By David R. Graham
18 December 2002

Constant Mission, Adjusting Ministries
   

The Ministries of the Church      
Target the Needs of the Times      

A lady wanted to revive and reinstitute the ministry of 19th Century Divine Charles M. Sheldon of Topeka, Kansas. I replied:

The writer [of this article on Sheldon's ministry] shares your enthusiasm for implementing Sheldon's program. I do not, or specifically, I do not identify the same targets for mission/ministry that Sheldon and his contemporaries rightly did: poor, homeless, alcohol-ridden, etc.

The basic plan of doing what Jesus would do is correct, but the need/target of ministry changes with circumstances so that what Jesus would do in Sheldon's time is not what He would do/is doing now.

World War II was a watershed as Bonhoeffer and others said it was. The world learned then what it resisted earlier, that human values, as promulgated by all the great religions, are necessary and not optional and that their source transcends human capacity while their implementation requires that capacity. This is the meaning of "man come of age" and "religionless Christianity." Everything we do as Christians we must do as universal humans, label-less and with articulation that is familiar to all religions. As you know, there is only one language that is common to all beings and that is the language of love.

Our mission is to articulate and live love so that all can see and be inspired by it. The poor, as Jesus said, are always with us, and today, I add, they are professional poor, cheats and idlers mostly, to help whom disgraces us and them and God.

Alcohol is a huge problem today but only as part of the general drug problem. Free association of the sexes is a huge problem. And step parents are a huge problem. That is in the USA. Other countries have other central problems. If you want to target these problems, fine, but you must do it in a universal language, which is love and, in more detail, the five great human values of:

1. Truth -- congruence of thought, word and deed,
2. Righteousness -- the strength which hold the consciousness bound to truth,
3. Peace -- calm mind, has to be earned by various means, can't be given, not even by God,
4. Love, -- thinking less of oneself than of others and
5. Non-Violence -- vegetarian diet is the indispensable base, then protection of all beings.

Our language and bearing must reflect the universality of God, the all-pervasiveness of Truth and Love.

Think of it in terms of leverage. For example, how do you get drugs out of the veins of young people? Trace the lines of causality to the primal causes. Then, apply effort there. Forget the drug addict, they're responsible for their life. What's the larger situation that is making drugs desirable? Poverty? What's making poverty? Lack of education? What's making lack of education? Community leadership? What's making community leadership? Lawyers? Mothers? Who's actually making all of this happen? Identify that person(s) and figure out how to get them doing good instead of doing bad.

Who and where is the culprit? Identify and redeem, or decimate, as possible/required. Applying this analysis on a world-level with respect to our First International Civil War, now in progress against the Totalitarian Army of Arabia, consider this. Applying this analysis on a national level with respect to drug and human trades and seemingly incomprehensible governance activities and structures, consider this. Then inquire, are these conneted?

I well understand your impulse to minister as Jesus would. I've been there and am there. My advise is to let your impulse be saturated with insight regarding the facts/truth of our present circumstances so that what Jesus would do/is doing in these circumstances, rather than in Sheldon's, appears to your heart and intellect. In short-hand, I'd offer that building a spiritual center or prayer hall for adherents of all religions is more relevant and more potent for your energies and abilities than are African feeding programs.

To this end, I strongly urge you to expand beyond Semitic and Christian religions to include other Aryan religions besides Christianity in your thinking and experience.

Christianity is Buddhist/Tibetan/Greek in origin, not Semitic. Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism are the other Aryan religions besides Christianity.