 |
| Dr. Bob Orr Proud to call Donald Mc Gavran my friend and mentor |
Reflections On The Church Growth Movement
Dr. McGavran is the father of the church Growth Movement and to hear at near the end of his earthly life a reflection on the church growth movement is a unique way to hear the heart of this faith giant. I have had the rare privilege of not only having the originals of these lectures but had the opportunity to be with Dr. Mc Gavran as he delivered them
A PERSONAL VIEW OF THE
RISE OF THE CHURCH GROWTH MOVEMENT
The Final Lectures
Lecture 8
That the Gospel be
Made Known
My
pilgrimage in the twentieth century resulted from eternal God’s command. In Romans 16:25 eternal God commands that the
gospel be made known to all the peoples of the world, leading them to faith and
obedience. Every segment of
society—rural and urban, literate and illiterate, high income and low income,
factory workers and university professor—must hear the gospel. It must be proclaimed with the intent to
disciple every segment/group, that is, to make it a Christian segment of
humanity. This command must be seen
against the enormous number of God’s lost children. More than three-fourths of all mankind do not
yet believe in Jesus Christ; they have not yet been saved. Christians must, of course, be concerned to
lead thoroughly Christian lives. They
must also realize that any such life must devote a large part of its thoughts,
labors, and prayers to winning men and women to Christ and multiplying
churches.
My
pilgrimage was greatly influenced by three rivers of thought which dominated
the twentieth century. The first was a theological river. At the beginning of the century most
Christians and most ministers were distinctly biblical in their emphasis. As decade succeeded decade, however,
historical and literary criticism of the Bible produced in many denominations a
sharp diminution of the authority of Scripture.
Since literary critics had that the Bible was made up of many different
strands written by different authors at different times (J.E.P.D.Q. and the
rest), it was increasingly easy for some Christians to emphasize those sections
of Scripture that appealed to them and write off the rest as not authentic and
infallible revelation.
 |
| Dr. Donald McGavran |
For example,
a professor in a neighboring theological seminary to whom I had quoted John
14:6 replied, “Well, McGavran, that verse does say that no one comes to the
Father ‘but by me,’ but we must all recognize that at that point the latest
editor of the book of John was waxing somewhat enthusiastic.” Against this liberal current, Fuller and
other theological seminaries were founded.
My
pilgrimage was tremendously influenced both by eternal God’s commanded by the
currents of theological opinion for and against biblical authority which have
ebbed and flowed throughout the twentieth century.
The
missionary movement, which in 1900 was carried on chiefly by the great
missionary societies of the older Protestant churches, as a result of
increasing liberalization and other forces gradually diminished. The missionary movement of conservative
evangelical missionary societies gradually increased. My Christian faith and ministry has developed
through the years in the midst of these great tides of conviction.
In the
summer of 1919, shortly after I had been discharged from the army on my return
from France, I decided that God was calling me to full-time Christian
service. In December of that year at the
Student Volunteer Convention in Des Moines, Iowa, I decided to become a
lifetime missionary. I was then
president of the senior class at Butler College in Indianapolis, Indiana. Immediately on graduating in the summer of
1920 I entered Yale Divinity School and graduated cum laude in 1922. While there my professors, all of whom had
studied in Germany and were theological liberals and “modern scholars,” had
convinced me of the truth of the liberal position. The Bible which I read for the next fifteen
years had the various strands (J.E.D.P. etc.) underlined in different colors.
Nevertheless,
since my work during those years lay in India and was carried on in the Hindi
language and since I was quite sure that the idol worshippers whom I addressed
needed to abandon their idols to worship the true God revealed in the Bible and
in Jesus Christ, the liberal position did not greatly affect my thoughts. I used the Bible, read from it, and quoted it
precisely as any evangelical Christian would.
But in the back of my mind theological liberalism still remained as my
understanding of the truth.
This liberal
position was reemphasized in 1930 when we returned to America on our first
furlough. I had been awarded a research
fellowship at Union Theological Seminary in New York, an ardently liberal
institution. While I was studying there
for my Ph.D., almost everything I heard and read reflected the liberal
position.
On our
return to India in October 1932 I was elected as field secretary of the
seventy-missionary India Mission of the United Christian Missionary Society of
Indianapolis. This required much travel
to all of our various stations. It also
required that when I as in Jubbulpore, our headquarters, I teach a Sunday
School class of the men of the church.
These were mostly workers in the mission press with an average education
of seventh or eighth grade. My
predecessor, Dr. William McDougall, had been a flaming liberal, a graduate of
Chicago Divinity School. He had taught
this Bible class for the previous seven years.
A turning
point in my theological pilgrimage took place one Sunday morning when I asked
the class of some fifteen or twenty men, “When you read a biblical passage such
as we are studying this morning, what is the first question you ask?” One of the most intelligent workers in the
mission press replied immediately. “What
is there in this passage that we cannot believe?” What he meant, of course, was
that when we read the passage bout Jesus walking on the water, we know
instantly that He could not have done that.
Consequently, we must understand the passage as an exaggerated or
perhaps poetic account of what happened.
I had never
before been confronted as bluntly with what the liberal position means to
ordinary Christians in multitudinous instances.
It shocked me, and I began at that moment to feel that it could not be
the truth. Despite all the difficulties,
I began to feel my way toward convictions concerning the Bible as infallible
revelation. It was God’s Word. It was entirely dependable. It was the rule of faith and practice of
every true Christian.
Since my
work after 1935 lay chiefly with illiterate idol-worshipping peasants in the
great plain of Chhattisgarh, this conviction expressed itself not in sermons,
dissertations, or articles written for professors in theological seminaries but
rather in messages to the people among the million or more men and women of the
caste to whose evangelization God had sent me.
 |
| Dr Win Arn. An early disciple of Donald M Gavran and arguably the main impetus in the growth of Church Growth in America |
For example,
I found that when I told the story of the cross to most village audiences,
whether of non-Christians or of Christians, they were likely to respond: “Well, they caught up with the poor man and
killed him. That is exactly what the
Hindus did to some of our own religious leaders.” Consequently, when I prepared the outlines of
twelve Bible accounts which were to be learned—indeed memorized—by village
congregations, I wrote out the following four sentences which the village
pastor was to use word for word and which his village congregations were to
memorize word for word. If they did
this, they would think of the crucifixion in its true sense. They could never again say, “They caught up
with the poor fellow and killed him.”
The four sentences read as follows:
The Lord
Jesus Christ was God incarnate. With one
word He could have burned up all those who were crucifying Him—the Sanhedrin,
Pilate, the Roman soldiers, and all the rest.
But He came not to destroy people but to save them. So He died in our place there on the cross.
I rejected
the moral theory of the atonement which had been taught at Yale Divinity
School. I accepted the substitutionary
view of the atonement which the Bible so clearly expresses.
My renewed
conviction concerning biblical authority also motivated my concepts concerning
missionary labors of all kinds. I saw
clearly that unless the Bible was accepted as indeed God’s authoritative,
inerrant revelation, there was no reason at all for missionary labors. Let the people of each great religion move
forward at their own pace, reforming their own religion and gradually growing
into a unified world society. On the
contrary, any real missionary movement must depend upon an authoritative Word
of God made known in the Bible and manifested by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
This is the
only theological position which makes the communication of the gospel, the
discipling of panta ta ethne (all the peoples), the multiplication of
congregations in every segment of mankind absolutely essential. This is the theological conviction which
underlies the Church Growth Movement.
To the
extent that this theological conviction is weakened, the missionary movement
inevitably declines. Why should anybody
leave home and country to go to a foreign land, learn a foreign language, and
live a very different kind of life unless it was indeed true that He to whom
all authority in heaven and earth is given has commanded matheteusate panta
ta ethne (disciple all the peoples)?
The second
river of thought in which all missionary labor in the twentieth century has
been carried on consists of the religious
beliefs, cultural customs, physical resources, and ways of living of the
segment of society being evangelized.
In the first half of the century it was considered essential for the
missionary to know the religion of the population which he or she
evangelized. Were the missionary going
to China, he or she must become well versed in Confucian and Buddhist
thought. In Africa, Islam or animism
must be known; in India, Hinduism or Islam; and in Latin America, Roman
Catholicism. After 1950 or thereabouts,
however, because of the tremendous popularity of anthropology in state
universities, the need to know other religions was largely supplanted by the
need to know anthropology. Since most of
the tremendous advances of the Christian faith in the twentieth century had
taken place among animist tribal populations which had few if any religious
books or well stated theological systems, anthropology did indeed furnish
greater understanding of the peoples concerned.
The first
professor whom I called to the faculty of the School of world Mission was Dr.
Alan Tippett, Ph.D. in Anthropology. If
one is going to disciple any animistic tribe, it is most helpful to know its
ways of thinking, living and acting—in short, its culture.
It remained
true, however, that if one is going to evangelize Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists,
Communists, or adherents of any other religion, he must know their religious
beliefs. He must have read their books
and know their values, systems of theology and philosophy.
In the first
half of the twentieth century, part of the preparation of my colleagues in the
India Mission of the Christian Churches was to read a Hindi book called Shad Darshan Darpan, which described
the six most common systems of Hindu philosophy. My own doctoral dissertation (1932) described
nineteen major beliefs of Hinduism and the effect which Christian education had
on high school boys holding these beliefs.
When in 1966
the accrediting committee of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges
visited the School of World Mission, it was displeased that it did not find us
teaching comparative religion. “How,”
exclaimed one of its members, “can you run a school of missions and not teach
comparative religions?”
As the Church
Growth Movement took shape in my mind between 1933 and 1953, it was greatly influenced
by this second river. An effective
disciple of panta ta ethne must know the religions, cultures,
occupations, and ways of living of those to whom he preaches Christ. He will be forming congregations of a
specific kind of people who in hundreds of ways are different from the
congregations he grew up among. That is
why the Church Growth school of thought constantly emphasizes that each segment
of society (tribe, caste, class) as it becomes Christian should look somewhat
different from denominations formed in other segments of society. The Church—the Body of Christ—is indeed one;
but like the human body it has many different parts. Denominations made up very largely of
illiterate landless laborers are not likely to look or sound like denominations
made up of college graduates in up0er-middle-class American society. Fingernails do not look or feel like eyes,
but they are both integral parts of the body.
The Church Growth Movement urges that men and women become sincere
practicing Christians while remaining uniquely and culturally themselves. For example, vegetarian societies should
remain vegetarian. There is no need for
a cultural component to be changed to fit the meat-eating habits of European
populations.
As
Christianity is thereby encouraged to flow in many different populations and
men and women are enabled to become Christian while still remaining culturally
themselves, the Church Growth Movement believes that many more will become
disciples of the Lord Jesus. It is not
necessary for those who become Christians to become westerners, moderns, or
highly educated, as long as they put aside all other gods, all other scriptures,
believe on Jesus Christ as God and Savior, and accept the Bible as their rule
of faith and practice. They can become
good Christians no matter what their cultural color happens to be.
A third
river of thought also greatly influenced my pilgrimage. This river consisted of an accurate account
of the growth rate and patterns of the
new churches being multiplied.
Responsible stewards of God’s grace must assemble an accurate picture of
those turning to Christ and passing from death to life. They must know whether the church is growing
at one percent or 200% a decade. The
Lord of the harvest does not want laborers to come out of a ripe field bearing
a sheaf every ten days. He wants one
every ten minutes. He is not pleased
when harvesters sit in the shade on the edge of some field to sing His
praises. He has sent them in there to
bring out sheaves. They must know how
many they are bringing out.
As
theological convictions formed in my mind and grew clearer and more definite
year by year. I saw that in a great
majority of cases missionaries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, the lands
which I knew and in which I traveled, were indeed doing many good
works—education, medicine, literacy, uplift, rural reconstruction, and the
like—but in too many instances they were not being very effective in winning
people to Christ, i.e., they were not obeying Christ’s command. They were not acutely conscious of the number
of sheaves they were bringing to the master’s barn. Gradually I came to believe that every
missionary and minister, every congregation, and indeed every sincere Christian
must be tremendously concerned that the gospel be made known to and believed by
many of his non-Christian, secular, agnostic, or atheistic neighbors and
friends.
Fifty years
ago, in 1934, I discovered that of the 145 towns and cities in mid-India where
many missionary societies were at work—from the United States, Sweden, England,
Canada, and the like—in 134 cases the Christian population was increasing at
less than one percent a year! As I
studied missions in other lands, I found the same thing was true. Most of this slow growth was explained on the
basis that existing religions were tremendously opposed to any spread of
Christianity. This was true in some
cases. However, in many others the lack
of growth was due to preventable causes.
In some cases less than 10% of the total resources of missions and
denominations were spent on evangelism.
In other cases where a church had grown strong in one segment of
society, “becoming a Christian” to other segments of society meant “leaving our
people to join that people.” Scores of
other reasons practically guaranteed that sincere, devoted mission work led to
very little, if any, church growth.
The Church
Growth Movement, in consequence, has greatly emphasized accurate research into
the effectiveness of church and mission labors.
It insists that not only must the amount and rate of growth be
accurately charted, but also the real reasons for growth or lack of growth must
be accurately known. In almost every
nation some evangelism is attended by great church growth; but most evangelism
is attended by very little. Christians
must describe and memorize the cause both of growth and of non-growth. Populations ripen at different times. Those intending to obey ethereal God-s
command to disciple all the peoples of earth must know which of the peoples are
ready for discipling and which are resolutely opposed to it, which fields are
white to harvest and in which must the seed now be sown for the first time.
As the
science of missions (missiology) has developed, it has come to include a large
number of subjects. Knowledge of other
religions, other cultures, history of missionary effort, theological
foundations of the Christian faith, expertise in the language spoken, and on
and on—all these are respectable parts of missiology. There is grave danger, however, that these
will come to be considered and taught as ends in themselves. They must never be. They must always be taught urging their
students to keep their eyes fixed upon the degree of discipling which is
actually being achieved in the specific population which they are evangelizing.
CONCLUSION
The
tremendous spread of the Church Growth Movement since 1961, when the Institute
of Church Growth was founded in Eugene, Oregon, has been surprising to
everyone. God has been at work doing far
more than anyone expected or thought possible.
All Africa south of the Sahara is in process of becoming substantially
Christian. Competent authorities tell us
that there will be 257 million Christian in Africa by the year 2000.
Christianity in China has expanded amazingly, principally due to the house
church movement there. Vital
Christianity is growing in the Philippines, Guatemala, Brazil and many other
lands.
In all these
cases the three rivers of thought which underlie the Church Growth Movement
have been emphasized by awakened leaders of the denominations (Churches) and
missionary societies. Clearly we face
the most receptive, responsive world ever to exist. If Christians of all nations will now press
ahead obeying eternal God’s command, we shall see tremendous church
growth. If the Lord tarries, the number
of Christians in the world will grow from one-fourth to perhaps one-half in the
coming decades.
My
pilgrimage has taken place in the midst of these tremendous divine
movements. God has used the Church
Growth Movement far more than any of us laboring at it had dared to ask or
think.
