I'm really thankful you guys are doing this series. I was a trainer for No Place Left for 2+ years in Toronto and experienced firsthand the serious problems with the multiplying movements approach. I have so many stories I could share with you guys. I read Revival and Revivalism about 2 years ago and it blew my mind as I began to see the connections between the revivalism of guys like Finney and some of the practices of MM. I've been alarmed about these practices for a couple of years and I'm so glad to find others talking about it, because it has essentially taken over the IMB and many NAMB plants, as well. Thanks guys! Can't wait for the next episode.
Many nice thoughts. I've been doing church planting for more than 20 years among Adibasis in India. Yes, its still going on and we've passed 2000 baptisms by now.Not following any other"s system other than what we felt led to by God. what I did from the beginning was start a church and train a group of others who each started their own church and then make their own disciples. Most of our conversions comes from healing and deliveranse. Some conversions are through "good works" like helping the sick taking them to hospitals etc.
I actually attended & was very briefly involved with the church you guys spoke of where Chris Galanos was the pastor, E Life, right at the transition time of this whole DMM implementation. It was a bizarre time. The pragmatic practice of strategizing a "move of the Spirit" was deeply troubling. Thanks for tackling this topic!
I’ve been involved with three different Church plants. None of which still exist today. All three had major issues with pastoral leadership, all three were started with good intentions, but all three went down really wrong roads. Planting a church here in the US, is assuming that the local churches that are already there, are not already reaching into the community. They perpetuate consumerism and transfer growth, while claiming true growth. They might not start out that way, but they often end up that way.
Sean/Russell: I’m late commenting on this but so glad to see a new series. Between the strategic methodology of the church planting movement and the “BE, KNOW, DO” reference, I couldn’t help but wonder if there is a military (particularly Army) influence within these missionary circles. THAT said, it reminds me of a previous request of mine to you guys to address disciple-making organizations like the Navigators and also the role and function of military chapels...not chaplains, but chapels (ie: since it is impossible to enforce church discipline within a military chapel community and tithes often go to generic “Soldier ministry” unrelated to evangelism, etc). A lot of retired personnel even treat chapels like their home church. Two separate topics but they are connected practically because both exist on literally every military installation. How should current or former Christian service members view these ministries/ institutions? Y’all said you may try to work these topics into a future Q&A at one point but it seems like both are germane to your current series. I highly recommend Andrew Stroud as a potential guest on both the Navigator topic and military chapels because he has years of experience in both and now, would be able to share his experience, and is now more aligned with where you guys are at: www.linkedin.com/in/jandrewstroud I can contact him if you want. Please reply back to this -I really feel like a lot of service members would benefit from y’all’s analysis. V/R Eric Tysinger Sua Sponte/RLTW
Thanks for the correction Roy, and we appreciate that you watched it. If you would like to discuss what it might look like for us to interact on this topic, send us a private message on Facebook!
Red Flags: 1. Movements start, are sustained, centered, and catalyzed by the local church. As a trainer, how could you not answer that simple question, "How is the local church involved?" Bro...you started with methods and not missional, biblical, and ekklesial principles. 2. "I was waste deep in it" and "drank the koolaid" in 1 year!!! Bro, 1 year is NO experience at all. My personal journey of Movements and simple church started as a new believer in the ghettos in L.A. over 20 years ago. 3. Mega churches who want to multiply are based on "misunderstandings". How is the church you describe in Texas doing something "wrong" by trying to decentralize and reach more people and start more churches? 4. The "motivation argument" of missionaries and church planters is dumb and demeaning. Don't assume others peoples motivation and intentions unless you have walked with them and or co-labored with them. Pauls' criticism of the new Testament churches happened because he either saw it 1st hand or heard 1st hand from a 2nd party. 5. No one (besides Western-packaged Church marketing paradigms) actually believes that movements can be reversed engineered...it has always been a work of the Holy Spirit...and it looks different each time as biblical principles are practiced and applied. You are only using the Western/White/American definition and argument that right formulas and equations equals right results. The true pioneers of Movements are not white people/outsiders but national and indigenous laborers/insiders who have deep relationships with outsiders and who have sacrifice their lives and families for the Gospel in hard places outside the USA. 6. The emphasis on speed is another straw man argument. Again, from the Western lens of American Capitalism, we see speed. But from the lens of Latin America, Africa, South Asia and East and Southeast Asia, there is a sense of urgency to share with friends and family. There is a deep culture of community where the Gospel naturally flows. This results in exponential growth which often takes YEARS, of Discipleship transformation (in similar way to Jesus spending years with his disicples). 7. Bro...many Movements practitioners (like myself) have multiple degrees and doctorates in missiology, church, and leadership, so prescriptive versus descriptive interpretations of scripture is a weak argument. No practictioner is saying passages like Matthew 10 and Luke 10 should be taken literally...but biblical principles apply no matter where you are or what time period your living in. 8. Whaaat???? Where did you get this no need for "cultural forms" idea? The "extreme example of the insider movement" is the extreme example of the insider movement. Are you saying "Pagan superstitions" don't exist in many US churches on Sunday morning??? 9. Whaaat??? Bro you are generalizing your arguments. "No Sunday gatherings, preaching from pulpit, or appointed elders" I don't know of any practitioners who actually believes that. You are pulling arguments from extreme examples, that's not a solid or well informed argument - that's lazy generalization and stereotyping. 10. The essence of the church you describe is great. Well done, many agree with you. This is the same essence of the hundreds and thousands of churches I have seen in movements. But apparently you have an expert/better opinion on the millions of churches around the world and throughout history that have been catalyzed by movements. 11. I can say the same about your ministry and motivation, that it is "junk" (37:00). But I don't believe in trashing the Bride. I admit that many practitioners, out of zeal, have spoken proudly and offensively against the Western church and it's flaws. But that's not what I do personally. If anything I would like to understand your personal stories, upbringing, faith journeys, and learn from your leadership, disicpleship, and church planting experiences. That is much more valuable than a TH-cam podcast. Final Notes: I live and serve in a country where Christians often get arrested and some killed for their faith. I'm not a white dude. I'm Asian American and my parents are refugees from a Southeast Asian country. I grew up Buddhist and involved in gangs and have been involved in the movement discussion (and seen) movements for over 22 years. By God's grace I believe this gives me a unique (but not expert) perspective into movements around the world and in the USA. Because the advancement of God's glory is worth everything, I would love to be part of our growing experience through real discourse and actual practice where possible. You can reach me at Twitter: @AsianRoughRider Or asianroughrider.com/
Hey Anthony, this is Russell. Thanks for your comment. I’ll respond to each of your points in the same order, and I do hope that you will continue to watch this series as we continue to work on it. 1. When I was trained in 4 Fields, I was encouraged to avoid working with local churches in areas of lost people. This is consistent with what many MM leaders teach. David Garrison argues that ““Conventional wisdom holds that one should always work through the local church to reach a neighboring people group...In too many instances the local church is a major stumbling block that is preventing the unreached from coming to Christ.” Similarly, Neil Cole argues that “Church is not meant to be the agent of change, Jesus is” and Alan Hirsch writes “We often hear that the church has a mission, but it is more correct to say that the mission has a church.” These statements communicate a fundamental misunderstanding of what the local church is: The divinely ordained means for spreading the gospel and the source of ongoing Christian life. Is it possible to find movement practitioners who value the local church and encourage partnerships with existing congregations in the mission field? Certainly. We made it clear that MM’s exist on a spectrum, but many teach the opposite. 2. This isn’t a surprising response. We expected some reflexive dismissal of our arguments on the basis that we don’t have the experience or credibility to weigh in. This is a version of the logical fallacy known as “appealing to authority.” Your personal experience might be great, and ours small, but our arguments should be measured against scripture, not our resumes. 3. Without giving you a full review of Galanos’s book, it’s because he misdiagnosed the spiritual problems with his church. He blames formal preaching, teaching, and Sunday gatherings (what he calls “traditional” practices) for the nominalism and lack of discipleship in his congregation. In reality, his church was full of nominalism because his philosophy of ministry up to finding DMM was seeker-sensitive. His church gatherings were based around entertainment and performance. Rather than rejecting the pragmatic church-growth philosophy of McGavran and Hybels, and returning to the faithful, ordinary ministry of the Word, he embraces the pragmatic DMM strategy. 4. We made an intentional effort to assume good motives on the part of the missionaries using these methods. In fact, we say repeatedly in this episode that many are well-intended but misguided. I’m wondering if you listened to the entire show? However, it would be foolish to overlook the temptation for missionaries to inflate numbers and report success where little has happened. Notice we didn’t accuse any particular person of doing this. 5. This is simply not true. There are many MM practitioners who acknowledge that movements are a work of God, and cannot be “created” by man, but there are just as many who emphatically teach that following the right methods will invariably produce fruit. We quoted them in the episode. In fact, I was just talking to a brother this morning who watched a well-known CPM author and teacher instruct a room full of indigenous Nepali christians that if they followed the Four-Fields method exactly, God would, without question, bless them with a rapidly multiplying movement. 6. Here, again, you seem to be confusing your own personal views of MM’s with the standard teaching published by mainstream CPM/DMM teachers. Speed is not only emphasized, it is the core virtue of these movements. In fact, “rapid multiplication” is one of David Garrison’s defining characteristics of CPM’s. Urgency in missions is certainly biblical, but the emphasis on rapidly baptizing new professors, quickly putting them to work in planting their own churches, and quickly leaving those churches to sort themselves out is both unwise and unbiblical. John Massey’s article on this topic is helpful: www.baptisttheology.org/baptisttheology/assets/File/Massey_Wrinkling_Time_SWJT.pdf 7. We didn’t critique anyone for taking Matthew 10 and Luke 10 literally. We said that MM practitioners find prescriptive strategies in these texts where no prescription exists. This is clearest in the fact that they pick and choose, somewhat arbitrarily, what aspects of these gospel narratives to consider prescriptive and what parts to consider descriptive. We will make this abundantly clear in a future episode. 8. Not really sure what you’re asking here. If you think syncretism is a problem in US churches, we should agree not to use missions methods that encourage syncretism in the mission field, right? 9. Yes, we are generalizing, because MM’s exist on a spectrum. However, we are generalizing *from* authoritative sources. David Garrison boasts of a muslim-background CPM that meets on Friday mornings and sits under the teaching of a man the call “Imam.” Galanos blames the spiritual woes of the American church (as Moran does) on formal preaching and Sunday gatherings, and discourages both. David Watson actively discourages teaching doctrine to non-christians during discovery bible studies. Are there exceptions to this? Absolutely, but what is being taught by the leaders of these movements is right in line with the generalization we made. 10. Our understanding of the local church comes from the pages of scripture. This is one of the key problems with MM practitioners; they fail to see that the New Testament actually *prescribes* polity. Can the Lord use an unhealthy or poorly ordered church to save sinners? Yes, but we should seek to be faithful to how he has designed his church, not alter or ignore these prescriptions for the sake of rapidity. 11. Again, we didn’t assume anyone's motives here. You seem to have missed that part. We do think MM’s are junk, and Lord willing, we will spend the next few weeks exposing them as junk to our growing audience.
I'm really thankful you guys are doing this series. I was a trainer for No Place Left for 2+ years in Toronto and experienced firsthand the serious problems with the multiplying movements approach. I have so many stories I could share with you guys. I read Revival and Revivalism about 2 years ago and it blew my mind as I began to see the connections between the revivalism of guys like Finney and some of the practices of MM. I've been alarmed about these practices for a couple of years and I'm so glad to find others talking about it, because it has essentially taken over the IMB and many NAMB plants, as well. Thanks guys! Can't wait for the next episode.
Many nice thoughts. I've been doing church planting for more than 20 years among Adibasis in India. Yes, its still going on and we've passed 2000 baptisms by now.Not following any other"s system other than what we felt led to by God. what I did from the beginning was start a church and train a group of others who each started their own church and then make their own disciples. Most of our conversions comes from healing and deliveranse. Some conversions are through "good works" like helping the sick taking them to hospitals etc.
I actually attended & was very briefly involved with the church you guys spoke of where Chris Galanos was the pastor, E Life, right at the transition time of this whole DMM implementation. It was a bizarre time. The pragmatic practice of strategizing a "move of the Spirit" was deeply troubling. Thanks for tackling this topic!
Also, can’t help but notice the DMM is just a Christian version of multilevel marketing.
I’ve been involved with three different Church plants. None of which still exist today. All three had major issues with pastoral leadership, all three were started with good intentions, but all three went down really wrong roads. Planting a church here in the US, is assuming that the local churches that are already there, are not already reaching into the community. They perpetuate consumerism and transfer growth, while claiming true growth. They might not start out that way, but they often end up that way.
Sean/Russell:
I’m late commenting on this but so glad to see a new series.
Between the strategic methodology of the church planting movement and the “BE, KNOW, DO” reference, I couldn’t help but wonder if there is a military (particularly Army) influence within these missionary circles.
THAT said, it reminds me of a previous request of mine to you guys to address disciple-making organizations like the Navigators and also the role and function of military chapels...not chaplains, but chapels (ie: since it is impossible to enforce church discipline within a military chapel community and tithes often go to generic “Soldier ministry” unrelated to evangelism, etc). A lot of retired personnel even treat chapels like their home church. Two separate topics but they are connected practically because both exist on literally every military installation.
How should current or former Christian service members view these ministries/ institutions?
Y’all said you may try to work these topics into a future Q&A at one point but it seems like both are germane to your current series.
I highly recommend Andrew Stroud as a potential guest on both the Navigator topic and military chapels because he has years of experience in both and now, would be able to share his experience, and is now more aligned with where you guys are at: www.linkedin.com/in/jandrewstroud
I can contact him if you want. Please reply back to this -I really feel like a lot of service members would benefit from y’all’s analysis.
V/R
Eric Tysinger
Sua Sponte/RLTW
Just a slight addition, it is Roy not Ray. Probably only matters to my mother.
Thanks for the correction Roy, and we appreciate that you watched it. If you would like to discuss what it might look like for us to interact on this topic, send us a private message on Facebook!
Red Flags:
1. Movements start, are sustained, centered, and catalyzed by the local church. As a trainer, how could you not answer that simple question, "How is the local church involved?" Bro...you started with methods and not missional, biblical, and ekklesial principles.
2. "I was waste deep in it" and "drank the koolaid" in 1 year!!! Bro, 1 year is NO experience at all. My personal journey of Movements and simple church started as a new believer in the ghettos in L.A. over 20 years ago.
3. Mega churches who want to multiply are based on "misunderstandings". How is the church you describe in Texas doing something "wrong" by trying to decentralize and reach more people and start more churches?
4. The "motivation argument" of missionaries and church planters is dumb and demeaning. Don't assume others peoples motivation and intentions unless you have walked with them and or co-labored with them. Pauls' criticism of the new Testament churches happened because he either saw it 1st hand or heard 1st hand from a 2nd party.
5. No one (besides Western-packaged Church marketing paradigms) actually believes that movements can be reversed engineered...it has always been a work of the Holy Spirit...and it looks different each time as biblical principles are practiced and applied. You are only using the Western/White/American definition and argument that right formulas and equations equals right results. The true pioneers of Movements are not white people/outsiders but national and indigenous laborers/insiders who have deep relationships with outsiders and who have sacrifice their lives and families for the Gospel in hard places outside the USA.
6. The emphasis on speed is another straw man argument. Again, from the Western lens of American Capitalism, we see speed. But from the lens of Latin America, Africa, South Asia and East and Southeast Asia, there is a sense of urgency to share with friends and family. There is a deep culture of community where the Gospel naturally flows. This results in exponential growth which often takes YEARS, of Discipleship transformation (in similar way to Jesus spending years with his disicples).
7. Bro...many Movements practitioners (like myself) have multiple degrees and doctorates in missiology, church, and leadership, so prescriptive versus descriptive interpretations of scripture is a weak argument. No practictioner is saying passages like Matthew 10 and Luke 10 should be taken literally...but biblical principles apply no matter where you are or what time period your living in.
8. Whaaat???? Where did you get this no need for "cultural forms" idea? The "extreme example of the insider movement" is the extreme example of the insider movement. Are you saying "Pagan superstitions" don't exist in many US churches on Sunday morning???
9. Whaaat??? Bro you are generalizing your arguments. "No Sunday gatherings, preaching from pulpit, or appointed elders" I don't know of any practitioners who actually believes that. You are pulling arguments from extreme examples, that's not a solid or well informed argument - that's lazy generalization and stereotyping.
10. The essence of the church you describe is great. Well done, many agree with you. This is the same essence of the hundreds and thousands of churches I have seen in movements. But apparently you have an expert/better opinion on the millions of churches around the world and throughout history that have been catalyzed by movements.
11. I can say the same about your ministry and motivation, that it is "junk" (37:00). But I don't believe in trashing the Bride. I admit that many practitioners, out of zeal, have spoken proudly and offensively against the Western church and it's flaws. But that's not what I do personally. If anything I would like to understand your personal stories, upbringing, faith journeys, and learn from your leadership, disicpleship, and church planting experiences. That is much more valuable than a TH-cam podcast.
Final Notes:
I live and serve in a country where Christians often get arrested and some killed for their faith.
I'm not a white dude. I'm Asian American and my parents are refugees from a Southeast Asian country. I grew up Buddhist and involved in gangs and have been involved in the movement discussion (and seen) movements for over 22 years. By God's grace I believe this gives me a unique (but not expert) perspective into movements around the world and in the USA.
Because the advancement of God's glory is worth everything, I would love to be part of our growing experience through real discourse and actual practice where possible. You can reach me at Twitter:
@AsianRoughRider
Or
asianroughrider.com/
Hey Anthony, this is Russell. Thanks for your comment. I’ll respond to each of your points in the same order, and I do hope that you will continue to watch this series as we continue to work on it.
1. When I was trained in 4 Fields, I was encouraged to avoid working with local churches in areas of lost people. This is consistent with what many MM leaders teach. David Garrison argues that ““Conventional wisdom holds that one should always work through the local church to reach a neighboring people group...In too many instances the local church is a major stumbling block that is preventing the unreached from coming to Christ.” Similarly, Neil Cole argues that “Church is not meant to be the agent of change, Jesus is” and Alan Hirsch writes “We often hear that the church has a mission, but it is more correct to say that the mission has a church.” These statements communicate a fundamental misunderstanding of what the local church is: The divinely ordained means for spreading the gospel and the source of ongoing Christian life. Is it possible to find movement practitioners who value the local church and encourage partnerships with existing congregations in the mission field? Certainly. We made it clear that MM’s exist on a spectrum, but many teach the opposite.
2. This isn’t a surprising response. We expected some reflexive dismissal of our arguments on the basis that we don’t have the experience or credibility to weigh in. This is a version of the logical fallacy known as “appealing to authority.” Your personal experience might be great, and ours small, but our arguments should be measured against scripture, not our resumes.
3. Without giving you a full review of Galanos’s book, it’s because he misdiagnosed the spiritual problems with his church. He blames formal preaching, teaching, and Sunday gatherings (what he calls “traditional” practices) for the nominalism and lack of discipleship in his congregation. In reality, his church was full of nominalism because his philosophy of ministry up to finding DMM was seeker-sensitive. His church gatherings were based around entertainment and performance. Rather than rejecting the pragmatic church-growth philosophy of McGavran and Hybels, and returning to the faithful, ordinary ministry of the Word, he embraces the pragmatic DMM strategy.
4. We made an intentional effort to assume good motives on the part of the missionaries using these methods. In fact, we say repeatedly in this episode that many are well-intended but misguided. I’m wondering if you listened to the entire show? However, it would be foolish to overlook the temptation for missionaries to inflate numbers and report success where little has happened. Notice we didn’t accuse any particular person of doing this.
5. This is simply not true. There are many MM practitioners who acknowledge that movements are a work of God, and cannot be “created” by man, but there are just as many who emphatically teach that following the right methods will invariably produce fruit. We quoted them in the episode. In fact, I was just talking to a brother this morning who watched a well-known CPM author and teacher instruct a room full of indigenous Nepali christians that if they followed the Four-Fields method exactly, God would, without question, bless them with a rapidly multiplying movement.
6. Here, again, you seem to be confusing your own personal views of MM’s with the standard teaching published by mainstream CPM/DMM teachers. Speed is not only emphasized, it is the core virtue of these movements. In fact, “rapid multiplication” is one of David Garrison’s defining characteristics of CPM’s. Urgency in missions is certainly biblical, but the emphasis on rapidly baptizing new professors, quickly putting them to work in planting their own churches, and quickly leaving those churches to sort themselves out is both unwise and unbiblical. John Massey’s article on this topic is helpful: www.baptisttheology.org/baptisttheology/assets/File/Massey_Wrinkling_Time_SWJT.pdf
7. We didn’t critique anyone for taking Matthew 10 and Luke 10 literally. We said that MM practitioners find prescriptive strategies in these texts where no prescription exists. This is clearest in the fact that they pick and choose, somewhat arbitrarily, what aspects of these gospel narratives to consider prescriptive and what parts to consider descriptive. We will make this abundantly clear in a future episode.
8. Not really sure what you’re asking here. If you think syncretism is a problem in US churches, we should agree not to use missions methods that encourage syncretism in the mission field, right?
9. Yes, we are generalizing, because MM’s exist on a spectrum. However, we are generalizing *from* authoritative sources. David Garrison boasts of a muslim-background CPM that meets on Friday mornings and sits under the teaching of a man the call “Imam.” Galanos blames the spiritual woes of the American church (as Moran does) on formal preaching and Sunday gatherings, and discourages both. David Watson actively discourages teaching doctrine to non-christians during discovery bible studies. Are there exceptions to this? Absolutely, but what is being taught by the leaders of these movements is right in line with the generalization we made.
10. Our understanding of the local church comes from the pages of scripture. This is one of the key problems with MM practitioners; they fail to see that the New Testament actually *prescribes* polity. Can the Lord use an unhealthy or poorly ordered church to save sinners? Yes, but we should seek to be faithful to how he has designed his church, not alter or ignore these prescriptions for the sake of rapidity.
11. Again, we didn’t assume anyone's motives here. You seem to have missed that part. We do think MM’s are junk, and Lord willing, we will spend the next few weeks exposing them as junk to our growing audience.
"Reverse engineering" starting with Man...