The United Theological College, Bengaluru

Inter Disciplinary Paper -I

Theme: Prophetic Imagination in Church/Society: Challenges and Prospects

Topic: Church from the margins: A prophetic imagination to rethink mission.

Faculty Panel: Presenter: Geoffrey Shine G D

Rev. Dr. D.S. Ben Das Respondent: Zachariah Julius

Dr. Gregory Thomas Bhaskar. C Submitted on: 20-01-2025

Rev. Dr. A. Israel David

Rev. Dr. R. Zolawma

Rev. Dr. Lalfakawma Ralte

1. Introduction

India Sunday school Union (ISSU) is an organization which not only works on the curriculum of
Sunday school but also works on the life changing aspects of the people who seek for spiritual
and physical needs. Their dedicated mission is to build people, communities through love of
Jesus Christ and also to reflect that through their service. ISSU has few life changing experiential
testimonies in the campus at Keswick, Conoor. One of the testimony is about Mr. Krishnan. The
life testimony of Mr. Krishnan1 has indeed created a curiosity where it awakes the question what
would be the church’s response for such people in the present context and what can be the
mission of the church for them.

2. Case

Mr. Krishnan of 75 years is a cook working in ISSU for 41 years. He is from Kerala who
completed his ITI course and joined the state football association and became a gold medalist in
1974. He shifted to Madurai as a football coach and due to the family situation he had to start his
career as a driver. As he earned low means of wages he shifted to Conoor as a third cook and
vessels cleaner in a hotel and then became an assistant cook and later promoted to be the main
1
Pseudo name

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cook. He has the skills of Western, Chinese, North Indian and South Indian Cooking. He was
addicted to liquor and had lost everything what he earned so far. He was about to die and Dr.
Ajith, General Secretary of ISSU took him to ISSU and gave him free housing to live and
appointed him as cook of ISSU since 1984. He along with his wife stayed in ISSU campus and
had been working with the organization for more than forty years, as a cook.

It is observed that, Mr. Krishnan from the first day of our Intensive Field Education program
wished the church believers and the guests “Praise the Lord” every time he met someone. I
thought that he was a Christian and later by his name I understood that he was not a Christian by
birth. He shared his forty one years’ of life experience and stated that none of the ISSU members
or the believers coming for training had asked him to convert or have they forced him in any of
the ways. He used to attend the chapel worship inside the campus every day which is not
compulsory and came to know about Christ. The ISSU supported him and his family in their
children’s education, where his two daughters and his son got married and settled in different
places in Tamilnadu and they all are PhD holders now. He also shared that once when his
relative from Kerala told that their son is affected with mental illness, Mr.Krishnan gave a
Malayalam Bible to them and the parents believed in Christ and their constant prayer to God had
cured the son from mental illness. He and his wife also shared that they refused to stay with their
children’s family as they were happy in serving God in ISSU by providing delicious food for
believers, trainees and to all those who visit ISSU.

3. Methodology
Always the Christian mission is seen from the center or from the sender’s perspective. But does
not look into the receiver’s perspective. The scope of this case analysis is seen from the side of
the receiver. ‘Mission from the Margins’ can be incorporated as methodology to analyze such
situations.2 This methodology in mission looks into the plight of people who are disabled, whose
presence and living is seen unworthy to the family or society. Also it dwells into the lives of
people with abnormalities and mental and emotional imbalances, drug addictions etc. It looks
into people who have lost and also have been denied culture, spirituality and also who have

2
Wati Longchar, Transforming Cultures and Praxis. Engaging Peoples in the Margins (Taiwan: PTCA/YTCS,
2017) 85.

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become poor.3 This rethinking and shift of church mission must enable the church to present it
humbly, and also the church should not take the stand of the sender but the one who has been
sent.4 The church mission should reach the people in the margins and a new church from the
margins has to be brought forth. The proceedings and decisions of the World Council of
Churches that happened in Greece, 2012 has established the following agendas from the mission
statement. This can be used as tools for optimizing our mission perspective towards margins.

3.1 Centering on Margins

A major concern towards the mission activity of the church in the past which it failed to
prioritize is the worth of the marginal communities. “For the Lord your God is God of gods and
Lord of lords....who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who also loves the
strangers, providing them food and clothing” (Deuteronomy 10:17-18). All mission activities
must, therefore, safeguard the sacred worth of every human being and of the earth. 5 And
therefore its active focus should be centered on the values of human beings.

3.2 Contextuality
Mission from the margins seeks for an alternate understanding on the power dynamics, global
systems and structures, and local contextual realities. In certain period of time Christian missions
have seemed to have understood and practiced ways as it had done earlier which failed to
recognize the true purpose of God to those consistently pushed to the margins in the present
reality. Therefore, mission from the margins invites the church to rethink mission as a vocation
from God’s Spirit to work for the world where the fullness of life is available for all.6

3.3 Participation
Mission should ensure relationships within the human community, with mutual
acknowledgement of people coming together. It should also give mutual respect and must ensure
the sustenance of each one’s sacred worth. It must facilitate each one’s full participation in the

3
Wati Longchar, Transforming Cultures and Praxis…, 88-89.
4
David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission. Paradigm Shifts in the Theology of Mission (New York: Orbis Books,
2011)381
5
“Spirit of Liberation: Mission from the Margins,” Together Towards Life. Mission and Evangelism in Changing
Landscapes (Kolympari: World Council of Churches,2012)7
6
“Spirit of Liberation: Mission from the Margins”…,6.

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life of the community enhancing the lives of others. Baptism in Christ, makes us to hold on to
this commitment to give hope by overcoming the barriers in order to find a common identity
under the sovereignty of God.7

4. Analysis
The mission towards Mr. Krishnan was centered on his marginalization. He remained unnoticed
in the society but the mission has reached to him centering the value and worth of him. The most
important aspect was that his contextual needs were prioritized and actualized. A living was
established to him for his survival. Being abandoned the mission gave a proper recognition to
him. Above all it was the participatory act of the mission which led towards his up liftment.
Participation means the mission showed him the way for physical and spiritual life until which
then though he had skills as a cook he had not known the proper way to live. His plight was
addressed through the service done by the mission. This led him to the total transformation of his
life.

5. Prophetic Imagination: Church Response

The case of Mr. Krishnan can be analyzed based on the mission perspective in todays’ context.
Mr. Krishnan life seemed to have many setbacks and he was pushed to edge of his life where he
was about to end his life completely. For such people what would be church’s response in
today’s context?

5.1 Church’s focus on the margins

We see that the ISSU’s official had to initiate a mission with him in order to search for a new
living. What the churches have missed to do in the present is to meet such people who have been
struggling for survival and seeking for a living. The church has to meet such marginalized people
in the society and should start the mission from them. Their focus ‘towards the margins’ should
be changed as ‘from the margins’ creating a life from the brokenness. Also when the church
acknowledges the life experiences of such people, the central focus is shifted towards the
marginalized people.

7
“Spirit of Liberation: Mission from the Margins”…,8.

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 5.2 Church’s preference to contextuality
Church’s mission from the margins also focuses on meeting the contextual needs of the people.
It is not only the ‘word’ which needs to be preached but also church should also cater to their
contextual needs. The main thing is that the church must be first ready to listen to such people
who wants their contextual needs as Mr. Krishnan’s needs were met for his living and sustenance
which inturn led him towards transformation, so the church must also do so. It should facilitate
spaces for such people in the field, for their upliftment.

5.3 Church’s participation

Though Mr. Krishnan’s life seemed to be self-transformative, he still needed an assistance and
aid to be provided. He needed someone who could show him the way. Thus churches
participation in the empowerment of such people is very much essential to such people in the
edges of life. The church rather than conversion must show life transformative works in action
that by witnessing them, it may lead to self-transformation. Mr. Krishnan’s life seemed to be
self-transformation than to be an intended conversion. Such transformation is firm which creates
sustenance in the lives of people.

6. Reflection
Every church is initially established with the motive to serve and incorporate marginalized
people in the society. But as days pass on, when new elites join taking up power and position, the
vision and mission of the existing church gets altered. The central focus is changed towards the
elites and the marginalized become unnoticed. In addition to this the dominance inside the
church is increasing where people seek for power, position and wealth. Today’s church
administration is eager to exhibit their wealth received during their tenure, but have failed to
show the number of people whose lives were transformed using that wealth.
So the churches have to rethink their mission from the margins perspective.
As the title of this paper states “Church from the margins: A prophetic imagination to rethink
mission,” this is in line with Mr. Krishnan’s life. His transformation has not only led him to be a
new person in faith and in character but his testimony of changing the life of his relative’s son
from mental illness is also remarkable. Thus a person from the margins has also been

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instrumental in changing the life of another person who was marginalized. These people from the
margins have become a new faith community who had experienced the transformative power of
the savior Jesus Christ. In my opinion, mission from the margins has led to the formation of a
‘New Church from the Margins’.

7. Conclusion
Thus ‘mission from the margins’ gives the church an alternate thinking to reaffirm its mission
agendas and would enable it to take a shift to consider its people in the margins. As this not only
takes the mission to the margins but begins the mission of the church from the margins itself,
creating a new church out of it.

Bibliography

Bosch, David J. Transforming Mission. Paradigm Shifts in the Theology of Mission. New York:
Orbis Books, 2011.
Longchar, Wati. Transforming Cultures and Praxis. Engaging Peoples in the Margins. Taiwan:
PTCA/YTCS, 2017.
“Spirit of Liberation: Mission from the Margins,” Together Towards Life. Mission and
Evangelism in Changing Landscapes. Kolympari: World Council of Churches, 2012.