DALLAS (ABP) — Together, Christians can make a difference in fighting extreme poverty, but they must move beyond self-imposed boundaries and think creatively about how to work together, the president of Buckner International told a national conference focused on world hunger.
“Honestly, our greatest challenges are not the needs we face. Our greatest challenge will be our ability to work together, to collaborate, to create alliances and synergistic relationships to deliver solutions to those who hunger and thirst,” Albert Reyes said.
Reyes addressed a conference at Dallas Baptist University called “An Evangelical Advocacy Response to Global Childhood Hunger.” Sponsors included Bread for the World, the National Association of Evangelicals, Micah Challenge and the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission.
Reyes said Christian global missions agencies tend to develop expertise in one area, but they often fail to work cooperatively with other entities. And as a result, lack of collaboration may result in a truncated view of the gospel.
“For far too long, we have diced and sliced the core message of redemption as an expression of the way we think of ministry. Our categories and compartmentalization have resulted in neatly organized silos of specialization, so that cooperation and collaboration for the work of redemption as a kingdom reality — on earth as it is in heaven — are, at best, minimal and marginal,” he said.
“You are either an evangelistic ministry or a social ministry or a missions ministry or a justice ministry but certainly not focused on all of them — or even a combination of them. In many circles, we have split the mission of Jesus and the gospel itself into ministry that is recognizable in part but not as a whole.”
When confronted with the reality of global hunger that results in the deaths of 26,000 children in the world every day, Christians do not have the option of doing nothing, Reyes insisted. Giving to reputable relief organizations and going to participate in hands-on ministry to alleviate immediate needs offer better alternative responses, but they still are incomplete, he asserted.
“We are finding that donors and foundations expect collaboration and look upon duplication of services as poor stewardship,” Reyes said. “To fail to collaborate seems archaic and has become a death knell for organizations that insist on doing things on their own. These organizations will meet their own fate in the land of irrelevance as they travel back to the era of the Lone Ranger.”
Reyes called Christians to “kingdom collaboration” — working together to advance the kingdom of God rather than individual agendas.
“The mission of the kingdom is greater than the purpose of our own organization. The mission of Jesus was to bring good news to the poor. I think that would mean they don’t have to be poor anymore,” he said.
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Ken Camp is managing editor of the Baptist Standard.