What about the Malaysian churches? The NECF Malaysia Survey of Churches, Pastors and Christians conducted last year has given us a clearer picture of this incarnational dimension of the affiliated evangelical churches in Peninsular Malaysia.

Christians are a minority in our country, forming 9% of the population. To begin, how much are we interacting with non-Christians? Looking at the church level, the indicators are not encouraging. Less than 20% of churches surveyed participated in any kind of community projects in their neighbourhood throughout last year. Only one third (33-36%) were involved in care services for the needy, or organised games or sporting activities that included non-Christians. Only a quarter (26%) had some form of musical, cultural, arts or educational activities that were open to outsiders.

Overall, more than one third (36%) did not organise any activities that involved interaction with non-Christians in their neighbourhood! This sad state of retreat from society is reflected in the finances of the churches surveyed. On the average, churches spent a mere 8% of their annual budgets on social concern and community involvement, compared with 32% on salaries and 23% on building maintenance.

Of the activities Christians attended or participated in their churches over the past one year, only 11–14% were involved in some form of community service, social work or justice activities. This figure is rather low compared with 24% in Australia as revealed in an earlier National Church Life Survey carried out there.

Involvement in society, of course, is not always through church-based activities. Christians also get involved through para-church agencies in their individual capacities. However, the scenario is much the same. With the exception of games and sporting activities, less than 17% of Christians surveyed participated in voluntary organisations or activities outside churches. The involvement included participation in professional bodies, societies, interest groups, hobby or craft groups, social care services, and educational, arts, musical or cultural activities.

Involvement in justice and other public issues was even less, with 4% in environment conservation, and 3% in human right groups, trade unions and political parties. Less than 2% of Christians surveyed contacted a member of parliament or took some action on a public issue for the whole of last year. One in two (48%) hardly interacted with Muslims. Overall, more than one third (35%) said they were not involved in any activities with unbelievers!

Our low level of involvement with society is cause for concern since the Christian faith is missionary in nature, seeking not only to convert, but also transform the whole world. However, the order is for us to reach out to the whole world, to be "witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8). That is, our own backyards first, then only farther away. The irony is that while we send missionaries to distant places, we seldom hear of churches having full-time workers serving the unchurched community in our midst. In monetary terms, we averagely spend up to 17% of our annual church budgets on missions, evangelism and church planting, the bulk of which are presumably on cross-cultural settings, while only 8% goes to social care and community service.

The mushrooming of para-church social concern agencies over time indicates our churches’ neglect or low level of involvement with the community. But, in essence, we cannot get away from the fact that churches do have a community-centred responsibility, and in view of their greater resources and the extensive people-based interconnectedness, they can play this role more effectively, especially when in partnership with the independent para-church agencies.

Although reality points to a low level of community involvement by our churches, we note that most Christians were somewhat unconcerned about this. In fact, there were as many as 22% of Christians who even said they were satisfied with the way their churches were already impacting society. As to why the church is weak in impacting society, if at all, only one third of Christians thought it was because we lived as though our faith was private and irrelevant to society. At the same time, the same Christians thought that it was also because we did not engage contemporary issues in our society. In other words, the majority two-thirds of Christians were indifferent about whether the Church was impacting society as the light and salt of the world.

However, judging from what the general church leadership thought, there is hope. Concerning the need for churches to be involved in society, 80% of pastors agreed that we must demonstrate to society a ‘wholistic’ mission as Jesus did, compared with 52% of Christians who thought similarly. Additionally, 75% of pastors believed that in view of today’s increasing social ills, the churches should be more involved in society, compared with 65% of Christians. Another 57% of pastors believed our churches were too inward-looking, compared with 27% of Christians. Hence, it is no surprise that the one most significant activity that pastors would like NECF Malaysia to focus more on is engagement with the Government and public advocacy for the churches (32%).

It is also heartening to note that at the Asia-Pacific Consultation on Discipleship (APCOD) held in Kota Kinabalu in mid-2001, 500 Christian leaders from over 20 nations in Asia and the Pacific Rim have resolved to be ‘agents of transformation in our local churches that they in turn begin to make a strong impact in the wider community, in order that we truly become as salt and light in our nations, causing God's righteousness to be accepted as the common standard in society at large.’ However, resolutions will remain as mere statements unless they are acted upon and changes are made.

Presently, many local churches do not even have a vibrant social care ministry that reaches out to their immediate communities, let alone other social action ministries. If we truly want to be involved with society, churches should be having ‘wholistic’ Community Concern departments that are manned by full-time workers, with financial resources at least equal to those of the Mission departments. These ministries should work in close partnership with the para-church agencies whose ‘specialist’ roles are advocacy, coordination, training and the impartation of best practices. Then, our local churches will begin to impact our ‘Jerusalems’ in a greater way. And when this happens, we will become more balanced with regards to the Great Commission (Mt 28:19–20) and the Golden Rule (Mt 7:12).