The Church's Vocation in the World - Testifying to the Kingdom

The Church's mission is often framed in terms of "soul winning" or "kingdom building." The former focuses on the matter of personal salvation - leading people to faith in Christ, while the latter commonly emphasizes social action and improving the lives of people and communities. But the New Testament understands the gospel as the good news that God, in Christ, has inaugurated His promised kingdom and is now, through the Spirit, enlarging that kingdom. But this is the kingdom of God's rule over His redeemed and renewed creation, so that the proclamation of the "gospel of the kingdom" is the Church's witness to new creation.