Review of David Garrison's Church Planting Movements

Garrison, David. Church Planting Movements: How God is Redeeming a Lost World. Richmond,

Va.: WigTake Resources, 2003.

Can be ordered through Amazon.com here

David Garrison takes a descriptive approach in his book to define the phenomenon called church planting movements whereby churches reproduce rapidly. In his book he outlines a brief history of his personal involvement with the study as well as an overview of the general parameters that define a church planting movement or CPM. A scientific study by no means, Garrison’s book is based on observations and reports from International Mission Board field personnel, national conventions and other protestant sources. Throughout these narrative descriptions, he sprinkles CPM teaching points such as the POUCH method typical in CPM churches.

            In part 2, he tells the geographic story of how church planting movements are breaking out all over the world. In Asia he begins the story with India’s billion-strong population as he describes a CPM incidence across several geographic points resulting in 4000 new churches planted within a 7 year period. He then moves to China to describe how a CPM there has resulted in a rate of 30,000 baptisms per day and thousands of house churches being planted each year. He describes other cases of CPM in Southeast Asia and especially highlights the Singapore home-cell mega church movement that has led to the forty-fold explosion of evangelical Christian adherents.

            Africa is also emphasized for its CPMs among the Muhaber in Ethiopia, the Maasai in Tanzania and the Teso people of Uganda. He then turns his attention to the Islamic world where some CPMs are breaking out in undisclosed locations. Latin America has also experienced CPMs among the Kekchi people of Guatemala. Interestingly, Europe seems to be the least frequent in the CPM phenomena, but there are emerging movements among refugees and gypsies there.

            In North America, Garrison points back to the nineteenth century for one example of a church planting movement, a phenomenon considered a revival at the time. Other examples of protestant CPM-like phenomena include a cell church model in Pennsylvania and explosive church growth at Saddleback, Willow Creek, and the Bethany World Prayer Center.

            In part 3, he outlines 10 universal elements present in observed CPMs. Then he lists 10 characteristics of most CPMs. Finally, he lists observed barriers to CPM that must be removed because they are the seven deadly sins against God’s movement.

In chapter 12, Garrison appears to deal with the theology of a church planting movement by describing the biblical basis for CPM characteristics. Only at the end of the book does he deal with practical or logistical issues like the definition of church, how volunteers can be used even though outsiders must keep a low profile, the role of foreign funding and formal theological education in a CPM environment.

Chapter 16 is a practical workbook for identifying and managing the universal elements, characteristics and obstacles.

Although he did a good job in describing CPMs occurring throughout the world, there are a few areas where Garrison falls short. He somewhat fails to communicate that these observations are from a descriptive rather than prescriptive approach. In fact the entire book format lends itself to being a self-help document for churches wishing to start their own CPM. Because he is not explicit about these matters, the tone of the book is more of a how-to manual rather than a celebratory documentation. He even includes a whole section entitled “Launch Pad” as a diagnostic workbook for individual churches to discover their CPM readiness. In an evangelical world full of quick fixes for church growth, this propensity toward prescription weakens the book’s overall effect. 

Last Post: Concluding Thoughts on Missiometrics

This will be my last post on the subject of missiometrics, the use of statistics in the field of missions, the mixture of scientific analysis with missiological strategy. Statistics can be a good thing; in fact, the sheer numbers of lostness ought to burden our hearts all the more for the mission of God to seek and to save that which was lost. But statistical errors can occur at various levels of data collection. The data could simply be wrong, it could have been gathered carelessly, or it might be presented in a way that leads to faulty interpretation of data. This can raise the issue of whether certain statistics can be trusted. But the root question as to the science of missiology and how missiometrics helps to validate that science is a different question.   

            Theological blogger Andy Rowell believes that “we, as church leaders, have got to pay more attention to appropriate use of statistics.”[1] This is not to advocate for a restriction on missiometrics but to employ “people who know statistics and who understand sociological research so that our numbers mean something.”[2] In this way, even more statistical science can be administered to inform missiology.

            In one sense, missiology itself is a science. In another sense, missiology is applied theology in its truest art form. The social science of statistical analysis can help to inform missiology as a theological expression of the church, but missiometrics is not intended to justify every theological aspect of missiology. As a pure science, missiology can nonetheless be validated by statistical analysis.  

           Missiology that observes, measures, and tests strategies is scientific. But that science is only as good as the tools it uses. Since missiometrics seeks to bring consistent and systematic measurements for demography and evangelism results, it is the one tool that readily identifies missiology as a science. The evangelism results over time must be validated, and consistent quantification of observations allows for this validation. Just as any tool needs to be sharpened or maintained, the instruments employed in missiometrics also need further development. Yet the fact remains that observations and measurements are the basis for scientific inquiry. Therefore, missiometrics defines and validates missiology as a science.

           So the question that remains is how should we evaluate what we're currently doing: with a scientific measurement, or with a different, more theological ruler?

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[1] Andy Rowell, “Statistics,” Church Leadership Conversations. n.p. Blogpost on 19 October 2007. Cited 19 February 2009. Online: http://www.andyrowell.net/andy_rowell/statistics/index.html.

[2] Andy Rowell, “Statistics,” n.p.

Missiological Implications of Missiometrics

Missions history has produced both good and bad examples of statistics application. This has led some to question the usefulness of statistics in missiology. Because of the theological structures built around this question, certain issues emerge with serious missiological implications. For example, Rommen’s comments about potential overdependence on statistics are well-founded, but they speak more to the theology of missions than the science of missiology. Brent Lindquist’s rebuttal that “there appears to be too much adversity between psychology and the church”[1] could also be applied to statistical data collection. Even some of the same critics of missiological statistics are not opposed to using statistics for word frequency in biblical texts and comparative linguistics. However, the implications for its use or discontinuation are important. 

Ideas about what to do with statistical data abound. The main issue is just how far-reaching the data can be in determining applicable strategies and future scenarios for deployment.  “Contemporary anthropologists are seeking to go beyond simply collecting and classifying cultural data, to constructing theoretical models that somehow explain human behavior. The endless collection of descriptive information may be interesting, but it leads us nowhere. Good theories, on the other hand, may enable us to predict and control social events.”[2]

Barrett readily admits the limitations involved in applying statistics, and sometimes that has led to abuse. In reference to his own study on the instances of independence among African churches, he acknowledges that “the method employed here, the statistical analysis in particular, is more a way of indicating possible interpretations than of establishing them definitively.”[3] Over-interpretation of data can be a real problem for missiologists who have another agenda for the data than factual presentation. Perhaps a fervent trust in statistics to solve strategic problems is more of a commentary about Western Christianity’s bent toward rationality.

Anyone can easily twist, misrepresent, and lie with statistics. And it takes a bit of basic knowledge for even well meaning people to avoid common statistical pitfalls. But none of that exempts evangelicals from having to use statistics responsibly. The problem is, they often do not. Why do evangelicals recurrently abuse statistics? My observation is that they are usually trying desperately to attract attention and raise people's concern in order to mobilize resources and action for some cause. In a world awash in information and burdened by myriad problems, some evangelicals may justify the problematic misuse of statistics to get people to pay attention to what they think are good causes. But this is inexcusable.[4]

Rommen believes overdependence on statistics leads to reductionism and destroys the mystery of God’s work. But perhaps the problem is not the measurement itself but the categories that are defined by the measurement tool. Because “the only thing we can measure is a person’s outward response,”[5] perhaps the measurement tools are intrinsically limited.

But just as Dave Williams suggests, each thing measured is a symbol of a spiritual work:

Statistics are just numbers, but they represent real souls and the reality we must face in

the world today—the lack of the presence of the Holy Spirit among 10,000 Unreached People Groups. My heart has been breaking for more than twenty years at the thought of the millions of people who have no church, no missionaries, and no Jesus. The Holy Spirit used statistics to open my eyes to this reality. Statistics are not just numbers on paper or from a website on your screen. They represent the lost sheep that Jesus is trying to bring home, but so few willing shepherds are hearing the Master Shepherd’s voice.[6]

Many people have used statistics reports like Operation World or the World Christian Encyclopedia as a part of their devotional life. “The statistics have never seemed dry or made by humans. Rather, they have always represented the voices of the masses calling out for people tell them about Jesus.”[7] For Williams, “statistics, coupled with the Word of God, have been two of the main ways that the Holy Spirit has spoken to [him] with regards to where to serve and what to do there.”[8]

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[1] Brent Lindquist, “Psychology and Missions: A History of Membercare in Cross-Cultural Ministry,” in Missiology and the Social Sciences: Contributions, Cautions and Conclusions (ed. Edward Rommen and Gary Corwin; Pasadena, Calif.: William Carey, 1996), 81. 

[2] Paul G. Hiebert, Cultural Anthropology (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1983), 86. 

[3] David B. Barrett, Schism and Renewal in Africa: An Analysis of Six Thousand Contemporary Religious Movements (Ely House London W.I.: Oxford University Press, 1968), xviii. 

[4] Christian Smith, “Evangelicals Behaving Badly with Statistics,” Books & Culture 13:1 (January/February 2007), n.p. Cited 19 February 2009. Online: http://www.ctlibrary.com/40547.

[5]  Edward R. Dayton and David A. Frazer Planning Strategies for World Evangelization (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 26. 

[6] Dave Williams, “Redirecting Members of Short-Term Mission to Unreached People Groups,” Global Missiology 3 (April 2008): 14. Cited 19 February 2009. Online: http://www.globalmissiology.org/english/docs_pdf/williams_short-term_unreached_peoples_4_2008.pdf.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

Theological School of Caution - Missiometrics

      Yesterday I posted on a couple of theologians who throw their support behind the use of statistics for the development of missiological strategies. Here are a couple of well-known theologians who caution against the potential misuse of the science.

Edward Rommen

Edward Rommen correctly argues that missiology is more than just one aspect of its qualities or

disciplines. However, he believes “we must pay attention to the propositions that we are importing into the exercise.”[1] Rommen warns against over-sophistication in our approach to integrating missiology with the social sciences in particular. He suggests that the church has become comfortable in its successful applications of social science for missions, but he whimsically admits “it is amazing what can be accomplished without the Holy Spirit.”[2] His approach is one of caution. And he believes that it can only be remedies through a proper dependence upon the Holy Spirit’s work instead of organizational management.

David Bosch

David Bosch is also cautious in his opinions about the use of statistical analysis in missions. This appears to be partly because of how some have made extreme applications as they integrate statistics and theology or eschatology. He seems to suggest that a strong adherence to an imminent parousia or second coming of Christ has led some to their greatest motive for mission, more so than a love for people. Admittedly, Hudson Taylor was motivated by this premillennial belief, and it did result in his own employment of statistical study. But many missiologists in the twentieth century began to see Matthew 24:14 as an eschatological proof text for doing missions. If the gospel could just get preached to all nations, then the Lord’s return could be hastened. “Some have even borrowed huge amounts of money and mortgaged their homes to invest in evangelization for the purpose of bringing back the King.”[3] A. T. Pierson “estimated the number of pennies and the number of right-hearted evangelists required to bring the millennium.”[4] Thus, statistical analysis became crucial for completing the task of hastening the end. Bosch believes this is dangerous.

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[1] Edward Rommen, 2009. Lecture presented for MIS 9950 PhD class at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Wake Forest, North Carolina, January 7.

[2] Edward Rommen, 2009. Lecture. 

[3] Frank Caleb Jansen, “When Theology, Missiology and Futurology Clash,” International Journal of Frontier Missions 12:1 (January/February 1995), 3. Cited on 19 February 2009. Online: http://www.ijfm.org/PDFs_IJFM/12_1_PDFs/Jansen.pdf.

[4] David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 2007), 316–317.  

Theological Perspectives on Statistics

What I mentioned in my last few posts serve as examples that propose several theological questions. The answers to those questions tend to be either cautious or supportive of statistics’ integration with missiology. And the sometimes polarized schools of thought about missiometrics lead to competing theological structures. However, just as Naisbitt posits, “without a structure, a frame of reference, the vast amount of data that comes your way each day will probably whiz right by you.”[1] Edward Rommen and David Bosch place their frames of reference on the side of caution, whereas Roger Greenway and David Hesselgrave seem to be supportive of statistical interdisciplinary activity. 

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[1] John Naisbitt and Patricia Aburdene, Megatrends 2000: Ten New Directions for the 1990s (New York: William Morrow, 1990), 13. 

Potentially Negative Uses of Statistics in Missiology

Even positive examples of statistical integration with missiology have their unique flaws. While admittedly not a prime example of missiology in the first place, Jerome’s statistical data gathering can be accused of being politically inflammatory. Although a father of the church, Jerome occasionally made biased reference to situations where “savage tribes in countless numbers have overrun all parts of Gaul.”[1] Even though political statements were not atypical during this period of schismatic church history, the use of the same statistics for both missiological expansion and political conquest is questionable.

            William Carey’s use of statistics to justify the Western church’s involvement in missions has created ongoing missiological controversy. Some argue that Carey was not being spiritually led but statistically influenced. Some, like Dave Williams, "may fear that statistics alone and a desire to be 'strategic' will cause people to be assigned to serve among a specific Unreached People Group without a clear sense of God’s leading.”[2] Although this fear might be grounded in truth, Carey’s method did lay the groundwork for missiological decisions based upon statistical information.   

            David Barrett was instrumental in the formation of the AD 2000 movement during the latter part of the twentieth century and for compiling a mammoth amount of statistics on global Christianity. Although Barrett’s contribution is monumental and praiseworthy, the ensuing response to his data by missiologists was frightening and potentially dangerous. Arthur Glasser remarked that Barrett’s work “instantly renders obsolete all previous studies of the worldwide Christian movement.”[3] Donald McGavran hailed Barrett’s statistical information as unrivaled with “nothing more authoritative”[4] for the purpose of missiological strategy. While exaggerated statements are often made for marketing purposes, this perspective can be precarious. If Barrett’s books become the authoritative bible for missiological strategy, missiology could arguably be reduced to mathematical formulas and predictive human resource management.

            Even David Garrison did a good job in describing church planting movements, but his initial booklets somewhat failed to communicate that his statistics are intended to be descriptive rather than prescriptive. Moreover, he even devotes an entire section of his latest version as a functionary workbook for identifying existing universal elements and locating barriers to movements in an individual context. These diagnostic tools might lend to a prescriptive approach for creating what he terms a “launch pad” for a church planting movement.[5] Garrison suggests that “creating alignment is a simple matter of devising plans of action to close the gap between where the community is now and God’s vision for them.”[6] This reductionist approach to statistical analysis has led to ongoing frustration in some parts of the world where missionaries have yet to see any notable numerical results and still live on what some have termed "the left side of the graph."[7]

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[1] Jerome, “Letter CXXIII To Ageruchia.” n.p. Cited 20 February 2009. Online: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001123.htm.

[2] Dave Williams, “Redirecting Members of Short-Term Mission to Unreached People Groups,” Global Missiology 3 (April 2008): 14. Cited 19 February 2009. Online: http://www.globalmissiology.org/english/docs_pdf/williams_short-term_unreached_peoples_4_2008.pdf.

[3] World Evangelization Research Center. n.p. Cited: 20 February 2009. Online: http://www.gordonconwell.edu/ockenga/globalchristianity/gem-about.htm.

[4] Ibid.

[5] David Garrison, Church Planting Movements: How God is Redeeming a Lost World (Midlothian, Va.: Wigtake, 2004), 275. 

[6] Ibid, 285.

[7] Although coined by others, the first time I heard this phrase was in 2005 in an encouraging sermon by Dr. Gordon Fort, IMB vice president, in an address to missionaries at the Missionary Learning Center near Richmond, VA.

Positive Examples of the Use of Statistics in Missiology

The church has a plethora of examples where men have been moved by God’s Spirit to make seemingly illogical moves. “For many, however, God uses statistics to reveal the presence or lack of presence of the Holy Spirit around the world.”[1] It is commonly accepted that “Ralph Winter, Luis Bush, Patrick Johnstone, and many other mission leaders who have helped awaken the church to places no one was working have all used statistics extensively.”[2] But other missions leaders like Jerome and William Carey also made use of statistic analysis. These positive instances are noteworthy, as they shed light on the affirmative influence statistics have had on missiology.

Jerome, one of the early church fathers, could hardly be described as a missiologist. Yet amidst the doctrinal conflict that raged between the Donatists and Catholics, Jerome was revolutionary in his statistical review of the missionary progress of the church. David Barrett claims that Jerome used primitive statistical analysis as he “surveyed the rapid advance of the schismatic Donatist Church among the North African Berber and Punic populations.”[3] This slight but significant exercise in statistics reveals just how early statistics had already begun to interact with missiology.

William Carey has been hailed as the father of the modern missions movement. In Section III of his classic Enquiry[4] there are 23 graphic missiological surveys outlining geography, land mass, demographics and religion. The statistical information contained in these surveys lead Carey to conclude that there is a loud call “to Christians, and especially to ministers, to exert themselves to the utmost in their several spheres of action, and to try to enlarge them as much as possible.”[5] It could be contended that Carey’s use of statistics to base his missiological strategy was what established missiology as a science.

In association with the former Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, David Barrett was a modern missiologist who made no apology for his far-reaching exploitation of statistics in missions. His scientific method during the latter part of the twentieth century was based largely upon the social “science of ethnographic research: participant observation, informal interviews, and formal interviews.”[6] But his applications of those data were probably more comprehensive than earlier missiologists. Dayton and Frazer seem to indicate the Lausanne Committee adoption of sociological terminology like people groups grew out of a focus on mission strategies similar to Barrett’s scientific methodology.

The reason we identify them and group them together is because of the task of sharing Christ with them. Because they form a long network of social relationships and share a common set of values and attitudes, they respond in similar ways. This is true of how they respond to Christ as presented by particular evangelists. When they are responsive, the growth of the church follows the natural lines of social relationships that bind the group together. When they are resistant to the gospel, most of the people in the same social network will resist it.[7]

While Barrett’s statistical analyses have led to current missiological terms like evangelized and unreached, his engagement in scenario planning and futurist narratives was unprecedented and to some unacceptable. Barrett’s study of people movements led him to make predictions:

What we are here primarily concerned to investigate is the one problem: to what extent, if at all, are these movements basically similar in origin and in expansion, wherein does this similarity lie, and what overall explanation does it imply? Or, shifting the focus of the problem slightly: what are the conditions necessary for independency to emerge in a given tribe or region? Or, the practical application: to what extent can future outbreaks be predicted, and where will they take place?[8]

And although these guesses created a division between missiologists who could accept them and those that could not, there was still a base commonality that Barrett proposed. “For our purposes the number of nations with a minimum gospel witness, the number of people or people groups without any witness is important only if we identify where they are and set about to reach them one by one.”[9] According to Barrett good statistics could lead to more lost people being identified, and therefore statistics validated missiology’s purposes.

After a restructuring and renaming of the Southern Baptist International Mission Board, David Garrison’s statistical study on the emergence of church planting movements led to a discontinuous change in strategy. In his book Garrison tells the demographic story of how rapidly reproducing churches are breaking out all over the world. He relates how India’s billion-strong population is experiencing a statistically curious phenomenon that has resulted in over four thousand new churches within a seven year period. In China there are now more than 30,000 baptisms every day and thousands of house churches being planted each year. A Singapore example highlights a home-cell mega church phenomenon that has led to the forty-fold explosion of evangelical Christian adherents. Garrison systematically analyzed these observations, and his resulting categories of characteristics, universal elements and common barriers led the International Mission Board to place a heavier emphasis on reproductive church planting for more than a decade.

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[1] Dave Williams, “Redirecting Members of Short-Term Mission to Unreached People Groups,” Global Missiology 3 (April 2008): 14. Cited 19 February 2009. Online: http://www.globalmissiology.org/english/docs_pdf/williams_short-term_unreached_peoples_4_2008.pdf.

[2] Dave Williams, “Redirecting,” 14.

[3] David B. Barrett, Schism and Renewal in Africa: An Analysis of Six Thousand Contemporary Religious Movements (Ely House London W.I.: Oxford University Press, 1968),  3. 

[4] The complete title of William Carey’s work is An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens. In Which the Religious State of the Different Nations of the World, the Success of Former Undertakings, and the Practicability of Further Undertakings, Are Considered. Cited on 19 February 2009. Online: http://www.wmcarey.edu/carey/enquiry/anenquiry.pdf.

[5] William Carey, Enquiry, 66.

[6] Roger S. Greenway and Timothy M. Monsma, Cities: Missions’ New Frontier (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2000),  134. 

[7]  Edward R. Dayton and David A. Frazer Planning Strategies for World Evangelization (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990),  29.

[8] Barrett, Schism and Renewal, 5.

[9] Dayton and Frazer, Planning Strategies, 30-31. 

Missiological Applications of Statistics

Missiologists have made broad uses of statistics throughout the history of modern missions. The correct use of statistics has been useful for missiologists to track God’s work and the results of quality evangelization. Although “effective research enables a Christian work to achieve specific goals that promote God’s kingdom in the shortest possible period of time,”[1] there have unfortunately been times when statistical data has been misrepresented and mishandled as well.

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[1] Roger S. Greenway and Timothy M. Monsma, Cities: Missions’ New Frontier (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2000), 130. 

Historical Applications of Statistics: Secular

Statistical Analysis has historically played a role in mathematics, but it also has had wide

applications in varied academic disciplines. Mortality rates, birth rates, and marriage activities for governmental census purposes have been the traditional application outside of academic fields. However, recent demographic studies have demanded more from statistics than just factual numbers.

            John Naisbitt, author of MegaTrends, MegaTrends 2000 and MegaTrends 2010 has well-known for the last two decades for his ability to study current trends and use those observations to draw strategic conclusions for the business world. More recently, his use of statistics has entered into another realm, that of planning future trends and creating possible scenarios. These applications are widely accepted in the area of business management and organizational leadership. According to Naisbitt, these “pictures of the future are not speculation or a reach into the unknown. They are based on an analysis of the present.”[1]

            Malcolm Gladwell, as a staff writer for The New Yorker for the last 15 years, has documented the use of statistics in epidemiology and how those same statistics can be applied in other disciplines like business, marketing, and education. In his bestseller, The Tipping Point, Gladwell applies epidemiological statistics to studies in the social sciences in order to posit that “social epidemics work in exactly the same way” as communicable diseases and infectious viruses.[2] The amazing popularity of his applications for statistical analysis only reiterates the fact that the science of statistics can bring validity to many other scientific fields.     

          I highly recommend your reading both of these books, now staples in any study of statistical analysis.

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[1] John Naisbitt, Mind Set!: Reset Your Thinking and See the Future (New York: HarperCollins, 2006), xx.

[2] Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (New York: Back Bay Books, 2002), 21.  

Biblical Use of Statistics

All the way through the entire Bible, God reveals his care for humanity as individuals, as groups and as a whole. Scattered throughout the pages of biblical historical narratives, chronicles of God’s lists disclose his overarching interest in divine measurement. In the Garden of Eden, Adam is tasked with managing the reproduction of the world. An entire book in the Old Testament is devoted to its title Numbers. Israel is chosen as a special group among many nations and must devote itself to careful adherence to measurement. Many are called, but few are chosen. As the conquest narratives reveal a systematized eradication of other ungodly nations as per God’s edict, vigilant lists of kings and kingdoms are recorded. The Book of Revelation culminates the story with numbers of specific groups and days. A careful look at Joshua, Job and Jonah in the Old Testament and the Gospels and the Book of Acts in the New Testament divulges the larger elements of statistics in the Bible.

Old Testament Examples

Joshua was greatly used in the conquest of Jericho and the surrounding nations that had inhabited the land promised to the people of Israel. As the land needed to be divided among the twelve tribes of Israel, geographic statistics played a great part in that distribution. To properly apply those allotments, Joshua sent out surveyors to write statistical descriptions of the land including any major cities within given regions (Josh 18:3–5). These completed statistics were compiled and the land redistribution was hailed as fulfilled promises from the Lord (Josh 21:45). In this way statistics were used as a corporate blessing as fulfillment of God’s promises. 

            Job was a man who loved his God above all else. Because of Satan’s proposal that Job’s devotion was based on his material and social blessings, God allowed these things to be stripped from Job. Interestingly enough, the writer was mindful to make exact lists of what Job had before his trials (Job 1:1–4) and with what God blessed him after his proven obedience (Job 42:12). Job was reinstated with physical health, another family and twice as much material wealth as before. These statistics are seen as personal blessings for individual obedience.

            The story of Jonah, however, provides a unique look into God’s heart for the nations. After a tedious bout between God and his missionary, Jonah finally obeys and speaks God’s truth to Nineveh. Upon their repentance, Jonah sulks in his anger. But God uses population statistics to reveal his missiological heart (Jonah 4:11). According to the text, 120,000 people are a statistic that warrants God’s concern.  

New Testament Examples

Sometimes the Bible uses specific numbers to describe divine events, while at other times there are generic statistical references to quantified groups. The Gospels reflect varied biblical uses of statistics. In Mark 8:1–10 and Matthew 15: 32–39, the writers record the miraculous distribution of bread and fish to four thousand hungry recipients. Another passage, Luke 9:10–17, is an example of feeding five thousand.

            Jesus was cautious to choose the exact twelve disciples he wanted, a statistic to which he later referred as God-given and protected. But Jesus often employed parables that made statistical reference to a number of protected things where not a single one of the group is ever lost.[1] These types of statistical references are spread throughout Jesus’ teaching and prayers.

            In the Book of Acts, Luke attentively records the statistical growth of believers from the ascension of Jesus to the rapid increase throughout the Greco-Roman world. What begins with 120 believers quickly becomes 3,120 at Pentecost (Acts 2:41). Subsequent additions are described with words like “more” (Acts 5:14), “large number” (Acts 6:1), “grew in number” (Acts 9:31), “many” (Acts 9:42), and “great number” (Acts 11:21). Luke’s choice of words, albeit in the generic sense, describes a statistical measurement of increase in the church population. Even Paul’s choice for missiological bases for operations, according to Luke, became statistical starting points for unprecedented growth. John Mark Hicks, Harding University professor, posits that there is a “theological motive behind Luke's fondness for statistics. The growth of the community is grounded in Luke's theology of restoration. Just as Israel multiplied and increased in number in the Old Testament, so restored Israel would multiply and increase.”[2]
           What do you think: Does God really care about numbers?

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[1] In Matt 10:29 and Luke 12:6, not one sparrow falls; in Matt 24:2 and Mark 13:2, not one stone falls; in John 19:36, not one bone is broken; and in Matt 18:4, John 6:39 and John 17:12, not one of the given disciples are lost.

[2] John Mark Hicks, “Numerical Growth in the Theology of Acts: Part One,” Church Growth Magazine 11 (April – June, 1996): 8-10. Cited 19 February 2009. Online:  http://www.4churchgrowth.com/chur4140.htm#ft001.

Missiology as Science: Missiometrics Discussion Continued

Missiology has commonly been defined as "the science of the cross cultural communication of the Christian faith," as "preeminently the scholarly discipline underlying the task of world evangelization," and as "the field of study which researches, records and applies data relating to the biblical origins and history of the expansion of the Christian movement to anthropological principles and techniques for its further advancement."[1] Ivan Illich describes missiology as “the science about the Word of God as the Church in her becoming.”[2] In his classic missiology textbook, Alan Tippett calls it “the science of missiology” and posits that social anthropology plays an integral part in it.[3] Although David Hesselgrave qualifies his definition of missiology, he still calls it the “science of mission.”[4] These definitions identify missiology as a science and thereby expose it to scrutiny of the scientific method.

Since science is a “systematic method of continuing investigation that uses observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory-building to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena,”[5] any systematic observation, measurement and theorizing based on those observations in missions can be classified as scientific. All scientific results must be validated, and consistent quantification of observations allows for this validation. Missiometrics is not only the act of measurement, but it also entails logic and strategy based upon what is being measured.

            Missiologists have long used such enquiry for validation of their observations.

The starting-point in the investigation is, as with any scientific enquiry, the noticing of a common form and a common pattern in a chance collection of apparently disparate events in totally different circumstances. Out of this kind of massing of instances and delineation of surprising parallels among seemingly diverse materials, something quite new has always emerged.[6]

The scientific method entails making general observations, testing those observations against a single test group to measure for a preliminary analysis and then drawing conclusions that might relate to the whole larger body. This is not only consistent with the nature of science, but it also provides ongoing evaluation for its validity. Using scientific measurements is what has helped missiologists dialogue with other social sciences.

The results of these scientific tests provide a basis for understanding missiological history, current evangelical status and potential future scenarios. David Barrett of the former Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention completed missio-scientific studies in Africa to analyze

to what extent these bodies represent unrelated and autonomous religious changes, the products of exceptional and unique circumstances and personalities which are completely explained by local and regional factors, and whose further expansion is therefore largely unpredictable; or to what extent they are explicable, and therefore predictable, in terms of common sociological categories based on their particular social contexts and histories.[7]

If these statistical expressions of missiology can be validated by the scientific method, then statistics can also provide validity to missiology as a science. The rationale for this validation is reinforced by biblical, historical and theological perspectives.

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[1] A. F. Glasser, “Missiology,” BELIEVE Religious Information Source web-site (2007). Cited 17 February 2009. Online: http://mb-soft.com/believe/txo/missiolo.htm.

[2] Ivan Illich, Mission and Midwifery: Essays on Missionary Formation (Gwelo: Mambo Press, 1974), 6 in David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 2007), 493. 

[3] Alan R. Tippett, Introduction to Missiology (Pasadena, Calif.: William Carey Library, 1987), 120. 

[4] David Hesselgrave contributed the preface to Edward Rommen and Gary Corwin, eds., Missiology and the Social Sciences: Contributions, Cautions and Conclusions (Pasadena, Calif.: William Carey Library, 1996), 1. He posits that “’science’ in this case is being used in the more classical sense of that body of knowledge related to the understanding and carrying out of our missionary task in the world.”

[5] Emphases added. Dennis Overbye, “Philosophers Notwithstanding, Kansas School Board Redefines Science,” New York Times (15 November 2005). Cited 19 February 2009. Online:  http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/15/science/sciencespecial2/15evol.html?_r=1.

[6] David B. Barrett, Schism and Renewal in Africa: An Analysis of Six Thousand Contemporary Religious Movements (Ely House London W.I.: Oxford University Press, 1968), xviii.

[7] Barrett, Schism and Renewal, 5.