Andy Flannagan says it's both/and

The truth is that as we stick around and become familiar with the scale of need and suffering, it becomes much harder to expect God to do miraculously transformational things. We cannot help but we influenced by the 'raw secularism' we swim in which, 'assigns sociological, psychological and economic reasons for everything' (Carson).

More sadly, I run into far too many people for whom a lack of emphasis on prayer has not sprung from a change in theology, but simply bitter disappointment. I know how this feels. I have a friend who I'll call Edward, who is depressed and unemployed (and has been for most of his life) and I despair when he feels just slightly better after our shared times of prayer, rather than experiencing the earthquake needed to remove the massive obstacles in his life.

On the other hand, when our chief pursuit becomes the evidence of God's supernatural power, we too easily lower the expectations God has of us as his followers, keeping our religion, geography and politics as separate as they were in our school timetables.

When Jesus sent out his disciples there wasn't a 'miracles team' and a 'social regeneration team' going out separately. I genuinely believe many of us are doing 'the right things' in 'the wrong places'. It's great that people are seeing hundreds come to a Sunday evening service in the suburbs to receive healing, words of knowledge and spend precious intimate time with their Creator; but could it be that the place where we should be having that same experience is with those whom Jesus seemed to care about most - the least, the last and the lost?

Two thirds of the world live in poverty, yet only 6% of Christian mission workers work amongst the poor¹. Sometimes we don't need a specific calling - it's just simple maths. As Ash Barker says, "In Jesus' economy, if the poor have authentic good news it will trickle up to the whole world."

Changing this is horrendously difficult in 21st century life because we've all developed finely tuned 'suffering avoidance mechanisms'. Stop and think about why you live in the area of town you do, how large your house or car is and why, and what type of people you spend social time with. For most of us the values that inform those decisions are those same babysitters - namely comfort and safety. I see them in my own life, but worryingly I don't see them fleshed out in the life of Jesus.

Let me tell you about someone I met who is embracing the challenge I'm getting at - holding together radical dependence on God's supernatural power and a sacrificial lifestyle that serves the most needy; his name is Mick Duncan. He'll tell you how he was a drug dealer until the day that a Christian offered him a room in his house. He found a Bible in a drawer and fell in love with the Jesus he read about. He suddenly began speaking in tongues, then developed a desire to tell others about his new friend and ended up in the slums of Manila. When he brought his family back to New Zealand, his youngest daughter got asked by her friends what it was like living amongst 'all that poverty'. She'll tell you that she didn't see any poverty. She just saw her friends.

Which makes me wonder what it would take for our children to grow up simply seeing people as their friends, not 'the others' that we need to help. Would I ever choose to truly give my kids the best start in life, by bringing them up in places where they are most likely to meet Jesus and understand his heart?