Three Models of Outreach

I’m not sure how many of my readers will be interested in this discussion, but a couple of my fellow church planters have asked me how I’m processing different models of outreach…so here’s an attempt to analyze a few different approaches. (SNOOZE ALERT: If methodological discussions bore you to tears, you may want to stop reading now.)

CPM model: CPM stands for “Church Planting Movements.” It is called such because in some areas of Asia and Africa this model has produced “movements” where thousands of churches have been planted in a relatively short period of time. In this model, a Christian acts as a catalyst in an existing social unit. The basic method for finding these units is to locate a “person of peace” who will facilitate a Bible study within their social network (whether that is their family, tribe, village, etc.) In this scenario, the Christian is in the minority, the non-Christians are the majority. The Christian seeks to impose his/her own leadership and teaching as little as possible in order to empower existing leaders and self discovery. An inductive approach (giving people scriptures to read and allowing them to find the answer for themselves) is chosen over a deductive approach (telling them the answers based on the knowledge of the teacher).

Positives: People come to Christ in groups, thereby giving them a built in support and accountability network. Because a member of the group is leading, this removes the barrier of the teaching being “alien” (the Christian is still leading on a certain level, but it is a behind-the-scenes coaching style of leadership). The new group has an effective and easily reproducible model for starting new groups. Negative: Those who work in more individualistic contexts (e.g. secular Western societies) may have a difficult time locating existing social units that have enough cohesion for a person of peace to call them together into a Bible study. In individualistic societies, a group tends to be a group in name only - on closer examination, most groups turn out to be collections of individuals who have come together for one specific purpose, but the totality of their lives remain untouched by the other members of the group (e.g. a cooking class comes together to share recipes and maybe some small talk, but not necessarily anything else). This is also true of families and even of most western churches (to our shame).

For a very thorough analysis and discussion on a recent CPM workshop see:
http://inthestoryline.com/2009/05/18/david-watson-and-church-planting-movements/#comments

Attractional model: In this model a group of Christians establishes a presence in a particular locality and seeks to draw people into the Christian group. This is how the majority of churches in the world are organized, so I don’t think I need to explain to my readers how it works.

Positives: This model obviously has a long and successful track record (countless millions have come to Christ through such churches). Such congregations have very long life cycles, it is not unusual to find churches that have been serving a particular community for 50 or 60 years (and a good many have even had 100th birthdays). Negatives: Slow, slow, slow. This model of outreach tends to move at a glacial pace, and like people, the older the church gets the slower it moves. (This is of course a generalization…so if you’re part of an older congregation that’s still moving and shaking with the best of them, please don’t take offense). Another major disadvantage is that it can be incredibly intimidating for the unchurched to come into such gatherings. And finally, every decision about how church “works” has already been made, thereby limiting the ways new believers can appropriate the gospel for their particular contexts.

I don’t feel like either of these options completely fits our context in Wollongong. And I don’t think they’re the only options that exist. So here’s an idea for church planters in individualistic contexts (I’ll try to think of a snazzy name for it – CSU sounds too much like CSI):

Created Social Unit: In this model, a Christian gathers people into a group and then acts as a catalyst in this created group. The difference between this approach and the CPM approach is that this creates a new structure rather than working through existing structures. The difference between this approach and the attractional approach is that the created structure is non-Christian. Once this new group is formed, the Christian acts essentially in the same way as he/she would in a CPM model, coaching and empowering as much as possible rather than teaching and leading directly.

But why would you do it this way? In short – to take advantage of CPM practices in an individualistic context. The reason you may have to create a group is because a group of people willing to explore Christianity together may only exist in a very small percentage of the population (or not at all). This is due to the lack of social cohesion in individualistic societies. To give an example, in Australia, you might have a family in which the mother is catholic, the father is atheist, and their teenage son is experimenting with Buddhism (believe me, this is not a far-out scenario here). Just because one family member has an interest in something doesn’t mean that anyone else in the family is going to feel compelled to have the same interest – especially in something like religion, which is considered a personal preference. Of course, when speaking of societies, we always speak in generalizations – and therefore there will always be exceptions. But even if you could find one family (or other social unit) that had the kind of group-minded social cohesion for the CPM approach to work on, what then? In our context, if such families exist at all, my guess would be that they would be a very small percentage…as in less than one (just a guess). How do you reach the other 99 families in their neighborhood? How do you replicate the approach? You might spend years of work just to find a few people.

So the solution I’m proposing is to create a group that makes a common interest out of what is normally a personal preference – religion/spirituality. (BTW – I’m not claiming to have invented this approach – I’m just expounding on it a little. I believe this is the idea behind the Alpha Course approach). (BTW #2 – You don’t have to give up on the CPM approach of looking for existing social units that are receptive to Bible study. This is not an either/or situation, but a both/and situation. Keep looking for those people of peace, but in the mean time, try creating some new groups. Same goes for the attractional approach. We don't necessarily need to choose one model over the other, we just need to diversify.)

What might this look like? To use an example, you might start some sort of spiritual discussion group or a book club that looks at “spiritual” writings. In a pluralistic society you may even want to look at the writings of different religions and build up to a study of Christianity (context is the guide here). You might advertise, or you might spread the idea word of mouth. Whether you begin with Christianity or you lead up to it, the point is, at some point you begin to facilitate an inductive study of scripture (and pass on that facilitation role as quickly as possible to one of the members of the group).

Positives: It could be that this is the “natural” way that “spiritual interest” groups form in a fractured and individualistic society. Negatives: This group, like any other group, will still be a collection of individuals, so there is always the possibility that some will be interested in taking the discussion further while others will not. But if the group is coming together for a spiritual purpose to begin with, this would probably lessen the chance of that happening.

That’s my thinking as of today. We are going to be experimenting with this third idea in the next few months…so I may feel differently a few months from now. We’ll see how it goes.