Where’s the place for proclamation in incarnational mission?

While advocates of various styles and emphases argue for the “right” way or the “best” way or even the way most “faithful to scripture”, I have to say I am not for either one or the other but for both.  We cannot evangelise authentically unless we are prepared to invest in the neighbourhood (however you define your neighbourhood, it is the people most touched by your life).  And we cannot be incarnational and Christian unless we are willing and able to explain the reason we are here at all.  Proclamation and incarnation belong together like fish and chips … or cheese and red wine … or popadom and pickles!

I think there are two reasons I feel this so strongly.  One is that I feel a frustration with just doing one to the exclusion of the other.  We are seeking to befriend and stand with neighbours in their struggles, some of which are of no great interest to me (like a scheme for rearranging the yellow lines and traffic calming measures on the next street).  But it is frustrating that two years on there seem so few points of contact with that particular group of people to be able to speak of the Good News.  Conversely, the idea of arranging “evangelistic events” in isolation is anathema … yes, we have definitely done enough of that years ago and with little effect.

The second reason is a more powerful one for me.  I keep coming back to the scriptures and find both are there.  In fact I find a lot of surprising contrasts and contradictions there.  I can see how early Baptists looked to scripture for inspiration for what they were doing – a radical redefinition of church.  But I can also see how High Church Anglicans in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries (like John Wesley in his early life) thought their restoration of pure liturgy and devotional practices were bringing Christians back the Early Church.  Perhaps what we learn from scripture is that we can be too simplistic and emphasise one thing to the exclusion of other valid teachings.

What really matters is following Jesus and his example.  When God wanted to show his love, he chose incarnation.  Jesus lived as a normal, non-religious but spiritual human being.  The carpenter’s son served faithfully as a son and (presumably) a carpenter or small-scale builder for 30 years.  Then he spent time and effort in proclamation, but always going out to where people were rather than expecting them to come to him: the crowds did come, but only after he had been around their villages to proclaim the kingdom of God is here and to demonstrate it in miraculous demonstrations of God’s love.

In the same way for us there has to be a context of care before we can create a platform for proclamation.  And there has to be proclamation before we can show God really cares.