in this direction. My hope is that it inspires not only a deeper engagement in creation care among evangelicals but also a more wider, broader, and fuller missiological framework. Lest we forget that Psalmist reminds us that as far as the work of 'declaring' and 'displaying' is concerned, two catch words of the recent 4th Lausanne Congress, we have lots to learn from the non-human created order:

"The heavens PROCLAIM the glory of God. The skies DISPLAY his craftsmanship." (Psalms 19:1-2, NIV)

To end, I would just want to share my most favorite paragraph of the document which highlights the need for a 'new relationship with God’s created world':

"We recognise that our ecological crisis is at root a spiritual crisis, rooted in greed and idolatry. For many Christians, there is also an impoverished understanding of Christ’s lordship and the scope of the gospel. We call, therefore, for a renewed understanding of the inherent value of the earth and nonhuman creatures as created, sustained and redeemed by Christ. We call on Christians everywhere to study and delight in God’s world, recognising the earth as our common home, and embracing our dependence on God’s provision through the ecosystems of which we are part. We embrace our human role, made in the image of God, to give leadership within the community of creation through humble and servant-hearted care for the earth and its creatures. We call for all Christians, in our personal lives, churches, workplaces, and societies, to be engaged actively in protecting, preserving and restoring habitats and ecosystems, declaring and displaying the lordship of Christ through the flourishing of creatures and places which were made for God’s glory."

The full document is available here. Please help share the word.

On October 14-16, 2024, the Asia Theological Association, in partnership with Tearfund in East and Southeast Asia, gathered its theological educators in Hong Kong to explore ways on how to strengthen and deepen the teaching of Integral Mission in theological seminaries and Bible colleges. The event brought forth exciting initiatives brewing on new curriculum pathways, collaborative publications, and new dimensions of mission.

On a personal note, I got a really memorable moment, one for the books, when I got to tag team with Dr Timoteo Gener in leading a session about theological thinking on Integral Mission within the contexts of East and Southeast Asia (see my other post). I tried to connect the dots as well with how the conversations went in the recently concluded 4th gathering of the Lausanne Movement in South Korea.

One of my key take aways is from a session led by Dr Dwi Maria Handayani wherein she reminded us that in Asia, Integral Mission cannot just be about responding to material poverty, it has to extend towards touching the intangibles -the restoration of the 'face' of those who have lost honor, dignity, and faith, something that the Spirit of God works through in the complexities of our interconnected lives.

The different workshops yielded a deep need to address on one hand perennial issues in the region such as:

religious, cultural, and linguistic diversity (e.g., pluralism),  

colonial legacy (dualism/dualistic mindset), 

socio-economic disparity (poverty and inequality),  

geopolitics, restrictive policies, massive corruption in government, 

and on the other hand emerging concerns brought about by:

digital technology, 

an aging population and with it a widening generation gap, 

climate change,  

urbanization, 

gender confusion,  

public health, 

changes in the family structures, and 

churches getting even more disunited.

As a response, a wide spectrum of theological works is in order and to be carried out in ways that shall be inclusive, non-confrontational, and incarnational:

ecotheology that looks not only into creation care but also lifestyles animated by the vision of New Creation,

a more mature public theology and socio-political theologizing, and

courses on and concrete models of inter-religious dialogue. 

These works have to be marked with a more applied theology, engaged pedagogy, and enriched by interdisciplinary studies. A theological endeavor that calls for the full giftings and involvement of the whole people of God, a paradigm shift from the usual theology done by 'experts' and 'specialists' toward a theologizing that stretches to the insights and experiences of the church at the grassroots level as they live their lives out there in the world as faithful disciples of Christ.

Sounds like a great deal of work ahead! But I found joy in being able to journey with friends whose hope for a more flourishing life for the people East and Southeast Asia is unwavering. It is so encouraging as well how different generations are seeing the role of each to forge a path ahead together. Talk about collaboration? Well, it does happen happily along the lines of beautiful relationship nurtured over the years.

Can't wait for the next curve of this journey!

This is perhaps that closest pair of words I can think of to describe what just happened at the 4th Congress of the Lausanne Movement in Incheon, South Korea. The conference in itself is a very interesting theatre of so many tensions at work today in the evangelical community which includes the 'speech that shookt the L4' delivered by Dr Ruth Padilla DeBorst from Latin America.

But for those looking beyond the veneer of what was seen on stage, one of the critical aspects that needs attention is the tension arising from the push and pull of missiological perspectives. The theme of the congress itself is very telling: "Let the church declare and display Christ together." Three tarpaulins were put up, one emphasizing the word 'declare', the other 'display,' and the third one 'together.' Immediately, I thought, these visuals reveal where the movement is at in 2024:

Within Lausanne, there are those who wished to see that 'proclamation' will be emphasized more so that evangelical churches will not lose their fervent for evangelism and be markedly distinguishable from the mission trajectory of the World Council of Churches (WCC). They are the people who remembers the first Lausanne in 1974 as the necessary antidote to the waning evangelistic energy among the ecumenical circle. They celebrate the UPGs and other 'strategies' developed as the core strength of what Lausanne is and hope that the movement will continue to be at the cutting edge of coming up with similar 'strategies' to 'finish the task" of evangelizing the world. While some of them believe that the Gospel has to be and cannot afford not to be 'holistic', in practical and even theological sense, still yet 'priority' has to be given to finding ways of 'telling the Gospel' clearly and effectively (aka 'Prioritism). Ed Stetzer, regional director of Lausanne in North America, wrote' a post-conference reflection that articulates exactly this conviction.

But also within Lausanne are those who hope to see 'demonstration' to finally get the legitimization it deserves as a missional expression of what it means to be a witness of the Gospel. They come in many names and don different hats, e.g., faith-based development agencies, justice initiatives, social workers, community organizers, climate activists, among many others who are working to ensure that more people will experience the "fullness of life" in the here and now, aside from, of course, getting assured of 'eternal life' in the world to come. They are the people who remember the first Lausanne Congress in 1974 as the struggle of Majority World voices in disrupting the narrow, truncated, model of mission that developed in the West, or to recall a phrase that René Padilla used in his speech, the need for a more 'integral' mission as an antidote to the dominance of "a Gospel with no teeth." A younger leader from Sri Lanka, Nathanael Somanathan, member of Lausanne's current Theology Working Group, wrote a penetrating post-conf analysis that articulates this perspective.

50 years later, the tension between these two missiological camps remain, and the L4 congress is where they needed to discover how to share the same space, be together as brothers and sisters, talk with each other, and also find ways to work together. The big push for this in the congress is framed around the call for 'COLLABORATION'. The sessions and activities of the weeklong event were designed around this objective. The many tensions that transpired behind the scenes throughout the week are but indicators of how the movement is grappling with what happens when you ask advocates of justice & peace to share the same stage with heralds of justification & church planting. Bibimbap is only as good as the choice of side dishes to mix and how well everything will be tossed happily in the bowl. It cannot be truly enjoyed by eating the rice separately and each side dishes on its own as one would normally do with a rice and viand meal.

And this is where I guess the conference failed.

'Bibimbap' could have been a good metaphor for the congress to capture the changing landscape of today's Christianity that is going more and more global. But it turned out to be a missed opportunity. What the congress tried to do is to get different camps together, toss them in a single bowl, with the hopes of arriving at a dish that will be good for everyone, everywhere, and perhaps, for all time. The delegates heard of talks about resolving the tensions, managing the fractures, and finding a happy resolution. Together. Maybe the three tarpaulins were illustrative of how to make sure everybody will find their own happy space under the big tent of Lausanne.

However, for both sides, the feeling is mutual in terms of disappointment. The 'declare' camp remains worried that the Seoul Statement has not gone far enough to ensure that evangelizing the lost, the last, and the least, while not the only task of God's people, shall, at the end of the day, be on top of everything else. The 'display' camp, on the other hand, were frustrated that not much space were given to articulate the cause of justice, peace, and reconciliation, and the very few times it was forcefully articulated on stage, the L4 organizers were quick to even issue a public apology!

The problem with a global missiology. The unhappy lot experienced by both parties during the L4, I think, is very much rooted in an imaginary that remains to be a sticky feature of evangelicalism -the yearning for a singular story that can define and unite the movement. In the field of missiology, the three previous Lausanne documents have been seen as building-up on each other with the hope of finally arriving at a more 'biblical' missiology, one that will be good for everyone, everywhere, and hopefully, for a really long, if not, all, time. Technically, the pursuit of a truly 'global' missiology for today's global church.

But such an endeavor will continue to be less than helpful. As Christianity re/emerges more and more in different parts of the world, it is becoming clear that the challenge has more to do with something beyond the preoccupation with constructing a global (applicable to all) perspective of mission for the evangelical community.

This challenge involves coming to terms with the reality that each locality, each community, each region of the world, faces a context, culture, and church histories that will demand approaches to doing mission which can only be articulated from within.

This has nothing to do with the usual approach of 'contextualizing' something that is global so that it becomes more palatable locally (think of making Bibimbap burgers or Bibimbap salad). It is more about recognizing that there is hardly such thing as 'global' and those that put itself forward as one are actually more appropriately labeled as 'colonial' for they are, in different ways, actually experienced as such. Bibimbap is a beloved Korean dish and best enjoyed in the Korean way of eating and for the L4 delegates the opportunity to enjoy it right where the dish originated -Korea. But to think of a 'global' Bibimbap that serves as a dish for everyone, everywhere, and for all time, is a big mistake.

Lately, I've been talking of how the theology of 'integral mission' has been less effective and became more contentious when it was 'Lausannized' (read as globalized!). It did not help that the Micah Declaration on Integral Mission was drafted in Oxford! Not a few who have encountered integral mission through these sources have thought of 'integral mission' as another 'colonizing' Western framework seeking embrace from their people. Not a few also missed the fact that the 'integral' in Integral Mission is not from the English word 'integrate' (fuse things together) but from what makes 'pan integral' (whole wheat bread) a more healthy choice of bread in the tables of South America. It does not help that even celebrated advocates of Integral Mission also omit the 'genealogy' and historical roots with the hope that a more 'abstracted' version shall be more helpful. But this proved to be really unfortunate.

Confronting colonial missiology. What Rene Padilla, Samuel Escobar, Kwame Bediako, John Stott, among others, accomplished, together, in 1974 is to remind the evangelicals molded in the tradition, history, and context of the Western hemisphere that the Western approach to doing mission does not (and cannot) apply to everyone else in the world. The other regions of the world, today dubbed as the Majority World, are facing battles of their own on how the Gospel will take root in the hearts and minds of their own people, amidst the social and political issues of their communities. It is naive to think that there is 'one' way to do address these multifaceted dimensions of mission and ministry across the world.

Integral Mission is a sharp critique, a necessary pushback, and also a concrete alternative from Latin America to what the West offers. It is a 'moment' in evangelical missiology that has the power to encourage the people of God in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and other regions of the Majority World to reimagine mission anew, and that to do so is not 'heretical' but actually truly 'missional.' It has the power to confront and undo the 'colonial captivity' that not a few in the Majority World continue to suffer from in subtle and hidden ways. This is the 'decolonial' edge of Integral Mission that got blunt when it was 'globalized' in the shape of the old colonial mold of Western missiology. Pan Integral missiology could have launched a thousand ships of missional expressions: adobo mission in the Philippines, Phin mission in Vietnam, Khao soi mission in Thailand, etc. A clear case of why it is not enough to be 'contextual', one also needs to be 'de-colonial' -basically an insistent conviction to root one's way of thinking from where one's feet land and straddle.

And so the struggle has to move beyond, and away from, whether Integral Mission or Prioritism will win as the 'official' evangelical missiology. Such a question can easily go down the path of colonial preoccupation disguised in the language of which one is more 'biblical'. The real work is how the different spaces and communities of evangelicals in different parts of the world can encourage one another to plant the seeds of the Gospel in their localities, sharpen each others perspectives and practices by exchanging notes, and celebrate the fact that it is in these diverse expressions and articulations lie the true strength and uniqueness of the 'church' spreading worldwide whom Christ continues to build and lead. Brings to mind a line that C. Rene Padilla wrote,

"Every culture offers a perspective on the Gospel that brings to light certain aspects of it that in other cultures have remained less visible or even hidden. From this perspective, the cultural differences that so greatly complicate intercultural communication become as advantage for understanding the multiform wisdom of God: they become channels for expressing aspects of the truth of the Gospel that a theology tied to only one culture might ignore all too frequently."

And this is also where a platform like the Lausanne Movement can best position itself in service -not as missiological policemen but as Gospel caterers. That is, a gastronomic platform that will go beyond extending and making the 'global' table more longer, but interrogating the very idea of having a single table! Inviting everyone to ask instead how things will be different if we celebrate the existence of more and many tables and encouraging people to stand-up, explore, and savor what other tables have to offer, not necessarily to copy one another but to be challenged to further deepen each other's work.

I have some ideas on what will happen when we switch from a globalized-bibimbap to single-origin coffee missiology but that will have to be for another post...