Why is holistic ministry a fundamental aspect of Interserve’s ethos? This quote from Change Across Cultures by Bruce Bradshaw highlights why serving holistically is so important:
The great [overseas] outreach of the 19th and 20th centuries planted churches around the world. It was less successful, however, in transforming the societies in which people lived. Poverty, injustice, corruption, violence, and oppression continued unchecked in much of the world, despite the growth of the church.
Bradshaw points out that the western view of faith was shaped by modernity. Western cultures emphasized individualism. This led to a personalized gospel and ignored the importance of impacting social and cultural systems. In addition, seeing the world in a mechanistic manner led to a managerial approach in ministry that was based on control, hierarchy, techniques, and formulas. This ministry approach often overlooked the fact that salvation and mission ought to transform our relationships with God, one another, and God’s creation.
The tragedy of Rwanda and Burundi exemplify this flawed inclination toward individualizing faith. The church planting work in these two countries was deemed by many to be successful in the 1980s. However, many of the people in these new churches participated in the ensuing genocide that happened. Other contexts, too – from Pakistan to the United States – illustrate the limitations of church planting as an approach. In many places where lots of churches have been planted, little viable change has occurred on a community level.
The lack of societal transformation from much church planting work has caused many to rethink the value of church planting as an approach. However, humanitarian and development work has suffered from its own weaknesses. Though groups emphasizing this approach have spent billions of dollars, they have seen little progress toward building just communities and societies. Holistic ministry, then, seeks to integrate the best of these two approaches while trying to compensate for their respective weaknesses.
Holistic ministry moves away from thinking dualistically about physical and spiritual needs, and also from thinking dualistically about work and ministry. It helps us be more intentional about transforming individuals and communities in multiple dimensions: spiritually, socially, economically, and physically. At the same time, it helps us avoid reducing our work to a “platform” for “real ministry” or to a set of numerically-measurable targets.
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