13 Organic Multiplication of Churches

Studying this lesson will help you:

• Describe what is meant by “church-planting movements.”
• Describe living, organic churches in terms of the reality of the presence of the living Jesus being served by His people.
• Explain how fruitful churches multiply by planting other new churches.
• Explain how churches can be fruitful by bringing substantial transformation in their local cultures.
• Distinguish between New Testament commands, apostolic practices, and human customs. Describe the value of this distinction for church planting.
• Explain why evangelizing whole families helps church-planting movements multiply rapidly.
• Explain why dependency on outside funds often frustrates rather than helps church movements to reproduce and influence their society.

We have seen the biblical mandate for reaching every people. We’ve examined the historical record to see the story of how the gospel moved through huge geographic areas and ethnolinguistic basins. Most of us have not seen the kind of multiplying church movements that sweep through large areas or peoples. Of course, we’ve all seen churches, but perhaps few of us have experienced the kind of church movement that is crucially needed among unreached peoples.

Not just any church will do. We’ve borrowed words from botany to describe the kind of churches that are needed among unreached peoples: viable, indigenous churches. Viable refers to the capability of living things to survive and reproduce. Viable churches thrive and multiply. Indigenous describes living things that are native to or have originated from a particular environment. The term “indigenous church” refers to a church that arises from the soil of its own society. It is native to the culture, abidingly relevant and powerful, influencing entire communities with the life of the kingdom of God. We’ll discover some surprising features of truly indigenous churches.

Following the botanical imagery further, what kind of fruit should we expect churches to bring forth in their societies? Many of us have not experienced churches bearing fruit in the transformation of their cities or societies. Since most of us haven’t seen churches multiplying and blessing their communities with heaven-on-earth signs of the kingdom, it’s easy to overlook the strategic value of planting and renewing such life-giving church movements.

Get ready to be surprised by what churches can be. In this lesson we will encounter living, organic, fruit-bearing churches that understand themselves to be an embodiment of the risen Lord Himself. These kinds of churches usually flourish as dynamic, multiplying movements. We’ll explore and contrast different kinds of movements.

Just knowing that churches can bring forth the power and beauty of Christ will give us confidence that He will not fail to fulfill His promise to bless all the peoples of the earth and to fill the earth with Christ’s glory.

We’ve defined the task of world evangelization as primarily a task of seeing that viable, indigenous churches are planted among every people group. Have we overstated the importance of churches in fulfilling God’s mission? Many Christians, because of their disappointing experiences with churches, would probably say yes. This is why it’s important for us to become acquainted with the reality and hope of these flourishing churches.

I. Church Planting Movements

David Garrison opens his report with a verse from Habakkuk that says God promises to do amazing things that will seem unbelievable. Then he tells how the leaders heard reports of churches exploding with such incredible numbers and spiritual vitality that they found it impossible to believe. After verifying many of the reports by visiting the movements, they gradually came to describe the phenomena of rapid but sustained multiplication of churches as “church-planting movements” (CPM).

Reports of these movements have continued. We have included a few abbreviated reports. Try to envision each of them as you read.

A. A Descriptive Definition. After studying scores of these movements, mission leaders have found four common features:

1. Rapid Multiplication. Church-planting movements do not simply add new churches. They multiply. Because the leadership is local, and meetings are often in homes, the gospel surges through relationships.

2. Indigenous. These churches emerge within their cultural setting, the majority of them not started by outsiders. If foreigners are involved, it is in the earliest moments, and they stay in the background. The movements have a homegrown feel to those who are following Christ.

3. Churches Planting Churches. This may seem to be a restatement of the first feature of multiplication. But Garrison is identifying something distinctive by saying that churches can reach a critical moment when there is a surge of exponential multiplication. It is something like a “tipping point,” like dominoes falling or a dam finally breaking. Many reproducing churches do not become movements. In a true church-planting movement, the momentum of reproducing churches outstrips the ability of any of the planters to control it.

4. Within People Groups. Most movements see the most extensive multiplication flowing along family and ethnic connections where there is shared language and group affinity.

B. God’s Work and Our Role. In every church-planting movement people sense that God is working in powerful ways. This sense of awe can be misleading because it could appear that Christians do little or nothing to stop or start the movements. But the truth is God has given Christians vital roles to play in serving these movements. This is why Garrison challenges us to be “students of the ways God is at work in these movements” (p. 442).

II. What Is Church?

Neil Cole dared to ask, “What is church?” He found that it was a dan-gerous question. While sorting out features and institutional descrip-tions of church, he realized that he was defining church according to his experience. This is to be expected, but what if his experience of church was something culture-bound or limited by traditions?

Cole’s question led him to form a broad but simple definition of church:

The presence of Jesus among His people called out as a spiritual family to pursue His mission on this planet. (p. 438)

By the “presence” of Jesus, Cole doesn’t mean a vague esoteric notion of a spiritual but invisible nearness. He means the living, risen Jesus Christ, operative and powerful in the midst of those who are committed to follow and serve Him together.

A. Organic Church. The core reality of the church is Jesus Christ being followed, loved, and obeyed. The church is not essentially an organization, although churches always have some kind of institutional and cultural shape.

B. Christ First. When Christ is first, our mission and His kingdom make sense. The primacy of the person of Jesus helps us derive our mission from Jesus Himself, not merely copy His example. We follow Him in loving obedience as He leads. By focusing on Jesus as King, it’s easy to see that the kingdom of God is a reality whenever Jesus is served and obeyed as King. The kingdom of God is not a campaign to get people active in political agendas or community projects.

C. Bearing Fruit! If our Lord intends churches to be living, organic realities, then it becomes easy to see that He intends for them to bear fruit. The seed of the gospel of the kingdom brings forth people whose lives are changed to serve Jesus Christ together. Cole says churches bear fruit in two ways:

1. Organic Churches Reproduce. The fruit of an apple tree is not really apples, but more apple trees. As the seed of the gospel grows, another generation of fruit-bearing disciples can appear. This means that it is normal for churches to reproduce.

2. Organic Churches Cultivate Fruit in Their Culture. Our mission is to develop Christ followers, not merely gather more church members. The difference should be seen “in transformed lives that bring change to neighborhoods and nations.” Cole goes on to say, “Churches don’t always bear the fruit that they should without being challenged, so it’s important to ‘cultivate’ them by equipping them to see Christ’s life flourish in their society” (p. 439).

III. Planting Churches That Multiply

George Patterson tells the story of how he learned to train local leaders to plant churches that would multiply. His work was in Central America. He titled his article “The Spontaneous Multiplication of Churches.” By using the word “spontaneous,” Patterson referencing Roland Allen, a British missionary to China, who in 1927 published an influential book titled “The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church.” By using the word “spontaneous,” Patterson was showing respect for Roland Allen. The “spontaneous reproduction of churches means that the Holy Spirit moves a church to reproduce daughter churches” without outside workers dominating the work.

Patterson began his work in Honduras, attempting to give seminary-level education in an institutional format to new believers. He soon found that classroom teaching was not possible for the esteemed family men who could begin pastoring with the respect of their people. He brought theological training in nonformal ways to many.

Patterson learned that there are four principles that, if enacted, can help people multiply disciples, maturing to become movements of churches planting new churches. He explains the four principles in practical ways.

A. Know and Love the People You Disciple. God gives workers a vision for particular places or people groups. Knowing the people means knowing their hearts. Learn the ways and hopes of the people. Only then will the new churches that are planted be of the culture and multiply.

B. Encourage Disciples to Build Up Other Disciples. The most successful church planters avoid public preaching of the gospel. They work from the earliest stage to train and coach local leaders to communicate the gospel, primarily by way of family ties in small home settings rather than formal preaching venues. New churches are formed in the simplest of ways so that the people can see the church being born from the essence of their community.

C. Teach Obedience to Christ. Probably the most important idea of multiplying churches is to promote the core reality of church: People obeying Jesus’s commands in love. Do this above and before all else.

1. Begin with Loving Obedience to Jesus’s Basic Commands. Whenever obedience becomes secondary, problems arise: Institutional ideas begin to dominate; nominal Christians come to be tolerated; foreign traditions can be misunderstood as essential; and of course, the churches stop multiplying. Patterson uses a simple list of seven commands of Christ. Orientation to obedience is not legalism at all since there is never a sense of meritorious righteousness earned by performance. Instead, a loving relationship with Jesus is encouraged that offers Him what the Bible calls the “obedience of faith” (Rom 1:5).

2. Design Evangelism and Theological Training in Terms of Obedience. Don’t seek “decisions” for Christ; instead, seek to bring about repentance and obedient faith throughout entire families. The emphasis needs to be on the lordship of Christ. Offers of going to heaven as a free gift are less likely to bring about this kind of relationship. Important doctrines need to be taught, but in connection with a point of obedience or with a problem that needs a solution in the church. Patterson suggests having a “training menu” of many important topics. When problems emerge, that particular item can be selected from the menu.

3. Orient Teaching to Loving Obedience. Probably the most important idea of multiplying churches is to promote the core reality of church: People obeying Jesus together in love. Do this above and before all else. Teach every leader to help their people make distinctions between:

• New Testament Commands. These are primary, carrying the authority of heaven. They are at the heart of obeying Christ.
• Apostolic Practices. These are not commanded. They may have value, but they are not expected to be part of every believer’s practice.
• Human Customs. These are practices not mentioned in the New Testament. They are often Christian traditions developed in Western countries and are foreign to the people. They may be valuable, but they are not necessarily looked to as an authoritative source for life and church practice. Distinguishing human customs from Christ’s commands rescues young, maturing churches from most problems with legalism and syncretism.

D. Help Churches Build Up and Multiply Other Churches

1. A Vision for “Great-Granddaughter” Churches. Help churches reproduce by giving them a vision that they are intended to be a “grandmother” church. Encourage them to pray and plan for “great-granddaughter” churches. A “hub” strategy will not yield multiplication of churches.

2. Train Believers to Evangelize. Show believers how to evangelize neighbors and relatives. As they follow the natural connections of family and social ties, new churches will spring up in different locations.

3. Train Church Leaders and Pastors to Train Other Pastors and Leaders. Simple patterns of training are the most reproducible. If training in the “grandmother” church is kept simple, it will be reproducible for many generations to come.

4. Keep Missionaries and Outside Funds Out of the Way. Beware of the missionary’s greatest error: controlling national churches. Instead, keep missionaries out of the way. Insist that missionaries and others who are planting new churches seek to swiftly commend new churches to the Holy Spirit’s power and care. Beware of stifling churches by providing outside funds. Mobilize local resources. Help the new believers to learn generosity and dependence on God. Outside funding almost always freezes church multiplication.

IV. An Example of a Movement

One of those who learned directly from Patterson is Brian Hogan. We’ve already started reading his story in lessons 10 and 11. Finish reading Hogan’s story of the Mongolian movement. Try to identify how Hogan’s team practiced what they learned from Patterson. Take note of how they combined meetings in homes with occasional larger gatherings as opposed to the attempts of others who struggled to conduct conventional Sunday services in what was thought to be appropriate facilities.

Best of all, consider the wisdom in the timing and mode of their departure from Mongolia. The presence of foreign missionaries after a certain point in the process began to suffocate the movement instead of serving it. Why does Hogan call this part of his story, “The End of the Beginning”?

The diagram (p. 461) shows how part of the movement, which began among the Khalka Mongols, has spread to other Mongolian peoples and to other countries. Notice the reference to the multiplying increase of mother, daughter, and granddaughter churches.

V. Evangelizing Whole Families

One of the features of multiplying churches is that they generally aim to evangelize whole families. Wee Hian Chua presents a story of Chinese churches sending whole families to do evangelism. Their family-oriented approach was different from the approach of Western missionaries. Western workers failed to present themselves as respectable members of any family. Thus, they had no appropriate role or status in the eyes of people in Chinese villages. Westerners did not attempt to reach whole families but instead tried to win individuals to the faith. As a result, the Western missionaries were often considered to be “family breakers.”

In previous lessons we have examined some of the biblical references to families who were recipients of God’s blessing and salvation as families. Furthermore, there are many passages of Scripture that describe family units as the agents of mission and, in many ways, the core of what constitutes the church. Evangelizing whole families is appropriate in most cultures of the world.

VI. Following Scripture: Seeing Mega-Movements

R. Rekedal Smith tells her story of how she and her husband had made attempts to work in India. Their sending agency offered some training that examined what was in the Bible about discipling. Instead of the many common strategies of invitations to church buildings, children’s programs, medical work, or literacy efforts, they were trained to do what Jesus had given His followers to do. They were surprised to find that God began to do great things among and through their Indian friends.

After a little more than a decade of working alongside many local leaders, they have come to see three hundred thousand house churches spread throughout half the country. Baptized Christ followers number more than three million. The church-planting movements are flourishing in household gatherings and among familial caste groups. Because the gospel is being spread through friendships and working relationships, it is flourishing even though in many places there is great opposition and persecution.

VII. Bringing Forth the Blessing: Beyond Dependency

Glenn Schwartz gives some vivid examples of why unwise funding can hurt more than it helps. We need to be wise and balanced with long-range generational hope. He highlights the value of helping churches find God’s provision in local resources instead of making them dependent on outside help. In many ways, what Schwartz describes is the opposite side of the dynamic movements that we have been exploring.

Many churches in the wealthy West unwisely splash surplus resources in misguided ways that may feel as if “compassion” is being expressed. But such funding often causes a dynamic of dependency in which multiplication is shut down. Instead of bearing fruit, dependent churches merely manage mild growth or survival. The alternative is to always seek churches that will reproduce using local resources.

Conclusion of Certificate Readings for this lesson.

After studying this section you should be able to:

• Recognize the similarities of people movements and church-planting movements.
• Describe what makes a church truly indigenous.
• Explain why training leaders is essential to sustaining church-planting movements.
• Describe how the images of salt and light illustrate the mission of churches to their own people groups or cities.

VIII. Unvalued Pearls: The Value of People Movements In his classic work The Bridges of God, Donald A. McGavran surveys the growth of the Christian movement since Pentecost. He shows that throughout history most of the people who have followed Christ have done so as part of what he called “people movements.” The term “people movement” is used here to describe a wave of group decisions to follow Christ by people who share culture and kinship while retaining their identity and relationships within their people. These people movements, which McGavran often called “people movements to Christ” or “Christward movements,” can and should be recognized, nurtured, and sustained. One outstanding feature, which is almost always part of sustained people movements, is multiplying networks of simple and powerful churches. McGavran describes five advantages of people movements.

A. Enduring Churches. McGavran describes these churches as being “rooted in the soil of hundreds of thousands of villages.” They are independent of Western dominance and tested by local persecution. If anything could have made them collapse, they would have collapsed long ago.

B. Indigenous Churches. Earlier in his writing, McGavran distinguished the “mission station approach” churches from “people movement” churches. The mission station approach is the pattern of missionaries inviting converts to become part of highly Westernized congregations on mission stations. People movement churches, on the other hand, remain immersed in their own cultures.

C. Spontaneously Expanding Churches. McGavran refers to an important piece of mission strategy by Roland Allen called “The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church” (from which Patterson named his article). Allen declared that if new churches were fully equipped and released by missionaries to multiply themselves, they would indeed do so without any direct help from missionaries. Such an idea, written in a colonial era, was disturbing to many at that time, but it is nonetheless true. Even today, the tendency is to plant churches that are dependent on missionary care. Such churches rarely grow. In the midst of people movements, there are usually too many converts for missionaries to care for. Independent churches, however, have a chance to multiply without missionary interference.

D. Enormous Potential for Growth. People movement churches have great potential for ingathering within the people group. “The group movements are fringed with exterior growing points among their own peoples” (p. 234). There are windows of opportunity to be recognized, and on rare occasions, there are bridges reaching beyond their own people group to another people group. Looking for and using these bridges is the primary activity of what we call pioneer church planting (to be discussed in greater depth in lesson 14).

E. Displaying Christ’s Power. The churches are so lightly institutionalized and so devoid of foreign influence that what is outwardly manifested is a “change in inner character made possible by the power of God” (p. 234). The churches do not lean on outside funding or base their success on buildings. Instead, the people themselves are the spectacle. They become known as “people with churches who worship God” (p. 234).

IX. Truly Indigenous Churches

We continue to consider the kind of churches that will multiply. Everyone would agree with Charles H. Kraft that churches should be both “Christ-honoring and culture-affirming.” But what is a truly indigenous church? William A. Smalley challenges the early formula of what constitutes indigeneity in churches. The early formula, “self-governing, self-supporting, and self-propagating,” seems to be an easy diagnostic tool for deciding whether a church is indigenous, but that assumption deserves examination.

A. Three “Selfs” Reflect Institutional Features. Upon scrutiny, the three “selfs” each reflect an assumption that churches are essentially institutional realities. These aspects—government, funding, and expansion—are the very areas foreign influence can most easily dominate. We still want to see these features of independence. But churches can often be thoroughly independent of direct foreign control and yet alien to the local culture.

1. Misinterpretation of Self-Government. Western patterns of government are borrowed as if they were biblically mandated. Many churches are structured with slavish imitation of Western governmental ideas, such as voting for leaders or organizing subcommittees.

2. Misapplication of Self-Support. The indigenous church in Jerusalem accepted outside funding. What matters most is not the source of the income but how the funds are handled.

3. Misunderstanding of Self-Propagation. At times, it is precisely the foreignness of a church that is the reason why it grows. Just because a church appears to be increasing without outside help does not mean that it is indigenous.

B. The Nature of an Indigenous Church. An indigenous church is “a group of believers who live out their life, including their socialized Christian activity, in the patterns of the local society, and for whom any transformation of that society comes out of their felt needs under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the Scriptures” (p. 358, emphasis added). Smalley points out that churches are social entities and, as such, borrow patterns of life and thinking from their society. He notes that the Holy Spirit brings changes in keeping with the culture.

C. Missionaries Often Do Not Like Them. Indigenous churches are usually sufficiently distant from the missionaries’ culture that they often offend or bother foreign missionaries. Missionaries have been the primary force thwarting the emergence of contextualized churches.

D. Missionaries Can Serve Them. The missionary task is to communicate the truth of Jesus Christ and help people follow Him in culturally appropriate ways that are faithful to the Scriptures as guided by the Holy Spirit. Technically, missionaries cannot “found” a truly indigenous church—it must be planted and emerge with a life of its own. Once again, we see the illustration of the gospel as a seed sprouting in the soil of society. Because missionaries do not often enable local movements in this way, most indigenous churches get their start apart from missionaries. This does not have to remain true. It’s time for missionaries to expect and desire that the church will have different cultural manifestations in different settings.

E. The Fourth Self: Self-Theologizing. Paul G. Hiebert describes another aspect of indigenous churches: They usually interpret Scripture for themselves. In addition to being self-governing, self-supporting, and self-propagating, they also soon find ways to understand and develop theology. Local churches develop theologies as part of a larger, global community of believers.

X. The Church Influencing Culture: Optimistic Realism Churches are intended by God to bear fruit in two ways: by reproducing themselves and by bringing forth life-giving changes in the world. But in the opinion or experience of many, churches seldom bring transforming changes to their societies.

A. Pessimism and Defeatism. Some have disapproved of cultural engagement in the world. Others subscribe to a defeatism that says there is no point in trying to bring change.

B. Realistic Optimism. History provides many examples in which churches have been a force for “purging, claiming and beautifying [its culture] for Christ” (p. 368). But the church’s cultural and social responsibility is better based on Scripture.

The Willowbank Report commends a “sober Christian realism” framed upon the truths of God’s kingdom. We have known the present reality of Christ’s life-giving power since He first came, and yet we also find ourselves in an ongoing struggle against evil until He comes again. Although Jesus Christ now reigns, “He has not yet destroyed the forces of evil; they still rampage” (p. 368). Thus, in every culture, Christians find themselves in “conflict and often suffering.” Complete victory will come at the end of the age.

XI. Salt and Light

Tim Keller worked for years encouraging urban churches to influence the culture and society of New York City.

A. The Kingdom Both Rich and Sharp. Keller describes a polarity of ideas about the kingdom to be avoided:

• The gospel can be reduced to an individualistic message that helps people get to heaven—a “get out of jail free” card with no transformation.
• On the other hand, another idea of the kingdom has become popular, in which Jesus’s death doesn’t so much assuage God’s wrath for sin as it absorbs the world’s evil and violence. Jesus’s life is exemplary, showing the way of nonviolence and service. Jesus now, according to this version of the kingdom, calls us to work for peace and justice in the world. Basically, the gospel is reduced to a call to “repent of living for yourself and join Jesus’s kingdom program” (p. 421). Keller says that this can amount to just one more legalism.

According to Keller, both are extremes to avoid. We need to see that the gospel is sharp; that is, it deals with atonement for sin and justification by grace. But the gospel is also rich; that is, it equips us to pursue justice and cultural renewal.

B. Light. Jesus tells the disciples that they are to be a “city on a hill.” Keller takes this to mean that by Christ’s power, the church will somehow become an alternate city within the cities of earth. This does not mean the church is to be a separated enclave. Instead, it is to seek the good of the cities and cultures that it inhabits.

C. Salt. The church is to be a preserving force. This reveals that Christ has not designed the church to take over by Christianizing society as a whole. There is a more modest expectation of rich cultural presence, preserving as salt and illumining as light.

D. Word and Deed. Churches working to understand their mission in their community and culture should, of course, heed not only the biblical call to evangelize but also the call to do justice and care for the poor. Some fear that mercy and justice ministry could displace vigorous evangelism. Keller suggests that moving beyond such a dichotomy is helped by being sensitive to this distinction: A gathered, corporate, “institutional” church is different from a scattered, “organic” church consisting of Christians serving in their work settings and in other dimensions of social influence.

According to this view, the institutional church exists primarily to evangelize and disciple people. But the organic church, consisting of scattered Christians, is more broadly “called to resist and to seek to heal all the results of sin in the world—spiritual, psychological, social and physical” (p. 422). This means that discipleship should not be, as one author put it, an “after-hours” Christianity that fails to encourage believers to integrate their faith and work to bring renewal and reform to every part of society.

E. Urban. Keller says that it is critical for churches to influence cities in order to bring substantial change to cultures.

F. Movements. A church on its own is inadequate to bring about significant change. A gospel movement is required to reach an urban cultural center. Keller continues the biological imagery that we noted at the beginning of this lesson. He likens the necessary interconnected network of multiplying churches and ministries to an ecosystem. “The core of this ecosystem is a multiplying body of new churches.” Churches, however institutional or organic they may be, are not enough. Many interrelated ministries must be the expressions of Christ’s kingdom in every area of life.

1. New Churches Reach More. Keller offers several reasons why new churches, particularly those of the dynamic sort we have been describing, have the ability to reach the incredible diversity of peoples and subgroups in our urban world. Keller claims that planting new churches is the single most important strategy for reaching a city.

2. New Churches Sustain and Revive. What about existing churches? New churches and ministries are the best way to inspire and renew them. New churches bring grassroots support for the necessary array of ministries.