Why "Holistic" Mission?

In this blog, we are trying to understand the various aspects of this key concept we are calling ‘holistic mission.’  The word ‘mission’ is probably something we have a pretty good understanding of.  But why are we calling it ‘holistic’ mission?

 

Let me explain part of this by sharing an experiment I like to do with my students in Cambodia.  Sometimes a student will talk about how their job or school is just related to the ‘flesh.’  The implication seems to be that it is somehow less important than things related to the ‘spirit.’  So I do a little exercise with my students.  I draw a chart on the whiteboard – on one side I write ‘spirit’ and on the other side I write ‘flesh.’  I ask them to describe things related to the spirit, and they come up with things like going to church, evangelizing, worship, reading the Bible, etc.  Then I ask them to describe things related to the flesh, and they talk about going shopping, going to work, studying at school, etc.  Life is pretty neatly divided into those two categories.

 

Then I ask them, “So, God is really concerned about the stuff on the ‘spirit’ side, but the stuff on the flesh side isn’t all that important, right?”  At first, students seem to think that this is exactly right – that God is concerned about going to church, studying the Bible, and sharing the gospel, but that we are somehow one step down from God when we go to work at a ‘secular’ job, when we go to the market, etc.  I then erase the line down the middle of the chart and say, “NO!”  This distinction between the “sacred” (the spiritual side of the chart) and the “secular” (the so-called fleshly side of things) is NOT in the Bible.  The Bible teaches us that God is Lord of everything.  Everything matters to God.

 

Jesus’ right as sovereign Lord extends over Bible studies, and over shoe sellers at the market, and over students taking final exams at school, and over ecosystems, and over producers of karaoke VCD’s, and over mission trips, and over the decisions of the National Assembly, and over everything else that happens in this world!  We cannot divide our lives into nice little categories of the spiritual and the non-spiritual, as if God only cared about what we do on Sunday mornings and the rest of our time was up to us!  We need to demonstrate the Jesus is Lord over the whole of life!

 

The word ‘holistic’ can also be written ‘wholistic’ – and it comes from this word ‘whole.’  Holistic mission is mission that embraces the whole of life – not just the so-called spiritual, but also the very tangible social and physical issues which human society faces in our fallen world.

 

Let’s keep breaking down the imaginary wall between the spiritual and ‘non-spiritual’ and repeatedly proclaim that Jesus is Lord over the whole of life.