Engaging the World
For those who lead in mission, service and
peace ministries.
Intentionally engaging the powers and structures of the world
By Duane Beck
Engaging the world is frightening! I am so small. And the Mennonite Church isn’t very big either. But we are engaging the world’s powers and structures particularly in the workplace—40 or more hours a week. Our members work in building trades, the corporate world, small business, agriculture, technology, finance, education, social services, the justice system, medicine, and so on. God’s plan to unite all things together in Christ includes the powers and structures found at every level of life. I believe the church can engage the world’s powers most effectively and redemptively in its local community.
God’s plan to unite all things together in Christ includes the powers and structures found at every level of life.
“One night the Lord said to Paul in a vision, ‘Do not be afraid … for there are many in this city who are my people” (Acts 18:9-10). That word has transformed the way I engage powers and structures. I began looking for the Lord’s friends in the city. I found them in all kinds of places: in schools, the police department, courtrooms, bars, nonprofit boards, government offices, hospitals, businesses, social service agencies, neighborhood associations, and checkout lines. Some of them don’t even know they’re the Lord’s people, but they are part of God’s plan to “gather up all things” in Christ (Eph 1:9-10).
When a neighborhood police officer dealt with a contentious young teen in a caring manner, I affirmed him. He is more likely to do it again. When another neighbor needed to leave an abusive husband, this officer and a women’s shelter, friends from church, and a probation officer collaborated. These friends of God became the “all things” that Christ needed to engage the power of violence.
I observed a judge showing great respect to those before him at the bench. When we served together on the community corrections board, I complimented him on the way he respected people. Later when I made a motion that he opposed, we could debate the issue on the basis of a relationship of mutual appreciation and respect.
A parent dealing with a troubled son attended a school conference that included the teacher, the school counselor, the principal, a pastor, and a mental health case manager. These friends of God were searching for powers and structures to benefit this 11-year old. At the end of the meeting I affirmed the group for their caring and professionalism—I was making friends with God’s friends.
Yes, God uses some unlikely coalitions of friends to redeem the powers and structures. When I began a new pastorate in this large city, I wondered how I was going to missionally engage powers and structures here. I began with the prayer of Jeremiah 29:7, but the city is too big for my little prayers. Could God suggest a smaller area to pray for? Yes, the neighborhood where we live and worship. And behold, we just happened to meet the neighborhood association president, and we offered the group our building as a meeting place. The neighbors love it. Some have inquired about our church. I also met a neighborhood police officer. Three days later, walking home, I came upon a domestic fight and called 911. Guess which officer came?
There are other friends in the world’s structures I plan to meet: the principal of the high school, people at the city housing authority in charge of the neighborhood’s new government housing project, and folks at the local pharmacy lunch counter where businesspeople and apartment residents eat.
As I have experimented with intentionally relating with a wide range of people, the powerful and powerless, I have become a bridge between these unlikely friends. I have discovered that people who may believe and behave differently from me are God’s friends rather than adversaries. It is possible to catch people doing things right and to affirm them, to engage people personally, to show respect. We can all choose words that don’t make people defensive.
We can act with integrity and take responsibility, and we can engage powers and structures by thinking systemically to build collaboration.
Finally, there is a strategy basic to engaging the powers and structures of the world. It starts within us. The same powers that affect the structures of the world infect our soul. Lesslie Newbigin says in The Gospel in a Pluralist Society: The minister’s leadership of the congregation in its mission to the world will be first and foremost in the area of his or her own discipleship, in that life of prayer and daily consecration which remains hidden from the world but which is the place where the essential battles are either won or lost.
Pray, my friends, pray: “Your Kingdom come, your will be done.” “Give me a heart, God, to love these people as you love them.” “Tear open the heavens, God; come down and save us.”
Duane Beck is pastor of Raleigh Mennonite Church, Raleigh, North Carolina.