Fundamental
Evangelistic Association
selected
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©FOUNDATION
A MAGAZINE OF BIBLICAL FUNDAMENTALISM
Dennis W. Costella, Editor; Karel Beyer, Production Manager; Matt
Costella,
Copy Editor
M.H. Reynolds, Jr. (1919-1997), Founding Editor
.
The Church Growth Movement in the 21st
Century —Have the Rules Changed?
by Dennis W Costella
Part 1 of a 2-part report of the 2004 Annual
Conference
of the American Society for Church Growth
The 2004
annual conference of the "American Society for Church Growth" (ASCG) was
held at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, November
4-6. We attended this conference in an effort to better understand the
latest thinking of the church growth leaders who, for the most part, are
the theologians, the lecturers and the authors who provide, as the
brochure stated, "The Emerging ... Growing Church" with the theological
underpinnings for a dynamic, expansive strategy for ministry in today's
cultural context.
What
caught our attention was the statement on the top of the brochure cover:
"Just when we thought we had figured out how to grow a church ...
somebody changed the rules!" This ASCG symposium featured the "new
rules" for the mission of the church, a mission that is supposedly in
step with what God is already doing in the world, namely, establishing
His kingdom. In former decades, the goal of the Church Growth Movement
and its leaders was to build megachurches for the stated purpose of
reaching the lost and impacting the community for Christ. But now
speakers suggested that the church is to "go global"; and, as we shall
see, this does not mean sending out missionaries to preach the Gospel
and establish local, indigenous churches. Rather, this new global
approach entails using the resources of the church to change societies
through effecting social, economic and political justice—in other words,
to further "establish God's kingdom on earth."
Our
contention is that God certainly has not changed the rules! The church
growth experts may have changed the plan for the church, but God has not
changed His plan. The Word of God, which provides us with the only
source of revelation regarding God's will for the church, has
not and will not change. The biblical blueprint for ministry
is transgenerational and transcultural. Apostolic instruction for the
first century church is the same doctrine of God for the 21st
century church. Please contact the FEA and request the booklet we have
published relating to the biblical response to the church growth program
and its destructive implications for the church that embraces it. The
purpose of this article is different in that it is a consideration of
the purported theological basis for the church growth movement, both
presently and beyond.
Yes, the
methods of church ministry will change to some extent at different times
and in different cultures. It behooves the Bible-believing
fundamentalist to be aware of the present postmodern culture and to
sharpen his own skills in effectively communicating Bible truth in a way
that counters the relativism that dominates the thinking of our society.
This entails a reemphasis of the absolute authority of the inspired
Scriptures and complete dependency on the Bible's all-sufficiency to
make the church, and the believer, what God wants them to be. It is also
necessary to evaluate church ministry in the light of unchanging
biblical principles rather than elevating the traditions and programs of
men from former days to the place of "thus saith the Lord" today. A
ministry where the Word is genuinely exposited and applied, where ihe
Lord and not any man is elevated as the Head above all, where honesty
and open communication are prevalent and where reverential worship and
intensive discipleship glorify God—this is the very type of ministry
that will speak to the spiritual needs of our day.
The
command to "preach the Word" will always include the whole counsel of
God—the negative as well as the positive, warning as well as
encouraging, separating from doctrinal error as well as standing with
faithful ministries, contending for the Faith as well as propagating the
Faith. The God-honoring church, the "pillar and ground of the truth,"
will be a witness of that Light in a dark world; it will not be
overtaken by the course of this world and the spirit of this age.
The McGavran Tradition of Church Growth
The Church
Growth Movement is not a recently conceived phenomenon. This conference
was "A tribute to the 20th anniversary of the Donald McGavran legacy."
McGavran (1897-1990) was a missiologist who paved the way, decades ago,
with the philosophy and basic principles of dynamic church growth that
are now standard operating procedure for tens of thousands of churches
today. Fuller Theological Seminary has been a primary instrument in
training church leaders in the McGavran tradition. Men such as Peter
Wagner, John Wimber and, most recently, Carl George have provided
cutting edge training on how to "grow a church." Of course, many other
men and institutions have done the same, but we particularly noticed the
large percentage of participants at this conference who were either
Fuller graduates or who were greatly influenced by this seminary's
leadership in the area of missiology. Rick Warren is numbered among
them. Fuller Seminary is unquestionably one of the most influential New
Evangelical schools of our time in training the leaders that are
changing the face of ministry in the world today.
Charles
Arn, outgoing president of the ASCG, stated in his introductory remarks
what those in attendance could expect:
The emerging church has been a concern in recent years as church
leaders seek to understand the culture in which we now live—how it
is the same, how it is different and what is the proper response for
those churches that are committed to carrying on the work of Christ
who said, "Go and make disciples."
I promise that you will be stimulated from the ideas and opinions
you will hear in the coming days. You will be stretched. You will be
challenged. You will agree with some thing;, you will disagree with
others. The goal of these days is not to arrive at consensus but to
help each of you be better stewards of the influence that God has
given you at this particular time and place in your life. The ASCG
attracts a unique quality of church leaders. It attracts church
leaders who first and foremost have a passion for reaching lost
humankind and bringing these new disciples into the warm embrace and
active involvement of the local church. The ASCG attracts church
leaders who are not only committed to reaching the greatest possible
number of men, women and children but are curious about how that is
best done. The ASCG attracts people who are not afraid to question
methods and paradigms if there are better ways that can bring about
a greater harvest.
We are not
questioning the motivation of those who have taken up the church growth
program. What we are questioning is their commitment to the absolute,
final and unique Testimony of God relating to the ministry in and
through the church. The commission that the Lord Jesus Christ gave the
church is not only "go and make disciples," as Am stated, but the
commission also includes "teaching them to observe all things whatsoever
I have commanded you" (Matt. 28:20)-preachers in the church are to
proclaim and apply all apostolic doctrine given to the church and are to
exhort the believers to faithfulness and obedience.
The
apostle Paul told young pastor Timothy where he was to look for "how to"
do church ministry: "And the things that thou hast heard of me among
many witnesses (the inspired revelation of Jesus Christ to the writers
of Scripture), the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able
to teach others also" (2 Tim. 2:2 cf. 2 Tim. 3:16-17; 1 Thess. 4:1-2;
Heb. 1: 1-2; Rev. 1: 1-3). Here we have God's definition of pastoral
faithfulness. That faithfulness entails the preaching of the Word to the
congregation and walking and ministering in its truth. Holding to sound
doctrine is of utmost importance (2 Tim. 1:13-18). That necessarily
includes understanding the difference between God's dealings with
Israel, and His plan and purpose for the church during the present
Church Age. Also, the faithful church leader will discern the mind of
God as to whether or not numerical prosperity and impressive missions
programs are, in fact, pleasing to God if correct exposition of, and
attendance to, the sound doctrine of the Word of God are compromised.
The church
growth experts' de-emphasis of the importance of sound doctrine in
ministry was exemplified in comments by Rick Warren. Following his
acceptance of the ASCG's Donald McGavran Leadership Award, he stated:
We now have "purpose-driven" churches in 122 countries. And if I
were to ask every "purpose-driven" church in America to raise their
hand, it would shock America because we don't tell them to change
their label. On the front it says, "Lutheran, Second Methodist, Holy
Power Episcopal," you name it; "Four-Peas-in-the-Pod Four
Square"—it's got everything! Every name you can imagine. And we have
Catholic "purpose-driven" churches, and we have charismatic
"purpose-driven" churches.
It's like this: you go into a computer store, and you find
there's lots of computers- IBM, Compaq, Dell and all these different
brands. And they're all different sizes, and they're different
shapes, and they all run different programs. But inside every one of
those computers is an operating system called Windows and is a
processor made by Intel. And I don't make any apology in saying to
you that the "purpose-driven" paradigm is the operating system of a
21 It century church. I believe that because we now have 36,000 case
studies, and it's in every country.
And so it doesn't demand that they change from being Lutheran or
Methodist or Nazarene or Assembly of God or Baptist or whatever.
I don't really care what your doctrine is. What I care about is, do
you have a process by which you bring people into membership, build
them up to maturity, train them for ministry, send them out on a
mission, for the glory of God?
Dr. Warren
has changed some rules. Even if Rick Warren does not care, God does
indeed care about what your doctrine is-what you believe or disbelieve
regarding what He has said. The church growth principles taught to the
250,000 church leaders who have gone through the Saddleback Church
Seminars, and the corresponding methods for taking a church from
stagnation to dynamic growth, may indeed work in any church (and
evidently so, as the statistics speak for themselves). But the question
is, "Is a purpose-driven church-a church that minimizes the importance
of Biblical doctrine, including essential, fundamental truths of the
Christian faith-going to bring glory to God simply because it is now
turning out many more zealous, mission-oriented workers for that
particular church?" That kind of reasoning does not agree with the
teaching of Scripture. Saddleback Church itself may espouse an
evangelical doctrinal statement, but if its leadership boasts that they
do not care what is believed by the multitude that they are teaching to
do the work and mission of the church, then a problem exists.
The
conference emphasized the gathering of statistical data that,
supposedly, will determine where God is at work in the world and what
the church must do in order to tune in to the culture. The study of
demographics, the urbanization of the population, the movement of
immigrant groups, the principles of gaining the attention of the
potential consumer-all are deemed necessary in order to find where the
growth possibilities are located. Another key to reaching the masses is
finding out how to gain the attention of the
digitalized/internet-dependent society.
A paper
titled "A Theology of Methodology" presented by Dr. Elmer Towns, dean of
the School of Religion at Liberty University, outlined the work of
church growth experts through the years. Dr. Towns emphasized the place
of gathered scientific data, in addition to the Bible, in determining
what God is doing in the world and in the church:
From the beginning, Church Growth has been drawn from both the
eternal theological principles of Scripture and contemporary social
behavioral sciences. Notice the following definition adopted by the
American Society for Church Growth.
"Church Growth is the science which investigates the planting,
multiplication, function and health of Christian churches as they
relate specifically to the effective implementation of God's
commission to 'make disciples of all peoples' (Matt. 28:19-20).
Church Growth strives to combine the eternal theological principles
of God's Word concerning the expansion of the church with the best
insights of contemporary social and behavioral sciences, employing
as its initial frame of reference the foundational work done by
Donald McGavran." (The working definition of Church Growth, http://www.ascg.org)...Those
data are collected scientifically from both the natural world and
from revelation and includes both God and His works.
The
theological premise that scientific inquiry-particularly the study of
natural science and behavioral science-can reveal additional information
concerning God and His will for mankind by observing "His works," in
addition to what the Bible tells us, is debatable. We firmly believe
that God's written Word alone, the Bible, is our sole source of
information about God's will for mankind—His will for the sinner, His
will for the believer and His will for His church. The Scriptures alone
tells us all we need to know in order to serve God aright and to
determine His will concerning how to do His work in the world (2 Tim.
3:16-17).
Certainly,
as the Church Growth Movement has revealed to the world, it is possible
to observe what pragmatically works in the world and to use that
knowledge in religious endeavors. For example, in secular marketing
research, data is gathered to determine where a plant should be built
and how the organization will operate most efficiently. Then, the
consumers are profiled to determine how to gain their attention and,
ultimately, to sell them the product so that the "healthy" company will
continue to get bigger. Those same business principles can be used (and
has been used) to build and market a megachurch.
But should
the church look to the sciences to find out where God is supposedly
working in the world, using statistical analysis to make this
determination? Church growth experts say you can and should. According
to these leaders, the statistical demographics tell us that God is now
working in the urbanized centers-that the Holy Spirit is primarily
working there today. Statistical analysis also reveals that where the
suffering, injustice and poverty are found, God is also at work. This
gathered data regarding the "works of God" had led these men and women
to embrace and believe the extra-biblical concept that the world is
presently God's kingdom and that the church needs to get up to speed
with what God is doing in the world in order to establish that global
blessing.
The past
two decades have witnessed the dynamic growth of the megachurch
phenomenon. Dr. John Vaughan, president and founder of Church Growth
Today, provided data of its explosive increase in recent years:
One of the most important and visible
changes in church growth over the last 20 years is the size and rate
at which churches have expanded and will continue to grow. From
indications I have received from Catholic sources and major media
leaders, the largest U.S. churches today are no longer Catholic
churches. They are evangelical, Pentecostal, denominational and
independent churches. Sixty of the churches on the largest list are
denominational churches while 40 are independent; 23 are Baptist, 20
are non-charismatic independent churches and 20 are charismatic
independent churches.
Since 1970, we've seen the number of
megachurches grow from 10 to now 835. And congregations are reaching
megachurch status (2,000 plus) in less time ... What's driving this
growth? The factors are many, including the migration of people to
urban centers, word-of-mouth, sharpened leadership skills, churches
becoming multigenerational and, most recently, website access, TV
exposure and megachurches teaching other churches through seminars,
books and curriculum.
The
megachurch phenomenon is not a passing fad. Its influence will continue
to grow, and the pressure on struggling churches to get onboard or go
out of business will be overwhelming. This dynamic growth phenomenon
resulting from the implementation of the church growth strategy cuts
across all denominational lines and church descriptions. Dead and dying
liberal denominational churches can be resurrected to hitherto unknown
success in packing the auditoriums. Independents, Charismatics, Roman
Catholics and all the rest can experience the same! How? By availing
themselves of "mega churches teaching other churches through seminars,
books and curriculum"! Again, doctrine evidently does not matter, and
only the church growth program's promised success is a sign of God's
blessing.
(Part 2 will appear in the next issue of
Foundation magazine)
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