Growing churches

The Gospel is like a seed, and you have to sow it. When you sow the seed of the Gospel in Israel, a plant that can be called Jewish Christianity grows. When you sow it in Rome, a plant of Roman Christianity grows. You sow the Gospel in Great Britain and you get British Christianity. The seed of the Gospel is later brought to America, and a plant grows of American Christianity. Now, when missionaries come to our lands they brought not only the seed of the Gospel, but their own plant of Christianity, flower pot included! So, what we have to do is to break the flowerpot, take out the seed of the Gospel, sow it in our own cultural soil, and let our own version of Christianity grow.
–Dr. D.T. Niles of Sri Lanka

Imitation is the bane of modern Christianity.
- Reggie Britt

Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost make the point in The Shaping of Things to Come that in their native Australia, the form of Christianity that is prevalent relates to at most 35% of the population, and about 45% in the United States. And both numbers are shrinking. The typical method of church planting is too much like trying to plant cuttings from previous plants. A plant may take in that situation, or it may not. Studying church history, this method seems to have been pretty much used since the 4th century.

While Niles speaks in terms of national churches, his final comment on culture is right. And wrong in some ways too. Rather than culture, the individuals who join into a church need to shape that church. If the body consists of its parts as Paul writes, shouldn't the arrival or departure of an individual impact that church? Shouldn't the growth of an individual impact it? Too often, people come and go from a church and it just goes on as before -- short of the coming and going of the clergy class.

If the church is to be the body, the individual has to matter. Corporate and individual must intertwine tightly. If the church is to have impact in a culture, then the shape and form of church must grow from seed within that culture -- holding to truth -- but letting form and to an extent function be shaped by its environment.