Table of Contents

Chapter 1    Circulating the Saints
Chapter 2    Transforming Believers and Congregations
Chapter 3    Hands-On Mission Help Community
Chapter 4    The Young and the Restless
Chapter 5    Making the Grade
Chapter 6    This Is the Church
Chapter 7    Mobilizing Volunteers
Chapter 8    Plan the Work, Work the Plan
Chapter 9    Mission Outpost

The following excerpt is taken from Chapter 5 of Operation Inasmuch:  Mobilizing Believers Beyond the Walls of the Church, a book by David W. Crocker telling the story of Operation Inasmuch and giving the theology behind this effective tool of getting believers involved in hands-on, local mission work.  Check this site for information on ordering your copy.

Making the Grade

How wonderful that no one need wait a single moment to improve the world. --Anne Frank

Life's most persistent and urgent question is "What are you doing for others?"--Martin Luther King, Jr.

   Have you ever had the experience of taking a test in school on which you received a lower than expected grade because you answered the wrong question?  When our daughter was in college, she phoned home upset because this very thing happened to her. She had studied hard for the test and felt confident that she had done well when she walked out of the classroom.  But when the professor handed her the graded exam, she had been given a lower than expected grade.  She had given complete answers throughout the exam, but she had misunderstood one of the questions.  She had given good information but it did not fit the question on the test.

    That is disconcerting when it happens with an important exam in college, but what if it were an even more significant test, say, the one that determines who is acceptable to the kingdom of God and who is not?  There is no chance to "make it up" in that situation.  What if the questions to that test were given in advance?  Suppose you knew what would be asked of you when you face the final judgment?  The failure to make the grade under those circumstances would be especially tragic, having the questions ahead of time and still giving the wrong answers!

   In Matthew 25 Jesus gives the final exam for kingdom faith.  he tells us in advance what will be asked when the Judgment comes.  There is no excuse for not knowing, for not making the grade.  It's an open-book test.

   In this chapter I want to explore some of the biblical teachings that support personal, hands-on, missions involvement such as Operation Inasmuch, specifically the teaching of Jesus.  Any congregation or church leader contemplating the implementation of an Operation Inasmuch should be clear about the theological underpinnings of such an endeavor.  We often rush too quickly to the What of such an undertaking--how to do it--without giving adequate attention to the Why--how this program helps us be the people of God in our time and place.

   This is hardly an exhaustive survey of Scriptural references to missions. Thick books have been written on that subject.  Rather, I offer here a sampling of relevant passages to help the reader grasp the biblical basis for doing an Operation Inasmuch.  Congregational leaders may find in this and the succeeding chapter help in motivating their people to get involved once an Operation Inasmuch has been scheduled and planned.  Much of this material comes from messages I used as pastor in just that way.

 Ministry Does It

   Jesus says in Matthew 25 that the test of kingdom faith is ministry, specifically, becoming involved in people's lives, responding to human hurts and hopes.  Let it be noted up front that Jesus is setting forth the terms of eternity.  The introductory verses make it plain--the Son of Man coming in his glory, separating the sheep from the goats.  Jesus says the determination of who gets into the kingdom and who does not is on the basis of whether we have ministered to the needs of others.

   That's not what people think, is it?  Ask people whether they believe they are going to get into the kingdom of God, and they will often tell you they "hope so."  They are likely to say something about being a good person (whatever that means) or being a church person or, if they are up on their theology, they may say they believe in Jesus.  But Jesus does not have questions about any of these things on the final exam posed in Matthew 25.  So, if these are our answers, we risk not making the grade.

   When Jesus says the test of kingdom faith is ministry, he is referring to feeding the hungry, being hospitable to strangers, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned, and other such acts of compassion.  These are the things he will want to know we have done when the time comes to determine whether our faith is sufficient to provide admission into the kingdom.  These are the questions on which we will be graded.

   But what about John 3:16:  "For God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him will not die but have eternal life?"  Evangelical Christians have long accepted this verse as the gospel in a nutshell or the essence of what it means to be a believer--to believe in Jesus.  Then how do we reconcile this call to simple faith with what Jesus says in Matthew 25?  There is no need to reopen the grace verses works debate which, as far as I am concerned, has been settled for a long time.  We have been saved by grace to do good works.  Or, to put it another way, we become followers of Jesus as a grace gift from the Father; we live as his follower by showing that grace to others particularly in ministry to them at their points of need.

   Two other passages shed light on this discussion as well.  In the parable of the Good Samaritan Jesus says a person keeps the commandment to love God and neighbor by ministering to his neighbor.  When you read the context in which that parable was first given, you see that Jesus was responding to a question one of the disciples asked about who his neighbor was.  Like many of us, he was entangled in the interpretation of the commandment to love God and neighbor rather than focusing on its implementation.  Jesus was always more interested in implementation than debate.  His response in the form of one of the best known stories in western culture proves it.  (For a thorough analysis of the power of the parable of the Good Samaritan to motivate people to care for others see chapter 6 of Robert Wuthnow's Acts of Compassion.)

   A second New Testament passage that clarifies the relationship of belief with ministry is James 2:14-17:

What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works?  Can his faith save him?  If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit?  So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

   This passage leaves little wiggle room.  Belief will express itself in ministry.  Authentic faith in Jesus will cause us to respond to human hurts and hopes as he did.  Belief in Jesus is the first step toward kingdom faith, but only the first step.  Philip Yancey says:  "A faith that does not drive me to the hurting and bleeding of humanity is a false faith" (Reality and the Vision [Waco: Word Publishing, 1990], p. 87).

   Such ministry cannot be done from a distance.  Many a congregation has bought into checkbook missions, letting financial support of mission work, whether international or local, be their primary strategy for addressing the needs of others.  This strategy is no longer adequate, if indeed it ever was.  Operation Inasmuch challenges believers to get "up close and personal" with their involvement in missions.

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