The Harvest Church in Fombe, Malawi - living out integral mission. Photo: Marcus Perkins/Tearfund
What’s integral mission?
So you’re sitting in a normal Sunday service at church. Take a look out the window. It’s not an easy sight. You’re part of a local church in a village where people are struggling to survive. These people are your friends, your neighbours, you’ve grown up with them, you desperately want to help them. You love them. So what do you do?
You do everything you can.
At Tearfund we believe in doing everything we can. It’s a way of working that we call integral mission. It means that while we know people need material things to survive, we choose to work through church-based partners who won’t stop at just the material basics when it comes to helping their neighbours in need. They’ll do everything they can. Churches know and care about the people they live with. They see them as more than just mouths to feed - they know what they’ve been through and the kind of help they need.
We see people as more than just physical entities, we all have emotional and spiritual needs as well. The local church, operating at its best, has the power to change people’s lives, to give them a new perspective, to help heal emotional scars and offer the hope they need – to bring people together. Taking this approach has proved, in our experience, the best way to help people make lasting changes in their lives that free them from poverty. This is why working through local churches at the place of need is such a powerful way to help people.
To quote René Padilla, Tearfund’s former international president, ‘The church’s purpose is to witness to the love and justice revealed in Jesus Christ, by the power of the Spirit, for the transformation of human life.’
Tearfund’s vision is to harness the power that lies within the local church, as a caring, inclusive, servant-hearted and witnessing community, to make everyday miracles happen every day.
American pastor Bill Hybels says ‘The local church is the hope of the world.’ By serving those around us, at home and miles away, the local church can improve life for everyone. This is true for us at home too. If we care for poor people we’re part of this integral mission.
When we live out our faith, and get involved with issues of poverty – through our prayers, by giving money to Tearfund’s work, by filling in a campaign postcard – our faith is visible in a global context. We’re ‘loving our neighbour’ in the way that Christ commands – both in the sense of someone living on our doorstep, and those in need thousands of miles away; people we may never meet.
Tearfund is a signatory to a range of internationally recognised operating standards because they enshrine the principles of respecting the people we support. They stipulates that aid is given regardless of race, creed or nationality, that aid will never be used to further a particular political or religious standpoint. This is of vital importance to us because it’s the kind of ‘development work’ the Bible describes.
The Bible is explicit about God’s requirement of us: he needs us to be salt and light (Matthew 5), loving our neighbour (Luke 10:27) and bringing about his justice and mercy (Micah 6:8):
‘And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.’ (Micah 6:8)
To act with justice and love mercy is central to the purpose of the church. This is why we believe the church is such a vital and global agent for helping people in poverty, regardless of race, creed or nationality.
Find out more about how we work by clicking here.