At the Bruderhof recently, we’ve been discussing the concept of apostolic mission. One of my fellow pastors made an important distinction, reminding us that mission contains a twofold dynamic: there is not only a “sending out,” but there is also a “gathering in.”

When most Christians think of missional activities, they think of the “going out” part: how to reach people more effectively, or how to proclaim the gospel more boldly. But perhaps we need to look more at the “gathering in” aspect.

There is a story about Jesus that is not generally associated with the topic of mission, but it bears thinking about in that context:

And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.’” And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.”

That’s an amazing statement. This young man was leading a clean, pure life in obedience to the commandments of God; from a personal standpoint he was blameless. He had been doing it since he was a boy, so he must have had devout, God-fearing parents, and his longing for salvation was so strong that he fell on his knees before Jesus. But somehow all that was not enough.

And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. —Mark 10:17–22

What is striking about this story is that the young man heard the call to give his life to God and took it on board personally, by living a moral personal life. But Jesus called him out of the rest of his life, which was surrounded by riches, and out of the relationship to life that was defined by those riches.

Jesus said, “Come, follow me.” This is true repentance: to leave your old life, to live in a new way – a way that answers all of life’s issues, not just those related to personal piety. To give this up, despite great longing, is much more difficult, as the young man found out.

When I was in college there were several active evangelical Christian groups on campus. There was nothing timid about any of these folks, and they were always ready to engage me in a conversation. They could talk at length about the personal transformation that happens when a person accepts Jesus into their heart. And that cannot be underestimated. It is fundamental and of critical importance.

But they had little to say when I asked them for answers to the social, economic, and political issues of the day. There were lots of issues; it was the 1960’s, after all. But the lifestyle they had to offer was going to church on Sunday, attending Bible study on Wednesday, and living a good moral life. Good, but not enough. It was merely the self-oriented lifestyle of the rich young man.

Eberhard Arnold struggled with questions similar to mine (as recounted in his wife Emmy’s autobiography A Joyful Pilgrimage), and he found his ultimate answer in the founding of the Bruderhof in 1920:

When I was much younger, groups of people often gathered around me, and I tried by means of Bible studies and talks to lead them to Jesus. But after a while this was no longer enough…I was deeply unhappy. I recognized more and more that a personal concern for the salvation of souls, no matter how dedicated it might be, did not in itself meet the demands of the life Jesus calls us to…

I began to recognize the needs of people in a deeper way: the need of their souls and bodies, their material and social wants, their humiliation, exploitation, and enslavement. I recognized the tremendous powers of mammon, discord, hate, and violence, and saw the hard boot of the oppressor upon the neck of the oppressed. I felt that I was not fulfilling God’s will by approaching people with a purely personal Christianity…

I wanted to find a life of dedication that would establish a tangible reality – a way of life by which men could recognize the cause for which Jesus died.

So what is a believer to do? Arnold has a blunt answer:

The grave guilt of those who have called themselves Christians is that they have restricted Christianity to the subjective question of the solitary redemption of the individual. That is the grandiose misunderstanding of the historical Jesus.

It’s not comfortable for any one of us to be told we misunderstand Jesus, and many of us – like the rich young man – turn away sorrowfully from the challenge, for to follow Jesus completely means great personal change. It means we must leave our old life and experience the church. The root of the word “repentance” has to do with turning, and as we turn away from one thing we must naturally turn toward another, and thus we are led to and by the Holy Spirit, a spirit that gathers people as at the time of Pentecost. This, then, is a vital component of apostolic mission that we must not neglect: a “gathering in” to places where people live for the vision of the kingdom of God.

John Rhodes is a pastor; he lives at the Woodcrest Bruderhof in New York with his wife.