Ask the average church-going Christian whether they think that the church should be involved in missions and they'll probably answer yes. Ask the average church-going Christian what the missions program should consist of and you'll probably get a lot of blanks stares or generalities. It's hard to define a mission "program" primarily because true evangelism is anything but programatic. And for better or worse, most American churches seems to have a hard time do anything that can't fit into a snappy bulletin announcement.

The reason that missions is hard to formualized is because by definition missions are complicated. First, think of it purely on a logistic basis. Most outreaches involve people going somewhere that they normally don't. This means that they has to be decisions about food, shelter, transportation, etc. that immediately confound our normal programming activities. Secondly, and predominately, evangelism is complicated because people are complicated, and there is no evangelism without people. 

The biggest challenge, however, might be in deciding what our missions program should entail. Should it focus on meeting physical needs - providing sustenance, building wells, or provding clothes? After all, Jesus did say that we serve Him by providing food and clothes to those in need (Matthew 25:44-46). Or should our outreach focus on classical evangelism - going through the 4 Laws and hoping to be used by God to bring them spirtual healing? After all, Christ's command is to "go make disciples" (Matthew 28:19) - not to help create a safety net for humanity.

The answer, I think, is both. After all, if we never tell the people in need that we are ministering to them because of Jesus, surely this is just another social program and not really a missions outreach. At the same time, are they really going to be able to hear the story of salvation over the growling of their hungrary stomachs? This is not intended to be trite - it's a choice that must be made - and a choice that I fear too often results in churches pick one of the extremes. Feeding the poor is not just another good thing to do, it's commanded in Scripture. At the same time, providing physical food without spiritual food demonstrates a greater concern for people's appreciation than for their eternal salvation. 

So the next time we hear about the starving souls in some foreign country, or maybe even in our own city,  and the church righly plans a response, let us remember the two words that we've used to desribe them. They are starving - meaning we need to bring them food; and they are souls who have spiritual needs that far outweigh any temporal situation.

What do you think the key is to doing missions right?