This is a great article by Ed Stetzer, which raises an important point:  The recent drive by many churches to become "missional" has actually, in many cases, led to a de-emphasis on the most important mission Jesus gave to his people--the Great Commission.  Stetzer gives five reasons why this might be the case:

1) In rediscovering God's mission, many have only discovered its personal dimensions [as opposed to its global ones].

2) In responding to God's mission, many have wanted to be more mission-shaped and have therefore made everything "mission."  [The result is that the special need for sending missionaries to foreign lands is made fuzzy and ultimately lost.]

3) In relating God's mission, the message increasingly includes the hurting but less frequently includes the global lost.  [The emphasis is on relief of temporal suffering, rather than eternal suffering.]

4) In refocusing on God's mission, many are focusing on being good news rather than telling good news. [As Stetzer says, "As many missional Christians have sought to "embody" the gospel, they have chosen to forsake one member of Christ's body--the mouth."]

5) In reiterating God's mission, many lose the context of the church's global mission and needed global presence. ["Hyper focus on our community" leads to a loss of focus on the wider world and God's mission in it.]

Stetzer's points here are, I think, spot on, and he continues with four points about how to regain a focus on the Great Commission.  All of those points are very good, and worth the time to read them.  His point on evangelicals' engagement with social issues puts things in proper perspective--social engagement serves the preaching of the gospel.  It is not a second, mountain-peak mandate given to us in Scripture.  Caring for the poor is one way (and there are others) that we love people so that we may speak to them about Jesus the King.

You know, it's interesting, though.  One of the major (and usually impatient) defenses of this new focus on social justice by "missional" and emergal churches is "We're not going to lose the gospel.  We're not going to go the way of Rauschenbusch.  We're going to do both!  Two wings of a bird and all that." 

But look how Stetzer sums it up:  "It appears to me that many missional churches are missing the Great Commission in the name of being missional. . . . It is a huge (but historically common) mistake."  Stetzer's right.  We've seen this before, several times, and it's never ended well. 

Now is that a reason to despise the poor?  No.

Is it a reason to make sure serving the poor is clearly in service to the preaching (by which I mean speaking) of the gospel?  Yes.

Is it a reason to be careful in how we think theologically?  Yes.

Have people emphasizing social engagement messed all that up before and lost the gospel?  Yes.

Will a new generation of social engagers be able to avoid the problems previous generations fell into?  Eh, don't know yet.

Are there signs one way or the other?  Stetzer certainly seems to think so.

Those who ignore history, as they say....