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The Legacy of Donald A. Mcgavran The Legacy of Donald A. McGavran George G. Hunter III onald Anderson McGavran was bornin Damoh, India, 3. What are the factors that can make the Christian faith a D on December 15,1897, the second child of missionaries movement among some populations? John Grafton McGavran and Helen Anderson McGavran. He 4. What principles of church growth are reproducible? was raised in central India with two sisters, Joyce and Grace, and a brother, Edward. Joyce and Grace eventually pursued voca­ McGavranalso developed a field research method for study­ tions in the United States, while the brothers remained in India­ ing growing (and nongrowing) churches, employing historical Edward as a physician and public health pioneer, and Donald as analysis, observations, and interviews to collect data for analysis a third-generation missionary of the ChristianChurch (Disciples and case studies. From 1964 to 1980 McGavran published re­ of Christ). Donald McGavran received his higher education in search findings and advanced church growthideas in the Church the United States, attending ButlerUniversity (B.A.),Yale Divin­ Growth Bulletin and other publications. By the mid 1980s, the ity School (B.D.), the former College of Mission, Indianapolis (M.A.), and, following two terms in India, Columbia University (Ph.D.). McGavran asked, "When a McGavran invested his "firstcareer" in India as an educator, field executive, evangelist, church planter, and researcher. In the church is growing, why is it early 1930s, McGavran began to wonder why some churches growing?" reached people and grew while others declined. He pointedly asked, "When a church is growing, why is it growing?" Discov­ ering the answers to that question became his obsession. For North American Society for Church Growth and several other twenty years, he studied growing and nongrowing churches in regional societies were established, publishing several journals, India, Mexico, the Philippines, Thailand, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, including Global Church Growth. West Africa, North America, and other lands. It is not clear whether "church growth" will survive indefi­ The 1955publicationof TheBridges ofGod made McGavran's nitely as a term and movement, but it is clear that church growth name known in Christian mission, but his ideas did not greatly perspectives and methods will substantially inform mission influence mission policy, strategy, or practice until he emerged strategy across cultures and effective evangelism within cul­ from semiretirementin 1965for a secondcareeras founding dean tures.' McGavran's church growth school developed a distinc­ of FullerTheologicalSeminary'sSchool of World Mission. In that tive and enduring approach to evangelism and mission. Con­ role, his understanding deepened and widened through the sider the following distinctive themes and claims: research projects of his graduate students and through collabo­ ration withFullercolleagues such as Alan Tippett, Ralph Winter, 1. The perennial and indispensable workwithin total mission Peter Wagner, and Arthur Glasser. Understanding Church Growth is apostolic work, thatis, continuing the workof the earliest (in 1970, 1980, and 1990 editions) established McGavran as a apostles and their congregations in reaching lost people premier foreign mission strategist. In the 1970s, as he perceived and peoples. the validityof someof his insightsfor Europe andNorthAmerica, 2. The key objective in evangelism is not to "get decisions'! he collaborated withWin Arn, George Hunter, and others to help but to "make disciples." inform evangelism and church growth in the West. 3. The key objective in mission is to plant an indigenous Much of Donald McGavran's enduring contribution and evangelizing church among every people group. legacy can be described in three areas, perhaps in ascending 4. There is no one methodfor evangelizingor church planting order of importance. that will fit every population, but the church growth field research approach can help leaders discover the most The Church Growth Movement reproducible methods for reaching any population. 5. The pragmatic test is useful in appraising mission and The churchgrowthmovementrepresentsone legacyfrom Donald evangelism strategies and methods, so churches should McGavran. He identified four questions that were to preoccupy employ the approaches that are most effective in the given a generation of church growth scholars: population. 6. The Christian movement can be advanced by employing 1. What are the causes of church growth? the insights and research tools of the behavioral sciences, 2. What are the barriers to church growth? including the gathering and graphing of relevant statistical data for mission analysis, planning, control, and critique. 7. The church growth movement affirms a high doctrine of George G. Hunter III is Dean, and Beeson Professor of Evangelism and Church the church: the church is Christ's body, all people have the Growth, Asbury Theological Seminary School of World Missionand Evangelism. inalienable right to have the opportunity to follow Christ Previously he taught at the Perkins School of Theology of Southern Methodist through his body, and the living Christ has promised to University and served as the executive for evangelism for the United Methodist build his church. Church. He is the author of To Spread the Power: Church Growth in the 8. The supreme reason for engaging in evangelism and mis­ Wesleyan Spirit (Abingdon, 1987)andHowtoReachSecularPeoplet Abingdon, 1992). sion is summarized in Donald McGavran's most famous 158 INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH declaration: "It is God's will that his church grow, that his John Nevius, Roland Allen, and Kenneth Scott Latourette. Ac­ lost children be found." knowledging J. Wascom Pickett's pioneering church growth field research, McGavran was fond of saying, "I lit my candle at Distinctives such as these-particularly those related to Pickett's fire."? McGavran, however, partly rediscovered strate­ McGavran's field research methods for discovering the repro­ gic insights that shaped a number of historical Christian move­ ducible causes for the Christian faith's expansion-have shaped merits." Some ideas were developed collaboratively with Alan the church growth paradigm.' Tippett and Ralph Winter; Winter and Peter Wagner in turn developed some ideas beyond McGavran's own thinking." Christian Mission: A Subject of Serious Research Wagner, Vergil Gerber, and Win Arn popularized much of McGavran's thought," The ideas have been advanced, inter­ McGavran's second legacy (though he is notits onlysource) is the preted, and adapted to denominational traditions by Baptists restoration of Christian mission as a serious and viable subject of such as Ebbie C. Smith, Wendell Belew, Charles Chaney, Elmer study and research. When McGavran was young, mission was Towns, and John Vaughan; Methodists such as Lyle Schallerand taught in virtually every seminary curriculum, and there were George Hunter; Christian Church-Church of Christ leaders such schools of mission and prominent graduate programs. In the as Paul Benjamin, Herb Miller, and Flavil Yeakley; and by Kent 1950s, 1960s, and much of the 1970s, under the impact of theo­ Hunter (Lutheran), Eddie Gibbs (Anglican), and Bill Sullivan logical liberalism, religious tolerance, and other Enlightenment (Nazarene). Yet Donald McGavran is the seminal mind of the influences, schools of mission expired while, in seminaries, church growth tradition, and his distinctive mission paradigms retiring missions professors were not replaced and mission often challenged the status quo. dropped out of the curriculum. The School of World Mission at In TheBridges ofGod McGavran burst onto the missiological Fuller, which McGavran founded, has been very influential in stage by challenging two entrenched paradigms behind prevail­ reversing this trend. Fuller adopted the term "world mission'? to ing mission practices. First, McGavran observed that most mis­ connote the school's vision, adopted the Roman Catholic term sionaries see the world through Western culture's paradigm of "missiology" to refer to the field of study, developed a doctor of "individualism," which, by analogy, regards humanity as so missiology program, helped lead a movement within mission to many unconnected "atoms." Reflecting this paradigm, most shape a postcolonial agenda, and identified the several disci­ missions won a few converts one by one and assumed that plines needed to inform that agenda. Fuller attracted a student body of nationals and missionaries from every continent, fos­ tered a new era of missiological research through several degree III lit my candle at Pickett's programs, and facilitated the placement of graduates in field leadership roles, mission agencies, and colleges and seminaries. fire." The success of the Fuller experiment has stimulated similar degree-granting schools or centers, at Biola University, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Asbury Theological Seminary, conversion against the wishes of one's kin was more faithful than Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and other institu­ conversion with kin support. Individual conversion was much tions in North America and most other continents. Mission has preferred to group conversions within families, clans, tribes, or now been reinstated in the curricula of many colleges and castes. But McGavran also observed that most (non-Western) seminaries, although the institutions still most committed to cultures see humanity as "molecules" rather than
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