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Strategies for Church Growth
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Paul Jang
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2008-03-23 13:07:38, hit : 4,385 |
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Strategies for Church Growth
Until now, the principles of church growth in the divine and human aspects have been discussed in the light of the Scriptures. As a matter of fact, the principles and the phases of the growth of church are inseparably related to each other like those of the living creature.
Strategies for church growth have brought together many principles of evangelism (mission) and church revival (ministry) which have proved, through recent research and experience, to be practically effective in implementing the Great Commission (Wagner 1987, 15). Through these research and experience good strategies for church growth could have been developed. But the problem is that the human strategies are apt to take advantage of church growth more than the work of the Holy Spirit. Is church growth strategy really incompatible with the work of the Holy Spirit? Even though the principle of harmony between them is very simple, it is very hard for man to harmonize them because he has internal incompatible dispositions, namely the sinful nature and the derire of the Spirit (Gal. 5:17). "For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out" cried Paul the Apostle (Rom. 7:18).
How do we cope with these factors? The answer is also found in the same Scripture. The solution for the problem is not according to human desire but the desire of Spirit (Rom. 8:5). In a word, the priority of Spirit has to be taken.
Nevertheless, human strategy should not be disregarded entirely without reservation. Human strategy is the second avenue to be taken. Of course, as J. Herbert Kane said, "The proponents of church growth, with few exception, have emphasized the human factors and all but overlooked the divine factors," the human factors must not be prior to the divine factors (Kane 1981, 212). Human strategy must absolutely depend upon the work of the Holy Spirit. Only when it depends upon the work of Hpoly Spirit, can it be successful in the growth of the church. For this matter, Jesus Christ says that no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him (John 6:44).
But God's strategy includes the use of the human strategy as the instrumentation for church growth. "God's strategy for winning the world includes the use of disciples (instrumentation: the writer's comment) for multiplying ministry" said Kent R. Hunter (Hunter 1983, 70). God is willing to use the human instrumentality.
Biblical Foundation for the Strategy
As mentioned above, the human and divine aspects of the strategy for church growth harmonize very nicely together in the Bible in spite of their incompatible disposition. In 1 Corinthians 3:6, Paul says, "I planted, Apollos watered, but God made it grow."
Furthermore, Paul changed his strategy for mission to Bithynia as he had planned, and went to Macedonia according to the vision received through the Spirit of Jesus (Acts 16:6-10).
Peter the Apostle gave up his strategy that he must not go to the Gentiles, but went to Cornelius, a centurion in what was known as the Italian Regiment (a Gentile) for preaching the gospel of God according to the word of the Holy Spirit after seeing a vision from heaven (Acts 10:9-48). In this sense, the strategy for church growth has to be a very nice work made by a unique synergy--a coalescence of human effort and divine empowerment. Of course, God the Holy Spirit must have the absolute initiative for church growth strategy.
There are many types of the strategy for church growth in the Bible. First of all, looking into the Scriptures, there are many kinds of structure for evangelism strategy such as: (1) the man to man strategy, namely face to face strategy (John 3:1-15; 4:7-30), (2) the two or three strategy (Luke 24:13-35; Mark 9:2-8; John 11:1-44), (3) the twelve strategy (Matt.6:12-16), (4) the seventy two strategy (Luke 10:1), (5) the one hundred twenty strategy (Acts 1:15), (6) the five hundred strategy (1 Cor. 15:6), and (7) the masses strategy (Matt. 14:13-21; Acts 2:41).
Eddie Gibbs introduced three group-structures for the strategy distinguished between three types of gorup which differ in size and function by sociologists: (1) the primary group with twelve members, (2) the secondary group with the members from thirteen to a maximum of 175, (3) the tertiary group with up to 175 members (Gibbs 1981, 276).
The primary group (12 members or less) is the intimate
face to face unit, which provides the possibility of developing in-depth, personal relationships. The secondary group (from thirteen to a maximum of 175) stresses social activity rather than personal interaction. The third group (175 plus with no upper limit) is tertiary group which provides the opportunity for community, celebratory event (Gibbs 1981, 276-277).
Another approach to the types of strategy used in the the New Testament is suggested by Watchman Nee when he describes such strategies as: (1) the net-throwing or net-drawing style of Peter (Hawkins 1993, 9; Matt. 4:18-19; Act.2:40), (2) the net-patching style of John and James, and (3) the tent-making style of Paul (Cho, Yong W. 1985b, 14). This is a very interesting finding. The net-drawing style means a strategy for church growth like an evangelism, the net-patching style like a pastoral care, and the tent-making style like a disciple-making ministry.
Of these types, the writer has been interested in the tent-making strategy because in a symbolic sense, it must be related to the disciple making strategy just as Jesus had made His disciples at first twelve disciples, even though it also means a self-supporting ministry. This is, the writer thinks, a basic strategy for church growth. Jesus had at first trained only twelve for His evangelism strategy to spread the kingdom of God.
In setting some biblical and theological foundations for strategy, several components have to be considered even though it has not been systematized in the Bible. They are (1) a person or people to be chosen, (2) motivation through a vision, (3) mobilization by setting the goal, and (4) the strategy as the means to accomplish a predetermined goal for church growth (Wagner 1987, 25-26).
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Introduction
Ch Growth 