Spontaneous Expansion of the Church and the Post-Christian West

Last week I did a post called: Spontaneous Expansion of the Church vs. the Organized Expansion of the Church launching off of Roland Allen's book The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church.  Allen summarized his view this way:

This then is what I mean by spontaneous expansion. I mean the expansion which follows the unexhorted and unorganized activity of individual members of the Church explaining to others the Gospel which they have found for themselves; I mean the expansion which follows the irresistible attraction of the Christian Church for men who see its ordered life, and are drawn to it by desire to discover the secret of a life which they instinctively desire to share; I mean also the expansion of the Church by the addition of new Churches.

After quoting Allen, I opined the following:

on the surface it seems that he is right.  The church has often thrived where it had neither the resources nor the opportunity to organize greatly.   I am thinking of two of the greatest periods of expansion of the church - in the ancient Roman empire and in modern China.

But, the examples he gives of spontaneous expansion and that I can think of, occurred in lands where there was no previous Christian witness.  I am wondering if this kind of spontaneous expansion is possible in a post-Christian world.

But, my friend Travis Seitler countered with the following question:

Possible? Oh, c'mon... don't make me quote Matthew 19:26 at'cha. (lol) But seriously, I'd like to hear your thoughts as to why "spontaneous expansion" would be less effective today than would "organized expansion." It could make for a great follow-up post, I'll bet. :)

Great question - I'll just share my ever so brief thoughts on what I was thinking when I wrote that.  Allen doesn't necessarily oppose spontaneity and organization - even he acknowledges that some degree of organization happens in the church.  I think his main point is that we not rely on "organization" to replace what only the Holy spirit can produce.  In the early church the Holy spirit was able to work spontaneously without much of what we would now call organization.

My thought is simply that there are other variables involved in the growth and decline of the church, so the juxtaposition of spontaneity and organization probably doesn't cover all of those.  The Holy Spirit uses means and organization can be one of those means.

And my comment about spontaneous expansion in a post-Christian world is really a reflection on the situation of the church in the west.  I haven't read all of Allen's book so he may have dealt with this elsewhere, but it seems to me that the situation of the church in the post-Christian west is very different than that of the early church or the church in China.  The question for me is whether or not the means of spontaneous expansion in the post-Christian west may be different than in the early church or China.

Just a few thoughts - I'm just working through some of this and would appreciate any other thoughts.

Related Tags: Religion, Theology, Church, Christian, Christianity, Missions, Missionary, Missionaries, Roland Allen, Decentralization, The Starfish and the Spider

Comments

[DLE]

David,

I agree with you on the slowed expansion as this is one topic I've pondered for years.

Palestine circa 35 AD existed as a near vacuum for the faith. Any mention of Christ was positively new to the ears of the hearers.

Today, though, the message is out there anywhere one looks and nearly everyone has heard at least some portion of it (though not everyone has understood it). In the West, the way we presented it wound up being almost like a vaccine. Our haphazard delivery and virtually non-existent practice of the faith we tell others we would die for inoculated people against the Lord.

We face a mop-up situation today that didn't exist two thousand years ago. The Gospel is still out there. What the world wants to see, especially the world of the West, is for Christians to actually walk their talk. Then the "good infection" might overwhelm the vaccine and people might come to Christ.

None of this is the Gospel's fault. It didn't change--we did. We didn't live out what we believed, so people in the West took us as a joke, the "Hey, that's nice for you!" response. Modern Evangalicalism showed the world nearly every face possible in the way it met the challenges of life, except it didn't show Jesus.

Lost people still want to see Jesus. And more than anything, they want to see the Church actually present Jesus in a way that walks the talk. Then perhaps we'll see revival come.

[Russ]

I'm sympathetic to Allen except I think he overreacts by replacing the organization with the individual. I think what we see in Paul and in Acts are examples and commands to show hospitality, an action done by families more than individuals (and a quality required for elders in 1 Timothy and Titus).