The Relevancy Of Church Growth

Reflections: Is Church Growth Relevant Today

The Church Growth movement definitley had a zenith of popularity from the mid 70's through the early 90's. It seemed to be replaced by the "how to do it" seminars by the larger churches, the death of some of the pioneers and other cultural factors.

In spite of the fact that church growth was not on everyone's front burner it was still being practiced. Principles are principles and the growing churches were still applying the principles in their ministry even though they called them something different.

People like Nelson Searcy, Gary McIntosh, George Hunter, Bill Easum, Chad Thibideaux are taking the principles and giving them a new hearing to great success. 

Church Growth is not a fad as McGavran points out because it has a deep theological and Biblical foundations. God is still in the business of reaching lost people with the greatest message of all. 

With 94% of churches not keeping up with even the growth in population and either plateaued or in decline it is very possible the principles neglected are the principles needed.

IDEOLOGICAL/THEOLOGICAL CONCERNS

The Final Lectures

Dr. Donald McGavran

The church growth movement thrives in a very complex world.  Indeed, it advocates effective evangelism in a world where many others are advocating other useful and necessary courses of action.  This has often produced vigorous attacks on the idea of church growth.  Today’s lecture will devote attention to two of the main fields of action.

First, we shall take up ideological concerns and church growth.

Today’s world has shrunk into a very small place.  In fewer hours than it used to take to travel from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., it is now possible to travel from Philadelphia to Singapore, Zambia, or Argentina.  One world has come into being.  The concept of many equal nations is rapidly pushing out the concept of civilized and savage peoples.  If the population of east Africa is suffering from an enormous famine, it ought not to be so.  If 4,000 or 5,000 are killed in Mexico City by a great earthquake, this is something which should lead all nations of the world to pour resources into Mexico.  This is certainly not the world in which David Livingstone and William Carey lived.  Hundreds of thousands of students from Asia and Africa flood into Europe and America, and almost equal numbers of European and American students travel in other countries as part of their education.  The tidal wave of secularism which has swept Western countries is inclined in a patronizing fashion to grant that all religions have some truth in them, but the idea of world evangelization is held to be fanatically Christian.

As Christians look out on this kind of a world, they too, are powerfully moved toward rectifying the physical conditions which produce famine, illiteracy and disease.  They, too, feel a great urge to wipe out injustice and oppression.  Although the media speak very little about the tremendous oppressions carried out by Marxist governments scattered throughout the world, they focus enormous attention on South Africa.  Government after government brings pressure on the South African government to change its ways.  Enthusiasts for social justice exclaim, “Of what use is it to make men and women Christian if they are being treated unfairly by powerful members of their populations?”  Here in North America also the need for Christians to take vigorous action against the terrible oppressions suffered by blacks and the moderate oppressions suffered by minorities claims a great deal of attention.

What does the church growth movement say to this other notable Christian movement?  It says three things:  First, it rejoices that justice is beginning to roll down like the waters and that a mighty stream of righteousness is beginning to be felt in many parts of the world.  Second, the church growth movement maintains that this concern that all segments of society, the 100,000 or more people groups, be treated fairly is basically a Christian concern.  When the population of the world has become more Christian, it will hear Almighty God’s command to treat other men fairly and to obey that command more faithfully.  It is useless to expect that non-Christians will be as interested as Christians in treating all men as God’s children.  If we really want humanity, mercy, justice and righteousness to spread throughout the earth, we can take no more effective action than to multiply congregations of the redeemed in every segment of society.  No one will act more justly toward is fellow men than those men and women who live in Christ and whose lives are guided by the Holy Spirit.

Third, consequently, the church growth movement maintains that while the Church ought certainly to carry out other activities, such as worship, the instruction of Christian children, the feeding of the poor, and the mitigation of justice and cruelty, for example, it must devote a much larger share of its resources, its prayers and its manpower to proclaiming the gospel, finding the lost, and bringing them home to the Father’s house.  Only so will the Kingdom of God really come on earth.

It is important to remember that the Kingdom of God is one in which the King—Lord Jesus—is recognized.  Where the King is not recognized, the Kingdom of God cannot exist.

Another ideational concept which has attracted enormous attention among many denominations is that of structural unity.  The Lord Jesus said, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”  He did not say “churches.”  The Church of Jesus Christ is, therefore, structurally one.  It has one name, one set of bishops or administrators, one organization, one leader, and one theology.  The structural unity of the Church has become a very powerful influence in the world of today.

One thinks immediately of COCU, Churches of Christ Uniting.  When it was first launched, it held that the appealing idea that six or seven of the largest denominations would unite, thus forming one great church with at least 35 million members.  Structural unity is held to be more economical.  The resulting church is held to be much more powerful.  It will, it is argued, be able to do God’s will much more effectively than a church which consists of many denominations.  This concept of one structurally united church has become the main drive in the lives of many Christians and many congregations.  Whether they win others to Christ or not, they are going to unite.  Two weak churches are going to become one strong church.  The United Church of Christ, the United Methodist Church, and the United Presbyterian Church are three notable illustrations of this movement.  In India, where this movement has been greatly promoted by the Episcopalian Church, two great united churches have resulted—the Church of North India and the Church of South India.  Both of these believe in apostolic succession, i.e., the historical episcopate, and both are ardent Episcopal Churches.

What does the church growth movement say to this other great movement in today’s denominations?  It says two things.  First, it grants that in many circumstances structural unity does produce a more efficient and ecumenical organization.  It also notes that in many cases the structurally united church is much less concerned with world evangelization that it was in the days before the several denominations united.  It calls attention to the diminishing effectiveness of united churches in all outreach.  They are so concerned with maintaining internal unity that their outreach efforts are sadly diminished.

Second, the church growth movement would maintain that no evidence indicates that a structurally united church is more effective evangelistically than one church made up of many somewhat different denominations.  It would hold that each denomination is a different branch.  This one has 15 leaves on it, that one has 1500.  This one bears white grapes, that one bears purple grapes.  As long as each branch is firmly rooted in the vine, as long as each branch believes on Jesus Christ as God and one Savior and the Bible as the inspired, infallible, inerrant Word of God, what it holds in regard to baptism or the amount of organization needed or other aspects of church organization and opinion can be tolerated.  This branch, like the Anglican Church, may indeed believe in apostolic succession.  That branch, like the Southern Baptists, may not.  The body of Christ, the Church, has many parts as dissimilar as hands and head.  Yet they are all parts of the body.

Furthermore, the church growth movement would say where structural unity advances the church, by all means promote it.  But never substitute it for the work which is so clearly commanded by God—namely, effective evangelism.  Structural unity is like many other good causes.  They should be carried out, but none of them should ever be substituted for matheteusate panta ta ethne.  None should be substituted for finding the lost and bringing them back to the Father’s house.

The second important concept dealt with in this lecture is the theological considerations which affect the church growth movement.  It is vitally important to realize that the church growth movement has often been criticized on theological grounds.  Such criticism has come from both the right and the left.  Those on the right have maintained that it paid far too little attention to correct doctrine, infilling of the Holy Spirit, prayer, revival, and the active Christian life.  Critics from the left maintained that church growth seemed to be unaware of the physical hunger in the world, the rank injustice which permeates all society, and the terrible oppressions which have kept whole races in an illiterate and scarcely human condition.  Critics of the left have maintained that church growth theology—if it had any—was concerned with mere numbers.

The church growth movement, on the other hand, regards itself as exceedingly sound in regard to theology.  It believes that its church growth is being advocated on unassailable biblical grounds.  It assumes that church growth will be carried out chiefly by those who are born-again 

Church Growth By Ministers Or Lay Persons

When Christ gave the command to make disciples is was not a command given to a few present disciples but a mandate binding of all Christians to the task until he returned. 

There are 3 ways I could illustrate this;

Dr.Bob Orr
Lecturing in India on Church Growth

1.  In a study done by the Institute of American Church Growth it was found growing churches had and involvement in ministry level of 60% plus and that 25% of that involvement was Class 2 in nature (Class 2 is outreach focused ministry). Plateaued churches involvement level averaged 43% and declining churches 27%. So the total amount of involvement and the way that involvement is deployed are both important.
2.  The principle of the "Oikos" or the 8-15 people God has supernaturally and strategically placed in every believers sphere would lead us to believe it was God's intent from the beginning that the task of reaching the world would be accomplished by each of us reaching our world for Christ. (see additional articles of this blog on Oikos)
3. The ministry of evangelism is better accomplished by lay-persons than Clergy. One illustration of this is something so simple as following up church visitors. When laypersons do the followup the retention rate of visitors who come back and stay doubles. 

In this article Dr. McGavran gives emphasis to that principle with concrete illustrations. Take the time in your church to measure the following;

1. How many persons have invited someone to come with them to church or a church activity in the past 30 days
2. In the formal prayer times of the church is prayer for the harvest a primary item of concern
3. Of the persons who have a role or task what % are doing Class 2 work.
4. What is the conversion Growth Ratio. This refers to how many Christians it takes to win 1 person to Christ each year. 1:15-1:20 is a healthy number.

Dr. McGavran

CHURCH GROWTH BY MINISTERS OR LAYMEN?

The Final Lectures 
Number 10
Dr. Donald McGavran

Is effective evangelism of non-Christians the work of ministers or laymen?  Does the minister determine whether his congregation finds and folds the lost in its vicinity?  Is his task to do the job himself or to train his laymen to do it?  These are most important questions for any seminar community.  Let me lay before you some striking illustrations.

Pastor Paul Yonggi Cho in 1958

Easily the most dramatic illustration of church growth in the world today comes from the Full Gospel Church on Yoido Island, Seoul, Korea.  Under the able leadership of Dr. Paul Yonggi Cho, its minister, it has grown from 2,000 in 1958 to 400,000 today.  Pastor Yonggi Cho was responsible for the first 2,000.  His tireless work, his Spirit-filled dynamism, and his unceasing prayer gathered together a congregation in the bombed and ruined city of Seoul from a couple of hundred to a couple of thousand in three years.  Then Pastor Cho had a nervous breakdown.  His physician assured him he would never preach again.  He was confined to his bed.  He called in a hundred of his most devout members, about half women and half men.  They filled the room where he lay on a cot.  He said to them, “The care of this congregation now rests on you. Each one of you must gather the 20 or so members of this church who live in your neighborhood for a meeting of prayer and Bible study every week and must see that they come to this tent for Sunday worship.”

The hundred members instantly protested that they were very ordinary people and would not begin to have the ability or the biblical knowledge to enable them to do this.  He replied, “God will give you the ability.  You can love the 20 people who form your congregation, your house church.  Furthermore, these people who are living in intimate contact with many non-Christians flooded into this bombed city can win them to Christian life; can demonstrate the new love, justice, and kind way of life which you now practice.”

God cured Yonggi Cho, and he was back in his pulpit within a month.  The 100 house churches prospered.  They soon became 200, then 400, then 600.  Yonggi Cho, with some help from the American Assemblies of God, built the largest church building in Korea.  Its main auditorium seated 6,000 worshippers.  A television screen placed on the enormous pulpit showed another thousand gathered in the great hall below the auditorium.  These thousand also saw and heard the preacher via closed-circuit television.  Thus every Sunday Yonggi Cho spoke to 7,000 people.  He soon found that he had to have four services—at 9:00, 10:30, 2:00 and 4:00.

When I spoke in his church to 9,000 people, I was greatly impressed with five large offices below the auditorium.  Each was filled with filing cabinets.  Every one of the 600 house churches or cells sent its leaders to meet every Thursday night with Yonggi Cho and his helpers for a couple of hours.  I asked Pastor Cho who these lay leaders were.  Were they doctors, lawyers, teachers, and other such people?  “Oh, no,” replied Pastor Cho, “Those people are far too busy.  The 600 who gather here are very ordinary Christians, but they love and care for their small house churches.  They know each one individually, and they lead them in prayer and Bible study.  I thought immediately of the tremendous growth of the New Testament church led not by rabbis, scribes, and doctors of the law, but by fishermen and tax gatherers.  The first answer to the question posed by the title of this lecture is that effective evangelization is carried on by a joint effort by pastor and people, in which the pastor provides a small percentage of the total work—a very important percentage—and the people provide a very large percentage of the total work required.  If any denomination or congregation today wishes to become effective in its proclamation of the gospel, it must inspire and organize a substantial number of its men and women to become ardent evangelists.

John Wesley and Class Meetings

What Lever Are You Using To Change The World?
Clergy or Laity

What happened in Korea between 1958 and 1985, 27 years, has happened again and again throughout history.  A most dramatic illustration is provided by John Wesley, the Anglican clergyman.  As he sought to revive the millions of nominal Christians in the England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales of his day, he came to the conclusion that it could be done only by organizing class meetings led by committed Christians.  He provided for them the guidelines according to which they were to reach out to the unsaved, win the unsaved, teach the unsaved, and lead them into committed prayerful Christian lives.

Dr. George Hunter of Asbury Theological Seminary is publishing a book titled “To Spread the Power” in the spring of 1986.  In it he tells in considerable detail of Wessley’s Methodists.  He emphasizes that Wesley operated according to the principles which the church growth movement is emphasizing today.  Wesley did not call these church growth principles, but that is what they were.  If he had not emphasized these methods, his movement would not have grown and grown until today there are more than 40 million Methodists scattered around the world.

The training of committed Christians to find and nurture the unsaved brothers and sisters, neighbors and friends, is something which every ordained pastor can do.  The fact that so few pastors do this is very largely responsible for the static condition of many denominations.  How to do this, of course, varies from congregation to congregation and from pastor to pastor.  This key to obey eternal God’s command can be seized by the ordained leaders of all congregations in all parts of the globe.  What a tremendous and effective army will be found, organized, trained, and set to work as leaders of the church grasp this truth and act upon it.

Illiterate Preachers and Baptist Mltiplication

Of considerable significance is the fact that, while at the time of the Revolutionary War, the large denominations in the United States were the Episcopalian, Presbyterian and Congregationalists.  By 1976 (200 years later), the large denominations were the Methodists and the Baptists.  The Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Lutherans had, of course, grown some but not as much as the Methodists and Baptists.

Why was this so?  There are, of course, many reasons.  But one, concerning which there can be little doubt, is that the slow-growing denominations rely for their growth very largely upon well trained ministers, whereas the Methodists, with their class meetings which soon became congregations, and the Baptists frequently used Spirit-filled men and women who had relatively little formal training.  As one reads the history of the rapid expansion of Baptist churches, he runs across instances of men of very little formal education.  These, filled with the Holy Spirit and reading the Bible through from cover to cover, many times became effective proclaimers of the Word to those frontier people, among which were many actually illiterate men and women.  Indeed, I read of more than one Baptist preacher who was illiterate when he married.  His wife taught him to read.

Be assured that I am not advocating no training for ministers.  Fuller Theological Seminary and the School of World Mission emphasize the need for abundant instruction and education of prospective ministers and missionaries.  It does need to be said, however, that there is a danger that highly educated men will not be heard by large segments of the population.  If effective evangelism is left solely to the highly educated, millions of the men and women living around us will not listen to what we have to say.  This is one reason why ordained ministers must enlist and train at least 10% of their members to become effective evangelists.  These members of their churches will speak to their neighbors and friends in ways that vary from neighborhood to neighborhood.  They will be heard exactly as were the unlearned apostles in the early church.

Evangelistic Home Bible Studies in Boston

A very good illustration of what we are talking about comes from the City of Boston.  There a Church of Christ minister, Kip McKean, in 1978, came to a small congregation of about 50 members.  By 1983, five years later, this had grown to a congregation of 1400 baptized believers.  As I corresponded with Pastor McKean about this amazing growth, he gave several reasons for the growth.  Among them was the fact that every week that congregation of 1400 members assembled in 150—repeat, 150- evangelistic home Bible studies.  These met in all parts of the great City of Boston.

Pastor McKean insists that to be counted as an evangelistic home Bible study, each must have as many non-Christians attend as Christians.  If just the saints of God gather to study the Bible, the meeting has very little evangelistic potency.  If, however, believers and non-believers, members and non-members meet, faith is generated and flows from believers to non-believers in a remarkable fashion.  To be sure, the Bible study course which all these groups employ has been carefully designed to meet the conditions of modern life in a great city and to present the Christian alternatives.  The pastor never visits these evangelistic home Bible studies.  There the faith is communicated by the Holy Spirit through ordinary Christian men and women.

Creating Core of Effective Evangelists in Your Congregation

This army of Lay Leaders is being trained and equipped
 to reach their world for Christ in Kenya

Gathered in this room to discuss this lecture are men and women who will this coming Sunday play leading parts in many congregations in and around the great City of Philadelphia.  All these congregations face a general population in which are multitudes of humanists, secularists, materialists, nominal Christians of many denominations from Roman Catholic to Pentecostal.  Most of the congregations which we, gathered in this room, will touch on the coming Sunday will be either little growing or non-growing; some will be declining.  The record of their growth over the past twenty years will abundantly prove this.  Could these congregations be turned around?  Could they all become like Pastor Yonggi Cho’s great congregation in Korea or like Pastor McKean’s congregation in Boston?

The answer to this question must be carefully framed.  If we were to select the right men and women in each congregation, train them, work with them, encourage them, pray with them, and help them, we would beyond doubt be able to turn many non-growing churches around.  We would without doubt be able to field a good many new congregations.  We would beyond question be able to start many vigorous Spirit-filled house churches.  On the other hand, in some congregations we in this room, no matter how much we tried, could not find the right men and women.  Possibly this would be due to the way we went about it.  Possibly this would be due to decades of belief that all such work is the work of the pastor.  He is paid to do it.  Why should we do it?

Nevertheless, my friends, I trust that many gathered in this room will seek to create one or more bands of laymen or laywomen who will be effective evangelists, who will start evangelistic home Bible studies, who will learn how to speak winningly, pleasingly, and effectively to their neighbors and friends.  All across America, congregation after congregation, Presbytery after Presbytery, union after uni9on are becoming wakened to the multitudes of the unreached and to eternal God’s command to disciple them.  The ways in which they obey this command will be multitudinous.  The effectiveness of each unit will beyond question vary enormously.  But that the total will be impressive is hard to doubt.

Looking At The World With Eyes Towards A Harvest

Looking At The World As A Mosaic Of Reachable People

The M Factor describes the 5 levels at which
and within which mission occurs

When Dr. McGavran spoke about the segments of society which ultimately became known as the Homogeneous Unit Principle he never intended it be taken as it's critics used it to make the gospel exclusionary but rather to teach us why barriers of culture, age, language, economics and social structures need to be removed so that the gospel can be heard clearly. It was to McGavran a critical principle of inclusion. The world, as Jesus described it in our task is to disciple the "panta ta ethne". Rather than an out and out criticism of the concept why not ask a critical question; "If we were to put our energy into taking down barriers to the gospel rather than putting them up what difference would it make for eternity?" These slides from one of the classes I teach at the seminary discusses the 5 levels at which mission occurs. There is an increasing need for the removal of barriers as the distance from the communicator to the target audience increases. McGavran saw this as an opportunity. If we would take down those barriers multitudes of the currently unreached would become fully devoted disciples.

If we hear McGavran's heart and look carefully at our world we will see that rather than seeing a principle of exclusion but rather a principle of inclusion. If I was asked to describe the principle I would describe it this way. "The church grows best as it heterogeneously matches its community with many homogeneous groups within it." It in reality is a way to show the gospel itself transcends barriers but allows the gospel to wear the unique cultural clothes of every segment of society

SEGMENTS OF SOCIETY AND CHURCH SOCIETY

The Final Lectures

Dr. Donald McGavran

Lecture 9

The Mosaic of Mankind

Mankind consists of a vast mosaic of tens of thousands of pieces.  When one goes to Mexico City and walks past the wall of the library of its great university, he sees a mosaic covering that wall.  It is a 100 yard long picture composed not of paint but of millions of pieces of colored glass—some blue, some red, some purple, some gray, some white and some black.  That mosaic typifies mankind.

Is this view of mankind biblically sound?  Of course it is!  The Old Testament is absolutely full of peoples, tribes and separate segments of mankind—the Moabites, Ammorites, Hivites, Perizites, Philistines, Syrians, Egyptians, and on and on.  Even in Israel there were twelve tribes, each of which considered itself quite separate from the others.

In our Lord’s day, the Levites were very careful to marry Levites.  Only such Levites as had an impeccable levitical ancestry on both sides of the family could serve as priests in the temple.

When we come to the New Testament we find that the command to proclaim the gospel to all peoples emphasizes this segmental characteristic.  The command is matheteusate panta ta ethne.  We are not told to matheteusate all the millions of men and women.  We are told to matheteusate panta ta ethne, all the ethnic units, all the groups of men and women, all the segments of society, all the pieces of the vast human mosaic.

Dr. Billy Kim FEBC. Taking down barriers by
broadcasting the gospel to different cultures
and language groups

It is necessary today to emphasize this because in America, this vast nation which spreads from the Atlantic to the Pacific, we are constantly emphasizing that we are one people.  We must not allow the Cubans flooding into Florida or the Mexicans flooding into California to continue to speak Spanish alone.  English must become the one national language.  Men and women of every part of the mosaic must receive the same wages for the same work, equal education must be available to all of them.  They are all Americans.  Facing this overwhelming conviction, Christian radio has come to the conclusion that the gospel must be broadcast to all, and those whom God chooses from every segment of society will join “our church.”  When one becomes a Christian, a Spirit-filled follower of the Lord Jesus, a Bible-obeying man or woman, he or she is then part of a new order of society in which there is no Jew, no Greek, no slave, no free, no male, no female.

However, despite both the secular nationalistic thrust for unity and the Christian conviction which maintains that all Christians are equally saved, the various Branches of the Church have gathered unto themselves like-minded people.

They will continue to do this, because mankind is a mosaic made up of thousands of pieces.  Men and women of each piece like to join congregations made up of people like themselves, speaking the same language, receiving the same incomes, having the same amount of education, and thinking very much alike.  The fact of the matter is that as the Great Commission is carried out, as all the ethnic units, all segments of society, are discipled, the Church of Jesus Christ will continue to be made up of a vast series of Christianized segments.  Because they are Christianized, they will grow increasingly like each other.  However, the differences of language, culture, income, and place of residence will continue, and like-minded congregations will multiply in each piece of the mosaic.

Dr. George Mambeleo. Training tribal leaders in Evangelism
for unique ministries in the villages of Kenya

The modern city is not made up of one kind of men and women but of many, many different kinds—business executives, government officers, daily laborers, university professors, ditch diggers, illiterates, semi-illiterates, and many, many others.  In some segments the average income is  $50,000 a year; in others it is $5,000 a year.

Each segment must be won to Christ on its own level.  If it is invited to join a church composed of men and women living on a different level, it will reject Christ very largely because the Savior is obscured by His congregation.  Let me give you some examples to drive home this essential truth.

Twenty years ago I was conducting a church growth seminar in the Tenth Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia.  After one of the sessions I fell into conversation with Dr. Everett Koop, now the surgeon general of the United States.  He said to me, “A black tide has swept up around this old church on three sides.  Large numbers of men and women from the deep south now live as our close neighbors.  They do not, however, attend our church.  What ought we to do to win them to Christ?”

I replied, “You must become an integrated church.”  “We are an integrated church,” he responded.  “We have at least fifteen black families as members of our congregation.  “What then is your problem?” I asked in amazement.

“These black families drive in from the suburbs.  They include none of the blacks living in the immediate neighborhood.”

Immediately a picture of the exact situation formed in my mind.  The blacks living in the suburbs were affluent blacks, college graduates who held good positions.  The blacks from the deep south who lived around the church were of a very different culture, income and education.  Had they attended the Tenth Presbyterian Church, they might not even have understood the sermons or the hymns.

“If the Tenth Presbyterian Church is to win these people to Christian faith,”  I replied, “it must start many house churches among them within—let us say—a half mile of the church buildings.  These new churches would be led by ministers of eighth-grade education or less.”

“Dr. McGavran!” exclaimed Dr. Koop.  “Presbyterians never have any ministers of eighth-grade education or less!”

The second illustration of the fragmented nature of American society presents one of the many segments of white society.  Americans are divided not mere into whites and blacks but into many kinds of whites and many kinds of blacks.  In addition, there are many kinds of Hispanics, Chinese, Portuguese, French Canadians, secularists and humanists.  Some of these can, of course, be successfully incorporated into existing congregations or disciple into new congregations.  In the congregation in Philippi, we remember, there were both Lydia, a cloth merchant, and an unnamed jailer, who was socially and economically some distance removed from her.  Until Christians see these distinctions and plan to multiply Christian congregations (house churches or cells) in each unreached segment of society, we shall not see the kind of church growth which God desires and commands.

Now a further illustration.  The year was 1966, twenty years ago.  I was conducting the annual Church Growth Seminar at Winona Lake, Indiana, which is the headquarters of the Free Methodist denomination.  Six bishops of the Free Methodist Church asked me to meet with them.  They laid before me a road block in the communication of the Christian faith which had stopped their advance.

The Free Methodist Church had many churches in northeast Indiana, northwest Ohio, and southeast Michigan, in which Toledo and Detroit were large cities.  Into this part of North America tens of thousands of Appalachians had migrated in the previous twenty years.  These lived in the neighborhoods of many of the Free Methodist congregations.  Yet the Appalachians very seldom joined the Free Methodist churches.  When invited to attend, they might come once or twice but not afterward.  Even the few who occasionally joined a Free Methodist church did not remain.

Dr. Donald McGavran

“What,” asked the bishops, “are we doing wrong?  What must we do to win this largely unchurched segment of our population?”

As we talked, it became clear that the existing Free Methodist congregations were made up of convinced, practicing Christians.  They and usually their parents and grandparents had been Christians for a long time.  They were respectable people in the community.  They generally were fairly well to do.  The Appalachians, on the other hand, were quite a different type of American.  They spoke a slightly different kind of English.  They lived at a different economic level.  They were a different piece of the mosaic.  Please remember that they were Anglos, Americans, and did not consider themselves in any way different from the Free Methodists, but they were a different piece of the mosaic.

After much conversation, I said to the bishops, “If you really want to win the Appalachians, you had better plan to start a good many new congregations consisting of these Appalachians, pastured by Appalachians, with church boards and Sunday School teachers made up of Appalachians.  When an Appalachian comes to this church, he will feel completely at home.  “These,” he will say contentedly, “are my kind of people.”

Another illustration of precisely this piece of a somewhat similar piece of mosaic comes from northeastern Ohio.  On my 1939 furlough, I spoke to a hundred-year-old Christian Church congregation.  It was a strong rural church founded by well-to-do farmers a hundred years before.  By 1939 a nearby city had started to spread out in its direction.  The pastor said to me, “We have tried, without much success, to get the city people living within a quarter of a mile of our church to attend. They could easily come, but they do not.”  The church was only about half full.  In 1948 my board again sent me to speak on missions to that congregation.  That Sunday the church was full.  Indeed, chairs had been placed in the center aisle, and many were standing on the verandah looking in through the open windows.  The entire building was packed.

I exclaimed to the pastor, “What on earth has happened?”  He replied, “A year ago we held a month-long revival meeting and took in 111 new members.  Immediately we held an election, chose a new church board and new Sunday School teachers.  The leadership of the church now was very largely composed of the suburban people who lived around the church.  The old farming community no longer dominated the church.”

“The twelve or fifteen families who had composed the church in the 30’s and early 40’s must have been very angry.”  I said.  “No,” the pastor responded, “they were very pleased.  They realized that the church must look like a city church and that this was the best way to bring that about.”

Here again a new segment of Anglo population had been enrolled in the church.  Educationally, economically and socially it was not very different from the farming community.  But it was different.  As soon as this difference was recognized, the ripe sheaves that lay all around the church could be reaped. 

I must mention here the experience of the South Gate Presbyterian Church in Denver, Colorado.  Ten year ago its membership had decreased from over 1200 to under 700 and was sinking every year.  Its pastor decided to call Dr. Win Arn and myself to hold a church growth seminar in which 85% of the attendants were members of his church.  As Dr. Arn and I prepared for this seminar, we made a careful study of what had actually happened.  The picture was quite clear.  Nearly half of the members of that congregation had moved from a section of the city around the church out to a more attractive section outside the suburb.  Another section of population had moved in.  The other section did not join the church.  Here was a different segment of the population which could have been won, had the South Gate Presbyterians been passionately concerned with church growth.  Had they been Pentecostals filled with the Holy Spirit, they would have no doubt gone after these people, started new groups of the redeemed among them, and wooed them into the church.  Here effective evangelism could have won them.  But that evangelism would have been considerably warmer and more effective than that which those Presbyterians were at that time employing.  Consequently, Dr. Arn and I, in our church growth seminar, spoke of two needs—first, to reach out, start new groups led by a different kind of people in the congregation, and work and pray for an active communication of the Christian faith by groups of committed men and women—existing members—of that congregation.  We also emphasized the need to make sure that the newcomers, very soon indeed, formed classes of their own so that the South Gate Presbyterian Church would be seen as one to which “the residents of our part of town liked to go.”

The mosaic of mankind is a social necessity, which all those who obey eternal God’s command must take into account.  It must not be supposed that society is made up of one kind of people.  Every segment of mankind must find growing within it congregations of the redeemed.  As these multiply, they will bring about a new sense of brotherhood, equality and human oneness.  This new humanity, however, will not be the easy, immoral, humanist view that all men, no matter what their religion or lack of religion may be, are essentially one.  That humanist view which is sweeping the western world at the present time is taking increasingly large numbers in America into an immoral social order.  Bible-based Christian brotherhood, however, insists that the different segments of mankind, at least by its deeply Christian members, be treated with love, justice, kindness and righteousness.  The Christian movement enrolls only such as determine to live in Christ.  The tens of thousands of house churches, Sunday School classes, evangelistic Bible studies, and the like bring about and will continue to bring about the rule of brotherhood, love and justice in all pieces of the mosaic.

This will not destroy the pieces of the mosaic.  They will continue on.  We read in Rev. 7:9 that that at the end before the throne and the Lamb there will be “a great multitude from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.”  All these will be Christians.  All these will love all other Christians.  All these will promote brotherhood and justice and kindness and righteousness.  But they will not wipe out the social distinctions.  The segments of mankind will continue until the end.  The vast human mosaic will still be there.  But its sinful aspects will have been eliminated.  That is clear.

Church growth simply maintains that we must continue to recognize that mankind is a mosaic.  Into every piece must flow the redeeming power of Jesus Christ.  The growth of the church will not meld green, white, black, yellow, purple and red pieces of the mosaic into one dark grey piece.  No, the red will remain red, the white will remain white, the purple will remain purple.  But in each of these ethnic units societies of the redeemed will multiply.

Not only will societies of the redeemed multiply but they will also break down and wash away the hates, rivalries, oppressions, prides and persecutions which in the unredeemed world always mar the mosaic of mankind.  The mosaic will remain, but it will re a redeemed mosaic.  As Christians, ministers, laymen and seminaries come to realize this aspect of mankind, God will be able to use them much more effectively for a spread of the gospel and a discipling of all the ethne in the world.