Mark 3:14, “He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach.”

Belonging and purpose. From the early stages of his ministry, Jesus identified two essential human needs. Samuel Perry, in his latest book, Religion for Realists, would agree. Belonging trumps belief. His thesis is one we need to consider deeply as we labor in the harvest. He quite convincingly contends that:

… Anglo-Protestant assumptions about what motivates human beings (faith), what directs the futures of religious communities and broader societies (ideas or doctrines…), and the emphasis they place on individual agency are largely wrong. Not biblically or morally wrong… But they are empirically wrong.1

To put it another way, Perry writes, “But religion isn’t fundamentally about faith… it’s about our relationships to in-group and out-group members. Religion is sacralized ‘us-ness.’”2

If we examine Jesus’ life closely, Mark’s description of Jesus giving belonging and purpose to his disciples is paradigmatic of his ministry. Examples abound: From the tombs to the town, the man with the legion of demons was restored and given a purpose. Jesus doesn’t extricate him from his community to ensure he is properly catechized. Instead, he commands,
“Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you” (Mark 5:19). Belonging and purpose.

In another cross-cultural encounter, Jesus says to the woman at Jacob’s Well, “Believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem… God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in Spirit and in truth” (John 4:21,24). Jesus addressed a socio-historical issue from the start: She didn’t need to become a Jew, just like the former demoniac didn’t need to leave the Decapolis region. In fact, Jesus sent him into the Decapolis with a mission. The woman didn’t need to be sent; the good news so overcame her that she went to whom she belonged and “good news’d.” Jesus’ love compelled her to go.

It is no wonder that we see the Decapolis region responding to Jesus later in Mark 7:37, “People were overwhelmed with amazement. ‘He has done everything well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.’” And in John 4, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.” In both cases, a Christ-centered movement began and belonging catalyzed belief.

Does this mean that belief isn’t as important as belonging? Social scientists like Perry make a strong point (despite my general concerns about demonstrating causality in the social sciences): We are wired to belong. Maslow recognized it, so did Jesus. Perry’s thesis is about tendencies, not exceptions.

I Want to Follow Jesus But…

Perry discusses the reality of cognitive dissonance in the process of belief change: Essentially, it is easier to change beliefs than behavior. Applied to religion, if someone has a sense of belonging, beliefs often follow. When confronted with
an opportunity to change their beliefs, we can help frontier peoples navigate the journey by addressing their needs for belonging.

A Muslim woman, Yasmin, from an unreached people group said to a coworker of ours, “I want to follow Jesus, but I don’t know what it looks like as a                         (fill in ‘your’ UPG).” Yasmin recognizes the value of Jesus’ teachings and strives to embody them. But she hasn’t surrendered her life to Jesus. What’s her dilemma? In her mind, she “must go to Jerusalem.” She believes in Jesus, but she cannot imagine what following Jesus would look like. Belonging (or lack thereof) makes enacting belief inconceivable to her. It is for all of us who are already “in Christ” to discern how we can help Yasmin belong.

Yasmin’s context and background offer another challenge that Perry addresses: wealth. Although not affluent, a robust welfare system supported her and others like her. As Perry notes, as existential security increases, levels of religiosity decrease.

How does the kingdom come in relatively affluent, urban contexts? In Ephesus and Corinth, the kingdom must come with power, not just with words. In Acts 19:11, we read, “God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick…” More acts of the Holy Spirit continue, and the result is reminiscent of the Decapolis: “When this became known to the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus, they were all seized with fear, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor” (Acts 19:17). As Paul said to the church in Corinth, “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power” (1 Cor 4:20).

In Acts 10, God provides a powerful vision to motivate Peter to go to Cornelius so he and his household can belong. Peter needed a paradigm shift. He also erred by aligning himself with the party of the circumcision (Gal 2:12). Later, we see our beloved Peter championing the importance of belonging (Acts 15:9, 19:28).

Rewinding to Matthew 16, we see Peter revealing that he hadn’t grasped essential Christology. When Jesus asks, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter correctly answers, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (16:16). However, as recorded a few verses later, Peter’s Christology needed some depth, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you” (16:22b). Peter gets an “A” on the fill-in-the-blank portion of the exam but flunks the essay.

Does Peter belong despite his erroneous beliefs? Yes. Even after almost three years of following Jesus, Peter had serious misconceptions that needed correction; nonetheless, he remained part of the community. Almost a decade after Jesus’ ascension, Peter not only belonged to the Church, but he also led it, despite his aforementioned theological issues. The erroneous beliefs were, of course, corrected. Belief matters. Jesus strongly (to put it mildly) rebukes Peter in Matthew 16, and Paul does the same as recorded in Galatians 2:11. Peter learned correct beliefs, his theology grew, but he always belonged.

As we survey Scripture, it seems that Jesus and Perry would largely agree: Belonging is foundational and often precedes belief. As Perry puts it, “We are belongers before we are believers. We have social brains that automatically direct us toward groupish concerns like inclusion, status, stigma…”3 As Peter’s life attests, Jesus recognized this, as he helped people to first belong and then taught them what to believe.

If Perry is right, how should we then live? Jesus gave a mission that included miracles. Miracles happened along the way, in spades. Using a broad definition of “miracle,” there were 40 in Acts, and only one happened in a “church” setting. Luke 10:9, the command to heal the sick, seemed to have become the norm. Is it the norm in our ministries? When the power of the kingdom is demonstrated through disciple-makers, the barriers to belonging begin to deteriorate.

An elderly Muslim woman who had practiced shamanism since she was young was delivered of demonic possession at
75. At first, she refused deliverance, not because she didn’t believe in Jesus’ power, but because she didn’t think she could belong. “Jesus doesn’t want me,” she lamented. But, Jesus did. He wanted her to belong, and he set her free so she could be a part of his family. There, in the house of a shaman in an affluent Asian city, she was set free. She belonged to Jesus.
Returning to Sychar, the woman doubtlessly felt loved by Jesus. One reason, which has been covered above, was that she could remain a Samaritan and didn’t have to enter into the Judean religious system. She also felt tremendous liberty and even exuberance when Jesus revealed that he knew her past and still loved her. What liberation! She experienced a different type of healing, a healing that Jesus wants to provide to all in our complex urban areas, with rampant isolation and loneliness, anxiety, and instability.

Jesus brings belonging to the people of our cities today, just as he did to the woman crippled by a spirit for 18 years. He put his hands on her and healed her body, dealt with the spirit, and recognized that more was needed. In front of her people, assembled in the synagogue, he restored her identity—her belonging. He called her a daughter of Abraham in front of all the other children of Abraham who looked on with scorn. He esteemed her and brought “belonging” to her.
In our fragmented and complex urban areas, teeming with people from many different UPGs and backgrounds, Jesus brings the same healing today, not just to the body and the spirit but to the social fabric that forms the communities in which “Yasmins” and shamans study, work, shop, celebrate, and grieve. The insight that Perry provides reverberates from the practice of making disciples that Jesus gives us. From Sychar to Singapore, from the Decapolis to Dhaka, the need to belong remains essential for human flourishing. Jesus recognized this, and his Church must too.