How Churches Grow-The Other Wing of the Airplane 3

With this post, I begin another series.  This time, I am specifically writing to pastors–particularly in North America (So, if you know a few of ’em, get ’em to subscribe to this blog feed.)

Pastors, the challenge from the series, if you choose to accept it:  Lead your church to be involved in church planting by sending out missionary teams to do evangelism that results in new churches.

Today, I am going old school, Missiology 101 — “How Churches Grow.”  Yes, as you have heard from me before, foundational matters matter.  We need a quick missiology lesson to kick off this series.

Since the 1970’s when the Church Growth Movement began to impact North American churches, the emphasis was placed on growth that would continue to enlarge one’s own congregation.   Therefore, we came to understand that healthy church growth was primarily numerical growth and that growth was to be limited to the number of people we could place in our building.

Donald McGavran, the father of the movement, advocated that the “paramount task, opportunity and imperative in missions is to multiply churches in the increasing numbers of receptive peoples of the earth” (Understanding Church Growth, 1970, pgs. 62-63).   Yes, I know it is surprising, but this “paramount task” (I’ll call it a “wing”) of one of the most significant movements in the 20th century, that radically shaped the missiology of most North American evangelical churches today, somehow got chopped off.

Missiologists understand that there are four types of growth. The first type is expansion growth. A congregation experiences this type whenever they lead people to Christ (conversion growth), see believers transfer their church membership from one congregation to their congregation (transfer growth), and whenever children are born to members of the church (biological growth).

The second type of growth is internal growth. This type of growth comes from overall spiritual growth (maturity) among a church’s members. Another variation of internal growth is related to expanding the campus and/or facilities of the church.

Building an educational space or adding on to a parking lot is a type of internal growth.

It is usually these two types of growth (expansion and internal) that most North American churches consider when they hear the words “church growth.”

Now, I like to refer to these two types of church growth as one wing of the airplane.  And as we all know, it takes two wings to fly.  The aerodynamic truths that God built into His universe require two wings for an airplane to function properly.

The problem we face in North America today is that we have been attempting to fly an airplane with one wing. We absolutely must have expansion and internal growth in our churches!  But that is only 50% of the story.

And now the rest of the story…

The remaining two types of church growth are directly related to church planting.  These represent the other wing of the airplane.   The first type is extension growth. This growth is church planting that occurs among a similar culture as that of the mother church. For example, a younger, middle class, African-American congregation experiences extension growth when they decide to plant a church among other young, middle class, African-Americans.

The second type is bridging growth. This growth is church planting that occurs among a slightly or even radically different culture as that of the mother church. A middle-class Anglo congregation participates in bridging growth when they plant a church among migrant Hispanics or lower income, first-generation Asians.

These latter two types of growth are just as legitimate as expansion and internal growth.  Yet, many churches and denominations do not reward or recognize those who practice them.  For example, consider the following statements from church planters from different locations and denominations.

A church planter from Kansas shared with me:

“The biggest obstacle to new work many times is the existing pastors in the area. Everyone wants to grow a big church and feels threatened by new works that might take prospects or members. We as a denomination lift up, write up, and light up the big church pastor to the point that many of our best wouldn’t consider starting a new work. And existing pastors keep striving to get to the top for the limelight.”

An Evangelical Free church planter echoed similar thoughts.  He wrote to me, “I believe many church leaders are living in the ‘bigger is better’ syndrome. This affects the willingness of a church sending off. . . people to be a great starting core of a successful church plant.”

While I recognize that these statements simply represent two comments from two individuals, I believe it is fair to admit that they reflect much truth about our present atmosphere for church planting.

A great missional need in North America today is for healthy extension and bridging growth.  The irony is that that wing of the airplane is the most neglected.  So much so, we have exited the hanger, taxied down the runway, throttled up, released the brakes, and are trying to take off, not noticing that we simply left one of our wings back in the hanger!

Churches plant churches.  We see this in the Scriptures.  Until church leaders are convinced that a great need of the hour is both healthy extension and bridging growth, churches will always have a limited Kingdom vision and impact.

Stay tuned.