What is Special about Integral Mission
What is special about integral mission? What is the mission of God in His world? And what part can I play in it? How can I let my light shine where I am working in the secular world?
We were twenty-one curious learners, from India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Australia, participants in the fourth TRACI online course on Integral Mission, spread over eleven weeks. These questions and many more, were answered as we were challenged to get on board the exciting vision that God was putting in our hearts, through the sharing and sessions in our eleven-week online course.
We came from a great variety of ministry situations: some working as development managers for faith-based NGOs, some acting as lawyers, some as local pastors, some serving as doctors, but all hungry to enlarge our vision of God’s mission. My own context was a little different from the others, balancing a teaching role in Papua New Guinea, with an opportunity to work in my suburban church in Australia.
As a group, we have glimpsed the eternal and universal scope of the mission of God, the radical, comprehensive perspective of God’s hopes and intentions for his world. The big story of that mission is an unceasing work of restoring humanity to its original created state of balance, shalom and integrity, fellowship with the Three in One, with one another and with creation: from the chaos of Genesis 11 to the choir of Revelation 7. This work of redemption is to the whole person in their community: God makes no distinction between the spiritual, the physical, the emotional and the material well-being of his creatures.
Our course facilitators challenged us to “be transformed by the renewing of our minds”: changing from a dualistic to a holistic mind-set, from just ‘saving the souls’ to building the Kingdom of God. We emerged with new learnings (and some unlearning too), with a biblical theology and a missional hermeneutic to give a grounding to the activities we will undertake. We have been commissioned to carry out a 12-month plan to introduce an integral ministry to our churches and ministries. We shall pray for one another, that the Kingdom will shine brightly in our lives and work.
Roland Lubett has worked for many years teaching community transformation in the UK and Papua New Guinea. He also teaches in the Masters Program in Transformational Development at Eastern College Australia. Roland is married to Tandy, a proud Melanesian with a background in mental health counselling. They have three children and five grandchildren.