Compare/Contrast Garrison & Sinclair

Due to my travel schedule, this post is a little later than I planned. But here is a comparison between two great missiological minds- David Garrison and Dan Sinclair.  Garrison and Sinclair agree on the basics of church planting as the primary vehicle for effective evangelization. Although they disagree on minor points, they both adhere to the primacy of the Word of God and the powerful impact of correct biblical teaching. As such, their differences are more in line with strengths and weaknesses in their respective approaches rather than polarized stances. For example, they both agree on a timely exit for any foreign catalytic influence, but they disagree with how much foreign support is necessary to initiate and maintain a grass-roots movement. However, these small dissimilarities only work to enhance their purpose in writing a book. The very fact that Sinclair disagrees with Garrison’s admonition of unpaid workers shows that Garrison’s didactic approach does not work. Garrison begins by presenting raw data, and then he moves to showing the frequency of certain data. If his data are considered one of his strengths, then Garrison’s argument is lost somehow on the incidental advocate of national support.

            Indeed, Garrison moves quickly from a descriptive list of observations to a prescriptive set of strategies. In contrast to Sinclair, Garrison’s prescriptive strategies somehow fall short of detail and practical tactics. Garrison does attempt to use Scripture at times to defend his conclusions, but he seems to depend more on his current data to support CPM theory. Moreover, the sheer volume of statistical data mixed with the lists of do’s and don’ts might make a potential church planter wary of making mistakes in starting the wrong kind of church.

            Garrison places a strong emphasis on the strategy coordinator as the prime mover in initiating a church planting movement, but Sinclair’s text speaks directly to church planters and missionaries. It is an admonition to join a team and begin the work. It seems to carry a hint of encouragement and possibility in missions. A great strength of the book, the practical details of how to construct certain documents to avoid mistakes and direct vision give the reader hope. Sinclair gives practical advice for missionaries throughout the work, both on macro levels such as directing movement through phases to micro levels of preparation in language and cultural acquisition.

            Sinclair uses Scripture as a rationale for his argument. This is not totally lacking in Garrison’s text, but Sinclair does not promote any extra-biblical support for his teaching. Instead, he defends his choice of biblical texts with personal examples of how it has or has not worked for his teams. Therefore, Sinclair’s text seems more personal, more like a testimonial statement than a persuasive speech. When Sinclair defines apostleship and church, his personal investment can be sensed. Sinclair deals with more practical issues like ecclesiology from a biblical perspective. Consequently, when he incorporates supplemental material like Scoggins’ phases for church planting, they are seen more as a communication model than a prescriptive plan.

            Sinclair does have his limitations as well, some of which may be self-imposed. He quite often presents illustrations from and admonitions to workers in Muslim contexts. Perhaps this is because of his own experience in those areas, but his singularity in attention to that milieu could isolate any reader not involved in missions work in those areas. He addresses this at points throughout the book, but this criticism is nonetheless justified.

            As mentioned earlier, his approach could be considered linear. He attempts to address this when he admits that work in Scoggins’ church planting phases often goes on simultaneously on several levels (p. 60). However, the very fact that even his book is structured in a linear fashion speaks to his preferences. Garrison would argue more for a nonlinear multi-tasking as an effective mode of initiating CPM.

            Sinclair also disagrees with Garrison’s conclusions regarding the desirable level of outside support for national workers. Whereas Garrison would advocate a nonpaid approach as the basis for rapid reproduction, Sinclair believes that being an unpaid worker “often means unable to be much involved in concerted expansion work” (p. 207). He explains that the economy of most Muslim countries lead to polar extremes of unemployment or overwork. In either case, this is not conducive to the expectation that a lay worker be bivocational. At any rate, Sinclair argues with Garrison only “reluctantly” (p. 210), because he does not see this issue as being the central point to CPM theory.

            Sinclair does call CPM theory into the negative spotlight for its insistence that churches are the catalysts for starting other churches. On the contrary, Sinclair admits that “key individual disciples are uniquely called, gifted, and effective in starting new fellowships” (p. 207). This is yet another example of how Garrisons text speaks to churches whereas Sinclair expects individual church planters for his audience.

            Sinclair also broaches some subjects that Garrison does not. For example, the issue of multiplicity of church elders does not appear in detail at all in Garrison’s text, but Sinclair spends an entire chapter discussing the biblical basis for this approach and the best way for the foreign church planter to choose and ordain elders. Garrison briefly highlights house or cell church models as normative in CPMs, but he cites examples of traditional church models for North American growth. On the contrary, Sinclair shows no clear preference for any particular model as more biblical than the rest. He does seem to express a level of comfort with the house church model based on his personal past experience, but he makes a clear statement that no one model is more spiritual than the others.

            Interestingly, both Garrison and Sinclair place specific assignments at the end of their texts. Garrison designed a checklist for churches to discover where their approach does not line up with his CPM theory and a plan for realignment. In the last of his appendices, Sinclair lists the top ten pitfalls teams make when planting churches. Both of these lists are subjective, of course. However, the unique thing about Garrison’s list is the corporate nature of realigning vision with practice. Sinclair’s list is more about realigned practice with mission. So perhaps the overarching theme is the role of the church and individual member in missions. Sinclair’s text should inform Garrison’s by its insistence that church planting is done by individuals, not just by churches.