”Incarnational ministry” is such a complex term it often seems we have as many definitions of it as we have staff members in InnerCHANGE. Nevertheless, our most passionate disagreements seem to have something of a familiar pattern about them. Typically, one team member feels that another is not living “down” to a low enough level to minister authentically among the poor of their particular community. At the same time, the second team member may feel the first is living a dangerously low lifestyle simply “on principle,” one which invites unnecessary fatigue and even threatens complete burnout.
In InnerCHANGE, we have suggested that lifestyle not be legislated, that as in other highly relational circumstances, there are few good rules but much good practice. Instead, lifestyle levels should be selected by team members in community with one another and in dialog with the host culture. Generally, this contextual approach has been effective. Team by team, we seem to have negotiated lifestyles individually and as entire teams which are both authentic and sustainable.
However, in recent years, the lifestyle spread our missionaries are expressing seems to have begun to diverge more sharply. The Cambodia team in particular seems to have experienced this. This disagreement over what constitutes appropriate lifestyle seems to be in constant “simmer” and helps to fuel other relational conflicts. While we believe that we will always have to pay attention to issues of incarnational lifestyle, we would like to see that discussion assume a lower priority and be as fruitful and informed as possible.
In observing our practice over the past two decades of InnerCHANGE history, we have found it helpful to see incarnational ministry in the light of four dimensions. Some of the misunderstanding that has led to conflict in the past seems to stem from a narrow view of incarnational ministry that reduces incarnational ministry to a continuum. The two opposing poles in this perspective are those who see incarnational ministry as a means to an end and a second group who see it as a worthy end in itself. So on the one hand, we have the pragmatists who see incarnational ministry simply as contextualization, believing missionaries should adapt only as much as is needed to get by with evangelism. And on the other hand, we have those who believe, out of principle, that living as simply as the poorest of the poor takes on moral overtones.
We suggest this discussion needs to be expanded and that our experience on the field supports that expansion. Incarnational ministry is a means to an end, or a methodology, and it is a principle. It is also more than that. It is a process and a message.
We are aware that incarnational theology and incarnational ministry have received much scholarly attention and debate recently. This has been both helpful and necessary. We are not trying to resolve that debate or even tap into much of that discussion here. Instead, in introducing incarnational ministry in four dimensions we are reflect-ing primarily on our shared experience and offering some terms which may add to the ongoing conversation.
Incarnational Ministry as a Principle
John 1:14 is perhaps the supreme statement of Christ’s incarnation: “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us. John 17:18 tells us that we are sent out as Jesus Himself was. As Christ became Emanuel, “God with us,” so we are to become poor among the poor to reflect God’s movement of incarnation.
Interestingly, incarnational ministry has been provocative throughout the centuries and Christians have conflicted over its definition and application. Amy Carmichael, upon arriving as a missionary in Japan for her first tour
of duty found that she was reprimanded for “going Native.” She wrote in her journal, “I don’t wonder apostolic miracles have died; apostolic living certainly has.”
Incarnational Ministry as a Process
Incarnational ministry applied too quickly and rigorously as a principle can lead to serious miscalculations for sustaining long term ministry and create misunderstandings in the host culture. Authentic ministry among the poor is not about ME going as low as I can as quickly as I can. Incarnational ministry is a process; a courtship, even. A courtship between the missionary, the host culture, and team members conducted by the Holy Spirit that leads to a graduated downward mobility.
When a missionary first arrives in a poor community, he/she does not even know adequately which meaningful sacrifices in terms of comfort and income are wise to make. Nor does the missionary know at the outset what level he or she can sustain. These kinds of cultural insights can only be gathered as the missionary takes on parents in the host community and learns to appreciate what it means to “grow up in the culture.” Jesus did not incarnate among the Jews at the age of thirty. He grew up as a Jew. Likewise, we should “incarnate” to our neighborhoods as an act of careful choreography.
“Incarnation” to a neighborhood, if pursued as a journey and not simply as a one-time rite of passage, can be a joyful, fulfilling experience that gains genuine credibility and opens unique ministry doors. Matthew 11:29-30 reminds us that our yoke in Christ is “easy and light.” With that in mind, we must let ourselves be guided by the Spirit into an incarnation that is a process of corners turned and discoveries made, all in liberally graceful adjustment.
Incarnational Ministry as a Methodology
The dictum, “we must earn the right to be heard” is simply another way of recognizing that insiders do better than outsiders in communicating good news to a host culture. Incarnational ministry as a methodology is perhaps best articulated by the Apostle Paul in I Corinthians 9:20-23 when he described the process of becoming a Jew to the Jews, weak to the weak, that “by all means” he “might save some.” In the same way, we do well to contextualize after Paul’s example such that, we too, can join with him in saying: “I have become all things to all men.”
Incarnational Ministry as a Message
In John 3, God tells us that He so loved the world He sent His Son–incarnational ministry sends a message to the host culture that love is real and that it can be costly. This message of love can best be understood when we incarnate to a neighborhood and is especially important for those we minister among in InnerCHANGE, the last and the least.
Poor people can see that if love is costly, then they, as the target, are worth much. This redemptive message is incredibly important to the poor who so typically suffer the world’s low self-esteem. Time and again in Inner-CHANGE, we have been told by our neighbors that they are certain God must love them because we have come from “so far.” Others have told us that we are the first Christians they have met that “seemed real” or “made sense.” Our proximity through incarnation inspires this kind of appreciation.
When we lose sight of incarnational ministry as a message, we can lose our sense of inspiration for pursuing it. And, when we lose sight of the message dimension, we risk losing sight of the importance of communicating with our neighbors as a whole. Incarnational ministry is not simply a rigorous exercise, but a communication.
Whenever we lose sight of any one of these four dimensions in applying ourselves to incarnational ministry, we risk falling into grave
distortions. Incarnational ministry applied exclusively as a principle can lead us to be cheerless and doctrinaire as missionaries. If it is a principle, applied exclusively or too rigorously, it can become the only principle. “Everyone must do it as we do it.”
On the other hand, employed too rigorously as a methodology, it becomes overbearingly practical. Thus we can lose the spiritual power of incarnation as a message and as a principle. Consequently, we may abandon incarnational ministry too quickly if it “doesn’t work” and relegate it to the scrap heap of other tried and failed methodologies. Without the dimension of message, we risk rewriting Scripture to read: “And the work became flesh.” Our neighbors will see our contextualization as superficial and wonder: “What’s the point?” “Why don’t they go back home where they can be rich?”
When we lose sight of incarnational ministry as a process of careful downward adjustments, we threaten our sustainability, joy in the adventure, and we risk raising the bar too high too soon for other staff. Also, if we do burn out, we risk communicating to other would-be missionaries among the poor that “it cannot be done.”
These insights about incarnation in four dimensions may be particularly applicable for InnerCHANGE and our life among the poor, but we suspect they also have a broader application throughout CRM as we seek to be the presence of the living Christ across language, cultural, and economic barriers.
