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AUSTRALIA: I often feel like my relationship with integral mission is most like that between a child and a butterfly. Whenever I think I’m getting close to pinning it down, it swerves unexpectedly, dazzles and fascinates me again, takes off in a new direction. Sometimes I seem to loose it completely. But then I find someone else who’s chasing it too, and I follow them. I can’t quit because I am captivated by the beauty of what I am chasing, and so I keep running, keep pursuing this mysterious and elusive thing, the mission of God.

I guess the reason it’s so beautiful and unpredictable is that I’m not chasing a task or a programme, but a person – Jesus.

I just returned from a trip to Australia with some friends who are part of the mission order, UNOH (Urban Neighbours of Hope). For them, chasing this butterfly has meant relocating into the neediest neighbourhoods of Sydney, Melbourne and Bangkok. Ash, who leads UNOH, lives in Klong Toey, the biggest slum in Bangkok, with his wife and two kids, joining Jesus there in loving and serving their neighbours. They want to see them released from urban poverty, to know the fullness of the life God wants for them.

I know plenty people who talk about integral mission, but few who have made such a sacrificial and total commitment to Jesus’ work. I thought they’d be intimidating people to spend time with, but they were some of the most gracious and humble – which I guess shows that when you take Jesus at his word and follow him in bringing good news to the poor (with the totality of your lives), you can’t help but become like him.

Ash spoke one Sunday we were there about how anything less than integral mission is cheating the poor. Just evangelising, or just doing practical service, or just praying and seeking supernatural interventions – all of them are inadequate, and are shortchanging people. God has more to offer people than that. His transformation is total, there isn’t a part of life it doesn’t touch and change. And hearing that from a man who regularly sees his neighbours die from totally preventable diseases, who experiences the daily injustices of slum life and the tide of despair and fatalism that sweeps his community – I am convinced.

But what does that mean for me and my neighbourhood? It’s less easy to see. But at least it feels like there’s more chance of keeping sight of that elusive butterfly when I get in step with others on the chase…

(For a snapshot of what living integral mission means to the UNOH members, have a look at their covenant here)

by Jenny Flannagan