Christians embrace holistic ministry to make impact on poverty

WACO—Rather than responding to the needs of poor people by simply offering short-term relief, sponsors of the No Need Among You Conference challenged participants to move toward a biblical approach of holistic ministry with the poor. 

The three-day conference at Baylor University focused on helping churches and individuals become aware of and engaged in holistic community ministry that helps and empowers people caught in poverty, suffering from mental illness and victimized by human trafficking.

“The Lord comes not only to save us for a relationship with him. He also is concerned with our whole person,” said Gerald Davis, community development director at the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

“He’s concerned about us entirely—concerned about our health, how we love one another, where we live and how we are making a difference for his name’s sake. All of that is wrapped up into being saved and being in a right relationship with God.”

The conference provided an opportunity for people to examine what it means to be marginalized and look at other issues related to poverty within a biblical context—issues that often aren’t discussed in a local body of believers, said Jimmy Dorrell, executive director of Mission Waco and pastor of Church Under the Bridge.

Participants pray at the conference.

“It’s about being prophetic in a culture that is losing its way without giving up your faith, but at the same time loving people,” Dorrell said.

“We consider ourselves biblical and trying to bring together the whole gospel again. This kind of conference is so fresh and encouraging for the evangelical community that they are learning again that you can’t just throw tracts in people’s faces and preach at them. Real love is always going to mean doing what the Good Samaritan did. The whole gospel is loving people in their need.”

Until the early 1900s, the American church had a social consciousness and a holistic approach to ministry, Dorrell said. The Great Reversal occurred when conservative and liberal churches became polarized over their response to the Social Gospel. Social justice became associated with the liberal church in a way that essentially scared the conservative church into underplaying ministry and strongly emphasizing evangelism in reaction. 

“The gospel has always been holistic. Evangelism and social action go together,” Dorrell said. “When you move more into a kingdom-of-God theology, you learn that God not only cares about us individually, but he also cares about the systems that he put in place so the children do get education and people don’t go hungry. Then, we realize those are tainted with sin, and we can fight for social justice. That isn’t liberal thinking, but it’s basic Christian stuff.”

Kathy Flowers (right), a member of Antioch Community Church in Waco, prays with a woman who attended the Friday morning homeless breakfast organized by Mission Waco.

To bring lasting change, the church needs to approach the poor on a holistic level, dealing with their problems, struggles and injustice that occurs on the physical, mental and spiritual levels, Dorrell said.

Keynote speaker Ray Rivera, director of Latino Pastoral Action Center in the Bronx, believes holistic ministry cannot begin until a church or individual receives a transcendent vision from God that will bring people out of their captivity.

“You have to see beyond the reality,” Rivera said. “A transcendent vision is one that transcends space and time and points us to the kingdom of God. It speaks a word that’s relevant to the situation and is impacting.”

Holistic ministry must have prophetic integrity and be incarnational, just as Jesus was when he came to earth, Rivera added. This allows the church to be part of a community so Christ can touch and transform people through them.  

“From a prophetic perspective, there are things that we can’t compromise on even when it’s not popular,” he said. “Sometimes as Chris-tians, we can’t bow, no matter what the institutional church or culture says.”

Breakfast at the No Need Among You conference.

For Matthew Stanford, professor and graduate program director of psychology at Baylor University and author of Grace for the Afflicted, the conference provided a way to encourage the church to address mental illness and pastors to realize the position of influence and ministry they hold. 

“Psychologists have known for 50 years that someone with a mental disorder is more likely to go to a pastor or clergy than a doctor,” Stanford said. “Part of this is accessibility. If you cannot afford the help you need, you will go to the highest-trained person around, and that is usually a pastor.

“Religious social support has been shown to help an individual recover quickly and effectively. When they have a system of family and friends to help them during the process, they recover more quickly and effectively.”

Once a church or individual has moved toward holistic ministry, the approach and mindset must be examined if it is to be put into place successfully, said Scott Talley, community minister at Crestview Church of Christ in Waco.

Often, people attempt to help the poor with a middle-class approach and expect them to respond positively and effectively, even though they know little about the hidden rules of middle-class society, Talley said.

To bring lasting change, the church needs to approach the poor on a holistic level, speakers said.

“Those of us in the middle class attempt to help, but we do it in our middle-class method,” Talley said during a presentation of the Ruby Payne’s Bridges Out of Poverty training.

“We can’t talk to people in poverty with this mindset. We need to understand each other enough to know what motivates people. It’s not about embracing the differences, but understanding them so that we can help.”

The training identifies hidden societal rules and key ideas about money, time, possessions and power among those in wealth, middle class and poverty. Once these are learned, ministry volunteers can approach those in poverty in a way that will help and motivate them to choose to better their situation.

“Hidden rules aren’t a matter of identity but choice,” he said. “We try to tell people in poverty how to fix their problems without even inviting them to take part and share what they think needs to happen. Knowledge of the hidden rules leads to access, and access leads to power” to change.

As churches and individuals begin to embody this holistic gospel theology, results will look different, Rivera said. It can be a long journey, he said, but Christians should be encouraged in knowing that God is faithful as people are obedient. 

“Holistic ministry isn’t a call to success but to faithfulness, because you don’t define success by the world’s standards,” he said.

To immediately put teachings from the conference into practice, some participants served at a homeless breakfast, and others attended a cookout at My Brother’s Keeper, a shelter run by Mission Waco.

Twelve students from the Baptist University of the Americas also attended Poverty Simulation, a weekend where participants become homeless to understand the issues driving poverty as they gain a first-hand glimpse of what it is like to be poor.