The Three Characteristics of the Indigenous Church

By Austin Gardner

The indigenous church is not mentioned in the New Testament. It is, however, obvious in the sense that the church took root and grew naturally. In the New Testament we see no outside involvement and help. Paul and others were planting churches but they did not stay long enough for the people to become dependent. The one time that Paul does stay too long he apologizes because he has caused them to be an inferior church. In staying he had worked another job, making tents, without having them pay his salary. They had a church that cost them nothing. That meant Paul wasn’t burdensome (didn’t cost them anything) and this caused them to be inferior. It is expected that a pastor who is so valuable to the church and ministry would be costly!
2 Corinthians 12:13 says, “For what is it wherein ye were inferior to other churches, except it be that I myself was not burdensome to you? Forgive me this wrong.”

Paul had worked among these people and not been a burden to them. He had not charged them anything including a salary. They were the people who least respected him. They took advantage of him. That would be the biblical basis for this study.

Here are some of the proponents of the “indigenous principle” that should help you to learn the necessity of achieving the indigenous principle. You can learn from the mistakes of others and from their wisdom.
Henry Venn (Anglican) and Rufus Anderson (Congregationalist) developed a strategy of indigenization in response to the extreme paternalism that had been exercised by western missionaries in the 19th century. It was obvious to them that “rice” Christians were only loyal as long as they received the free food. The missionary acted as a parent and expected complete authority and control.

Dixon Hoste who followed Hudson Taylor as director of the China Inland Mission is credited with making the Chinese churches apply the principles of self-government, self-support, and self propagation. Melvin Hodges (Assemblies of God) believed that foreign money created dependence and established the paternalistic pattern that created an unhealthy, anemic church.

Consider with me, each of the three principles and how they are applied. We will get into much more depth in the following chapters of how to apply these principles. This will simply be a stating of the principles and how they are to work.

First, the church is to be “self-governing!” That means that the church will develop leadership from within as the Holy Spirit works among those that He has saved as in Acts 13:1-3. The missionary or church planter ceases to be the leader. The national leaders are trained and the missionary is phased out. The church has learned to make its own decisions.

This can be seen biblically in how Paul trained and appointed leaders in Acts 14:21-23. Paul told the church to govern itself in the discipline of a member in I Corinthians 5:45. In Acts 6 the congregation and the apostles picked their first leaders, probably deacons.

Second, the church is to be “self-supporting!” That means that the church does not subsist on outside or foreign money. Each church should be able to meet its own needs. From the beginning God’s people gave sacrificially to support their church and its ministry, Acts 4:32-37, 6:1-3. The Philippians supported Paul as a missionary, Philippians 4:10. If a church cannot pay its own way and must depend on outside supply then we will greatly hinder them, damage relations between us, and hinder the starting of future churches.
Third, the church is to be “self-propagating!” Self-propagating means that the church will extend its own ministry in its region and beyond without external help. If we are to evangelize the world in our generation then we will have to start churches that are able to start churches. There is simply no way that we can raise up enough missionaries to start all the churches. In 2 Timothy 2:2 we find, “And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.” As those who hear find others that they can train we will be able to accomplish the task that we have been given.
Disciples must disciple. That is how we will get the gospel around the world. As go the disciples so will go the church. If you have a discipling church it will be a reproducing church. The discipling church will plant other churches.

Republished from austingardner.net.

Sequence Makes the Difference

Anything that occurs out of sequence can make a good experience into a horrible experience.

I heard this statement recently while listening to an audio book.  I think it was Good to Great by Jim Collins.  I got to thinking about this in relation to discipleship.  In many churches and ministries I have noticed that generally discipleship is thought to take place when the people of the church listen to the pastor preach and are obedient to the preaching.  No real need to have a discipleship program, right?  However, almost everything in life has a structure to it.  A sequence if you will.  And furthermore, we will miss the point or get frustrated when that sequence is not followed.  School is an excellent example of this.  We learn to read and count, then we learn history and math.  It makes all the sense in the world.

Now imagine with me a new christian who is just starting to be faithful to church.  Every bible doctrine, every principle is new and without context.  Imagine how long it will take for that young christian to learn biblical principles and their application if no one will stop and guide him through the bible step by step.

That being said, I think that it could cause a great many christians to “mature” with some major gaps in their spiritual learning.  A deacon, for instance, that isn’t faithful to church.  A church treasurer that doesn’t understand missions or the great commission.  A christian that has attend church for years and never realized the importance of baptism.  I am sure nothing like this happens in a church…or does it?  I have seen all of these.

Back to the new christian in the pew.  What does he need?  He certainly needs the preaching and exhortation from the Word of God.  He also needs a strong christian to lead him through the study of God’s Word.  He needs discipleship and that in sequence–a structure for learning.  It will make all the difference in the life of that believer.

Leadership Training

I have been doing some reading and studying lately.  I also have been a part of a class that my pastor holds on missions and ministry and lots of other things.  My thinking in reaching Colombia with the gospel has been stimulated.  I previously put Method #3 as Discipleship and Mentoring.  However, I am beginning to think that this maybe the main job of the missionary.  I of course think all of the things on the list are important because I put them on the list.  But I would dare say that all of these things are essentially the job of any Christian or pastor.  Missions work, I think, adds an important element that must not be missed.  That is, put simply, leader training.  It appears in my last blog entry that I may have under emphasized this element.  However, it would be hard to put too much emphasis on this.  Or so I think.

Here is my thinking.  First, in the world of business a judge of success is return on investment.  Many dollars are given to missions every year.  And rightly so.  But I think missions work success may often be defined incorrectly or better said would be incompletely.  Missions blogs and prayer letters will emphasis salvation decisions and attendance.  However, I find myself interested in know how many are being trained for the ministry.  It would be safe to say that the future of any ministry is found in those that are being trained now.  And could not be more true than in missions work.  Many missions philosophies point to the fact that their should be national leadership and a church planting emphasis.  I don’t think that these goals could be met without a plan to train leaders.  I would think that the best return on investment would be leader training.  This might be a strong statement, but the best gift a missionary could give his people is the ability to carry the work forward on their own.

Secondly…well I have probably bored you.  But what might be some consequences of  lack of leadership for the future?  Next time.