Avatar and Motives for Mission

“We’ve built them a hospital, taught them English, given them medicine…..what more do they want?” The line in the movie Avatar goes something like that. If you’ve seen it recently you may have been struck by how possible it is for evil motives to fire social action. “We’ll do XYZ so that we can get what we want.” In Avatar it was access and possession of a precious mineral. In mission life it could be acceptance and trust in a community in order to be able to preach and find receptivity to the gospel. Our modern sensibilities writhe at such instrumental rationales.

Social Action – our motives, emphasis, practice are all hotly debated in mission circles. At one extreme we focus on the physical, confident that our motives are pure because we care for people, for their good, not because we want to plant a church among them. But does this distinguish us in any way from our world’s secular and unspiritual position? What about our social responsibility for people’s souls? Are we just helping people on a more comfortable road to hell?

On the other extreme we focus almost exclusively on the spiritual. This world and people will come to an end anyway. We’re confident our motives are pure because we care for the eternal destiny of people not just their temporary now. But are we biblical? What about the multitude of commands to care for the widow, the poor, the thirsty?

WEC’s core objectives are to train and send people to evangelise and plant churches among the remaining unreached people on the earth. This calls for the sharing of the gospel of Jesus Christ in all its fullness. It seems to us that social action is a fundamental component in the presentation of Christ. But how WEC individuals and teams express social action is diverse. Wouldn’t it be fascinating to hear what a variety of missionaries think? We decided to ask them. Go to the story "I think, therefore I do..." for their thoughts.