"...The church must stress the need to go back to a simple, frugal life as against the flamboyant exhibitionism wealth tempts. The church’s mission should include propaganda against consumerism. Jesus Christ went in search of the oppressed and marginalized, and the church’s mission should also include the empowerment of the powerless and the marginalized. Tribals, women and children all need the special attention of the church, and mission today has a calling to concentrate on programmes for the benefit of these groups.
The churches while pursuing mission work had, on many occasions, gone away from God’s mission. The conquest, colonizing and destroying of other cultures were all done with a view to do mission in a militant manner. But God’s mission must achieved by respecting each individual’s intrinsic worth, the right to freedom and independence, and respecting differences among peoples. Seeing the divine in the midst of a plurality of experiences is the need of the hour. God’s mission has to be sought in new and varied ways by the churches in the rapidly changing life situations we see in our own time. Rather than the militant missions of yester years, it will be the peace-building, soothing, sustaining activities of Christian mission that will be welcomed as the work of God in the present communally torn Indian situation, and indeed throughout the world."
The churches while pursuing mission work had, on many occasions, gone away from God’s mission. The conquest, colonizing and destroying of other cultures were all done with a view to do mission in a militant manner. But God’s mission must achieved by respecting each individual’s intrinsic worth, the right to freedom and independence, and respecting differences among peoples. Seeing the divine in the midst of a plurality of experiences is the need of the hour. God’s mission has to be sought in new and varied ways by the churches in the rapidly changing life situations we see in our own time. Rather than the militant missions of yester years, it will be the peace-building, soothing, sustaining activities of Christian mission that will be welcomed as the work of God in the present communally torn Indian situation, and indeed throughout the world."
+ Fr. Thomas Varghese Chavadyel, On Orthodox Mission in India, http://malankaraorthodoxchurch.in/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Itemid=234
