Mission Frontiers

November-December 2015:

50 Years and Counting of Innovation in Mission

Contents:

I Will Do a New Thing

by Jeff Minard

The Center for Missiological Research at Fuller Theological Seminary

A Brief Overview

by Amos Yong & Bryant Myers

What Does Rome Have To Do With Pasadena?

Connecting Roman Catholic Missiology with SWM/SIS Innovations

by Stephen Bevans, SVD

Declaring the Wonders of God in Our Own Tongues

Africa, Mission and the Making of World Christianity

by J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, PhD

Eschatology and Mission

A Latin American Perspective

by Pablo A. Deiros, PhD

A “Fuller” Vision of God’s Mission and Theological Education

in the New Context of Global Christianity

by Wonsuk Ma, Ph.D

Reflections on My Service in the SWM/SIS

by Glenn Schwartz

School of World Mission AT 50

by Charles Kraft

Publishing at SWM and William Carey Library

by greg.parsons@frontierventures.org

Foreign Subsidy Under Scrutiny

by Christopher Little

4 Stages of a Movement

by Steve Smith, Neill Mims & Mark Steves

Core Issues and Interesting Characters

by greg.parsons@frontierventures.org

Editorial

I Will Do a New Thing

by Jeff Minard

“See, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert, and streams in the wasteland” (Isaiah 43:19).

Isaiah reminds us that we serve an innovative God. What excitement there is in holding our expectations loosely, allowing God to turn our paths in unexpected ways!

This edition of Mission Frontiers honors that new thing. Fuller Theological Seminary performed an innovative work 50 years ago when they opened the School of World Mission (SWM), which later changed its name to the School of Intercultural Studies (SIS).  A separate school focused on mission is common today among seminaries, but it wasn’t then.  This school was actually instrumental in the founding of our own organization, Frontier Ventures, three miles away.

We present excerpts of articles written by several faculty at the School of Intercultural Studies. The following pieces are excerpts from the forthcoming volume by IVP Academic, Mission with Innovation: Retrospect and Prospect in the Field of Missiology, edited by Charles Van Engen, scheduled for publication in October 2016.

This issue identifies several priority issues in Christian mission, exploring each of them through two lenses. The first lens is the development of the School of Intercultural Studies of Fuller Theological Seminary over the last half-century; the second is the contemporary shift of global Christianity.

When a specialist school develops, what is its relationship with the host?  I think of the rough analogy of the sodality and modality[1] pattern.  From the time of its founding, Fuller’s School of World Mission was not a spawning of a separate institute, but an embedded and focused connection that forms a balance between a mission laboratory and the parent university.

The interrelationship of the specialized orders (sodalities) and the generalized “host” is crucial to see. Dr. Ralph Winter said, “It is clear that the sodality, as it was recreated again and again by different leaders, was almost always the prime mover.”  And today, the School of Intercultural Studies, is a leader in global and cross-cultural evangelism.

Dr. Ralph Winter came to describe the difference between Fuller and the U.S. Center for World Mission (now Frontier Ventures) as the difference between the crucial task of encouraging the worldwide church to “grow where it is” and the equally crucial task of preparing the church to “go where it isn’t.”   The formation of the SWM was a step in that direction-training practitioners, and training them to go cross-culturally.

Dr. Amos Yong opens our issue (here) with a view of the Center for Missiological Research and its plan to provide critical resources for new missiological research and equip men and women around the world for faithful leadership.

SWM/SIS has had a direct impact on Christian missiology, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, and there are innovations within that. In his article (here), Dr. Steven Bevans reflects on the relationships between Catholic missiology and Fuller’s innovations.

Dr. J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu presents (here) the case that it is now impossible to talk about Christianity without Africa, and impossible to talk about Africa without Christianity.

Dr. Pablo Deiros reflects a Latin American perspective on the globalization of Christian mission, and the pursuit of unity within the church in mission. (here)

Dr. Wonsuk Ma considered the challenge of any school remaining a thought leader, especially in the reshaping of mission thinking and  practice, while training the mission practitioners. (here)

Charles Kraft looks back on his time at Fuller and his opportunities to write extensively (here).  And Greg Parsons of Frontier Ventures covers the many early books published by William Carey Library publishers by authors from the SWM. (here) While Glenn Schwartz shares stories of his time working with Ralph Winter—anecdotes that come from a longtime relationship. (here)

Through these articles and the coming book on this subject, we see that Western forms of the church that fifty years ago were still being exported and planted around the globe are being replaced by indigenous forms of church and indigenous ways of doing mission. SWM/SIS faculty and graduates have been actively involved as catalysts and participants in the changes mentioned.

Charles Van Engen has said that through the window of the 50th anniversary of Fuller Theological Seminary’s School of World Mission (SWM) and (now) School of Intercultural Studies (SIS), one can catch a glimpse of the panoramic landscape of Christian mission, both past and present.

The 50-year celebration event of SWM/SIS provides an opportunity for thinking about innovations in Christian mission past and future.

Calvin Coolidge once said “No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave.” The Fuller Theological Seminary School of Intercultural Studies earns that honor for what it continues to give to the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.

[1] A modality is a structure that is focused on “protection, continuity, avoiding risks and bringing its members to spiritual maturity.” A sodality is an apostolic structure designed to carry out the mission of extending the kingdom and focuses on initiation, plans on taking risks and perseveres against great odds.” Definititions taken from pages 748 and 749 of Perspectives on the World Christian Movment - A Reader  4th Edition, eds. Winter, Ralph D. and Steven C. Hawthorne, 2009. William Carey Library, Pasadena, CA[1]

About The Author

Jeff Minard is guest editor of this issue.  He is General Manager of William Carey Library publishers and also co-Director of the Winter Launch Lab (an incubator of small ministries), both at Frontier Ventures.

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Feature

The Center for Missiological Research at Fuller Theological Seminary

A Brief Overview

by Amos Yong & Bryant Myers

The Center for Missiological Research (CMR) was founded in 2007 by Jehu Hanciles and Douglas McConnell as part of the School of Intercultural Studies (SIS) at Fuller Theological Seminary. The mission of the CMR is to provide an exemplary doctoral-level missiological program, centered on a community of scholars drawn from around the world, and equipped to address the seminal missiological issues facing the global church in this century.

This includes three major areas of focus:

- To provide critical resources for new missiological research

- To equip men and women from around the world for faithful leadership in missiological education and practice within the church

- To create a rich environment in which Western and non-Western scholars might engage and learn from each other

Administratively, the CMR was set up to consolidate and provide oversight to a number of its ongoing missiological research programs, initiatives, and activities. These can be summarized under four headings.

Post-Graduate Programs

First, CMR manages the two academic post-masters programs in SIS: the Master of Theology (ThM) in Intercultural Studies and the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Intercultural Studies. While both programs pre-date the founding of the Center, both needed to be assessed and revised, and this task fell to the new Center.

For the up-to-half a dozen students that matriculate into each of these programs annually, we provide a collegial context within which they learn together with and from each other reflecting the Center’s objective to be a community of learning. This begins with a yearlong sequence of three seminars relevant to the discipline of missiology. The students are introduced to the challenges of Christian-and particularly missiological-scholarship, missiology as a poly-centric discipline and an overarching conceptual framework for their dissertation research.

In addition to the weekly or biweekly seminar meetings, there are also at least monthly colloquia where second-and later-year students present emerging aspects of their research to faculty and peers.  This solicits opportunities for analysis and discussion, and our quarterly events hosted by faculty (the Salon Missiologique) feature presentations, usually by the host, on his or her latest research, writing, or publication. Last, but not least, for our community of scholars, there are periodic special lectures from guests of CMR, usually established missiologists or other scholars working in missiologically-implicated areas, that complement, extend, and enrich the conversation for faculty and students alike.

Global Research Institute

The CMR also administers the Global Research Institute (GRI), a post-doctoral fellowship dating back to the early 1990s, given to scholars from the majority world. Each year, the GRI funds up to four fellows who are able to secure a six-month sabbatical or leave of absence from their home institutions in order to come to Fuller Seminary to research and write.

The objective of the fellowship is to promote scholarship in intercultural studies and related areas by majority world scholars-especially, but not only-for a majority world readership. Many of these scholars teach in smaller seminaries, institutes, or schools that have inadequate library resources or are too busy with teaching and other institution-related tasks to do the research and writing needed to pursue the completion of their PhD. GRI fellows are provided round-trip transportation, housing walking distance from the (adequate for accompanying spouses, many of whom come together), full library access, and office space. They are included in the life of CMR, SIS, and the seminary, and generally make at least one CMR colloquium presentation during their stay.

Annual Missiology Lectureship

In addition to supporting student (through the post-masters academic programs) and majority world (through the GRI program) research and scholarship, CMR also facilitates an annual missiology lectureship that was founded in 1965. Currently, the CMR director and the CMR Administrative Committee work collaboratively with the SIS Dean’s Office and faculty to conceptualize and organize this annual event.

Academic Book Series

Finally, SIS Dean Scott W. Sunquist and CMR director Amos Yong have initiated two new academic book series to further missiological research and scholarship. The first, under contract with Baker Academic and designed specifically for SIS/CMR faculty and alumni of the PhD program, is called “Mission in Global Partnership: Emerging Issues of the Global Church in Mission.” Its inaugural volume, Joyful Witness in the Muslim World: Sharing the Gospel in Everyday Encounters, was written by Evelyne A. Reisacher, Associate Professor of Islamic Studies and Intercultural Relations, and will appear before Christmas 2015.

The second book series, “Missiological Engagements: Church, Theology and Culture in Global Contexts,” will be published by IVP Academic. Sunquist and Yong co-edit this series with John Franke, co-director of the Gospel and Culture Network. Its inaugural volume, The Gospel and Pluralism Today: Reassessing Newbigin in the 21st Century, will be available at the SWM/SIS 50th Anniversary celebration conference in October 2015. Sunquist and Yong are eager to receive proposals for this “Missiological Engagements” series; for prospective authors needing more information, see the IVP website: www.connect.ivpress.com/cgi-ivpress/book.pl/code=5093

Missiological research is more urgent than ever as we move further into the 21st century. The CMR is devoted to supporting and furthering the most innovative and rigorous research in this burgeoning and complex field, in anticipation of the coming reign of God.

(c) 2016 by Charles Van Engen. To be included in a forthcoming volume of essays edited by Charles Van Engen and tentatively titled Mission with Innovation, to be published by InterVarsity Press in 2016.

About The Author

Amos Yong is Director of the Center for Missiological Research (CMR) and Professor of Theology and Mission in the School of Intercultural Studies.
Bryant Myers is Professor of Transformational Development in the School of Intercultural Studies.

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Feature

What Does Rome Have To Do With Pasadena?

Connecting Roman Catholic Missiology with SWM/SIS Innovations

by Stephen Bevans, SVD

Donald McGavran’s Influence on Vincent Donovan

Vincent Donovan (1926-2000) was a member of the Catholic missionary Congregation of the Holy Spirit, and from 1955 until 1973 he worked as a missionary in Tanzania, East Africa, particularly among the Masai tribe. His book, Christianity Rediscovered, was first published in 1978, reprinted in 1982, and issued in a twenty-fifth anniversary edition in 2003.[1]  It is, to my mind, a modern mission classic. Responding to a question asked by The Christian Century about what one book would he recommend to a person starting out in pastoral ministry, Simon Wells, vicar of St. Martin in the Fields in London, wrote that it would be Donovan’s book. “I return to this book more than almost any other because it reminds me why I’m a priest, what the church is, and how God is at work in places before I ever show up.”[2]

Like Donald McGavran, who was stimulating in his thinking by the fact that his mission in India had spent large sums of money, but with very meager results in terms of Christian conversions,[3] Donovan was frustrated by the results of a century of missionary work in East Africa, especially among the Masai.

Missionary activity in East Africa had begun with the ransoming and Christianizing of slaves in Christian mission compounds, then continued with a network of schools that had been effectively taken over by newly-independent governments in the 1960s. After independence and in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, missionaries were deeply involved in development work, but were hardly involved at all in direct evangelization.[4]

In a letter “to a Bishop” that opens Chapter 2 of his book, Donovan writes that despite a lot of very good work among the Masai in an area called Loliondo where he had been stationed for almost a year, “the best way to describe realistically the state of this Christian mission is the number zero. As of this month, in the seventh year of this mission’s existence, there are no adult Masai practicing Christians from Loliondo mission. The only practicing Christians are the catechist and the hospital medical dresser, who have come here from other sections of Masailand.”[5]  In addition, even though children had been baptized, not one child continued practicing her or his Christianity after leaving the school in the mission compound. This was the result after spending almost a quarter-million Tanzanian shillings over the previous year.[6]

Because of such frustration, Donovan writes to the bishop, he is proposing to cut himself “off from the schools and the hospital, as far as these people are concerned—as well as the socializing with them—and just go and talk to them about God and the Christian message.”[7]  He knew it would be hard, particularly among the proud Masai, but he wanted to try to just bring what he eventually calls the “naked gospel”[8]  to them—“unencumbered with the burden of selling them our school system, or begging for their children for our schools, or carrying their sick, or giving them medicine.”[9]

The rest of the book tells the story of how this kind of “unencumbered” evangelization takes place.[10] What is of interest here, however, is Donovan’s use of McGavran’s classic, Bridges of God, in his approach to converting the Masai people. He does so, not individually, but—in McGavran’s phrase—according to the “homogeneous unit principle.”[11]

Because of life in Africa, Donovan wrote, he could never have evangelized the Masai as individuals. Rather, they had to be evangelized “on the level of a homogeneous group of people that considers itself a living, social organism distinct from other social groups.”[12]  As Donovan discovered as well, also with a reference to McGavran, “A community…will act as a unit, accepting you or rejecting you altogether. I found out that change, deep meaningful change, like the acceptance of a hopeful, expectant world vision, does not take place in one individual at a time. Groups adopt changes as groups, or they do not adopt them at all.”[13]

An example of this approach to evangelization is found a few pages later in one of the most beautiful sections of the book. Donovan had come to a point where he thought that some of the people in one Masai village were ready for baptism, and so he proposed that they be baptized. A village elder, however, objected. He said that Donovan could not just baptize some of them and not others, even though not all of them were at the same point of faith. “We believe,” he said. Maybe not everyone is at the same place, but the community would make sure that everyone would eventually arrive at full faith.[14] All would become disciples, to use McGavran’s terminology, and would eventually be perfected.[15]

Donovan’s work, unfortunately, has not lasted the way he had hoped it would, due, as John P. Bowen discovered on a trip to Tanzania, to difficulties in ordaining Masai leaders, the need for ongoing pastoral care, hierarchical opposition, and the challenges of modernity to the Masai way of life.[16] But for a shining moment, the innovation of a Roman Catholic missionary was nourished by the innovation of an evangelical Christian, the first dean of Fuller Seminary’s School of World Mission. Something to be noted indeed.

Charles Kraft and Inculturation

Re-reading sections of Chuck Kraft’s 1979 Christianity in Culture, I came to a fresh realization of how innovative his work was at the time—and still is today. Kraft speaks of theology as “a disciplinary perspective on, or perception of, reality.”[17] Historically in the church, he says, theology has been developed within the context of Western culture, resulting “in a large body of extremely insightful perceptions of the portion of reality revealed to people by God in and through the Christian Scriptures.”[18] But this “body of perceptions” can never be an exhaustive expression of Christian truth. In the first place, these perceptions have basically been generated from within one particular culture. Secondly, they have been generated within disciplines within that culture; and, third, even within this cultural matrix, they both differ and develop.

Kraft’s conclusion is that “any mono-cultural perspective on truth is no more complete than the single perspective of any given individual.”[19] Theology, then, is essentially pluralistic, essentially a contextual endeavor. It is “a dynamic discovery process engaged in by human beings according to human perceptions. It is not simply the passive acceptance of a doctrinal product ‘once and for all delivered.’”[20]

From the perspective of communication as well, Kraft insists that theology needs to be culturally and contextually aware of its relevance. It is the product of the perception of those who do theology, but it is useless if is not perceived as relevant by those who hear it or read it. In his lapidary phrase, “theology perceived as irrelevant is irrelevant.”[21] So theology needs to be developed that makes sense to Latin Americans, Asians, and Africans, to women and men of various disciplines—psychology, sociology, and chemists. It needs to be understood by people of various social locations: “by factory workers, by farmers, by engineers, by youth, by hippies, by blacks, by women’s libbers, it must be translated into terms and concepts meaningful to every group.”[22] I love the contextual rootedness of some of these terms!

Kraft began teaching courses on “Christianity and Culture” at SWM/SIS in 1971, and students in those classes (for example Darrell Whiteman, Kenneth Ross, and Wayne Dye) have gone on to make their mark in missiology and contextual theology. It was in these years as well, in the wake of Vatican II’s treatment of culture in its documents on the Church in the Modern World and on Mission, that Catholic missiological thinking was waking up to the importance of a culturally and contextually sensitive reflection on and communication of the gospel.

Referring to Pope John XXIII’s memorable words at the opening of the Council, the document on the Church in the Modern World declared that “theologians are invited to seek continually for more suitable ways of communicating doctrine to the women and men of their times. For the deposit of faith or revealed truths are one thing; the manner in which they are formulated without violence to their meaning and significance is another.”[23] In what is perhaps my favorite passage in all the Vatican II documents, the document on mission calls missionaries (and I believe, a fortiori, theologians) to “learn by sincere and patient dialogue what treasures a bountiful God has distributed among the nations of the earth.”[24]

Ten years after the Council, in 1975, Pope Paul VI spoke of the importance of evangelizing the world’s cultures, “not in a purely decorative way, as it were, by applying a thin veneer, but in a vital way, in depth and right to their very roots.” This is because, as it has always been, “the split between gospel and culture is…the drama of our time.”[25] Pope John Paul II as well often spoke of the need for such “inculturation” as the term began to be used among Catholics.[26] Most recently, Pope Francis has also spoken enthusiastically of the task of inculturation, exclaiming that “grace supposes culture, and God’s gift becomes flesh in the culture of those who receive it,” and that “we would not do justice to the logic of the incarnation if we thought of Christianity as monocultural and monotonous.”[27]

In words that almost echo Chuck Kraft’s, Francis writes: “There are times when the faithful, in listening to completely orthodox language, take away something alien to the authentic Gospel of Jesus Christ, because that language is alien to their own way of speaking to and understanding one another.”[28] Theology perceived as irrelevant is irrelevant.

Christianity in Culture is to my mind a revolutionary book, and not only among Evangelicals. The book helped greatly in my own thinking, and I featured Kraft’s approach in my own book on models of contextual theology.[29] I know that the book had an influence on Robert Schreiter’s book on contextual theology as well,  and I am sure that investigation would reveal its influence on many other Catholic theologians who have written or tried to construct theologies in their own context as well.[30] Chuck Kraft’s innovations are an amazing parallel to innovations in Roman Catholic missiology, and Roman Catholic papal teaching.

[1] Vincent J. Donovan, Christianity Rediscovered (Chicago: Fides/Claretian Press, 1978 / Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1982, 2003).

[2] Simon Wells, “Read This First,” www.christiancentury.org/reviews/2014-04/christianity-rediscovered-vincent-donovan

[3] See Peter C. Wagner, “Church Growth Movement,” in ed. A. Scott Moreau, Harold Netland, and Charles van Engen, Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2000), 199.

[4] See Donovan, Christianity Rediscovered, 3-11.

[5] Donovan, Christianity Rediscovered, 13.

[6] Donovan, Christianity Rediscovered, 13.

[7] Donovan, Christianity Rediscovered, 13.

[8] Vincent J. Donovan, “The Naked Gospel: Stamping Out Ready-to-Wear Christianity,” (interview), U.S. Catholic 46, 6 (June, 1981): 24-31.

[9] Donovan, Christianity Rediscovered, 14.

[10] See my summary of the book in Models of Contextual Theology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2002), 66-67.

[11] Donald A. McGavran, The Bridges of God: A Study in the Strategy of Missions (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2005). Originally published in 1955. See Wagner, “Church Growth Movement,” 200.

[12] Donovan, Christianity Rediscovered, 64. On the following page, Donovan references The Bridges of God (see note 2 on p. 65).

[13] Donovan, Christianity Rediscovered, 66, referring to McGavran, The Bridges of God, 12-13.

[14] Donovan, Christianity Rediscovered, 69-71.

[15] Wagner, “Church Growth Movement,” 200.

[16] John P. Bowen, “’What Happened Next?’ Vincent Donovan, Thirty-Five Years On,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 33, 2 (April, 2009): 82 (79-82), http://www.internationalbulletin.org/issues/2009-02/2009-02-079-bowen.html.

[17] Charles H. Kraft, Christianity in Culture (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1979), 291.

[18] Kraft, Christianity in Culture, 292.

[19] Kraft, Christiainity in Culture, 292.

[20] Kraft, Christianity in Culture, 294.

[21] Kraft, Christianity in Culture, 296.

[22] Kraft, Christianity in Culture, 297.

[23] Vatican Council II, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes (GS), www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html, 62.

[24] Vatican Council II, Decree on the Mission Activity of the Church, Ad Gentes (AG), http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decree_19651207_ad-gentes_en.html, 11.

[25] Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi (EN), w2.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_p-vi_exh_19751208_evangelii-nuntiandi.html, 20.

[26] See Bevans, Models of Contextual Theology, 49-53.

[27] Francis, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (EG), w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html, 115, 117.

[28] EG, 41.

[29] Bevans, Models of Contextual Theology, 38-39.

[30] Robert J. Schreiter, Constructing Local Theologies (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1985).

About The Author

Steven Bevans is Louis J. Luzbetak, S.V.D. Professor Emeritus of Mission and Culture at Catholic Theological Union, Chicago, Illinois.

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Feature

Declaring the Wonders of God in Our Own Tongues

Africa, Mission and the Making of World Christianity

by J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, PhD

In the early 2000s Andrew F. Walls, clearly the doyen of studies in world Christianity in the 20th century, drew attention to the wide recognition that Christianity had become a primarily non-Western religion, both in terms of regional balance and ethnic composition.  This observation is not necessarily original to Walls, but he has certainly been one of its main proponents.  For our purposes here, it is the interpretation that Walls gave to the African continent in the changing phase of world Christianity that makes his observation more significant:

This means that we have to regard African Christianity as potentially representative Christianity of the twenty-first century. ...The Christianity typical of the twenty-first century will be shaped by the events and processes that take place in the southern continents, and, above all, by those that take place in Africa.[1]

The question then remains: what are the developments that have taken place within Christianity, as far as Africa is concerned?”  A number of these readily come to mind, including certain seismic changes generated by the activities of indigenous charismatic prophets and movements during the opening decade of the 20th century.  The salient factor in the movements we have in mind here is the experience, manifestations, and power of the Holy Spirit as “lived experience;” and they started “charismatizing” the African Christian landscape a few years before developments at Azusa Street came to attention.

African Revivalism

This presentation then uses the example of African initiatives in pneumatic Christianity as a focal point in reflecting on the relationship between Spirit-empowerment, religious transformation, and mission as a non-Western endeavor.  Every genuine revival of the Christian faith outside its former strongholds in the West is a sign that, inspired by Spirit-empowered renewal, modern day gentiles are declaring the wonders of God in their own tongues.  This is a process that in Africa has historically been facilitated by vernacular translations of the Bible, and for, Pentecostals in particular, the active conscious and even aggressive forms of evangelization.  It is thus not surprising that Pentecostal/charismatic Christianity is credited for the transformation of faith that has been underway in Africa since the middle of the 20th century.

Paul Gifford was puzzled that “Africa is not reacting to globalization by revitalizing African traditional religion” but instead appeared to be opting into exotic religions.”[2]  The “exotic” religions referred to here are the Spirit- empowered revivalist movements that started burgeoning in Africa from the beginning of the 20th century.  A number of them may have inveighed against aspects of African traditional religions, but the unique thing about the movements under discussion here is that in their spirituality they sustain African worldviews of the power of the supernatural and mystical causality.

Throughout their history, many of the leaders of African revivalist movements have rejected Western understandings of beliefs in witchcraft, for example, as a figment of the popular uneducated imagination or even a psychological delusion.  African pneumatic movements have operated on the basis that witchcraft is real and a major factor in African underdevelopment accounting for poverty, squalor, disease and communal stagnation.

Ruth Marshall calls for an approach to the study of revival movements in Africa that “restores intelligibility to religion in its irreducibility, to make sense of the inherent rationality of its disciplines and practices, over and above its social, cultural, or political functions.”[3]  One may not appreciate the spiritual interpretations that pneumatic movements with their prophetic ministries give as underlying factors of the most mundane of problems in African societies unless one takes their religious faith seriously.  To their credit, new Christian religious movements in Africa create the appropriate Christian ritual contexts for the restoration of disturbed persons and physical spaces to proper functioning order in ways that take indigenous contexts seriously.

In Ghana and Zambia new governments have invited independent charismatic pastors with the requisite anointing to spiritually cleanse the seats of governments, and a Pentecostal archbishop in Ghana publicly prays for the Holy Spirit to “arrest” the declining fortunes of the local currency. Efforts such as these tell much of the inseparability between sacred and secular realities in the African religio-cultural realm.

African Revivalism and the Public Sphere

These reflections devote attention to how different Spirit-empowered communities in Africa are illustrative of the shift in Christian presence from the Northern to the Southern continents.  The power of numbers comes with influence, and Spirit-empowerment means, among other things, a call to impact the public sphere.  In his book In the Days of Caesar Amos Yong notes that the “apoliticism” that characterized the attitude of early Pentecostals in the public sphere has given way to a greater degree of political engagement because of the changing nature and demographic compositions of contemporary Pentecostal movements.[4]

At the grassroots level, Africa’s older independent churches have, for example, appeared apolitical, but being the first groups of religious mass movements in Africa, polictical powers were forced to pay attention to them and even court their friendship.  After Ghana’s 1966 coup d’état, for example, the lot fell on Prophet C. K. Wovenu of the Apostles Revelation Society, a new independent church, to “exorcise” the seat of government.  The deposed president Kwame Nkrumah was believed to have accumulated, in his religious world, an array of non-Christian religious powers for his protection.  The power to deal with the supernatural was considered to be beyond limits for the historic mission ministers with their lack of charismatic power, in spite of their academic credentials.  Thus, today, when public office holders look for persons who understand the language of spiritual power to deal with supernatural evil, the choice is always from the ranks of the pneumatic movements.

The co-option of the early independent churches into the political power struggles in Africa was one sign of the significance of those movements.  The importance of the early independent churches is also seen in the fact that academics interested in the study of Christianity in Africa, as I point out below, were forced to take notice of them as important subjects of serious research. The newer Pentecostals are even more prominent in the public sphere, given their better-educated leadership, their extensive uses they make of modern media and the youthful congregations they have attracted.  In spite of the fact that the two sets of movements-the AICs and the Pentecostal/charismatic movements-developed within different historical and socio-cultural contexts, the overlaps in their spirituality point to the fact that they offer something that touches nerves within African religious sensibilities.  Andrew F. Walls has this to say about their phenomenological differences and theological convergences:

Until recently these prophet-healing churches could be held the most significant and the fastest-growing sector of the indigenous churches.  This is no longer so certain. Nigeria and Ghana...are witnessing the rise of another type of independent church.  Like many prophet-healing churches, they have often originated as prayer or revival groups outside older churches.  Like the prophet-healing churches, they proclaim the divine power of deliverance from disease and demonic affliction, but the style of proclamation is more like that of the American Adventist and Pentecostal preaching.  Gone are the African drums of the aladuras; the visitor is more likely to hear electronic keyboards and amplified guitars, see a preacher in elegant agbada or smart business suit and a choir in bow ties.  Yet these radical charismatic movements are African in origin, in leadership, and in finance.  They are highly entrepreneurial and are active in radio, television and cassette ministries as well as in campaigns and conventions.[5]

The first group, the AICs or prophet-healing African Independent Churches, started at the dawn of the 20th century and the second, is the charismatic churches or contemporary Pentecostals at the end of the same century.  What they have in common, as Walls suggests in the quotation above, is an emphasis on the power of the Holy Spirit for Christian life and public witness.  In the words of Walls, “All the new movements share with the prophet-healing churches a quest for the demonstrable presence of the Holy Spirit and direct address to the problems and frustrations of modern African urban life.”[6]

There are both continuities and discontinuities between the two groups, but each in its own way reflects African options in the appropriation of Christianity.  In both cases, there are wide variations in the nature of these movements so I use the expression pneumatic Christianity, to refer to them in a bid to cater to the diversity that they bring to the religious parade in Africa.

I take it for granted that both the old and new African initiatives in Christianity appeal primarily to the Bible for theological and ecclesiological legitimization.  When people started attending these churches, the reasons assigned included the fact that they offered a more vibrant, Spirit-filled, and experiential worship than the historic mission denominations.  They functioned within a theologically interventionist mindset that challenged the rational and cerebral nature of historic mission Christianity.  The healing and prophetic ministries of the charismatic prophets of the AICs proved very popular in Africa. It is the reason why Harold W. Turner opted to call them “prophet-healing” churches.[7]

The world has moved on and young people in particular are attracted to the contemporary Pentecostals, or “new paradigm churches,” as Donald E. Miller calls them, in the North American context, partly because of their trendy Christianity, entertainment culture and media-driven worship services.[8]

The career advancing opportunities for young graduates and business executives, and the social context in which young people can find future partners, are both important parts of the appeal of these new charismatic churches for Africa’s upwardly-mobile young people.  Their messages of motivation have also struck a responsive chord among young people who are in search of new sources of inspiration away from the politics of corrupt African leaders.

Photo “This is how they do church in Africa” by Jake Stimpson is licensed under cc by 2.0

(c) 2016 by Charles Van Engen. To be included in a forthcoming volume of essays edited by Charles Van Engen and tentatively titled Mission with Innovation, to be published by InterVarsity Press in 2016.

[1] Andrew F. Walls, The Cross-Cultural Process in Christian History (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2002), 85.

[2] Paul Gifford, African Christianity: Its Public Role (London: Hurst and Co., 1998), 321.

[3] Ruth Marshall, Political Spiritualities: The Pentecostal Revolution in Nigeria (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 3.

[4] Amos Yong, In the Days of Caesar: Pentecostalism and Political Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2010), 8.

[5] Andrew F. Walls, The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission of Faith (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1996), 92-93.

[6] Walls, Missionary Movement, 93.

[7] Harold W. Turner, Religious Innovation in Africa: Collected Essays on New Religious Movements (Boston: G.K. Hall, 1979).

[8] Donald E. Miller, Reinventing American Protestantism: Christianity in the New Millennium (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997).

About The Author

J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu is Baëta-Grau Professor of Contemporary African Christianity and Pentecostal/Charismatic Theology at Trinity Theological Seminary, Legon, Accra, Ghana.

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Feature

Eschatology and Mission

A Latin American Perspective

by Pablo A. Deiros, PhD

As we move deeper into the new millennium we need a new hermeneutical key to understand our present history, the mission of the church, and what the people of God in the world are experiencing today, particularly in Latin America. We have to reflect on our theology and propose our missiology from a perspective (or context) which is situated in the future, not in the present.

The Globalization Phenomenon

The most important consequence of such change in perspective, in my opinion, is not so much the change in the axis of our perspective, but the phenomenon of globalization. I am particularly referring to the globalization of the Christian faith with all its implications. This phenomenon in itself has its own identifiable roots in history.

There is a definite break with the denominational barriers, not so much in terms of ecclesiastical structures, but as a change in our understanding of what so many Christians around the world are experiencing. Christians everywhere are beginning to see the fulfillment of the Christian mission as a spin-off from their particular reality, onto the whole world and in all directions. We are more and more becoming citizens of the world and we are engaging ourselves with human needs wherever they may be found.

This has a lot to do with our understanding of history (i.e., our past). I am feeling increasingly uncomfortable with the traditional understanding we have had of Christian history from the time of Augustine of Hippo, onwards. The idea of history as a linear movement which progresses infinitely toward its telos, with its final fulfillment in Christ Jesus, may be adequate in our understanding of the future of humanity from a Christian perspective, but it has its limitations. I believe that it has been exactly this traditional philosophy of the Christian history which was taken over by the Enlightenment and penetrated the Protestantism of the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries—and has determined our philosophy of history ever since.

This Augustinian understanding has controlled our thinking by forcing us to see all historical events from a bi-dimensional perspective (constrained by time and space). I am beginning to ask myself whether this bi-dimensional model is indeed the most appropriate in our understanding of the way in which God intervenes in history today.Perhaps we need to incorporate a tri-dimensional model to our understanding of the history of Christian witness. In this new historical model, each event is linked to the other, not so much as one of several links in succession, but rather as several knots which are linked by the threads of a net (or network), or perhaps as the vertices of a polyhedron which are interconnected by their intersecting lines.

What we need are less linear (bi-dimensional) models in favor of more organic (tri-dimensional) models to reflect about our theology and our missiology. A new tri-dimensional model may well help us do a better job at creating more effective missiological strategies to complete the mission that we have been entrusted with by the Lord.

A tri-dimensional understanding of the reality of mission better suits our globalizing understanding of reality. The bi-dimensional or linear understanding which differentiates between sending countries and receiving countries has been replaced by a more dynamic polyhedral network of multiple relationships in which all send and all receive at the same time, under the lordship of Christ. This is the perception I get about the world today as far as Christian witness is concerned. This sending-and-receiving mutuality increases at a breathtaking speed when we understand it through a tri-dimensional perspective.

The Question of Unity

In view of the eschatological weight of this future, what are some of its theological and missiological consequences? The first consequence is that, in Christian terms, if the Lord is coming to take his Bride, we have to do something about this Bride of his. Her state is deplorable. She is dismembered, divided, prostituted, filled with sin, confused, sterile, passive, and defeated to say the least. It is indeed a horrible picture. Above all, we must recognize that, if the Lord is coming soon, instead of a beautiful Bride, what we have to present to him is a shameful harem of selfish concubines, each one pretending to be the sole owner of the Bridegroom, of his truth, and of the exclusive expressions of his kingdom.

This leads us to think especially about the question of Christian unity. It is a fundamental component of the context in which we do our theological and missiological reflection from the perspective of the future. I believe that all our efforts to stimulate and promote the unity of the people of God have failed. This has happened because we have not understood the meaning of the Church as the Body of Christ, and especially, as the Bride of Christ. Our theological conclusions have been wrong, or at least, they have along the centuries proved to be ineffective to express the reality of the unity for which Jesus pleaded so earnestly with the Father (John 17).

In most of our ecumenical efforts—especially in the second half of the 20th century—we have focused on achieving the unity of an institutional church.  Every effort has been done with the aim of arriving at agreements (mainly political and formal) on issues of faith and order, life and work, liturgy and spirituality, and so on. We have tried to establish missionary strategies to avoid institutional competition, and we have signed mission declarations or agreements to improve our own statistics. But immediately following our unity, we discuss how best to divide the fruit or we fight for prestige and power, if indeed there has been any fruit.

The truth is that we have invested more time and effort in negotiating our unity than in working together to the glory of Christ and the expansion of his kingdom. We have assumed that we have to agree on the Eucharist, baptism, and ministry, among other things, in order to prepare ourselves to work together as the Body of Christ. But this has nothing to do with the reality of the fact that we are the Body of Christ.

First of all, the Body of Christ is not an amoeba. It is not a single living cell. It has an amazing diversity. God willed it that way; therefore, there is no room for dispute or envy among the members of the body. Diversity is an essential ingredient in the richness and unity of the Body. The human body, in comparison, is one because all members are connected in the same body, not because this member is the same as that. This is what Paul talks about in I Corinthians 12:12-27.

If it is true that Christ is coming, we need an urgent ecclesiological agenda.  We have to work hard to dilute the barriers that still separate us. It is precisely because of this increasing awareness which Christians are experiencing worldwide about Christ’s immediate return that the ideology of denominationalism—which has characterized our way of being Christians—is beginning to undergo a crisis of disintegration. I am not suggesting that we get rid of the traditional denominations. I do believe, however, that we are realizing that more than a hand, we are one of the hands of the Body of Christ, and that others are his eyes, ears or feet of the same Body.

We are beginning to realize that the Body is more than the individual, the collective reality is more than the individual reality, the organic nature of the church is more than its institutional nature. Because of this, I believe that if we are going to talk about the tendencies that define our context-looking at it from the future to the present-one of the main tendencies is the unity of the Body of Christ.

Theological and Missiological Homogenization

Another tendency in our context—again looking from the future into the present—is the theological homogenization that is currently under way. If the Holy Spirit that lives in you is the same Holy Spirit that lives in me, it is a plain contradiction that you would understand God in a certain way whereas I would understand Him in another way. If the Holy Spirit’s task is to lead us into all truth, and to reveal to us what the Father wants us to know and the things to come (John 16:13), how is it possible that our conclusions are disparate most of the time? It is understandable that your weltanschauung and your conceptualization of reality would provide particular nuances to your understanding of God, and that such nuances be different from the ones I hold. But surely—in theological terms—your essential understanding of God has to be close enough to mine due to the simple fact that we are both objects of the same pedagogical work of one and the same Spirit of God.

We know the scriptural truth that “we were all given the one Spirit to drink” (I Corinthians 12:13). In these last days, as we grow in our understanding of the work of the Spirit, we feel that we are all going in the same direction. Beyond our local colors and nuances, and beyond the way we each express our understanding of the truth of God, I have the impression that the people of God all over the world are increasingly experiencing a spiritual consensus. I see, therefore, a growing homogenization among Christians as part-and-parcel of this perception of the present from the perspective of the future.

The tendency today is to minimize all that divides us because what drives us today is the mission and the imperative of accomplishing the task we have received—because the Lord is coming. He wants to find us, his servants, busy doing his mission, not discussing dogmatic minutiae. The imperative of the present hour is missiological, and the need to win this world for Christ has more value than all theological negotiation or utopian dreaming. The urgency rests in the fact that if indeed Christ is coming, we do not want him to find us idle or empty-handed. We know that he wills the salvation of the whole world (II Peter 3:9). However, if he is to find faith on earth and not unbelief (Luke 18:8), his people must proclaim the gospel of the kingdom with power and authority.

Photo: “Sunrise” by Julia Manzerova licensed under CC By-ND 2.0

Photo: “Cristo nas nuvens” by Rodrigo Soldon is licensed under CC By-ND 2.0

(c) 2016 by Charles Van Engen. To be included in a forthcoming volume of essays edited by Charles Van Engen and tentatively titled Mission with Innovation, to be published by InterVarsity Press in 2016.

About The Author

Pablo Deiros is the Vice-President of the International Baptist Theological Seminary in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

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Feature

A “Fuller” Vision of God’s Mission and Theological Education

in the New Context of Global Christianity

by Wonsuk Ma, Ph.D

When SWM Was Founded…

The School of World Mission (SWM) was established in 1965--during a significant period for global Christianity. The steady southwest-ward move since the 16th century gained serious southward momentum in 1950.[1] This was, without doubt, caused by the growth of African Christianity, especially its indigenous or independent families. Equally evident is a strong eastward pull from this period, accelerated two decades later (1970) by the growth of Christianity in Asia. This move has been steadily sustained until now, and is expected to continue in the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, we all know that this drastic development reflects not only “growth” in the geographical south and the east, but also “slowth” in the north and the west.[2] There is no doubt that SWM has sailed on this unique “trade wind,” although it was not always predictable and smooth.

Therefore, it is almost natural for the first Evangelical school dedicated to world mission to be exclusively focused on the expansion of global Christianity as its top priority. One of the two motivations, as observed by Charles Kraft, was the sharp focus on evangelism and church growth, which mainline (or conciliar) churches and their institutions had abandoned.[3] In an age when the missionary movement was losing its appeal especially among mainline churches as an imperialistic and colonial enterprise, Fuller’s commitment to intentionally begin SWM was a historic decision. McGavran’s missional optimism, that the missionary sun was not setting but rising, provided inspiration and motivation.[4] This conviction, coupled with a commitment to “workable mission knowledge,” made the institution more than a wind chaser: it now set the agenda and direction of Christian mission. The opening of numerous schools of mission and evangelism in the ensuing decades, both in North America and throughout the world, attests to the prophetic foresight and trend-setting mission leadership of the institution.

This small but burgeoning institution was preoccupied by the urgent task of world evangelization. As Evangelicals, its faculty members must have felt a historic call to inherit this missionary mantle, so prominent in the 1910 Edinburgh Missionary Conference but slowly abandoned by mainline missiology in the first half of the 20th century. Furthermore, McGavran’s “fierce pragmatism”[5] and missionary experience led him to study and facilitate “people movements.” The urgency of evangelism also led him to develop “harvest theology,” which argued for the deployment of resources where the missionary iron is hot for a maximum gain.[6]

The institution’s immediate target group was career missionaries in their home service (or on missionary sabbatical). The main purpose of McGavran’s Church Growth Institute in Oregon, later incorporated into SWM, was for “experienced missionaries… [to] study the growth and non-growth of the churches in which they worked.”[7] The primary clientele were western missionaries, and the space of this church growth enterprise was the “mission field,” presumably in the non-western world. It was C. Peter Wagner who brought church growth study “home” to North America in later years.

The 1980s saw a drastic change in the life of SWM, when the balance of global Christianity tipped towards the south from 1981 onward.[8] The demographic changes in global Christianity in that period and the following decades have been staggering. The growth of African Christianity, with the growth of non-missionary churches, often called African Independent (or Initiated) Churches, is particularly noteworthy. Chinese Christianity returned with a strong sign of presence and strength, to a much surprised world mission watcher. Pentecostal-type churches have proliferated and provided growth energy globally.

Following this growth, the composition of SWM’s student body shifted from mid-career western missionaries to national church and mission leaders from various parts of the world. The focus of the school moved from a single emphasis on church growth to diversified specialisms. It is hard to ascertain the extent to which SWM/SIS contributed to the global growth of Christianity during these decades, but one thing is clear: the school was diligent in gathering data from various parts of the world, analyzing it, and drawing patterns and lessons to be applied elsewhere. The study of church growth-the main bread and butter of the school-continued to find new areas (such as the spiritual dimension) through the watchful eye of Peter Wagner.

These developments demonstrate that SWM/SIS was and is not afraid of new approaches if they prove to contribute to the expansion of God’s kingdom. But what role does SIS have in the new era of Christian mission, if we are going to see a radically new era of world Christianity and its mission? Two areas will be briefly examined.

Re-visioning Mission and Its Agenda Setting

What is required in the thinking and practice of mission is a global collaboration and joint efforts among mission thinkers, practitioners, and leaders. It will take experience, input, and reflections from both the growing South and the waning North. The North is still a vital partner, with its long history of mission engagement, and human, knowledge, and financial resources. Only the North can provide a self-analysis and discernment of the “received” mission thinking and practices.

SIS has proven its ability to call for or convene a global space of exchange, learning, and dialogue, capable of facilitating a global process in reshaping global Christianity and its mission. Regional theological institutions and mission networks can be part of the process.  This convening power exists partly because American evangelicalism is relatively free from colonial baggage. Also, churches in the South resonate with SIS’s commitment to evangelism, which is why a good number of Christian leaders and mission practitioners are attracted to Fuller’s program. At the same time, the school has demonstrated its openness to experiment with new subjects and approaches that are useful for mission.

With these unusual gifts, SIS can intentionally draw global stakeholders in mission, including major regional institutions, and begin to chart tomorrow’s Christian mission. But it will have to be far more than a discussion of methodologies; it will need to begin with the very foundation of mission.

In order for SIS to take up this historic and challenging leadership call, it will have to overcome several important obstacles. Among others, it will have to learn to think and see what the Holy Spirit is doing from a global perspective. Leaving an American evangelical perspective is hard, particularly with its own institutional stakeholders, whom the seminary is initially called to serve. It may take much convincing. The school needs to seek genuine global voices, such as an African voice: not an American missionary who once worked in Africa, but an African insider. It is equally necessary for the school to act ecumenically, rightly representing its student body while holding firmly to evangelical conviction.

Creation of Mission Knowledge

From the beginning, SWM/SIS insisted on the creation of knowledge, as shown in its top-ranked position in every 10-year survey on the production of dissertations on mission.[9] It broke new ground by bringing social science-anthropology in this case-to mission studies. In addition, its insistence on training mission practitioners through its programs resulted in the creation of knowledge-based practices. However, the training of mission practitioners is both an enduring commitment and a challenge to sustain. This emerges from a lingering dichotomy between professional degrees such as Doctor of Missiology and the academic one—namely, the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in North American higher education.

The quandary, then, is how SIS can remain a thought leader, especially in the reshaping of mission thinking and practice, while maintaining the training of mission practitioners as a priority. The creation of new knowledge will definitely require a continuing strength in the PhD program. Is there a way to bring practices (thus, practitioners) to the PhD regime? My answer is a definite yes, and two places may provide a helpful possibility. One is other disciplines, especially social science. Field data is often the most critical research base, and mission studies cannot be an exception. In fact, the list of SIS PhD dissertations, I believe, already proves this. The other is several successful models of PhD delivery in mission studies, such as the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, perhaps the largest PhD provider in Europe in mission studies, which has crafted its PhD delivery system mostly based on field experiences and data.[10]

This comes with several challenges. The first challenge SIS will have to face is the typical US PhD structure. If its program is realigned to make it more conducive to mid-career mature leaders with rich experiences of mission engagement, then it will have to make a part-time study readily available. The second, however, is more challenging: full-time resident course work, the most challenging requirement for many would-be candidates. Although building a general and broad knowledge base is essential for the candidates, since many of them come with rich experience both in practice and reflection, perhaps this can be negotiated with the accrediting body. There are strong arguments that, due to their being practitioners, each comes with varying levels of preparedness and deficiencies. This segment, then, can be customized to meet the unique needs of each candidate. (My study at the School of Theology was a brilliant example.) The third, perhaps most challenging, is the ability to go beyond SIS’s own faculty in order to radically expand its supervisory capacity. Again, this has been successfully done elsewhere.  This way, SIS can continue its programs in professional doctorates as well as master-level training, especially to serve its immediate constituencies.

Photo of the first class of SWM in 1966.

Photo from a Fuller bulletin annoucing SWM in 1965.

(c) 2016 by Charles Van Engen. To be included in a forthcoming volume of essays edited by Charles Van Engen and tentatively titled Mission with Innovation, to be published by InterVarsity Press in 2016.

[1] Todd M. Johnson and Sun Young Chung, “Christianity’s Centre of Gravity, AD 33-2100,” in AOGC, pp. 50-51.

[2] Patrick Johnstone gives us a stunning visual presentation of continental changes of Christian demography between 1900 and 2015. The contrast between the growing continents and declining ones is striking. Patrick Johnstone, The Future of the Global Church: History, Trends and Possibilities (Colorado Springs: Global Mapping International, 2011), 95. This general trend in the middle of the twentieth century has been statistically supported in various studies.

[3] SWM/SIS, p. 64, quoting an insightful reflection of Wilbert Shenk on the missional context of the 1960s.

[4] SWM/SIS, p. 78.

[5] SWM/SIS, p. 70.

[6] SWM/SIS, p. 78.

[7] SWM/SIS, p. 13.

[8] Johnson and Chung, “Christianity’s Centre of Gravity, AD 33-2100,” pp. 50-51.

[9] Robert J. Priest and Robert DeGeorge, “Doctoral Dissertations on Mission: Ten-Year Update, 2002-2011 (Revised),” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 37:4 (Oct 2013), pp. 195-202.

[10] D.P. Davies, “The Research Contribution of OCMS,” Transformation 28:4 (Oct, 2011), pp. 279-85.

About The Author

Wonsuk Ma is Executive Director of the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, Oxford, UK, and David Yonggi Cho Research Tutor of Global Christianity.

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Other

Reflections on My Service in the SWM/SIS

by Glenn Schwartz

During the 1960s and early 1970s, my wife and I served as missionaries in Zambia and Zimbabwe.  Those years were the heyday of colonialism in Central Africa.  Missionary presence and outside resources were prevalent in many ways.  In my struggle to understand what was happening in and around me, I was determined to find a different way of doing cross-cultural missionary work.  About that time, some young missionaries moved into our province who had studied in a new missionary training school in Pasadena, California.

They were using a whole new vocabulary to describe the work they were doing.  One of them felt that I would benefit from studying in this new school called the School of World Mission (SWM) at Fuller Seminary.  At that time the school was only five or six years old.  My new missionary friend then said that if I applied to study there, he would pay my application fee.  (That is quite different from paying the tuition.)

I wrote to the SWM from Zambia and expressed interest in studying there.  I got a personal hand-typed letter from Dr. McGavran, the dean, done on his small portable electric typewriter.  He welcomed me heartily and suggested that I bring along as much statistical information as I could regarding the work we were doing in Zambia in a program called New Life for All.  He wanted me to be able to research and analyze whether it was contributing to or hindering the growth of the church.  That was my welcome to the world of “church growth” thinking!

The second letter I received was from the new dean, Dr. Arthur Glasser.  He heartily encouraged me to send in my application.  I hesitated because I thought that I was not graduate student material.  “You come, and we will see what happens,” he said.  I did one quarter of study at a time and eventually graduated from the two-year MA program.  After graduation, I was invited to work in the SWM as Assistant to the Dean, Dr. Glasser.  I held that position for six years from 1973 to 1979.  Essentially, I was an administrative servant of the original faculty of the SWM.  Imagine what a privilege that was for me!

In those days, admission to a degree program required that a candidate had at least three years of cross-cultural missionary experience and knowledge of a missionary field language.  With prerequisites like that, it meant that classes were filled with experienced missionaries and international church leaders.  Dr. Glasser would say that these SWMers were not shaggy colts, but rather proven race horses.  Changing the metaphor, he would sometimes say they could roll up their sleeves and show the scars of battle.  We did not need to have the problems described to us; we were like sponges eager for answers to the complex issues with which we were grappling.

For those who studied in the SWM in those early days, it was a transforming experience, and hopefully it is still today.  Our minds were expanded as we were introduced to a new “can do” attitude regarding the unreached world.  Some of us came from places where we gave up thinking that real church growth could happen.  Others of us came from places where the church was bogged down in maintaining itself rather than great commission outreach.  We were introduced to a fresh new way of thinking about missions.  We learned that fields that were thought to be impossible to reap could be harvested.  We were taught that unreached people might not be resistant, but perhaps only neglected.  It often meant removing the roadblocks once we knew what they were.

The following titles of the core courses in those days are revealing:  Church Growth, Animism, Missionary Anthropology, Historical Development of the Christian Movement, and Theology of Mission.  Many of us had never been introduced to subjects such as these in what little missionary training we might have had.

The original faculty of the SWM was characterized by high energy and fueled by each other’s creativity.  This meant that doing academic administration became a challenge of its own.  With faculty only meeting from 3:00 to 5:00pm every other week, obviously there were degree candidates waiting for decisions about their work.  Sometimes the first ninety minutes of a two-hour meeting were given to discussing the state of world evangelization, an upcoming conference, or perhaps how they were doing on writing a chapter for an upcoming book that someone was editing.  During those first ninety minutes, ideas were generated and flashing everywhere.

Eventually, I would whisper to the dean, reminding him that we had an agenda and that there were some students waiting for a decision on the next step of their program.  Dean Glasser would “tap the gavel” and remind everyone that we have an agenda and that some academic business needs to be done.  The atmosphere would change, and in the last twenty or thirty minutes, we were able to make all the academic decisions required and the meeting would end on schedule at 5:00.  But the real business of the meeting – evangelizing the world – was discussed in the first ninety minutes.

As time went along it became obvious that more time was needed for the faculty to discuss the non-academic issues I referred to.  This became possible when they launched a Wednesday noon  luncheon where each faculty member brought his or her lunch.  This was a place dedicated for ideas to flow freely.  One memory of those luncheons was what Dr. McGavran brought as his lunch.  On a turned over shoe box lid, he had some white raisins and a few wheat thins.  As the discussion went on, he would put two or three white raisons on each wheat thin.  That was his lunch, accompanied by a cup of hot water; we all should have been so disciplined.  He once saw me drinking a cup of tea and suggested that hot water is better, because “the body just needs to eliminate all those other impurities anyway.”   He also told me once the only way to make tea is to scald the pot and cup first, something he learned from the British in India in colonial days.

As you can imagine, hundreds of things come to mind which cannot be covered in a short article such as this.  The following are a few worth mentioning.  Once, in a class led by Dr. Winter, a student asked if the paper for this course was required.  Dr. Winter said, “The paper is not required, just like graduation is not required.”  On another occasion, a student asked Professor Heibert if it was really necessary to write a paper for this course, because he thought it would simply be an academic exercise.  Well, yes, perhaps a paper for a course could be considered an academic exercise!

Dr. Glasser taught Theology of Mission, bringing the Bible to life with his inimitable dramatic way.  He stretched his arms out to the left and to the right, showing first that all of the Old Testament (represented by the left arm) must be combined with the New Testament (represented by the right arm), and the Bible must be seen as the entire activity of God in missionary outreach.  He would say that the Bible is one long, complicated sentence showing God’s concern for a broken world.  Those who sat under his teaching saw the missionary message of the church reflected on the pages of every book of the Bible.

A word is in order about how missionary families and international church leaders coped when they arrived in Pasadena.  Many of them came with only suitcases, looking for a place to rent for only 10 months.  What was affordable was most likely unfurnished.  But somehow they found an unfurnished place and searched around for the furniture and other things needed to make a home for the family.  They got things from yard sales and the Salvation Army, or churches, if they could.  Then, ten months later, they had the challenge of getting rid of all that they had collected.  Sometimes, they had their own yard sale.  They gave some things away and took the rest back to the Salvation Army.  Landlords were not happy that they got only ten months rent.

This called for some creativity.  We began to collect what donated furniture we could and devised a plan to hold on to it, as well as the house they occupied.  Sometimes we asked the landlord to hold the house for another family, and if necessary, to forgive rent for month eleven, while we picked up the rent for month twelve.  This worked well enough that after several years we had accumulated thirty-five furnished homes without buying any property.  Some families walked into homes already furnished with the beds made up and then walked out leaving the house ready for someone else.  One evening, we picked up a donated baby bed at 11:00pm and a baby slept in it yet that night!

My experience at the School of World Mission was enriched by the hundreds of missionaries and church leaders who came there each year, getting what Dr. McGavran called “church growth eyes.”  It is the nature of graduate study that mid-course some candidates became weary and wondered if they should have ever started the program.  But some of the students at the SWM became weighed down, not just because of the amount of work, but because they were competing for the attention of faculty advisors who had more than they should have had to carry.  Added to this was the pressure of getting back to their missionary assignment.  It was my privilege to extend an arm of encouragement when spirits were low and when the future looked a little bleak.  Given all the pressure of the program, it was most rewarding to watch as one after another overcame the obstacles and eventually marched across the platform, being awarded the degree of their dreams.

I was privileged to be a part of the SWM for those wonderful years as Assistant to Dean Glasser and also as International Student Advisor.  The impression it left on me is indelible!

Photo: Birdeye view  of Fuller campus

Photo: Dr. Arthur Glasser

About The Author

Glenn Schwartz

Author of When Charity Destroys Dignity: Overcoming Unhealthy Dependency in the Christian Movement, available on the WMA website.

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School of World Mission AT 50

by Charles Kraft

Can it be that we are 50?  In 1969, when I joined the faculty, we were small—four faculty and about 35 students (Associates we called them).  I was the fourth faculty member, after McGavran, Tippett and Winter. Fuller had hired me to teach anthropological and African subjects.

I had come to Los Angeles for a “look see” year at UCLA, to teach the Hausa language and related African language subjects. We had been missionaries to Nigeria but had broken with our mission over cultural issues. In 1969 I was on the faculty of Michigan State University, toying with the possibility of joining the UCLA linguistic department, if they wanted me.

They decided that they wanted me, so I took that job.  But we also renewed our acquaintance with Ralph Winter and soon I had another job offered to me—teaching subjects on the relationships between Christianity and culture to missionaries at Fuller Seminary’s new School of World Mission.  Both positions were attractive to me, so I worked it out to teach at both places—UCLA on Monday and Wednesday, SWM on Tuesday and Thursday, with Friday’s open for faculty meetings.  This arrangement lasted for four years until I went full time with Fuller.

It was a genuine privilege to be able to work with the SWM faculty.  McGavran was an entrepreneur with a single focus: Church Growth. We differed on our views of the relationships between culture and Christianity, but supported each other as differing parts of our movement. Tippett was the most intelligent of our faculty, ably relating theology, anthropology and practice. He saw more deeply into most issues than the rest of us.

Perhaps the most interesting of my colleagues, however, was Ralph Winter. He was a genius who often had the most creative solutions to problems, but tended to ignore the more pedantic responsibilities such as getting his grades in on time, or getting the grades in at all (he once lost the comprehensive exams and they could not be graded).

But these (and many other) idiosyncrasies pale in significance when compared to his importance in the development of missiology.  He went out on a limb to start William Carey Library, the publishing wing of the Church Growth Movement.  He then founded and ran the U.S. Center for World Mission (now Frontier Ventures) to provide space for mission groups to locate in proximity with other mission groups, and William Carey International University to train missionaries in enlightened missiology.

At Fuller, my job was teaching such courses as Basic Anthropology; Culture and Conversion; The Church in Culture; Culture and Theology; Intercultural Communications; and World view and Contextualization.  In short, I was charged with teaching a culture-positive approach to missions, the very area that had brought about our break with our mission board.

This was fulfillment for me—to be able to teach, write and guide missionaries in the relationships between Christianity and culture, and to see missionaries go through paradigm shifts in their approach to mission.  My aim was to help missionaries adopt the culture-positive approach that we had employed in Nigeria—an approach that helped approximately 95% of the people from our people group (population 700,000) to identify as Christian.

In addition, I have played a part in what may be called “contextualization studies”—seeking to find ways for people to follow Christ in their own way, following their own Jesus, not a foreign one. Because so much of mission has been tainted with Western ideas and practices, one of the tasks I assigned myself was to help missionaries to honor the cultures of the people they sought to win or guide.  To help this emphasis, I wrote Christianity in Culture, Anthropology for Christian Witness, Appropriate Christianity, Issues in Contextualization and Worldview for Christian Witness.

With a focus on culture and Christianity, it seemed only natural to place a high priority on how culture affects communication.  So I developed a specialty in intercultural communication.  Out of this came books such as Communicating Jesus’ Way and Communication Theory for Christian Witness.

Having worked to get people to change their paradigms with regard to culture, in 1982 I began to focus on paradigm change in the area of spiritual power.  Influenced strongly by John Wimber, I began to learn how to follow Jesus in a healing ministry.  I became both a practitioner and a theoretician.  Several books have come in this emphasis, including: Christianity With Power, Deep Wounds, Deep Healing, and Two Hours to Freedom.

The emphasis on spiritual power led naturally to a focus on spiritual warfare.  Noticing that very little has been done in missiology on this subject, I have given myself to helping in this area.  We perform one-on-one ministry, conduct training sessions and I wrote more works: The Evangelical’s Guide to Spiritual Warfare, I Give You Authority, Confronting Powerless Christianity and Defeating Dark Angels.

Ten years ago, I had fun writing an account of the first 40 years of SWM/SIS.  May the celebration of the 50-year anniversary be a blessed and fun time as well.

Photo: Books by Charles Kraft

About The Author

Charles Kraft, on Fuller’s faculty since 1969, is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Intercultural Communication in the School of Intercultural Studies.

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Publishing at SWM and William Carey Library

by greg.parsons@frontierventures.org

The Fuller School of World Mission (SWM) faculty was aware the work of their students would be helpful to others doing mission work. Because the students were all experienced field workers, their theses tended to have more practical applications.

Initially, McGavran and others connected with SWM used their influence to convince Eerdmans Publishing Company to publish some of the theses coming out of the SWM. A sampling of titles includes the following:

1. Church Growth in Mexico by Donald McGavran, John Huegel, and Jack Taylor (1963)

2. Wildfire—Church Growth in Korea by Roy E. Shearer (1966)

3. New Patterns of Church Growth in Brazil by William R. Read (1965)

4. Church Growth in Central and Southern Nigeria by John B. Grimley and Gordon E. Robinson (1966)

5. God’s Impatience in Liberia by Joseph Conrad Wold (1968)

6. Tinder in Tabasco by Charles Bennett (Bennett, 1968)

7. Latin American Church Growth by William R. Read, Victor M. Monterroso and Harmon A. Johnson (1969)

SWM faculty discussed the idea of publishing the work of the students and urged Winter to try to implement this, which he did with Roberta and their four daughters.[1] William Carey Library (WCL) was established in 1969. WCL produced and published the work of the students and faculty but they were not merely interested in publishing. They also worked with other publishers to produce books and get them into markets to which WCL did not have access. This activity also drew attention to what was being discussed and written at Fuller’s SWM. Later, WCL expanded their offerings and began distributing mission books from other publishers.[2]

Roberta was very involved in the day-to-day work of WCL, as was Marguerite Kraft. It helped that Winter had learned accounting and started 17 businesses in Guatemala. Later, in seeking a new student spouse to take Marguerite’s role, Assistant to the Dean, Glenn Schwartz wrote:

The William Carey Library, which is a publishing venture operating cooperatively with the School of World Mission, needs someone to take Marguerite Kraft’s place, who is going on the missions staff at Biola College. She [currently] processes orders, places orders for more books, answers problem correspondence, etc. Her job requires some typing, but, more than that, a great deal of ability to learn quickly. She works jointly with Mrs. Ralph Winter, and it is fun work, directly associated with missions and the school.[3]

Ralph Winter edited the 600-page book Theological Education by Extension (1969). He also wrote The Twenty Five Unbelievable Years (1970) and Warp and Woof (1970) during his time at the SWM. In addition, many church growth studies were produced and sold by WCL.[4]

Ralph Covell wrote an article describing mission book publishing from the mid-1960s to late 1973.[5]  He mentioned WCL as one of two institutions begun during the last decade and many books published by WCL were mentioned.[6]  Covell also mentioned the idea of “mini-publishing” as something that would likely increase. Mini-publishing includes the development of “demand publishing of books and the use of cassettes and other techniques to facilitate inter-communication among those interested in the world mission of the church.” (EMQ 10:1, Covell, 1974, 116) He refers to Winter’s article on the subject: “Minipublishing: New Hope for Strategic Dialogue.”

A few of the books Covell mentions include:

- Theological Education by Extension by Ralph D. Winter, (1969)

- Bibliography for Cross-Cultural Workers by Alan R. Tippett (1971)

- Crossroads in Missions Edited by Arthur Glasser (a reprint of five mission books) (1971)

- The Gospel and Frontiers Peoples by R. Pierce Beaver, (1973)

- The World Directory of Theological Education by Extension by Wayne Weld, (1973)

- Evangelical Response to Bangkok by Ralph D. Winter, (1973)

WCL was one way that Winter helped McGavran and the SWM get its message out: “But the most important contribution by Ralph Winter to the School of World Mission was the establishment of William Carey Library. …which handles low-volume publications at reasonable prices and quickly makes available the publication of research carried on at the School of World Mission.”[7]

[1] All of the family had a part in the business. At various times, this included book preparation to receiving books in the garage and shipping orders.

[2] At one point, WCL distributed mission books from almost 100 publishers.

[3] Letter from Glenn Schwartz to incoming students and their spouses, July 27, 1973.

[4] By its 40th anniversary in 2009, WCL had published over 400 titles and sold more than one million books.

[5] Covell was serving as an associate professor of missions at Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary (now, Denver Seminary) in Denver, Colorado.

[6] The other organization he mentioned which was established during the 10 years up to 1974 was the Mission Advanced Research and Communications Center.

[7] He continued, “In the three years from its founding in 1968, the William Carey Library published 37 works of missionary interest. In the first fourteen months it printed 26,000 books and 22,000 smaller publications.” Wodarz, Donald Mattäus p 124, 1979 thesis: Church Growth: The Missiology of Donald Anderson McGavran, Rome, Pontifical Universitas Gregoriana.

About The Author

Garrett

Greg has been on the staff of Frontier Ventures (formerly USCWM) since 1982. He and his wife, Kathleen, have two children and one grandchild.

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Raising Local Resources

Foreign Subsidy Under Scrutiny

by Christopher Little

[Note: this article ends a two-part series on the unfortunate consequences of foreign subsidy and offers suggestions for avoiding them.  The material is excerpted from the second chapter of the author’s book, Polemic Missiology in the 21st Century: In Memoriam of Roland Allen (Amazon Kindle, 2013).  For more information, including bibliographic data, please refer to the original monograph.]

Part II:

So why do individuals, churches, foundations, organizations, and governments persist in their seemingly altruistic labors not only to continue financially subsidizing others in the global village, but even to expand upon those subsidies? The answers are not too difficult to discern. The first reason is because of subpar exegesis. With regard to 2 Corinthians 8:14, Ronald Sims argues that Paul’s goal in the first century church was to achieve “economic egalitarianism,” and John Rowell contends, “the abundance of one member is intended to meet the need of another so that a measure of equality can be maintained among believers.” But the Greek word for “equality” (ἰσότης) can also be translated “fairness,” as seen in the ESV. Hence, Paul is referring not to the global redistribution of wealth to achieve economic equality within the church, but to the fact that it is only reasonable to request that the Corinthians contribute to his collection project since they had initially received the gospel from the Jerusalem church (cf. Rom. 15:27).

Secondly, there is the hangover of the Enlightenment paradigm in theories of human progress. One leading economist, Jeffrey Sachs, has clearly been affected by these social philosophies in his work to eradicate global poverty. But according to Robert Reese, Sacks fails to address the underlying flawed paradigm: “The powerful in worldly terms are still in charge of deciding what is best for the ‘weak’. The West is joined by westernized leaders of other nations to plan social improvement (or general mission strategy) for others. The same kinds of people who ruled during colonialism continue to rule by making decisions for the marginalized without accountability for their decisions. Just as in the colonial period, the methods advocated continue to create debilitating dependency.”

Third, there is the belief that the “one-size fits all approach” is the best way to operate. But Dambisa Moyo writes, “Although the idea of aid to Africa was born out of the success of the Marshall Plan in Europe, in practical terms, the two are completely different. Pointing to the Marshall Plan’s achievements as a blueprint for a similar outcome for Africa tomorrow is simply wrong” because: 1) European countries were not wholly dependent on aid in the first place; 2) the Marshall Plan had a limited time frame of five years; 3) Europe had an infrastructure prior to WWII, but Africa is still a developing continent; and 4) whereas the Marshall Plan was targeted toward this infrastructure, aid to Africa permeates virtually every aspect of the economy.

Fourth, maintaining the existing disposition toward international aid rather than confronting and changing it is extremely appealing. As Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkett point out, “one of the biggest problems in many poverty-alleviation efforts is that their design and implementation exacerbates the poverty of being of the economically rich—their god-complexes—and the poverty of being of the economically poor—their feelings of inferiority and shame. The way that we act toward the economically poor often communicates—albeit unintentionally—that we are superior and they are inferior.” Indeed, “we have been evaluating our charity by the rewards we receive through service, rather than the benefits received by the served. We have failed to adequately calculate the effects of our service on the lives of those reduced to objects of our pity and patronage.”

Last but not least, there is the little-known fact that the compassion industry is financially very profitable. One disturbing truth that appears in the literature on this subject, and which is never broached, is that those who promote on-going foreign subsidy are not unbiased or impartial, since they stand to gain monetarily from it. As a case in point, what happened in the wake of the earthquake in Haiti in 2010 provides an excellent picture of how NGOs operate in the context of disaster relief: “From the very beginning, the disaster in Haiti was looked upon as a business opportunity.” In addition, the “U.S. farm sector and the maritime industry are the biggest supporters of the current [aid] system. The program soaks up surplus farm production, and shippers get lucrative contracts to transport donated grain for sale in needy regions.” The conclusion is unmistakable—the aid industry generates economic activity and prosperity for the West, while the rest reel with its repercussions.

If the status quo is intolerable, what can be done to change it? People in the business of distributing resources from the wealthy to the less-wealthy parts of the world must come to the conscious realization that more and more aid going overseas will not solve the problem. This is not a simple request, given the deeply entrenched views on the subject. For example, Mary Lederleitner asserts that “choosing to do nothing about those in need around the world does not seem to be an option for those who say they love God and are followers of Christ,” and John Rowell contends, “I believe ‘the right thing’ means . . . giving more, not less.” However, when one learns that “Africa won’t be ‘saved’ by aid, but by the ingenuity and determination of its own people,” and should be allowed to “stand on its own two feet,” that the India Missions Association is now advocating that “all mission organizations . . . become self-reliant with fund generations from their area,” and that the Lausanne Issue Group on Funding recommends the “core corrective to this issue of dependency that so often accompanies the giving-receiving transactions is the development of local funding for all ministries,” then it appears that the only Christ-like response would be to honor such requests.

Another step which must be taken is articulated by Jim Harries: “The syncretism of Northern Christianity is grossly evident from the South. Many mission activities, from Northern medicine to numerous projects, are hybrids with secular culture. . . . To resolve this situation, I suggest that . . . Northern Christians should either ‘desecularise’ themselves or acknowledge the secular beliefs that influence them. . . .  An open recognition of Northern Christianity’s syncretism with secularism could easily be followed by a renewal of Christianity.”

Furthermore, it is important to reiterate that “our template for Christian missions, as for any Christian practice, must remain the early church.” For much of the modern missionary era, the goal was to establish Three-Self churches: self-governing, self-supporting, and self-propagating. However, this formula has been criticized for being a “Western pragmatic and individualistic construct” and built upon the cultural value of “independence.” It is true that Henry Venn developed the formula during a severe financial crisis in the Church Missionary Society, but in contrast, the historical record shows that Rufus Anderson came to his convictions as a result of studying “Paul’s missionary methods.” Thus, “it must be affirmed that the general desire behind the three-self formula must be accepted and accentuated.” There is consensus with this viewpoint by non-Westerners as well. Yet some still maintain that “There is only one way to move, and that is toward interdependency in the global church.” However, the global church has been attempting to make interdependent partnerships workable for decades with little success. The reason for this is not difficult to surmise—it is practically impossible “to have a truly mutual relationship when the two parties possess unequal power.” Consequently, the better way forward is to realize that “the resources for God’s harvest are in the harvest field” since “every Christian is a maturing steward” who mobilizes “local resources.”

Finally, if those concerned about the poor really want to improve their quality of life, the poor should take “The Oath of Compassionate Service” by committing to: 1) never doing for the poor what they have the capacity to do for themselves; 2) limiting one-way giving to emergency situations; 3) striving to empower the poor through employment, lending, and investing, using grants sparingly to reinforce achievements; 4) subordinating self-interests to the needs of those being served; 5) listening closely to those in need of help; and 6) above all, doing no harm. To this list, one should add the need to develop exit strategies in order to avoid “perpetual hemorrhaging of foreign aid”; the importance of abiding by the “principle of geographical proximity” so that economies closest to the point of need can benefit the most; and the necessity for any recipient of aid to always be given the chance “to return the gift or some equivalent in order to remain his own respectable self. Otherwise, he will begin seeing himself as inferior to the giver; his personal sense of worth [will be] downgraded, and instead of being grateful, he will be bitter.”

Bibliographic information for this article can be found in the second chapter of Little’s book, Polemic Missiology in the 21st Century: In Memoriam of Roland Allen

About The Author

Christopher R. Little, PhD, who continues to advance God’s mission in Kenya, Europe, the Asian sub-continent, Mozambique, and Jordan, is Professor of Intercultural Studies at Columbia International University where he equips others for Christian mission. He is author of The Revelation of God Among the Unevangelized: An Evangelical Appraisal and Missiological Contribution to the Debate (William Carey Library, 2000), Mission in the Way of Paul: Biblical Mission for the Church in the Twenty-First Century (Peter Lang Publishing, 2005), and Polemic Missiology for the 21st Century: In Memoriam of Roland Allen (Amazon Kindle, 2013), as well as numerous articles on mission in various journals.  He can be reached at: clittle@ciu.edu

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Kingdom Kernels

4 Stages of a Movement

by Steve Smith, Neill Mims & Mark Steves

I stood in front of the American congregation and urged them to send short-term teams to my Asian people group. “On a two-week trip, you can win a household or two to faith and begin a church with them.” They were tracking with me until the word “church.” At that 400 sets of eyes glassed over.

I was stymied to figure out what had created doubt. When I saw some of them looking at the building overhead, I realized the problem. They thought I was asking them to plant a large-building church with the programs, equipment and full-time staff.

I rephrased my admonition. “How many of you have started a small group in your home?” Dozens of hands went up. “I would like to invite you to start similar groups in Asia. We will help those become churches that meet in homes.” Looks of relief spread around the room. Many nodded. This was something they could attempt.

What I encountered that day is a common stumbling block when we transport believers from a Phase 4 movement and insert them into a Phase 1 situation. Throughout history, most movements have gone through four phases or stages (and sometimes back again through grass-roots movements). Failure to understand these can create unreal expectations that are inappropriate for a given stage of a movement.

Years ago mission practitioners Don Dent and Nik Ripken[1] spoke of similar stages. Mark Stevens, a CPM trainer in Southeast Asia, has then summarized these as four phases of a movement. Neill Mims, another trainer in Southeast Asia, has crafted this into a simple drawing. The drawing I present here is a slight modification of the work these men have done.

This paradigm tool has proven so helpful that many CPM (church planting movement) trainers now draw a simple diagram on a poster depicting this at the beginning of a training. We leave this up on the wall throughout the training to avert misunderstandings. What follows is an oversimplification but simplifying it clarifies the progression and why tensions arise at times. This historical progression from the Unreached Phase to Institutional Phase can take years, decades or centuries.

This tool is not aimed at criticizing believers and churches in any of the phases. I am a product of a stage four movement. Rather the goal is to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each stage and what we must navigate when we move from one to the other.

Stage One – Unreached Phase

In the beginning of a new mission work, the people group is unreached. Few believers or churches exist. Outsiders enter the context and lead people to faith. Persons of peace are discovered and networks of relationships are opened up through those who accept Christ. It is not uncommon to find some who may multiply gospel acceptance 30 times, 60 times and 100 times in their circle of influence.

In this early stage of what might become a movement of God, usually all forms and methods are rather simple.  If they are not, then this mission work never becomes a movement.

- The number of Christians (represented by dots) is relatively small. The budding movement may be growing (represented by a line moving higher on the graph.) But most of the evangelism and church planting is being done by evangelists from outside the people group. Growth is still incremental.

- The few churches meet in informal places - homes, under trees or in other places already built (storefronts, offices, etc.). This is symbolized by a house.  Again, most churches are being started by outsiders.

- An important step that must be taken is development of the concept of the priesthood of every believer (represented by “P”s). In this stage, though outsiders are initiating the evangelism and church planting, this budding work can become a movement if they instill in believers a strong concept of the priesthood of the believer. They must help believers not only to go directly to God but also to live out the priestly service of evangelizing and ministering to others. If they do not catch this concept, then the missionary work can remain in the unreached phase indefinitely – outside missionary experts doing all of the evangelism, discipleship, church planting and leading.

- Leadership development of local believers is very informal, usually happening in the churches or local context, just in time, mainly in the form of mentoring.

All of the forms are so simple at this stage, that with the right empowering and vision, the early stages may be fanned into a Church Planting Movement.

Stage Two - Movement Phase

At this stage, multiplication of disciples and churches is occurring primarily because indigenous believers are captivated by the vision to reach their own people group and beyond. The number of believers begins to increase dramatically because the concept of the priesthood of every believer takes off (the line begins to rise more rapidly). As the Spirit empowers them through simple forms and methods, new communities are reached with the gospel.

Churches continue to meet in informal places such as homes and multiplication is the norm for most churches as they live with these simple forms. Leadership development usually occurs in the context of churches. Locally connected leadership networks develop where leaders with more responsibility gain additional training in context.

Indigenous believers do not wait for outsiders to initiate evangelism, baptism, discipleship, church planting or leadership of churches. The movement grows because of their confidence that they are commissioned and empowered to do the work of ministry. Most believers and leaders do not see a great “clergy/laity” divide.

A movement can remain in this stage for years or decades.

Stage Three – Formalizing (or Established) Phase

As the movement progresses, the number of believers continues to increase rapidly. A desire develops to standardize or formalize certain aspects of the movement (e.g. church formation, leadership development, etc.).  Leadership development existed in the earlier phases but it was done intentionally in context – essentially theological education by extension.

As the movement formalizes, some churches begin to meet in purpose-built structures while some continue to meet in homes. Brick and mortar (or bamboo and tin) buildings emerge. (This is represented by a building with a cross on top.) Some of these brick and mortar churches become much larger than the average church meeting in a home.

Leadership development becomes more formalized as well. Dedicated institutions (represented by a colonnaded structure) begin to emerge to train more leaders and to do it in a more systematic manner. Certificates and credentials begin to emerge in the process. Some very gifted leaders begin to stand out amidst the leaders (represented by stars on the drawing). They are highly gifted evangelists, preachers, teachers and administrators. Lay pastoral leadership becomes less common and a professional leadership becomes more common.

The result is that normal disciples can be intimidated from doing the work of the ministry. They do not have the abilities or specialized training/credentials of the professional leaders. Therefore, the concept of the priesthood of the believer (in terms of “every member a minister”) wanes. A smaller percentage of disciples continues in ministering to others. No one intends for this to occur, and many pastors will do their best in stages three and four to build up their church members as ministers and leaders, but the “clergy/laity” divide becomes more profound.

Stage Four – Institutional Phase

As the movement becomes more formalized, it inevitably moves to an institutional phase. Overall the movement may grow for a while due to the sheer number of churches and believers bearing witness. However, it is not uncommon for the movement to plateau, unable to keep pace with the birth rate.

At this stage, multitudes of believers exist. Churches are very common and accepted in society. The majority of churches meet in purpose-built structures and the requirements for what constitutes a church become more rigid. For a church to meet in a home is seen as odd and “not real church.” Some churches become larger and some mega-churches emerge, though in many denominations, the vast majority of churches still average under a hundred in attendance.

Extremely gifted leaders emerge (represented by even larger stars on the diagram). Virtually all leadership development is now done in institutions – seminaries or Bible schools -  and credentials are expected. A majority of leaders serve in full or part-time capacities. Lay leadership is less common, or at least less visible. The upshot is that the concept of priesthood of the believer wanes drastically. Believers bring their lost friends to church rather then lead them to faith themselves. Professional leaders do the work of ministry and find it difficult to motivate the average person in the pew to serve in lay ministry.

Institutions by the church become common (seminaries, publishing houses, hospitals, mission organizations, etc.) and often effect great impact through the manpower and budgets they wield.

Stage Four Workers in Stage One

This whole process can take years, decades or centuries to develop. The early church does not appear to have entered this final stage until the Fourth Century A.D. Most movements progress through these stages. The difficulty comes when we lack this historical perspective and try to make sense of movements at earlier stages.

What happens when a missionary leaves a stage four church and tries to do evangelism and church planting in stage one? Inadvertently he tries to plant stage four disciples and churches because that is all he knows. One missionary in Sub-Saharan Africa expressed revelation upon seeing this diagram. He realized that when his organization pioneered work in his tribal people group, they attempted to start stage four churches from the beginning (complete with brick and mortar). He discovered that on average it took 22 years to plant a stage four church in stage one.

As Neill Mims was teaching a group of Korean missionaries, this question sparked an intense counseling session. Though a result of a mighty movement, Korean church culture is now extremely institutional. This chart gave these missionaries some understanding as to why their home churches and pastors expected them to start large churches or other institutions very quickly or be considered failures.

Leadership development also becomes a challenge. Local partners that I mobilized to reach an unreached people group in Asia needed one year of training-doing-retraining-doing-retraining before they understood basic reproducible patterns for evangelism, discipleship and church planting. After one year they finally were following a stage one and two pattern.

But when it came time to choose leaders, they naturally reverted to seeing through stage four eyes. They could not find any believers from the harvest to appoint as pastors. The reason was not the lack of biblical qualifications. The problem was that they were envisioning leaders from back home (stage four) – extremely gifted, exceptional teachers, highly mature spiritual life, administrative abilities, etc. It was not until they grasped the basics of Scripture and abandoned stage four expectations that they could develop local leaders appropriately at stage one. These indigenous leaders would continue to grow and mature as they were trained in the years to come.

Stage Two Workers in Stage Four

What happens with believers from stage one or two who visit leaders and churches in stage four? A not-uncommon consequence is death of the movement phase and immediately entering the formalizing and institutional phase.

Leaders from an emerging CPM left their mountain homes and descended into the plains where stage four churches and institution had existed for decades. When the leaders saw the marvelous buildings, institutions and gifted leaders, they longed to have the same thing. They returned to their mountain churches and immediately instituted stage four requirements for what constituted a church and who could lead. This effectively killed the progress of their movement.

Stage Four Leaders Watching a Stage Two Movement

When our whole frame of reference is stage four, it is easy to criticize what we see in stage two. We can easily label the house churches as “not real churches.” Or, we can require that leaders meet certain credentialing requirements before they can perform the ordinances. Or, as we feel compassion for pastors that are bi-vocational, we may dedicate money to fund them full-time, thereby creating a benchmark that is no longer reproducible. In all, we can kill a movement when we implement extra-biblical requirements that are a yoke too heavy into these early stages.

It is easy to ridicule such movements because we have no frame of reference for them. Recently, as I spoke to 400 pastors, seminary professors and mission leaders about launching Church Planting Movements in the American context, I encountered many such questions. The idea of every believer being trained to make disciples and potentially start churches was a foreign concept.

I read them an account of the number of believers and churches multiplying almost ten-fold over the course of twenty years in the States. Many in the group began to ask where this movement was occurring. I shared that this occurred in the American frontier among Baptists from 1790-1810.

I read the following quote from Baptist historian Robert Baker:

Baptist ecclesiology and doctrine were particularly suited to the democratic atmosphere of the developing western frontier. The Baptist gospel was simple, minimizing complex theological formulations, and emphasizing a life-changing confrontation with Jesus Christ. Like Paul, most of the frontier Baptist preachers were tentmakers in the sense that they provided for their own livelihood. The distinction between “laity” and “clergy” existed only in the fact that the latter had fire in their bones to preach the gospel in response to a divine summons.

“The Baptist preachers lived and worked exactly as did their flocks; their dwellings were little cabins with dirt floor and, instead of bedspreads, skin-covered pole-bunks: they cleared the ground, split rails, planted corn, and raised hogs on equal terms with their parishioners.”

The fact that each Baptist church was completely independent appealed to frontier democracy and eliminated problems of ministerial appointment and ecclesiastical authority. It is no wonder, then, that the Baptists played a large part in the significant frontier movement and made great gains from their ministry among the people on the growing edge of American life.[2]

I announced to the group, “This is our heritage! This is the way we lived just 200 years ago. Let us embrace our heritage and ask God for a renewal movement.” Heads began to nod in the audience.

History is filled with this general story occurring over and over, nation by nation. It is also filled with stories of plateaued denominations in which fresh grass roots movements emerged by going back to principles of stage two.

The challenge is to keep a movement at the movement stage as long as possible and to not let the formalizing impede the progress of the kingdom. But when it does begin to slow down, going back to simple biblical processes and methods of earlier stages can spark a new movement.

Why not today? Why not in your context?

[1] An alias to protect his identity.

[2] Baker, Robert A .1974. The Southern Baptist Convention and its people: 1607-1972.Nashville: Broadman Press. p. 87

About The Author

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Further Reflections

Core Issues and Interesting Characters

by greg.parsons@frontierventures.org

As outlined in several of the articles in this special issue, the Fuller School of World Mission was an amazing place 50 years ago. Space will not allow me to mention all the “core issues” or “characters” that were a part of the SWM back then. Other works detail that, such as Chuck Kraft’s book, SWM/SIS at Forty (WCL 2005).

Just before the school opened, Fuller promoted its new “Graduate School of World Mission,” which would:

1. Prepare men to fulfill the Great Commission in the midst of change peculiar to our age.

2. Provide a theology of missions for all seminary students looking toward a pastorate.

3. Bring Christian nationals to the school as students and teachers to provide opportunities for mutual exchange.

4. Develop a team of research specialists to study and provide a center of thought and information regarding World Mission.[1]

Donald A. McGavran and Alan Tippett moved to the School of World Mission together from the Institute of Church Growth in Oregon. Tippett’s strong background in anthropology added a crucial dimension and  scholarship to McGavran’s passion for church growth.

As the SWM developed, the students themselves contributed much of the content of the learning. They were almost all field-experienced missionaries and were appropriately called “associates.” Faculty and associates would meet regularly just to discuss ideas, often totally unconnected to any particular assignment.

When asked by professors at other institutions how many students the SWM had, Ralph D. Winter, half joking, would reply, “four to five,” pause for a shocked reaction, and add, “but we have 100 teachers” (referring to the “associates.”) He would say he was not sure what the students learned, but he and the other faculty learned a great deal about the world where the associates had served as missionaries.

As other faculty were added, they would often meet evenings with the students, and two or three students would tell the story of the works with which they had been involved on the field. They would draw graphs and critique what they were doing. When students first arrived, McGavran would interview them for an hour or more, asking questions to learn about their part of the world. He wanted to learn and grow in his awareness of the world, not just his own fields of interest or experience.

Two “hot” issues of that day were Church Growth and the Homogeneous Unit Principle (HUP). As all the faculty would do to support each other, Ralph Winter wrote a chapter in McGavran’s book Crucial Issues in Missions Tomorrow. (Moody Press, 1972) challenging those who suggested the church growth movement was only, or mainly, interested in numbers. He wrote:

Those who emphasize “church growth” are sometimes accused of being more interested in quantities of church members than in their quality. This is despite the fact that the very phrase church growth implies an additional dimension of emphasis beyond conversion, since it focuses not on how many raise their hands at an evangelistic service but on the incorporation of the new believer into church life. Other religions may consist of individuals worshiping at shrines, but the essence of Christianity goes beyond individual experience. Thus, the very concept of church growth is an attempt to emphasize the quality of corporate life beyond the quantity of individual decisions. (175-176)

There were—and are—also those who disagree with the HUP, which was foundational to the church growth model. In the extreme, some felt that the HUP was racist—though that has been shown to be invalid. The misunderstanding or misinterpretation of HUP’s core idea often grows from those who desire an integrated church fellowship sooner than new believers may be ready for it. In his “breakout” book, The Bridges of God (World Dominion Press, 1955), McGavran hinted at the idea of spreading Christ to those groups that were on the fringe of an existing church, not merely spreading the message through more effective evangelism (however helpful and necessary that is). Embedded in the title The Bridges of God was the idea that a person who was from another culture, who expressed interest in the gospel and the things of God, was a bridge of God back to that people. Thus, HUP was a method for evangelistic growth, not a long-term approach for structuring a church.[2]

When he first arrived, one of Ralph Winter’s passions was Theological Education by Extension. At its core, TEE was seeking to get training out to recognized leaders in the church, rather than bringing them to distant locations away from the people they serve. Winter believed that the church in America was suffering and would continue to suffer if it could not deal with the issue of how leaders are trained for ministry here and internationally. He would often trace the history of the church in different places in the world, noting the problems created in churches when real local leaders were replaced with foreign, seminary-trained and ordained pastors, who were either not leaders in gifts or who were not recognized as such. This, he believed, was the major failure of the Student Volunteer Movement.

While models of TEE have shifted over the year, the emphasis has grown as modeled in the distance education methods used by many schools, especially for degree completion programs.[3] TEE was and still is very successful, even with the problems of distribution and quality inherent in the 1960s. There are still TEE programs in operation. India has the largest, called The Association for Theological Education by Extension TAFTEE. The seventh edition of the global prayer book, Operation World noted that in Africa, “TEE programmes, modular training and training-in-service are all key for training both lay leadership and the many overworked and bivocational pastors. Several hundred TEE programmes now operate in Africa, accounting for over 100,000 students. Despite past obstacles, TEE is establishing itself as an effective alternative for theological training.” (Biblica 2010, p 37)

But Winter was more known at the SWM for teaching church history—though he never called it that. Because the associates (students) were generally mature missionaries and mission leaders, he engaged them in a number of subjects, which he saw as connected, even if the students did not. He shared his broad perspective on the “historical development of the Christian movement”—his early course title.

Here are some student reflections on what it was like to be in Winter’s classroom.

In the fall of 1966, Paul McKaughan was just off from his first four years in Brazil. Winter was not yet on full-time faculty.

No one really knew who Winter was at that point, except that he was involved with TEE in Guatemala, and that program was truly ground-breaking. Many of the older students were frustrated with Winter’s course because it was mostly the “Winterian” stream of consciousness that we all came to appreciate. There was a textbook, but we didn’t really follow it. Contrary to many of my more mature student colleagues, I was totally enthralled, because amid the rambling in each class was at least one scintillating original idea or insight that I had never heard anyone express before those classes.[4]

Like other students who were studying at Fuller’s School of Theology, Bob Blincoe was required to take one course in the SWM. Having been a history major at the University of Oregon, he decided to take a history class, and chose Winter’s January 1976 course on the Expansion of Christianity:

In his first lecture he picked up the chalk and drew the cross of Christ in the middle of the blackboard. He said, “Let’s not start the history of Christianity in 32 A.D.” He walked to the farthest left hand corner of the blackboard, which stretched across the entire wall behind him, and he said, “Let’s start with Abraham.” And he wrote the year 2000 B.C. on the blackboard. “What is this!” I thought. Then Dr. Winter made the connection between Abraham and Jesus Christ’s Great Commission, and then he connected all the history of the Bible and all of the Psalms into one unity of the Bible, “I will bless you and you will be a blessing to all the families of the earth.” I had never heard of the Bible as a single story, and never heard anyone suggest a unity based on the Great Commission that began with God’s call to Abraham, “blessed to be a blessing.” Then Dr. Winter said, “This course is about what God did with the Bible in history.”

One off-hand comment he made was that “no one’s education is complete until they have spent two years living in another culture.” Oh, no! I thought: I’ve been in school already for 18 years, and now I have to admit that I know nothing about other cultures. The result of this was that I and  my bride, Jan…spent two years in Thailand.

He was first of all a teacher, the best I ever had, and endlessly patient with his students.[5]

After serving in Thailand, Bob was a pastor in rural California. Then, Winter recruited Bob to serve at the U.S. Center for World Mission (now Frontier Ventures). Bob did so, on his way to serve in Iraq. He continues to serve in top leadership of a mission agency.

Of course, Winter is best known for the plenary presentation he gave at Lausanne in 1974. It was given just two years before Ralph and Roberta, his wife, left the SWM and started the U.S. Center for World Mission. The needs of the unreached peoples (cultures) of the world drew them to start a community that would focus on the places needing breakthroughs at the edges of the Kingdom.

Photo: Dr. Ralph Winter in Guatamala

This article is slightly modified from the text that can be found in the book, Ralph D. Winter, Early Life and Core Missiology by Greg H. Parsons. WCIU Press, 2012.

[1] The Bulletin of Fuller Theological Seminary, Spring 1965, 1, 3.

[2] For more on the current HUP debate and other issues related to Winter, see Parsons, Greg. “Will the Earth Hear His Voice? Is Ralph D. Winter’s Idea Still Valid?” International Journal of Frontier Missiology 32, no. 1 (Spring 2015): 5-18.

[3]  In 2008, Ross Kinsler worked with Winter in Guatemala on TEE, and published the book Diversified Theological Education: Equipping All God’s People that included articles from experts in this kind of training in different parts of the world. (Kinsler 2008)

[4] Email from Paul McKaughan to the author, Sept. 6, 2010.

[5] Email from Bob Blincoe to the author on August 31, 2010, 1-2.

About The Author

Garrett

Greg has been on the staff of Frontier Ventures (formerly USCWM) since 1982. He and his wife, Kathleen, have two children and one grandchild.

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