September 11, 2000
IMB shifts focus from building
___By Tony Cartledge
___North Carolina Biblical Recorder
___RALEIGH, N.C. (ABP)--The Southern Baptist Convention International Mission Board is enjoying record participation from volunteers engaged in short-term projects, but some volunteers say they are confused by a new strategy that discourages the construction of mission churches.
___By the IMB's count, 26,741 volunteers were involved in overseas ministry during the past church year, more than double the number of six years ago. This year, the number of volunteers is expected to top 30,000.
___The surge in volunteers comes, however, at a time when the IMB is implementing a new field strategy that will steer short-term teams away from church construction projects, a favored activity among many volunteers. The new focus, according to the IMB's annual report, is the development of "church-planting movements."
___"The board's main objective is presenting the gospel of Jesus Christ in order to lead individuals to saving faith in him and bring about church-planting movements among all the peoples of the world," according to the report.
___"Church-planting movement" is used as a technical term to describe "a rapid multiplication of indigenous churches within a people group, city or country."
___A "Church Planting Movements" booklet published by the IMB explains basic elements of the strategy in which missionaries train indigenous converts to begin cell or house churches that are expected to reproduce rapidly, hopefully leading to exponential church growth.
___The local strategy is described by the acronym POUCH. It encourages missionaries to promote "participative" Bible study/worship groups which use "obedience" to biblical teachings as the only measure of success, are led by multiple "unpaid" church leaders, and exist as small "cell" or "house" churches that rarely exceed 15 members before beginning a new group.
___In essence, the strategy calls for missionaries to quickly make themselves obsolete by training local people to plant the first generation of churches, assisting them with a second-generation start, observing third-generation development, then leaving the movement to grow on its own.
___Some critics of the new strategy argue that the rapid development of churches with little supervision leaves the movement vulnerable to heresy. The IMB publication counters that new churches are to be firmly grounded "on the word of God and in the priesthood of all believers." Since each cell group is to be based on a commitment to obey the Bible, which is studied in participative fashion, mission strategists expect the group itself to provide "a natural corrective" to extremes of interpretation.
___The strategy expects indigenous churches to be self-motivated, self-sustaining and self-replicating. IMB leaders say too much outside assistance leads to a "welfare mentality" that could bog down church-planting movements.
___As a result, IMB strategists have begun discouraging American volunteers from constructing buildings for mission churches, hoping instead to involve them in other activities that support the church-planting strategy.
___In May, for example, IMB strategist Phil Templin led the Middle America regional leadership team to discuss how to involve large numbers of volunteers "without stifling local-church initiative and creating a welfare mentality." In a follow-up letter to IMB staff in Middle America, Templin called on missionaries to move away from constructing church buildings by the end of 2000.
___As word of Templin's letter spread, some veteran volunteers reacted with dismay.
___Wally Knight of Bethel Baptist Church in Canton, N.C., who has participated in 40 volunteer mission trips, expressed his frustration in e-mail messages to IMB President Jerry Rankin and other agency leaders. He also circulated a critique of the new strategy that accused IMB leaders of not being straightforward with volunteers.
___Quoting from the IMB's "Church Planting Movements" booklet, Knight noted construction of church buildings is described as "well-intentioned obstacles" and "stumbling blocks."
___Knight wrote in reply: "Thousands of past construction volunteers and their supporters who paid their expenses and bought the building materials will ask: 'We were obstacles? We built stumbling blocks?"
___In an IMB-generated article written by Mark Kelly and released July 31 by Baptist Press, Rankin praised volunteers for accelerating evangelism around the world and for promoting increased financial giving and prayers for missions. He cautioned, however, that "missions efforts sometimes can harm as well as help, no matter how good the intentions."
___"Over many years, missionaries have recognized it is a mistake to try to accelerate growth by an infusion of financial aid to build churches and support pastors," Rankin said. "Well-intended financial assistance too often creates dependence and handicaps the initiative and faith essential for spontaneous growth."
___Rankin said there has been phenomenal church growth in many parts of the world, but not in places dependent on Americans to provide the church buildings and support the pastors.
___There is an inevitable tension, he said, between what volunteers want to do and what is most effective in the long-range strategy of missionaries in the field.
___Though mission leaders have said little publicly about alternate projects for volunteers, the "Church Planting Movements" booklet suggests a variety of ways for volunteers to support a church-planting movement strategy.
___These include prayerwalks, evangelism, literature distribution, pastoral mentoring and human-needs ministries, as well as moral support and passion that energizes career missionaries and indigenous believers.
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