Undivided Witness

CONTENTS

Introduction: exploring a new space in missiology and
community development
Mark Galpin and David Greenlee 1

The Ten CDLR Principles 15

1. Principle 1:
Understanding the Kingdom of God is fundamental
Jonathan Williams 21

2. Principle 2:
Understanding how people enter the Kingdom of God
shapes how we do ministry
David Greenlee 33

3. Principle 3:
The gospel impacts the whole person and people’s
whole contexts
Rizalina (Sally) Ababa 43

4. Principle 4:
A broad vision of glorifying Christ
Gabriel (Gabby) Markus 55
Reflection: Ethical evangelism: integrity, truth
timing, and grace
Mark Galpin 65

5. Principle 5:
Prayer, spiritual warfare, and change
Holly Steward 71

6. Principle 6:
Caring for creation as worship, witness, and obedience
Robert Sluka 83

7. Principle 7:
A vision for renewal and vibrant communities
of Jesus followers
Mark Galpin 97

8. Principle 8:
Community development workers are committed
to professional excellence
Scott Breslin 109
Reflection: Corruption, community development,
and the least reached
Martin Allaby 123

9. Principle 9:
Shared principles of excellence
Andrea C. Waldorf 131

10. Principle 10:
The least reached are so for a reason
Rosemary Hack 143
Reflection: Serving the least reached through community
development: a personal journey of understanding
A community development worker in Asia 157

Epilogue: Called to undivided witness
Paul Bendor-Samuel 163

Contributors 169
For Further Reading 171
General Index 177
Scripture Index 183

ABOUT THE EDITORS:

David Greenlee (PhD), raised in Colombia, is Operation
Mobilisation’s Director of Missiological Research and Evaluation.

Mark Galpin (PhD) has 30 years’ experience in community development in South Asia and Africa and is the Postgraduate Programme Leader at All Nations Christian College.

Paul Bendor-Samuel (MD) is Executive Director of the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies and past International Director of Interserve.

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE BOOK:

Questions:
1. Why did you decide to write your book?
2. What is distinctive about content of your book?
3. Why is this subject important?
4. What difference would this book make for the ministry?
5. Feel free to add anything else you find relevant

Answers:
About five years ago, Operation Mobilisation affirmed a vision statement that captures the new focus of our movement: we want to see vibrant communities of Jesus followers among the least reached. Not content to merely come up with a new phrase, we launched into a serious process to help bring our ministries into alignment with this vision.

Serious questions were asked about many of our ministries—many of them good and important, but not directly contributing to this focused vision. Some had the idea that we would need to give up our involvement in community development. After all, they seemed to say, it was ‘social action’ of some kind—something good, but not directly contributing to ‘church planting’.

What is the role of community development as part of a mission like ours, and related to our vision? A small group of us entered into many months of reflection and research, culminating in a consultation in October 2018 hosted by Paul Bendor-Samuel and the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies (OCMS). Six OM workers with long community development experience were joined by Paul as well as Bernard Prince of OCMS, Mark Galpin of All Nations Christian College, a colleague from another agency, and me—a missiologist. We distilled ten principles to guide ministry in the space where ‘church planting’ and community development come together in truly least-reached communities. The warm welcome given to the principles encouraged us to develop them into a book appropriate for Regnum’s Practitioners Series—in a sense, working back to the stories and discussions that had been distilled into brief principles, but of course improving the coherence and presentation.

The book is distinctive because we argue for undivided witness among the least reached, for abandoning the artificial boundaries in our minds and practice separating explaining and demonstrating the gospel. Beyond this, the book is distinctive because little, if anything, has been published about the space where church planting and community development come together among least-reached communities (in the various ways such communities are described). Much has been written about these topics individually and much has been written about places where churches are present and followers of Jesus engage in community development, or even about church planting among ‘unreached peoples’. To our knowledge, though, we broke new ground in our research and our writing, by looking at settings defined by all three of these descriptors.

Without entering into statistics and demographics, I think we all recognize the broad scope of human need: poverty, the environment, people living with disabilities, and more. We also recognize that whether living in the housing estate in our city or on the other side of a distant mountain, such physical and social challenges often overlap with an absence of loving Christian presence. We—God’s people locally and globally—must find ways to live and love as Jesus did, offering ourselves as whole people, not fragmented in our hearts, words, or actions.

When we began our months of reflection and research about three years ago, we had no idea that a book would come out of it—and especially not a book that would open at and remain for several days as Amazon’s #1 New Releases in Christian Mission and Evangelism. And yet we are encouraged as readers around the world tell us that we offer something refreshing, a new perspective.

The book is rooted in God’s Word; it is also rooted in the lived experience of the authors as they engaged in leading tsunami relief in South Asia and caring for refugees in Europe, in ministering among those living with disabilities in Central Asia and in sharing life with South Asian island fisherfolk. It is written by authors from Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, England, Germany, and the USA.

Our shared hope is that what we have learned and now have shared may become part of our readers’ experience, helping them to offer themselves as integrated people, giving an undivided witness of demonstrating and explaining the fullness of the Good News.

Undivided Witness is a must read for those who are serious about community development, transformation and vibrant communities of Jesus followers coming into being. It does a brilliant job in laying a biblical and theological foundation for community development, as
well as in sharing critical principles to greatly assist those who serve the relevant communities. What I especially like about the book is that it draws on the experience and expertise of practitioners as it seeks to highlight issues such as the Kingdom of God, best practice and what it means to take the shalom of God to the least reached. It is so refreshing to hear a polyphonic symphony of voices from around the world running throughout Undivided Witness.
Peter Tarantal, Associate International Director, OM;
Chair, World Evangelical Alliance Mission Commission

The practical examples shared throughout this book ground its teaching in reality, helping us apply what we read to our everyday ministry. At the heart of all our witness is a love that compels us to serve in word and deed, in season and out of season. This book brings
theology and practice together and enables us to live out an undivided witness. The wealth of experience expressed throughout makes you hunger for more and to become more engaged oneself. I highly recommend Undivided Witness as a key resource for all of us to draw
from.
Sheryl Haw, theologian and aid practitioner; former International Director for Micah Global/Micah Network.

Many churches now fly the flag of ‘Integral Mission’, but often this simply means moving into poor communities and using community development or some such intervention as a platform for evangelism. Mission groups and development organisations in hard places find themselves in tension between ‘church planting’ and the demands of ‘Kingdom witness’. This book is a good start in exploring from the ground up the paradigm shifts needed so that community engagement becomes truly missional. The stories give flesh to the seamlessness of ‘undivided witness’, how sensitive and disinterested acts of compassion paradoxically lead to spiritual curiosity, and the consequent formation of Jesus followers in restricted contexts. This is a valuable keepsake in the journey towards transformation, not just of communities, but of practitioners themselves.
Melba Padilla Maggay, Founder, Institute for Studies in Asian Church and Culture ( ISACC)

The Church over the years has meandered in its search to find ways to respond to what the 1966 Berlin Congress identified as ‘inadequacies in the human race.’ In the process, we experimented with community development, Christian development, transformational development, wholistic development, integral development—and the journey continues. Undivided Witness takes an interesting step forward to identify a ‘credible integrator’—using various theological motifs like the Kingdom of God, grace, salvation, and redemption—as it explores the space between ‘community development, the least reached, and vibrant communities of Jesus followers’. The book also provides key principles to operationalise this ‘space’ into real life and address difficult issues that grassroots frontliners encounter. Undivided Witness is an asset for those involved in community development as an act of obedience to the call of God in their lives.
Dr. Jayakumar Christian, former National Director,
World Vision India and Vice-President for Faith and Development, World Vision International