Home > Themed Articles

Themed Articles

Water, Mission, and Evangelism

The global water crisis is a security issue. It's an international relations issue. It's a foreign policy issue. It's a global health issue and a significant contributor to world poverty. However, for the Church of Jesus Christ, the global water crisis represents an amazing opportunity to help people with their most basic physical and spiritual needs.

According to recent statistics, 884 million people still lack access to clean, safe drinking water. These are the neediest people on the planet, both physically and spiritually. They live on a dollar or two a day, and in many cases, have also have the least access to the gospel.

If we as the people of God take seriously the mandate to bless all the nations (people groups) of the world, we must realize that no one can truly be blessed without having access to the most basic physical commodity—water. Without an adequate supply of clean, safe drinking water, other efforts to help people physically are not sustainable. Food programs, health care, educational programs, and economic development cannot be successful long term without safe water.

Helping communities acquire access to clean water can open doors and build bridges for the gospel where more conventional means have failed. In some parts of the world, followers of Jesus have been denied access to their community’s water supply. In those same communities, churches have been planted and water wells drilled; when this happens, clean, safe water is made freely available to Hindus and Muslims—and whoever comes receives not only physical water, but experiences Living Water—the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It's been estimated that hundreds of thousands of people have come to faith in Christ as a result of someone bringing clean water in Jesus' name.

Living Water International
Since its founding in 1990, Living Water International (LWI), a faith-based water solutions ministry, has completed more than eight thousand water projects, serving millions of people around the world every day. LWI is working in collaboration with churches, orphanages, schools, mission organizations, hospitals, and medical clinics. Water projects are often provided in refugee camps and internally displaced persons (IDP) camps. The mission of Living Water International is “to demonstrate the love of God by helping communities acquire desperately needed clean water, and experience ‘living water’—the gospel of Jesus Christ—which alone satisfies the deepest thirst.”