Question. Hendricks adopts Mark Mittelberg’s seven-value evangelism framework as the spiritual foundation for UC church growth (per mittelberg-seven-values-framework) — translating each generic value into UC application. But by adopting a Christian-evangelical-Protestant framework, UC inherits its blind spots. What categories distinctive to UC theology does Mittelberg’s framework miss, and how would a UC-native evangelism framework differ?
Why it matters. This is structurally a meta-question about Hendricks’s whole methodological choice. If Mittelberg misses things that are actually load-bearing in UC theology (e.g., indemnity work, lineage transmission, ancestral liberation, spirit-world reciprocity), then UC adoption of his framework will produce evangelism that looks effective by Mittelberg’s metrics while quietly being unfaithful to UC’s own theological commitments. The question matters for diagnosing why post-1970s UC evangelism patterns may have under-performed despite ostensibly applying generic best practices.
Current best guesses. Plausible UC-distinctive categories the seven values do not naturally surface:
- Indemnity work — proactive providential offering ahead of the recipient’s recognition
- Ancestral liberation — evangelism includes the ancestral spirit world
- Lineage transmission via Blessing — sacramental change of genealogy
- Spirit world cooperation — partnership with spirits actively working with the church
- The 21 / 40 / 120 / 430-day condition tradition — quantified spiritual preparation
This question is a thread seed in itself — eventually warranting a “UC-native evangelism framework” thread once enough UC-distinctive atomics exist (estimated 2-3 more batches).
Source. Raised in br-02-values-not-numbers REVIEW, from mittelberg-seven-values-framework.