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While evangelism can be said to deal with a person’s ultimate need and destiny in terms of his or her salvation, social action is a missional response to the presenting need. Social action communicates hope to the individual that his or her situation can be transformed.
Here is a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King -
"In our day, we must connect the dots of problems like unequal access to quality education and economic inequality to the problem of gang violence. We must also connect the dots of the negative forces of gentrification to gang violence. According to a professor of urban studies at Portland State University, for many African Americans in Portland, urban renewal is Negro removal. Such vulnerability and transiency, where people are uprooted from their communities, makes a damaging difference. We must also connect the dots involving these problems to a prison system so often based on retribution, not reformation. How are people to be reintroduced to society and make a vital contribution to society if they are never prepared to become vital participants and welcomed back through networks of support? We must come together to right the wrongs of a prison system that enslaves black men (it has been argued that the percentage of black men in prison far outweighs their proportionate presence in society). We must also attend to the fatherlessness so rampant in our society. Do we honor the fathers and mothers in the home, the fathers and mothers in our churches, and the fathers and mothers in our society as a whole? We must make sure everyone is welcome at the table of beloved community and make sure that we bring honor not simply to Dr. King but to the fathers and mothers and sons and daughters who have marched in the band that King led as a drum major for justice. These marchers are here this evening. They include you. We must support one another in the ongoing efforts to build beloved community in our day."
Jesus provides a balance of motives for our sharing of our resources—he invokes both
compassion (or ‘mercy’) and justice.
At the other end of the pendulum are the scholars of the Church Growth Movement. David J. Hesselgrave insists that the “primary mission of the church is to proclaim the gospel of Christ and to gather believers into local churches where they can be built up in faith and made effective in service thereby planting new congregations throughout the world.” Donald A. McGavran, in his reaction to the debate, insists, “Deeply as I sympathize with the problem and as long as I myself have ministered to desperate physical needs (for years I superintended a leprosy home), I cannot ally myself on this point with those who put social action first.” On the contrary, McGavran states, “My conviction is that the salvation granted to those who believe in Jesus Christ is still the supreme need of human beings, and all other human good flows from that prior
reconciliation to God.”
However, Padilla--a leading Latin American evangelical theologian who incidentally contributed much in the shaping of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization position in respect to the relationship between evangelism and social responsibility--contends that --
"There is no place for an “otherworldliness” that does not result in a Christian’s commitment to his neighbor, rooted in the gospel. There is no room for eschatological paralysis nor for a social strike. There is no place for statistics on how many souls die without Christ every minute if they do not take into account how many of those who die are dying of hunger."
The Great Commission is not normally understood as a prediction of the success of the church in converting the nations, but it should be. The plan of the Great Commission is for the church to disciple all nations. It is Christ’s will that all peoples and lands be brought to believe in Him and submit to His authority through the Spirit-empowered ministry of the church. The church is to preach the gospel and disciple the converts so that the law of God becomes the law of men and nations. Will Christ’s will be fulfilled? Most certainly, for all authority is given to Him in heaven and earth so that He might conquer His enemies and bring all nations under His rule (cf. Ps. 2:8; 110:1-3). Since Christ has all authority in heaven and earth and the church goes forth in His name with His power, who or what can stop the church from fulfilling its task?
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