A Historic Opportunity

A HISTORIC OPPORTUNITY

Never in our lifetime—perhaps not anytime in the last one hundred years—has the possibility of explosive growth in holistic ministry been so promising. Secular thinkers and policy experts have long dismissed religion as irrelevant at best to solving social problems, but in the last few years many have opened their arms to faith-based ministries. Churches weakened for decades by a failure to teach and live the whole Gospel are recovering a passion for both evangelism and social ministry. Today, an historic opportunity beckons Christians eager to love the whole person the way Jesus did. For decades, most academics, journalists and policy experts ignored or dismissed
the role of religion in solving social problems. Health care and social work professionals were taught to be morally neutral and "objective," and to avoid a spiritual dimension as inappropriate to professional care. Secular foundations and government insisted that for
Christian social service agencies to receive funding, they would have to water down or abandon the explicitly religious aspects of their work. Today the situation is dramatically different. By the late 1990s, policy elites were
desperate for new solutions to urban brokenness and poverty. Neither the liberal nor the
conservative approaches of the preceding decades had ended widespread poverty in the
richest nation in human history. People realized that the level of social decay—failing
schools, violence, broken families, poverty—in all America's great cities was both a moral
outrage and a threat to democracy. Increasingly, policy experts agreed with Senator Daniel
Moynihan who said in his lectures at Harvard that "we do not have a clue" what social
policies could solve these problems.

As this dismay about the failure of past efforts spread, more and more reports began
to surface about the astonishing effectiveness of some faith-based approaches. Studies
of Teen Challenge's Christ-centered drug and alcohol rehab program have found recovery
rates far higher than in most comparable secular programs. The Ten Point Coalition, a
faith-based response to gang violence led by Rev. Eugene Rivers, dramatically reduced
youth homicides in a gritty Boston neighborhood. Prison Fellowship has reduced prisoners'
recidivism rates. Lawndale Community Center's holistic faith-based health center and other
programs witnessed a 60 percent drop in infant mortality rates in a desperately poor section
of Chicago—prompting careful exploration by federal health officials.
Too much of the evidence is still anecdotal. We urgently need more extensive
scholarly evaluation of holistic faith-based providers. But there is enough emerging
evidence to raise the possibility that holistic organizations sometimes succeed where
almost everything else has failed. (See Ronald Sider, Just Generosity: A New Vision for
Overcoming Poverty in America [Baker, 1999].)

Along with the renewed interest in faith-based social services has been a growing
awareness of the positive impact of faith on people's lives. When David Larson studied
psychiatry in the late sixties, he was taught that religious beliefs were harmful to mental
health. Dr. Larson's careful research over the last several decades proved his teachers to
be quite wrong. Study after study by Dr. Larson and others indicate that religious people
enjoy better mental and physical health, stay married longer, and avoid socially destructive
behaviors like alcohol abuse. Faith also helps people counter the influence of a negative environment. A secular Harvard economist was astounded to learn in the 1980s that church
attendance was the best predictor of which young inner-city African American males would
escape the syndrome of gangs, drugs and prison. Highly religious people are also more
than twice as likely to volunteer or give money to help others. All this suggests that helping
people develop a strong faith and ties to a church community helps their chances of
developing a better quality of life and becoming productive citizens.
In the late 1990s, religion returned into the public spotlight in a dramatic way.
Secular journalists, academics and public policy experts displayed an amazing new
openness to an expanded role for faith-based organizations (FBOs) in overcoming poverty.

This growing public embrace crystalized in the 2000 Presidential campaign when both
leading candidates affirmed the key place of FBOs in the social safety net. In his second
week in office, President George W. Bush established a new White House Office on Faith-
Based and Community Initiatives; President Bush has promised continued support for the
good work of FBOs in his second term. This initiative has promoted expanded opportunities
and funding for FBOs in ways that supporters believe both respects people's right to
religious freedom and protects the religious integrity of FBOs.
There is still considerable controversy around the constitutional and ethical issues
of government funding for FBOs. What is abundantly clear, however, is that the broader
society is dramatically more open to a major role for FBOs in addressing social problems
than at any time in decades. A 2001 poll sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts found
that 75 percent of those surveyed supported the idea of government funding for FBOs.
Today the church faces an historic window of opportunity. This window, however, will not
remain open for long unless large numbers of Christians quickly step forward. In five years,
if we fail to respond, policy circles will conclude that the turn to faith-based approaches was
a failure. They will look elsewhere for solutions. But at present, the larger society is looking
to people of faith to demonstrate the power of faith in overcoming society's toughest
problems.
A second important development strengthens the potential for holistic ministry. The
twentieth century saw a divisive argument between Social Gospel churches that focused
one-sidedly on social action, and evangelistic churches that insisted that leading people to
Christ was the only truly important mission of the church. The tragic results of that long
argument have not entirely disappeared, but we have made great progress. Evangelical
leaders today widely agree that biblical churches must combine word and deed, doing both
evangelism and social ministry. Scores of historic evangelical congregations that focused
almost exclusively on evangelism twenty years ago are now immersed in social
engagement—without losing their evangelistic passion. Thousands of grassroots holistic
ministries have emerged. Based on a national survey, sociologist Chris Smith concluded
recently that "evangelicals may be the most committed carriers of a new Social Gospel"
(see American Evangelicalism [University of Chicago Press, 1998]). At the same time,
mainline denominations have been initiating conversations about the importance of
evangelism. To an increasing degree, the church in America is ready to embark on a vast
expansion of holistic ministry.
That is not to say that all is well today. We do not pretend that most congregations
are now enthusiastically leading scores of people to Christ each year and also ministering
to the social needs around them. Large numbers of local church leaders still need to catch the vision of loving the whole person the way Jesus did. Many thousands of congregations
need help to put into practice the holistic vision they have begun to embrace. More and
more church leaders are asking: What will it take for our congregation to develop effective
holistic ministry? How do we take the first—or second and third—steps? What problems
will we face? Where can we get help?
That is what this CD is all about. Biblical Christians, who understand how good
works and good news together transform lives and communities, have an open window
unprecedented in decades. Of course there is no simple formula. There is no substitute for
hard work, urgent prayer and radical dependence on the Holy Spirit. But there is a lot that
any congregation today can learn from the many examples around us of vibrant, thriving
holistic ministries. We believe the next few decades could see a continued explosion of
holistic ministry that will draw countless individuals to faith in Christ, restore broken persons
to wholeness, and renew entire neighborhoods and societies. Never has the need been
greater or the opportunity been more clear.
To seize this opportunity, we need thousands more holistic congregations in the
heart of our inner cities and throughout our metropolitan areas. We also need holistic
suburban congregations addressing local needs and working as equal partners with urban
churches. And for that to happen, leaders must respond faithfully to God's call.
Is God calling you and your congregation? Are you, like Jesus, moved by this vision
in Isaiah:
The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has
sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to
proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of
the Lord's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn. .
. . They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations. Isaiah 61:1-2 (cf. Luke 4:18-21)
Your church can proclaim the Good News, comfort the afflicted, build up the cities,
and repair the cyclic devastations of broken communities. If you are willing in obedience
and trust to take the first small step—and then the next and the next—God will take care
of the big picture. The God of the Bible wants it. Our hurting society needs it. In the power
and love of the Spirit, we can do it.

Adapted from Ronald J. Sider, Philip N. Olson and Heidi Rolland Unruh, Churches That Make a Difference:
Reaching Your Community with Good News and Good Works. Used by permission of Baker Books, a division
of Baker Book House Company, copyright (c) 2002.