Social Ministry and the Local Church

I will never forget the conversation. We had just finished a week of "revival" meetings at my home church. As good Baptists, we needed to follow up the service with something to eat. Our practice was to go to J.B.'s Big Boy restaurant in downtown Yakima. It was always a treat for us young guys (and future "preacher boys") to go to the restaurant and rub elbows with the Pastor and the visiting "Evangelist." During these after service rituals we would ask questions of these men that we looked up to and held in deep respect. During one of these question and answer sessions, we asked about the ministry of the church to the poor and needy and why we didn't do more to help them in a tangible way.  "That's not our responsibility" was the answer! I remember being shocked by their answer and responding with an incredulous "What?"

Yes it is true, both of these otherwise fine men insisted that it wasn't the responsibility of the local church to help meet the needs of the poor. For these men, the ministry of the church was to evangelize the lost, to get them into heaven, not to make their earthly lives any easier.

Sadly, that philosophy still exists in many churches today. How can otherwise caring and compassionate people be so blind to the needs of others, let alone the clear teaching of scripture? I would like to address those reasons over the next few weeks.


Since that restaurant conversation, I have spent many hours thinking about this subject. I have studied the scriptures and have come to the firm conviction that the church DOES have a responsibility to the less fortunate, to the poor and needy, to the hungry and homeless, to the widow and orphan. I have also studied to try to understand why the church has been reluctant to to engage in areas of social ministry. I want to share with you why I think the church has shied away from social ministry. Then in the following weeks, we will look at the theology of and scriptural support for social ministry in the church.

But first, before I start, I feel like I need to make a few clarifications. First, when I refer to the "church" I am referring to the conservative-evangelical brand. This is the type of church I grew up in and it is the type of church I  attend today. I realize there are many mainline (mostly liberal) denominational churches and the Catholic church that have fully developed social ministries. It is not my intent to ignore what they do, it's just that my target audience is made up largely of my friends and family in the evangelical community. Second, while I use the term "social ministry," I prefer the term "care ministry." I think the term care ministry is a more biblical one, in that it emphasizes the Christian motive for helping the poor and needy which is God's love (Romans 5:5). Third, most of the references for this series come from my Thesis I completed for my Bachelors Degree. While I have left the references in my posts (to give credit where credit is due) I will not include a bibliography until the end of the series.

After reviewing the literature available on this subject, one thing seems to be abundantly clear, the local evangelical church has dropped the ball when it comes to the issue of helping the poor and the needy. In my reading several reasons for this became evident. We will look at three of those reasons here.

 Liberalism and the Social Gospel. Up until the end of the nineteenth century evangelical (or more appropriately for the time, fundamentalist) churches were very involved in social ministry or care for the poor and needy. However, after the civil war more and more churches began to focus on the “Social Gospel”. The Social Gospel refers to the emphasis by late 19th century and early 20th century Christians on solving man’s social problems through Christian charity apart from any spiritual transformation. In his book on Revivalism and Social Reform, Timothy L. Smith identifies both the focus and the problem with the Social Gospel. He identifies the focus of the social gospel as “poverty, workingman’s rights, liquor traffic, slum housing and racial bitterness”. In focusing on changing and impacting these issues many prominent protestant leaders and churches began to become preoccupied with them, so much so that they began to minimize or even ignore the issues of salvation from personal sin and the afterlife (Smith, 1957, 148). This trend toward social salvation actually grew stronger in the first part of the twentieth century becoming a movement all of its own (Evearitt, 1994, 30). Because of the overemphasis on the social aspects of the gospel, many conservative Christian leaders and churches began to shy away from the area of social concern. While this withdrawal was unfortunate, it was understandable given the traditional evangelical focus on the importance of individual rather than social salvation.  

Eschatology (eschatology is the component of systematic theology that deals with the end times). Along with the rise of liberal Christianity and its emphasis on social salvation, another factor helped to push the evangelical church away from social concern. This was the rise of premillenialism (Christ will return before He establishes His kingdom on earth) as the accepted view of eschatology among evangelicals. Standing in opposition to postmillenialism (the kingdom of God or a utopia of sorts will be established and ushered in by man’s social transformation, before Christ returns to the earth), which went hand in hand with the emphasis on the social gospel. Premillenialists believed “that all social conditions would inevitably and irresistibly grow increasingly worse until the Second Coming of Jesus Christ” and that only “the establishment of the millennial Kingdom of Christ could cure social problems” (Moberg, 1972, 31). This Premillenial perspective has caused the evangelical church to be highly suspicious of any social movement that comes along, even today. It has also led to a de-emphasis on anything that looks like or feels like the social gospel. Sadly, this includes helping the poor and the needy. 

Not all Premillenialists have thrown the baby out with the bath water. Over the years there have been great evangelical (and Premillenial) preachers, leaders and theologians who have emphasized the need for a social ministry to the poor and the needy. Men like A.J. Gordon, A.C. Dixon, A.B. Simpson, C.F.H. Henry and others have championed the involvement of Premillenial evangelicalism in social action (Evearitt, 1994, 8-10). Unfortunately, many of the social ministries that should have been going on in the confines of the local church were relegated to the Para-church organizations like the Salvation Army and the Rescue Missions (Nees, 1996, 17). Because Premillenialism is still the most prominent eschatological viewpoint among today’s evangelical churches, our efforts in helping the poor and the needy have not changed as they should. I would add that the rise of emergent church movement with its emphasis on being "missional" has helped to create a renewed interest in social ministry, but because of some of their teachings on other issues, they have made themselves vulnerable to the accusation that they are propagating a form of the social gospel.

Government and prosperity. After World War II, the government began to take on an ever increasing role in caring for people. This cradle to the grave responsibility included programs such as social security, welfare, housing projects and other forms of public assistance. This was a new form of liberalism, instead of religious liberalism it was now governmental liberalism and evangelical Christians were more than happy to leave the job of caring for the poor and needy to the government. While the mainline churches “crusaded for government intervention to end poverty…the conservative, mostly fundamentalist, churches turned from the social responsibility they once advocated. They claimed that Christian social action diverted attention and resources away from the Church’s primary evangelistic responsibility” (Nees, 1996, 14-15).   

Another factor in all of this was the issue of affluence. By the mid twentieth century many people were doing well financially enjoying life as they pursued the American dream. Nees writes,

Churches that once welcomed and included lower-income people in inner city missions within a generation claimed their new wealth as evidence of the blessing of God. Poverty was viewed as the consequence of laziness, if not ungodliness. Social Darwinism, the idea of inevitable progress, won the day even among those opposed to biological evolution. There seemed to no reason for anyone to be poor (Nees, 1996, 14).

Over the next few decades the church largely stayed away from social and political movements, its only reaction was to speak out against most of them. During this period of time the government took on the task of ending poverty. This was going to be accomplished through programs like the Great Society and the War on Poverty. All the while the church allowed the government to take full responsibility for caring for the poor and needy. The evangelical church was too busy winning souls, defending the faith, battling worldliness and in many cases, building ministries that were monuments to themselves and their leaders. While they were busy building Crystal Cathedrals and Timber Tabernacles in the name of “winning souls for Christ,” they neglected the social aspect of their calling, they neglected the heritage they once had for caring for the poor and needy.

To summarize then, in the twentieth century the evangelical church neglected the area of social ministry. Because of a desire to avoid theological liberalism and the social gospel, because of the prevalent Premillenial eschatology, and because of the growing dominance of the government in this area, the church abdicated its responsibilities toward the poor and the needy.

Fortunately, as we will see there is a growing awareness that we can and should do more. What is needed is a change in the way the church thinks. The church needs a change its consciousness. The church needs to begin to look at its call to evangelize from a holistic or wholistic perspective. The church needs to see that evangelism involves caring for the whole person, soul and body. More on that next time.

Talk to you soon!

Jim