Evangelism & Social Responsibility should be Connected

Gary Edmonds, the former General Secretary of the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) has called for evangelicals to evangelise with a closer connection to social responsibility. Edmonds was speaking at the German Association of Evangelical Missions’ (AEM) annual meeting in Rehe. During his address he spoke about how the salvation of souls was not the only thing to concentrate on, but also physical needs had to be considered.

Edmonds, the main speaker at the meeting focused on ‘Holistic Mission’, passionately stated that if you looked closely at the life of Jesus, he not only wanted to impact the lives individuals, but he also looked at society and in particular wanted to influence political issues, culture, the economy and the media.

Edmonds asked those gathered: "What would Germany look like if Jesus was Chancellor?"

The former WEA general secretary, who resigned in January, was replaced by Geoff Tunnicliffe by the World Evangelical Alliance International Council as its interim international coordinator. Edmonds is now the director of Churches Together, and is linking North American churches together with African churches in the fight against HIV/Aids pandemic.

The Annual report of the AEM indicated that the evangelical mission in Germany was beginning to show more and more focus towards social responsibility. This was shown by the rising number of missionaries now engaged in education, health and social care sectors – 41.5% of German evangelicals are currently taking part in social ministries. In stark contrast, figures showed that the number involved in evangelism, theological training and church planted was decreasing.

Detlef Bloecher, AEM’s chairman greeted the change in focus, and commented that the historical divisions between evangelical and ecumenical missions was at last beginning to disappear. He said that evangelicals were finally beginning to re-discover their heritage, which has led them to work with evangelism and social responsibilities together.