The Legacy of Donald A. McGavran

George G. Hunter III

onald Anderson McGavran was bornin Damoh, , 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, (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 , 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 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 , 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 atoms, that Enlightenment ideals and/or the graduate school of religion most people define themselves by a group identity, do their model have not yet participated in, or contributed to, the renais­ thinking in a group process, making important decisions to­ sance of missiological education. gether. He saw that the usual mission practice, based on -the individualism paradigm rather than the group-consciousness McGavran's Mission Paradigms paradigm, produced tragic social dislocation in the lives of many converts, as Christianized individuals were rejected by their Donald McGavran's third, and perhaps greatest, legacy is found people and cut off from them. in several very major constitutive ideas through which increas­ Second, McGavran challenged the "mission station" para­ ing numbersof missionleadersandpersonnelare perceivingand digm that prevailed in Christian mission's "Great Century" practicing mission and evangelism very differently than before (1800 to 1914), and that still flourishes today. He observed the McGavran. Some contemporaryinterpreters of mission have not following pattern. Typically,afteran exploratoryperiod in which yet understood McGavran's contribution at the paradigm level. the pioneering missionaries learn the language, gain rapport For instance, David J. Bosch's 600-page Transforming Mission: with the nationals, and perhaps win a handful of converts, the Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission: appears to report all the missionaries organize their activities around a mission station or major determinative ideas about mission from the early church compound. They acquire land in a major transportation center to those most likely to shape Christian mission's future. Yet this and then build a chapel, residences for mission personnel and volume perceives McGavran as merely a generic conservative their families, and otherliving quarters for their national helpers, evangelical with a preference for numbers, slogans, and church and perhaps a school, an orphanage, an agricultural center, a planting. However, history has already demonstrated leprosy home, a clinic or hospital, and even a printing shop. The McGavran's key paradigms to be much more significant (and churchat the compoundis a "gatheredcolony" church, reflecting pervasive!) than Bosch and some other missiologists have ac­ the missionaries' homeculture, composed of the mission person­ knowledged. nel and their families, and the first converts, who may also live To be sure, Donald McGavran did not invent his most and work at the mission compound, socially isolated from their important ideas ex nihilo, nor did he advance them alone. He people. Most activity takes place within the compound-teach­ stood on the shoulders of earlier theorists such as William Carey, ing children, caring for sick people and so forth. In this model

Ocrossa1992 159 mission personnel also engage in forays into the hinterland permitted "multi-individual, mutually interdependent conver­ within manageable travel distance from the compound, estab­ sion" wereindigenous to the people and represented a verygreat lishing casual and cordial contacts with the nationals-but not way forward for Christian mission." Not only did he see prece­ "living contacts"-and perhaps raise up a few small congrega­ dence for people movements in the apostolicera, he believed that tions. the to disciple panta taethne(Matt. 28:19)was McGavran concedes that, typically, mission stations were a mandate to reach the families, clans, tribes, castes, and ethnic built as a first stage, with the hope of a later"great ingathering."? groups-that is, the "peoples"-of humanity. He reasoned that Wherever great ingatherings did not occur, however, the means mission's objective, therefore, is to "reach" each cultural group became theend,andmissionexperienced a "diversion to second­ by plantingindigenousself-propagatingchurchesin everypopu­ ary aims."tO Mission was redefined as education, medicine, relief lation within the earth's rich mosaic of peoples. work,and so on, for whichmissionariescould see results andthat Though McGavran's HU principle has been criticized, the involved the activities the missionaries were now used to; the equivalent concept of communication and movements within next generation of missionaries were then recruited to perpetu­ "affinity groups" has become an established principle of the ate these activities. In such an arrangement, the activities of the behavioral sciences. In mission literature the HU termhas largely mission station dominated the mission's agenda; the churches been dropped, in favor of "people groups" or "peoples," and in were peripheral. these current forms the concept has experienced an extensive McGavran saw this oft-repeated phenomenon as a tragic impact. For instance, the 1974 Lausanne Congress on World case of Christian mission's arrested development. The mission Evangelization projected that, of the world's approximately station should never havebeen regarded as an end in itself but as 30,000knownpeoples, approximately16,750were "unreached." a stage leading to the nationalization of leadership and then to Bythe1989LausanneIICongressin Manila, it wasestimated that the much wider expansion of the national church. McGavran approximately 4,750 of these peoples had been "reached" in the acknowledged that the mission-station approach once contrib­ intervening fifteen years. Many mission boards and agencies are uted to a remarkable period of nation building; the mission now focusing their plans and efforts on planting indigenous schools developed tomorrow's national leaders, and the mission churches in as many of the remaining 12,000 people groups as possible by A.D. 2000. Another McGavran paradigm shift has become even more "Unbelievers understand influential. McGavran saw that, contrary to prevailing evangeli­ cal myths, people do not usually become Christians when a the Gospel better when stranger bears witness to them; indeed, most Christian strangers expounded by their own (including most missionaries) make few converts. Most people becomeChristians when reached by a Christian relative or friend kind of people." in their intimate social network; these social networks of living Christians, especially those of new Christians, provide "the bridges of God" to undiscipled people. Today, virtually every stations "were seed-beds of revolutionary Christian ideas about enlightened evangelism program and ministry takes this rela­ justice, brotherhood,service and theplaceof womanhood."!' But tional paradigm for the Gospel's spread very seriously. Win and that colonial era in which mission stations had great national Charles Arn's TheMaster's PlanforMakingDisciples" delineates influence is now past. In any case, McGavran perceived-in a an evangelism approach based upon this principle. phenomenon already taking place among some peoples beyond the range of mission stations-the need for a revolutionary McGavran and His Critics "people movement" paradigm for strategic mission thinking. McGavran, following Pickett, became vitally interested in McGavran's work necessarily involved the critique of other the people movements that were occurring in India by the points of view and schools of thought, and his work was also 1930s-movements that sometimes brought to faith most mem­ critiqued and challenged from several sides." Leaders who bers of a local caste or tribe within several years. He discovered especially desired dialogue and better relations with people of that these movements were not unique, that such was the usual otherreligions, including those who accepted the Enlightenment pattern of the faith's first-century expansion among Jews, then teaching thatall religions are essentiallythe same,wereaffronted among the Gentile "God-fearers" that attended the synagogues, by McGavran's emphasis on evangelism for conversion. Some then among various culturally distinct Gentile societies, and Christians distrusted McGavran's use of field data, statistics, much later in the faith's spread among the peoples of Europe." graphs, and behavioral science insights; the approach was insuf­ Furthermore, McGavran observed that the 'Gospel does not ficiently "biblical," "theological," or "spiritual." Some Chris­ require converts to leave their people and join another people, tians, who especially want churches to transcend humanity's and that "people like to become Christians without crossing divisions and model reconciliation, contested McGavran's con­ racial, linguistic, or class barriers."13 viction that homogeneous unit congregations can be a faithful, McGavran first saw this principle as a strategic way past though penultimate, expression of the universal church and its India's formidable caste barriers, but later he developed the mission. To McGavran's credit, he valued his critics and used "Homogeneous Unit" (HU) as a generic concept applicable to their feedback to reflect upon and refine his missiology, though many fields. He defined a HU as any group of people with some they gave him no sufficient reasons to abandon his apostolic characteristic in common who communicate and relate to each agenda. other more naturally than to other people. The principle is McGavran and his critics especially disagreed on the role of important for evangelism because "unbelievers understand the mission in the future. As some mission boards and agencies gospel betterwhenexpoundedbytheir ownkind of people.r'"So reflected upon the abuses of mission's colonial period, resolved McGavran came to believe that the people movements that not to repeat the mistakes of the past, and heard the "missionary

160 INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH go home" appeal from some Third World Christians, they called tionary strategy of deploying mission personnel, in dispropor­ for a moratorium on sending missionaries and announced the tionate numbers, where the Spirit is moving and the people are end of the missionary era. McGavran countered that "we stand receptive." This explains the apostolic confidence, blended with in the sunrise of missions!" He challenged the agencies because urgency, that characterizes Donald McGavran's missiological he believed that "postcolonial" approaches to mission were perspective: "Opportunity blazes today, but it may be a brief possible and desirable. blaze. Certainly conditions which create the opportunity-as far His theological reflection and field research led him to the as human wisdom can discern-are transient conditions. We "receptivity" paradigm. He observed that there are always win­ have today. Let us move forward.?"? nablepeopleandwholefields readyfor harvestbecause,in every Donald McGavran died July 10, 1990, about three months season,God'sprevenientgraceis moving throughthe eventsand after the death of Mary, his wife of sixty-sevenyears. Donald and circumstances of some persons' lives and within whole peoples, Mary McGavran are succeeded by five of their six children, generating receptivity. But, he observed, receptivity ebbs and sixteen grandchildren, and a host of colleagues in the Christian flows in history; people and societies who are receptive this year movement. McGavran wrote books, articles, and countless let­ may not be receptive next year, so the churchis called to "win the ters of counsel and encouragement and communicated with his winnable" while they are winnable. McGavran developed indi­ characteristicprecision, passion,andwituntilthe last weekofhis cators of likely receptive people, and he advocated the revolu­ life in this world. Notes------­ 1. "Mission strategy" is now an indispensable subject within any informed 7. See especiallyC. PeterWagner's Our KindofPeople: TheEthical Dimensions contemporary mission curriculum. By 1988 McGavran was already of ChurchGrowthin America(Atlanta, Ga.: John Knox Press, 1979). providing another key term: "effective evangelism." (See Effective Evan­ 8. McGavran and Am's How to Grow a Church (Glendale, Calif.: Regal gelism: A Theological Mandate [Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Re­ Books, 1973), featuring a conversational format, is the most widely formed Publishing Company, 1988].) circulated church growth book, with over 200,000 copies sold. 2. See C. Peter Wagner's article "Church Growth Research: The Paradigm 9. Donald McGavran, The Bridges of God: A Study in theStrategyofMissions, and Its Applications," in Understanding ChurchGrowthand Decline: 1950­ rev. ed. (New York: Friendship Press, 1981), p. 49. 1978, ed. Dean R. Hoge and David A. Roozen (New York, Pilgrim Press, 10. Ibid., pp. 51ff. 1979), pp. 270-87. 11. Ibid., p. 63. 3. The term "world mission" was needed because many mistook "mission" 12. See ibid., chaps. 3 and 4. for "everything the Church does," thereby blurring the focus of classical 13. Donald A. McGavran, Understanding Church Growth, 3d ed. (Grand apostolic mission. McGavran and his colleagues advocated evangelism Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1990),chap. 13. and church planting as perennial and indispensable parts of mission. 14. Ibid., p. 167. 4. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1991. 15. Ibid., pp. 227ff. 5. See Pickett'sChristian MassMovementsinIndia(Lucknow,India: Lucknow 16. Pasadena, Calif.: Church Growth Press, 1982. Publishing House, 1933), Christ's Way to India'sHeart,3d ed. (Lucknow, 17. The most representative critical collection is Wilbert R. Shenk, ed. The India: Lucknow Publishing House, 1960), and J. T. Seamands, ''The Challenge of Church Growth: A Symposium. (Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, Legacy of J. Wascom Pickett," International BulletinofMissionaryResearch 1973). 13, no. 3 (July 1989). 18. See McGavran, Understanding Church Growth, 3d ed., chap. 14: "The 6. John Wesley especially anticipated, and predicated Methodism's early Receptivity of Individuals and Societies"; and Hunter, To Spread the expansion on the basis of several strategic insights later rediscovered by Power, chap. 3: "Identifying Receptive People." McGavran. See George G. Hunter III, To Spread thePower: ChurchGrowth 19. Donald Anderson McGavran, How Churches Grow (New York: Friend­ in the Wesleyan Spirit (Nashville: Abingdon, 1987), especially chap. 2. ship Press, 1959), p. 9.

Bibliography

Selected Works by Donald A. McGavran Ethnic Realities and the Church: Lessons from India. Pasadena, Calif.: William Carey Library, 1979. The Bridges of God: A Study in the Strategyof Missions. New York: Friendship Coauthored with James Montgomery. The Disciplingof a Nation. Milpitas, Press, 1955. Calif.: Overseas Crusades, 1980. HowChurches Grow: TheNewFrontiers ofMission.NewYork: FriendshipPress; Coauthored with George G. Hunter III. ChurchGrowth: Strategies That Work. London: World Dominion Press, 1959. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1980. Editor, Church Growth and Christian Mission. New York: Harper and Row, Coauthored with Arthur F. Glasser. Contemporary Theologies of Mission. 1965. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983. Understanding ChurchGrowth.Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Momentous Decisions in Missions Today. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, Co., 1970. Revised editions in 1980 and 1990. 1984. Editor, The Eye of the Storm: The Great Debate in Mission. Waco, Tex.: Word "My Pilgrimage in Mission." International Bulletinof Missionary Research 10, Books, 1972. no. 2 (April 1986). Editor, Crucial Issuesin Missions Tomorrow. Chicago: Moody Press, 1972. Effective Evangelism: A Theological Mandate. Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian Coauthored with Winfield Am. Glendale, Calif.: Regal How toGrowaChurch. and Reformed Publishing Co., 1988. Press, 1973. The Satnami Story: A Thrilling Drama of Religious Change. Pasadena, Calif.: TheClashBetween ChristianityandCultures.Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book William Carey Library, 1990. House, 1975. "TheDimensionsof World Evangelization." InLet theEarthHearHis Voice,ed. Work about Donald A. McGavran J. Douglas. Minneapolis, Minn.: Worldwide Publications, 1975. Tippett, Alan R., ed. God,Man, and Church Growth: A Festschrift in Honorof Coauthored with Winfield Am. Ten Stepsfor ChurchGrowth.San Francisco: DonaldAndersonMcGavran. Grand Rapids: Wm. B.Eerdmans Publishing Harper and Row. 1977. Co., 1973.

162 INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH