FIVE ELEMENTS OF KINGDOM MINISTRY
Noel Castellanos

1. Incarnation: We must have not only the same message as Jesus but the same method. You really reach people when you enter into their world, their hurt and pain. Just as Jesus was God present in the world through his incarnation the church is God present through this incarnational understanding of being church. We need to recognize the church isn’t simply and organization or institution but the being of God in the world.

2. Proclamation: Proclaiming the truth in love, and in the context of incarnation, is not forcing it down people’s throats. Proclamation is also about formation, describing the kind of people God shapes us into. None of us are comfortable with those who stand on the street corner or knock on our door and try to force us to believe the way they do. However, our reaction to that has been to avoid proclaiming at all or delegating that to others to do. Each Christian needs to become comfortable with their faith story so it can be shared. We also need to recognize that proclamation is more than just preaching, it is our lives in action as well. It is important that we recognize – as James said – that it takes both our words and our deeds together to reach the unchurched.

3. Compassion: The Good News is authenticated by our caring (Luke 4). If you meet a person with a need, compassion leads you to do what you can to meet that need. The most startling thing is to recognize that we have become like the Pharisees in that we have come to assume that we are the owners of God’s love, salvation and gifts and we parcel them out to others as they deserve them. Compassion leads us to share God’s love because someone is in need of it. It is often the very people that we determine aren’t deserving that God is trying to reach through us.

4. Restoration/Development: When you live in a neighborhood where the same needs emerge over and over again, then you have to look at the larger picture and begin to fix what’s broken.

5. Confrontation: The best way to do justice work is to be incarnate in a community. As you work to meet people’s needs through compassion and restoration, you eventually come up against systems and institutions that are keeping people in those conditions, beyond their own irresponsibility or sinfulness. This is when you must identify and confront injustice. The Book of Order reminds us that we have always – as Presbyterians – been involved in bringing Christ’s Kingdom to earth. It is one of the Great Ends of the Church found on the first page of the Book of Order. Unfortunately our understanding of the “separation of church and state” confuses our role in bringing justice into the world.