OK, I admit that I'm getting a little lazy in combining all of these points, but it really does make some sense to combine them - and it's a lot faster! The three points here are really all about one central idea - the centrality and sufficiency of the local church.
The three points 1)churches planting churches, 2)rapid multiplication, and 3)healthy churches all lead to the one idea that a small house church is self-sufficient, and therefore can multiply itself without outside help. The small group of believers meeting in a home have everything they need to multiply as they reach out, and they have a vision to do it.
This whole idea of churches being central to planting new churches is what allows both rapid multiplication, and church health.
Rapid multiplication is possible because they are not dependent on raising outside resources (including a formally trained pastor) to plant a church. They don't have to check with another organization or draft a new church constitution. It might be as simple as this - a rural church reaches out to another village, shares their testimony, and some people respond with belief. The church then teaches them to 'do church' in the same manner that they were taught. That new church finds their leaders from within as the existing church teaches and watches. Then walla, you have two churches where there use to be one. And it may have happened in as little as a month. This is rapid multiplication.
Regarding church health, there are a couple points to ponder. First, I believe that just as individual believers begin to find themselves as they focus outward rather than inward (losing one's life in order to find it), so does the church. A church that is focused on spreading the Gospel with a vision of seeing new churches started will likely be more healthy than a church focusing on expanding their own kingdom (size, influence, resources,etc.).
The second point that often comes up is the idea of heresy. Isn't it dangerous to have young churches starting young churches without educated pastors? My answer is yes, just as it was dangerous in the New Testament. Have you read about those messes lately! :) We must realize (as David Watson says) that all churches start out heretical! And this is OK. Think about it. Who starts out with all the answers? We've got churches that have been around a 100 years and can't agree on certain issues (meaning one of them is wrong!), what makes us think that a new church should be perfect?! Churches grow with the Spirit of God, and we must believe that the Spirit is sufficient. If it is not, then we are all in trouble!
If all of this intrigues you and you want to know more, check out David Watson at www.cpmtr.org. He is a man who has lived all of this and seen millions changed.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
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I believe in the centrality and sufficiency of the local church. Like Bill Hybels, I believe the local church is the hope of the world. However, I travel the world and see the results of missionaries who emphasized rapid church growth, mass conversion and immediate baptism. I can tell you the result isn't pretty. There are people who claim to be Christian's who still participate in anemistic practices. I've sat in congregations of young churches around the world where the pastor taught heresy or had nothing more than milk to offer the congregation. Such pastors have even led their congregations to sin by encouraging them to steal from employers, bring the money to the church, the pastor will bless it and the church member will then be given a blessing for their gift to the church. This is not made up, it is very real and I encounter it often all over the world. I've known church members who call themselves Christians and attend churches like this who don't see anything wrong with participating in traditional religious practices like secret societies who sacrifice children. My conclusion, God sets up a very clear model in the Bible. Discipleship and shepherding are necessary. We are made for relationship and we grow more quickly in our faith when we are mentored by a person who has gone before. Jesus invested in a few, who went out and invested in others. My definition of success is not the number of conversions someone has as notches on their belt. Spiritual maturity certainly isn't reached when someone is baptised. The number of churches is irrelevant to me if they aren't really impacting their community. I'm interested in life change. I'm interested in altering someone's world view. I'm interested in making a difference for the kingdom. I think the CMP's emphasis on numbers is detrimental to the ultimate goal, which is reaching the lost for Christ in a meaningful way. I am a big advocate for sharing Christ's love through relationship (evangelism), investing in young believers to bring them to spiritual maturity (shepherding or discipleship), and then sending them out to do the same. To me, that is the model Jesus set. It is a model of spiritual multiplication. There are elements of it in the CPM model, but there is too much emphasis on numbers, frequency and duration for my liking and I can't completely by in to it because I've seen the results and don't think they are all that impressive, though they do tend to look good on paper.
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