Christward movement

A Church-Planting Movement (CPM) is in many ways actually a church leadership multiplication and development movement. The difference between planting churches and seeing sustained movements is usually linked to leadership development. No matter how many churches are planted, unless the cultural insiders become leaders, the churches will remain foreign and either reproduce slowly or reach a plateau when the initial leader(s) become overloaded.

Can we as outsiders recognize or create a truly indigenous church? First we need a working definition of an indigenous church. A community of believers who worship Christ according to their cultural norms. The structure and methods of the community are created through the host culture seeking God in Scripture. To help us separate our conception of church with seats and western music and logical/academic sermons I’ll use the term Christward movement to describe what may be called an indigenous church.

While local church engagement seems to be normative in Scripture and church history, Christ's parables about the Kingdom suggest other interesting possibilities. The kingdom, we're told, is small (a mustard seed), almost imperceptible, and spreads in surprising ways. It's a vision that seems spiritually compatible with the "weakness" and incarnational nature of insider movements. In Luke 13, the kingdom is like a "little bit of yeast," that when tossed into the dough, leavens the whole loaf. It's like the "smallest of seeds," that when it is grown, will host the birds of the air. In Matthew 13, it's a treasure hidden in a field.

The Bridges of God

Christward Movements in Contemporary India