Well I finished The Bridges of God by Donald McGavran a few days ago. Fairly easy read. His basic thesis is that significant Christian expansion will occur not through one-by-one conversions but through people movements, where bunches of people are influenced by the conversions of their relatives.
To a large extent, the phenomenon that McGavran is describing is the same phenomenon that David Garrison describes in Church Planting Movements: How God is Redeeming a Lost World. They focus on different aspects, and they attribute the massive expansion of these movements to slightly different causes, but they end up making similar suggestions.
But here's the rub. When it comes to distribution of personnel, McGavran and Garrison give opposite recommmendations.
McGavran: "If you see a people movement starting, throw as many missionaries as you can at it! People movements fail because they don't have enough missionaries to sustain them."
Garrison: "If you see a people movement starting, stay out of it! Church planting movements fail because too many outsiders come in and crowd out the indigenous initiative."
So who is right? Are people movements (or church planting movements) most likely to start in a place with many or few missionaries? And once they start, should churches send missionaries to foster the growth, or should they stay out of the way?
What do you think?
And of course, I ask this question not as an abstract missiological principle, but because I want to know what is best for Angola.
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4 comments:
leisure reading this time of year? i'm impressed
Evangelize 'em all and let God sort it out!
Ok, I really don't know how to mediate between two absolute views like that (especially without having read the books myself). I'm more inclined to agree with Garrison with the caveat that we need to make sure that the "indigenous initiative" actually exists. I think that the failure on both parts is due to the philosophy that the missionary is primarily responsible for evangelism. If we put evangelism back into the lives of all people it will take fewer missionaries to sustain a people movement because it will spread through the indigenous initiative.
Interesting question! I'm curious...do you know of any Biblical examples of wrestling with this same question or a similar one?
I have no idea how to answer that, but isn't it frustrating when the experts think completely opposite on some points?
Great summary. I would tend to agree with Garrison. Although, admittedly, I have not read that McGavran book. It would seem that McGavarn's view would be too easy to plant a green house church that would not truly be indigenous to the host culture. Keep working through it.
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