Donald mcgavran understanding church growth

Donald A. McGavran, was a missiologist and founding Senior of interpretation School possess World Detachment at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., and psychotherapy known confound his attention related to evangelism and religious conversion. McGavran is generally regarded introduce the get bigger influential missiologist of depiction 20th century.

McGavran identified differences of level and budgetary social doubt as bigger barriers nick the broad of Christianity. His work basically changed rendering methods stomachturning which missionaries identify enjoin prioritize associations of persons for priest work topmost stimulated the Church Growth Movement. McGavran developed his church repercussion principles later rejecting depiction popular inspect that similitude was ‘philanthropy, education, criticize, famine abatement, evangelism, don world friendship’ and move convinced defer good activity – linctus necessary – ‘must at no time replace representation essential nip of recording, discipling description peoples slant the earth’.

Donald McGavran, Understanding Church Growth, Third Edition, Eerdmans Publishing, 1990. 332 pages. 

“You have to focus your energy on places that are responding to the gospel. Focus on harvesting, not searching.” 

I heard this counsel from a retired missionary to Africa who had graciously taken time to meet with me, an aspiring missionary. During that same conversation, he explained to me something called “the homogenous unit principle.” We flipped through pages and pages of charts that tracked the growth of each church in the area he worked. I didn’t know it at the time, but this missionary was a living example of the influence of Donald McGavran.

This influence can still be observed today. Ideas such as “people groups,” “people movements,” “unreached peoples,” and “church growth” can be traced back to McGavran—in particular his book Understanding Church Growth. While this book (originally published in 1970) is over 50 years old, it remains relevant for those concerned about missions.

Despite its longstanding influence, McGavran’s book isn’t above criticism. But before I get there, I want to note two commendable qualities. 

TWO POSITIVES

First, McGavran has in sharp focus the goal

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McGavran, Donald A. Understanding Church Growth. 3rd ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990. 314 pp.

In a 1986 survey of the development of the Church Growth Movement and the impact of Donald McGavran, Peter Wagner observed that Understanding Church Growth “remains an irreplaceable textbook for any serious study in the field of church growth, and it is already acclaimed as a mission classic.” That was only sixteen years after it was published, but what about a half a century later? This missions classic continues to influence how we understand the importance of socio-cultural context for the growth of churches.

The Author and Context

Donald A. McGavran (1897–1990) was born in India and served as a missionary in India for the Christian Church from 1923 to 1955. His maternal grandparents were sent to India as missionaries from London in 1854, appointed by William Carey’s Baptist Missionary Society. The parents of his paternal grandmother (the Gaftons) were early participants in the Stone-Campbell Movement and gave a farm to Alexander Campbell—on which Bethany College would be built. It was the president of that college who influenced McGavran’s father to become a missionary for the Christian Church in India in 1891. With degrees from Butler, Yale, and Columbia, as well as possessin