IT’S NOT JUST A CHICKEN PROJECT

 When we talk about the Church and its mission, we probably think of the Church’s task of proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ to the nations, with the purpose of “saving souls” and “planting churches.” However, the mission of the Church goes beyond the mere evangelism of “souls and planting churches.” If we look at the history of the Church, we cannot lose sight of the fact that “this proclamation of the gospel” has always been linked to a profound solidarity with human suffering and needs. The Church has a social responsibility; it is called to serve the community around it, because “it is not to be served but to serve” (Matthew 20:28).

When this dual purpose of the Church is discovered, the mission of the Church “is not merely the salvation of the soul but the transformation of the person so that he or she may glorify God in all the dimensions of human life: in his or her relationship with God, but also in his or her interpersonal relationships, in his or her relationship with God’s creation and in his or her way of understanding himself or herself.” (Rene Padilla).

A church is a place of love. Its mission is to rebuild a person in all aspects of life, be that material or spiritual, physical or psychological, personal or public. A church’s purpose is to show God’s love, to teach God’s love and to share God’s love and to show a person how they too can be an agent of change, advancing God’s purpose of placing all things under the command of Jesus Christ. (cf. Eph. 1:10)

“For I was hungry and you fed me … Lord when did we see you hungry and feed you … whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it for me.” Matthew 25

Remember, the righteous ones share God’s love because they see suffering and it touches their heart, and for no other reason. They do it as an act of love and it’s this love that makes their faith complete and makes them righteous. And it’s this act of love that strengthens our brothers and sisters and gives them the power to see someone hungry and feed them.

Sharing our burdens and our gifts; this is what God calls us to do.

This view of the Church’s mission has important implications for evangelism. One is that the purpose of evangelism is not to make people into religious individuals who separate themselves from the world in order to enjoy its salvation. Rather, it is to form communities that confess Jesus Christ as Lord of all life and live in the light of that confession; communities that not only preach about God’s love but concretely demonstrate it in terms of “good works,” “which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph. 2:10). 

The other consequence is that it allows us to see the whole of the person. We cannot pretend to help the person by giving attention to his needs in only one aspect of who he is (for example, his need for God’s forgiveness, a spiritual need) but completely leaving aside his needs in other aspects (for example, in the corporal or material). The apostle James recognizes this and therefore asserts that faith that does not recognize the needs of the body and is limited to expressing good wishes “is dead”: “Suppose a brother or sister has nothing to wear and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Have a good day; keep warm and eat well,’ but does not give them what is needed for the body. What good will that do? In the same way faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:15–17)

From this perspective, meeting the needs of people, their need for God, but also their need for community, for love, for food and shelter and clothing, their physical and mental health needs and their need for a sense of human dignity, must be integral to the mission of the church. This is why, when Central Church helps to buy corn for the Chicken project for our K’ub’ul indigenous brothers in Cubulco, Guatemala, it IS NOT JUST A CHICKEN PROJECT, but a contribution to the Mission Dei, the mission of God that encompasses the totality of creation and humanity. Through our efforts, we show our brothers that Jesus is their source in him and that they can depend on him for their full realization.