The above photograph and logo comes from a Salvation Army website. I have little to say other than to comment that the above is correct theology. As the Church, we are called to pour out God’s mercy and grace into a needy world. Sometimes it is by the preaching of salvation. But, quite often it is by acts of loving care. All too often we concentrate on the first and nearly ignore the second. Yet, how often is it—in the readings from the Desert Fathers—that it is the second that actually came first and then salvation was able to be offered.
This should not be surprising. Look at the Gospels. How often is it that an act of love, mercy, and/or care came from Our Lord, and then he explained what this had to do with the Kingdom of God. The lepers were healed before the one came back to receive a blessing. The man by the pool of Bethesda was healed before he believed. The blind man was approached by Jesus after he was made whole, and only then did he understand that Jesus is the Son of God.
This is not to say that Jesus never preached first. Look at the Sermon on the Mount. But, it is to say that with much more frequency than we recognize, he acted first and then he preached. Maybe when we wish to become an evangelistic parish we ought to ask who are those who are needy in our community and reach out to them with acts of God. Then, the doors will be open to hear about Our Lord Jesus Christ.
To the extent that we ignore “acts of loving care”, we distort the “preaching of salvation” because this demonstrates that our understanding of the nature of salvation is itself distorted.