scholarly journals Inspirational Sources for Church Development

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Inge Jenssen
Keyword(s):  
Church Growth ◽  
Causal Modeling ◽  
Strong Impact ◽  
Church Development ◽  
Subsequent Work ◽  
Theoretical Reasoning ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
To Come ◽  
Church Growth Movement ◽  
Growth Movement

The purpose of this article is to identify and discuss key issues in church growth movement and the litera- ture following in its wake, which represents vital sources for the emerging discipline in practical theology of church development. The church growth movement has had a strong impact on churches around the globe. Factors such as scriptural authority, evangelism, cultural openness and relevance, pastoral leader- ship, organization, planning, vision and goals are among issues and factors discussed in the literature. Among the shortcomings of church growth thinking is an all-too-simple theoretical reasoning, a lack of causal modeling and theological issues only superficially discussed. Oftentimes, the growth is assumed to come simply by addressing a few factors. Nevertheless, several of the issues and factors that are identified and discussed have influenced subsequent work on church development.

scholarly journals Kerkgroei: 'n Kritiese evaluering van die kernaspekte van die Church Growth Movement

1988 ◽  
Vol 22 (87) ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Buys
Keyword(s):  
Church Growth ◽  
Church Growth Movement ◽  
World Mission ◽  
Growth Movement ◽  
The U.S

Daar is nie ’n sendingwetenskaplike rigting in die wêreld wat groter en invloedryker is as die “Church Growth Movement” nie. Die U.S. Center for World Mission, onder leiding van Ralph Winter, wat in 1976 uit die “Church Growth Movement” ontstaan het, en wat die beskouings van die “Church Growth Movement” die sterkste wêreldwyd propageer, is ingerig op ’n voormalige universiteitskampus in Pasadena. Kalifornie. Dit beslaan ’n grondgebied van 35 akkers, en is die grootste instelling in die wêreld wat hom beywer vir sendingwetenskaplike navorsing en ondersteuning van sendingprojekte. Kantoorruimte, klaskamers, rekenaarfasiliteite, ’n biblioteek, slaapsale en ander bates is reeds meer as 25 miljoen dollar werd. Sendelinge van sewentig verskillende denominasies en genootskappe werk reeds daar saam in navorsingsprojekte en gevorderde opleiding en mobilisering van sendelinge. Die oorheersende doel is om teen die jaar 2000 die sendingtaak van die kerk voltooi te sien in dié opsig dat daar Christelike kerke onder al die 17 000 onbereikte volksgroepe van die wereld tot stand gekom het, (Vgl The U.S. Center for World Mission. 198?).

scholarly journals DIFFERENCE AND THE ESTABLISHMENT: AN ASIAN CANADIAN SENIOR PASTOR’S EVANGELICAL SPATIALITY AT TENTH AVENUE ALLIANCE CHURCH IN VANCOUVER, BC

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 24
Author(s):  
Justin K. H Tse
Keyword(s):  
Church Growth ◽  
Sociology Of Religion ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Senior Pastor ◽  
Complex Spaces ◽  
Christian And Missionary Alliance ◽  
Church Growth Movement ◽  
Growth Movement ◽  
The Church

This paper explores how the evangelical spatiality of an Asian Canadian senior pastor at a historically Anglo-Saxon congregation has transformed it from an ethnically homogeneous, aging church to a heterogeneously-constituted gathering in an evangelical Protestant tradition. This piece challenges the conventional wisdom of the church growth movement and the new religious economics in the sociology of religion, both of which advise religious groups to construct homogeneity and consensus in efforts for numerical growth over against secularizing forces. The paper argues instead that Pastor Ken Shigematsu’s evangelical spatiality from the mid-1990s to the present must be understood as a theological embrace of difference in a church gifted to him by God over which he prayerfully pastors along with his staff. This paper understands Shigematsu’s evangelical spatiality through his own New Testament exegesis, his denominational affiliation with the Christian and Missionary Alliance, his ancient spiritual practices of indiscriminate hospitality, and his mystical reception of Tenth as a welcoming space toward a multiplicity of ethnic, class, and religious backgrounds. This article contributes to Asian Canadian Christian studies by discouraging a future where pan-Asian churches in Canada are homogeneously constructed and by exploring the concrete possibility of non-strategies in which heterogeneous, complex spaces that include Asian Canadians are received by pastors and studied by academics as a divine gift.

White Evangelicals as a “People”: The Church Growth Movement from India to the United States

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 108-146
Author(s):  
Jesse Curtis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Church Growth ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
American Culture ◽  
The United States ◽  
White Evangelicals ◽  
Church Growth Movement ◽  
Growth Movement ◽  
The Church

ABSTRACTThis article begins with a simple question: How did white evangelicals respond to the civil rights movement? Traditional answers are overwhelmingly political. As the story goes, white evangelicals became Republicans. In contrast, this article finds racial meaning in the places white evangelicals, themselves, insisted were most important: their churches. The task of evangelization did not stop for a racial revolution. What white evangelicals did with race as they tried to grow their churches is the subject of this article. Using the archives of the leading evangelical church growth theorists, this article traces the emergence and transformation of the Church Growth Movement (CGM). It shows how evangelistic strategies created in caste-conscious India in the 1930s came to be deployed in American metropolitan areas decades later. After first resisting efforts to bring these missionary approaches to the United States, CGM founder Donald McGavran embraced their use in the wake of the civil rights movement. During the 1970s, the CGM defined white Americans as “a people” akin to castes or tribes in the Global South. Drawing on the revival of white ethnic identities in American culture, church growth leaders imagined whiteness as pluralism rather than hierarchy. Embracing a culture of consumption, they sought to sell an appealing brand of evangelicalism to the white American middle class. The CGM story illuminates the transnational movement of people and ideas in evangelicalism, the often-creative tension between evangelical practices and American culture, and the ways in which racism inflected white evangelicals’ most basic theological commitments.

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