The Populist Model

We see that to grow, churches need to inculcate a strong conviction that my church is here to save people, which implies that people who are not in my church are not saved and need me to save them. Some people take that to be a militant stance that leads to warfare among faith communities and point to the history of war among religions — which continues among some religions even today. I’d rather look at a more positive scenario, that of the religiously plural American society that enjoys a separation of church and state and, on that basis, freedom of religion. The Divine Principle views freedom of religion as the sine qua non distinguishing the Abel-type society from others. Religions in a free market of faiths succeed by competing with their peers to win people’s hearts and souls. What is wrong with the makers of Jones’s pickle relish believing that theirs is the best, better than Smith’s pickle relish? As long as the market is refereed impartially, the public benefits by constant improvements in relish as Jones and Smith compete to excel. The public also benefits when churches compete. That is why it is in such societies that religion is popular and the largest percentage of the people believe in God.¹ Let’s review how religions grow in an open society.

Historical Background

American religion has grown by populist principles and practices from the colonial times. I want to highlight the work of two scholars of Protestant church growth in America, Nathan Hatch on the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and Donald Miller on the late 20th century. By comparing the two, we see that not much has changed in the spiritual dynamics of American culture over the span of two hundred years. Two hundred years ago, successful churches tapped into the spiritual and social dynamics imbedded deeply within American culture. When they did so, revival came. Contemporary church growth is tapping into the same dynamics.

Nathan Hatch called this the “democratization of Christianity in a popular culture.” With the American Revolution, he writes, “turmoil swirled around the crucial issues of authority, organization, and leadership. …Respect for authority, tradition, station, and education eroded. …To be an American citizen was by definition to be a republican, the inheritor of a revolutionary legacy in a world ruled by aristocrats and kings. …This left an indelible imprint upon the structures of American Christianity.” British historian Paul Johnson calls this “the specifically American form of Christianity — undogmatic, moralistic rather than creedal, tolerant but strong, and all-pervasive of society.”²

The churches had to relate to the American character and culture, symbolized by slogans such as “no taxation without representation” and “government of the people, by the people, for the people;” a culture in which leaders are “public servants.” This is, in fact, part and parcel of the American ideology. Hatch cites 19th century French visitor, Anthony Trollope, who in 1863 wrote of the Americans, “They are willing to have religion, as they are willing to have laws; but they choose to make it for themselves. They do not object to paying for it, but they like to have the handling of the article for which they pay.” And what sort of religion did they make for themselves? They “wanted their leaders unpretentious, their doctrines self-evident and down-to-earth, their music lively and singable, and their churches in local hands.” Hatch goes on to state, “The rise of evangelical Christianity in the early republic is, in some measure, a story of the success of common people in shaping the culture after their own priorities.”³ As owners of their faith, naturally they “threw themselves into expanding its influence.” By this energy and ownership, America enjoyed an “explosive combination of evangelical fervor and popular sovereignty,” and this combination has sustained religious expansion in America ever since.

Increasingly assertive common people wanted their leaders unpretentious, their doctrines self-evident and down-to-earth, their music lively and singable, and their churches in local hands. — Nathan Hatch

Johnson perceives “an ecumenical and American type of religious devotion which affected all groups, and gave a distinctive American flavor to a wide range of denominations.” He sums them up under five heads:

• Evangelical vigor
• A tendency to downgrade the clergy
• Little stress on liturgical correctness
• Even less on parish boundaries, and above all
• An emphasis on individual experience.⁴

The term “democratization” must be explained, because it is a hot-button word for Unificationists. What it refers to, in Hatch’s analysis, is the recognition of three points:

• The religious authenticity of each person’s experience
• The allowance for common people to define their own faith, and
• The use of Christianity as a force for liberation and popular sovereignty

For better or worse, the age of the authority of the common man and woman dawned and religion changed forever. One is reminded of the buildings in Manhattan that display not saints, scholars or political heroes, but mechanics, draftsmen, carpenters and farmers. Rockefeller Center’s Fifth Avenue artwork celebrates in bronze the production of basic commodities — wheat, wool, cotton, sugar, molasses, tobacco and so forth. This, not the generals, emperors and philosophers, is what is enshrined in American architecture. Hence the American “tendency to downgrade the clergy,” pointed out by Johnson (an English scholar). Consider Joel Osteen, Senior Pastor of America’s largest congregation, Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas. He is famous, fashionable and fantastically wealthy, but what are Joel’s sermons about? He talks about his friends whose batteries die, who lose their jobs, whose parents are struggling with depression or illness, whose marriage is on the rocks, whose boss is a tyrant, who can’t figure out how to get the remote to work. He eulogizes his father, who had a small church and a large family. Joel is someone like me, the listener feels, who succeeded and wants me to succeed. Tens of thousands identify with him and participate in his church.

Joel Osteen is someone like me, the listener feels, who succeeded and wants me to succeed.

The Americans enjoyed an abundance of space and it was impossible to police the frontier. The easiest social organization for the pioneers to take west with them was their church. Churches were the primary agents of social organization on the American frontier and ultimately for the nation as a whole.⁵ This was abetted by the separation of church and state and what Hatch terms “a climate of withering ecclesiastical establishments.” Therefore, the people were free to organize their lives through their churches and religious associations. It was the Massachusetts Bay Puritans writ over a million square miles. The common people of their own choosing set up missionary societies, Bible societies, women’s benevolent associations, the Sunday school movement, reform movements, rooted in the experience of the Holy coming into their farm, their village, their church and making Himself known in their language.

The result was the explosive growth of the churches. While Christians in Europe were struggling over control and power, America enjoyed an “incredible growth of ‘upstart’ denominations with new styles of church life between 1800 and 1850. The Methodists in 1820 had 250,000 members; they doubled in the next ten years. Baptist membership multiplied by 10 between 1783-1813 as the number of Baptist churches grew from 500 to 2,500. By 1850, the new denominations — Baptist, Methodist, Christian and African American churches — constituted 2/3 of Protestant ministers and members in the country. In 1775 there were 1,800 ministers in America; in 1845 there were nearly 40,000. A completely new church body, the “Freewill Baptists” had as many ministers as the Episcopalians in the early 19th century. “Antimission Baptist” preachers “far outnumbered” RC priests and Lutheran ministers; the Christians, a new movement created by Alexander Campbell and Barton Stone in the 1820s, had as many preachers as the Presbyterians. The church of the Puritans, Congregationalism, had twice the number of preachers of any other American church in 1775. But it set itself up as a state church in Connecticut and Massachusetts. By 1845 Methodist preachers outnumbered Congregationalists by more than ten to one.

The state churches, by their doctrinal rigor, institutional formalism and insistence on having a thoroughly educated clergy, stifled creativity and responsiveness to the changing environment. Religious entrepreneurs roamed the countryside, inspired by the Spirit, gathering multifarious crowds, paying no attention to parish lines or church traditions — other than to challenge them. These self-taught Baptists, Methodists, “New Light” Presbyterians and Independent Congregationalist preachers focused on delivering a direct experience that proved God’s authority. They developed new delivery methods, revivalism referred to as “new measures” developed by Charles Finney, the altar call, the “anxious bench” designed to convert the hopeful, face-to-face recruitment, camp meetings, new musical styles based on what people liked to sing, plain messages, “muscular Christianity” that led to dramatic conversions of individuals, families and entire communities.

The state churches stifled creativity and responsiveness to the changing environment. Religious entrepreneurs roamed the countryside, inspired by the Spirit, gathering multifarious crowds, paying no attention to parish lines or church traditions.

As we see from the fact that almost all mega-churches are independents, not affiliated with mainstream denominations, these populist dynamics continue today.

Contemporary Examples of the Populist Approach

I. The Key Church Strategy

Timothy Ahlen and J. V. Thomas are Baptists who work with two Texas Baptist churches, the Gambrell Street Church (Fort Worth) and the Cliff Temple Baptist Church (Dallas). These churches have adopted the so-called “key church” strategy to cross cultural divides. I will review some of the testimonies about their strategy.⁶

A member couple, Nancy and Jerry Sayers, started a church by visiting their neighbors in their apartment complex. At first the neighbors rebuffed them, but the Sayers persisted and within a few weeks had 15-20 adults meeting for Bible study in the manager’s office. In a matter of months, the group decided to constitute of itself a congregation and take offerings.

Pastor Ben Lopez began a Hispanic congregation in a complex of duplexes and fourplexes, in an apartment that the owner donated. The 15’x15’ living room was overfull within a few weeks, and Lopez had to run two services every Sunday. The group reached 170 and began to rent space in a local church.

A Spanish-speaking church-planter in a Hispanic community could not attract the local adults. The local parents would only send their children to his Bible classes. But when a local leader got interested and agreed to pastor, then the adults started coming. Over forty adults became regular attenders within three months.

When a local leader got interested and agreed to pastor, then the adults started coming.

In a white, “country-western lifestyle” area, the “Country Church” was started. The rowdy young, working class community was disinterested in church as usual. Adapting to what this market would bear, the church planters set up a “sanctuary [that] contained tables and chairs instead of pews” with a country-western band. “Addiction recovery and emotional stability” were entry-level discipleship programs, answering the immediate needs of the attenders. They grew a congregation of about 100.

In my Family, Church, Community, Kingdom, I summarized the story of John Shelton, a Cliff Temple youth minister whose youth brought boxes of fruit to an empty lot frequented by the poor and homeless. Within a few months, he created the “church on the lot,” eventually garnering support from the city.⁷

Another member, Tillie Bergen, started two Bible study groups by asking ladies who came to her for help if she could start one in their apartment. One of the two, led by Virginia Maanani, who had come to Tillie asking for help paying her electric bill (which Tillie paid for her) grew to 60 members. Ahlen and Thomas call such a Bible study group a “single cell church,” and elaborate:

It became a church in the true sense. These were rough, tough kinds of folks — like the people Jesus preached to — and they weren’t about to come to church. We decided to take the church to them, which is what He did. Virginia Maanani…grew in her faith rapidly, and soon found people coming to her for answers to their spiritual problems. She never asked to be a spiritual leader; it just happened. She seemed to understand her neighbors and the problems they encountered on a daily basis. She could relate to the residents in way that a professional minister never could.⁸

Members of the Cliff Temple Church planted the above congregations. Using the key church method, this church started 28 congregations in about 5 years. Cliff Temple is one of 300 Southern Baptist churches that have adopted this strategy since 1979. In the 18 years that elapsed until the writing of the book, these churches each average 600 Bible study attendance each week. By 1998, more than 165 Texas Baptist churches adopted the strategy. That represents 2% of Baptist churches in Texas, but those 165 churches account for 36% of new church starts among Texas Baptists. I will discuss the key church strategy further later.

II. The Saddleback Community Church

Rick Warren developed a successful Southern Baptist congregation in a wealthy Los Angeles suburb. He translated the “Bible thumping” Southern Baptist tradition into an expression suitable to “Saddleback Sam” with his “mobile me” life. His is an evangelical congregation of Hollywood executives and Valley Girls.⁹

Warren’s philosophy is based upon the common sense notion that to live for the sake of others, one needs to know where they are coming from. To catch fish, he says, you have to understand them. This knowledge determines your equipment, bait and timing. Analogously, we have to study the ways and tastes of the people whom we are seeking to bring into God’s kingdom. We have to know where they hang out and how they think. Human culture has history, so we need to understand something of the traditions of this world.

Just as there is no “one size fits all” in fishing, one evangelistic style will not work for everyone. Also, different fishers prefer different types of fish and fishing environments. Some prefer cold mountain streams, some rivers, some the surf and some the deep sea. But all fishers agree, we have to go where the fish are biting. A fish that isn’t hungry will not bite your hook.

Learn to think like a fish and reach out in terms they understand. To discover the terms, don’t go into theorizing. Just go out and talk to people. Growing churches encourage their members to maintain friendships with unchurched people. Churches tend to stop growing after a few years, because believers tend to stop developing relationships with non-members. A quick remedy is to go out and meet a number of unchurched folks by going door-to-door with a survey for the unchurched. That’s what Warren and a small group to which he personally witnessed did. They met weekly in his kitchen and developed a plan for door-to-door outreach of an unusual sort.

Learn to think like a fish and reach out in terms they understand. To discover the terms, don’t go into theorizing. Just go out and talk to people.

In his initial door-to-door questionnaire, Pastor Rick asked five questions:

• What do you think is the greatest need in this area? (Ice breaker)
• Are you actively attending any church? (If yes, he said thank you and moved on.)
• Why do you think most people don’t attend church? (This is less threatening than asking why the person him/herself doesn’t attend.)
• If you were to look for a church to attend, what kind of things would you look for? (In other words, how should I design my program to make it something in which you would be interested?)
• What could I do for you? What advice can you give to a minister who really wants to be helpful to people?

Warren discovered the general reasons that the people in his community were not going to church. The answers are classic complaints against religion. The church is boring, especially the sermon. Church members are unfriendly to visitors. The church is more interested in my money than me. Parents worry about the quality of the childcare the churches offer.

Warren and his small Bible study group sent out a mass mailing inviting the community to attend their inaugural service. With the wisdom of a serpent, the letter promised that the service would be precisely the opposite of what the residents did not like. They would be a friendly group of neighbors offering lively, engaging worship with excellent childcare, and with no pressure to give money.

He called it the “church for the unchurched.” His commitment to break down all barriers and set aside traditions in order to bring in new guests is revealed in the fact that his letter did not mention Jesus or the Bible. Why? Because it would have been culturally jarring. He didn’t use his denomination’s name (Southern Baptist). Warren simply calls it being polite and respecting where people are at. Some church-going Christians who received the letter reacted negatively and accused him of faithlessness. But Warren and his kitchen group persevered.

Warren’s commitment was to break down all barriers and set aside traditions in order to bring in new guests.

Their determination was rewarded, as 75 people showed up by mistake at their rehearsal one week prior to the actual first service, and 205 people attended the first service. Within ten weeks, 82 converted, and the Saddleback Community Church was off and running.

III. Willow Creek Community Church

Bill Hybels was 19 years old in 1972 when he encountered kids playing rock music in church, and liked what he heard so much that he joined the band. Dave Holmbo, the band’s 20-year old leader, however, saw that Bill was suited more to biblical teaching than rhythm guitar. The band, “Son Company,” had more need of a Bible study than another guitarist.

And Bill did have a gift for connecting to kids his age. He would assign them topics to research in the Bible, and design his teaching in response to the questions of the 80 kids in the band and Bible study. The band practiced on Sundays and the Bible study was mid-week. The music and empowerment they felt from the adult church of which they were a part, an independent church called South Park Church, clicked with the Holy Spirit, and the group jelled and grew by word of mouth among peer-networks. When Bill’s future wife encountered the group, she remembers it as “a page straight out of the book of Acts … a community of love.”¹⁰

God led them to reach out to more of their peers, and they decided to get into evangelism. Before starting, they examined what they were doing and made plans to improve. The group criticized the church basement’s décor and Bill’s long Bible lessons. So they moved to a location nicer than the church basement, and Bill promised to limit his message to one main point, to give new folks “a manageable dose.”

Others said their friends would not be much inspired by singing “Kumbaya” and “Pass It On,” so, in a major move, they combined the rock band with the Bible study. One girl asked if she and her friends could create a skit. Another volunteered to make a slide show with a background of recorded music.

In working through this transition, Hybels recalled his experiences as a youth bringing a friend to his hometown church. He recalled how the church had not helped their unchurched friends at all. Those friends had family problems, or problems with substance abuse, and left the church with nothing more than a reconfirmation that Christianity is irrelevant.

He realized that traditional church is designed for the already convinced, not for new people, whose spirit it kills. To new people, church services “seem grossly abnormal.” They designed their upgraded Wednesday night meetings, which they entitled “Son City,” to penetrate the defenses and skepticism of their unchurched friends. 125 attended the first night.

Kids who became new Christians were funneled into a Sunday night meeting called “Son Village.” Bill started the first Son Village meeting teaching from a book of theology, but within five minutes stopped, apologized, and told them to come back next week to hear something relevant to their lives.

In addition to the arts skills imbued in the local high school, the kids were moved into a life of prayer for their friends. They held their own baptisms in a local park district swimming pool. Reflective of American youth culture, there was no distinction between leaders and followers. Son City would begin with sports to drain enough energy to enable the kids to settle down and listen to a Bible study. During bad weather, they held their Frisbee competitions in the church sanctuary.

The meeting started with an opening jam (“our version of a prelude”) and pop songs with altered lyrics. This was followed by a skit and multi-media slide show on the theme of the message. Then came the message, and then the group divided up into huddles for prayer and talk.

Again, the group was empowered by sharing ownership. All the kids had a role to play, making posters, sets, sound, lighting, photography and slides, cooking, phone calls, music, and so forth. “Core kids were forced to keep growing in order to shepherd the new kids they brought.” As a result of this volunteer spirit and peer affinity, “Hundreds of kids spent nearly every night at church or at a team activity.” And they covered their own expenses.

Once they promoted a special program to which everyone would invite their friends. They did a good job and 300 were in attendance. Hybels read the crucifixion story, explained it, and asked those who wanted to receive Christ to stand up. So many did, and he was so nervous, that he thought they had misunderstood, and told them to sit down. He repeated it all, and asked again, and all 300 stood up.

At the end of the evening on his way out of the church, Bill broke down in tears, and heard God’s voice. He recalls the main point: “Where would those kids who received Christ tonight be if there hadn’t been a service designed just for them, a safe place where they could come week after week and hear the dangerous, life-transforming message of Christ?” He pledged from that night to “always make sure that our strategy includes a regularly scheduled, high-quality, Spirit-empowered outreach service where irreligious people can come and discover that they matter to You and that Christ died for them.” This is a good definition of the “seeker service.”

Our strategy includes a regularly scheduled, high-quality, Spirit-empowered outreach service where irreligious people can come and discover that they matter to You and that Christ died for them.

“I remember walking into South Park for the first time, into a church [building] that looked like the church I had walked away from years earlier. But the band was playing loud and kids were having a great time. It just floored me. Then I went to a Son City retreat, and everyone I met seemed to care about me. They seemed genuine. That weekend I heard a message about the Gospel and about true discipleship. I was ready to hear it. I said, ‘OK, this is it.’ And I trusted Christ.” This testimony is from one kid who joined the group and later became director of their wilderness camp.

One of Hybels’ Bible college professors, Gilbert Bilezikian, was a visionary believer enamored of the New Testament church. He challenged his class, “What if a true community of God could be established in the 20th century? It would transform this world and usher people into the next.” Bill reacted deeply, concluding, “Every other goal I had considered seemed to pale in comparison to the thought of establishing the Kingdom of God here on earth.”

Hybels had married, and felt it was time to transition from being a youth group to being a church. Maintaining their intense idealism, Lynne Hybels writes, “We dreamed about how to be the church.” After all, if we are going to build the Kingdom, “How…can we really make a difference in the world unless we reach the entire family?”

Son City had reached 1,200. The Hybels, with 100 from Son City who lived in another town, set out to start a full-fledged congregation. They fundraised with baskets of tomatoes to buy equipment. This was 1975 and he was 23 years old. Like Pastor Rick, they started door-to-door asking unchurched why they didn’t go to church and got the same answers as Warren.

The group rented a theatre, which they used as their Sunday worship space for six years. They rented a nearby warehouse for office space, conferences and midweek services. 30 people contributed all the necessary money, each going into debt in the process. The first service took place in October of 1975, with 125 attenders. “The music was loud, the drama was raucous (sometimes crossing the line of acceptability).” Over the winter, most of the initial attenders fell off. People didn’t know what to make of it. Was it a youth group? A church? A performance? In the first winter, sometimes there were more on stage than in the seats. But they persevered and were rewarded with success. The Willow Creek Community Church, named after the theatre, now has some 17,000 members and wields enormous influence educating and training thousands of pastors and lay leaders from churches around the world, through its “Willow Creek Association.”

It is interesting to note that in the mind of the public, the UC of the 1970s was clumped together with such hyper-creative, start-up youth groups. Hybels comments, in fact, that back in 1975, “It was rumored we were backed by the Moonies.”

Back in 1975, “It was rumored we were backed by the Moonies.”

Now, what about that rock worship music? How did that arise? Living in Berkeley in the early 70s, I met my share of what were called Jesus freaks. These were counter-culture youth who found a “natural high” in Jesus. The nascent Jesus culture didn’t make a huge impression in my community up north, but southern California youth gave Christianity a different reception.

IV. Calvary Chapel

One pioneer in southern California, Chuck Smith, was a pastor in the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, a Pentecostal denomination. Smith grew weary of the church growth programs pushed by his ICFG headquarters, and began to ignore them and do what he did best, teach straight from the Bible. Finding himself constrained by denominational strictures, he accepted a call to pastor the Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, California, a church of 25 members, “deeply divided and on the verge of disbanding.” He pulled the congregation together and was led to minister to the youth drifting around the beaches of his area. These were youth of the late-sixties counter-culture movement, in other words, hippies. He opened his home and then his church to them. He allowed them to come in their own garb and hairstyle. He let them play their own music. His sermons were simple expositions of the Bible, which was his gift. The kids filled the church. He had to tear down the walls inside the building, and filled it to overflowing. “Every month or so, the church would double.”

To accommodate the crowds, they bought a parcel of land and set up a tent. The story is worth repeating: “The night before their first service in the tent, Smith and others set up sixteen hundred chairs and planned double services. ‘I looked out at that sea of folding chairs.’ Smith recalled. ‘I had never seen so many folding chairs in all my life!’ He asked an associate: ‘How long do you suppose it will take the Lord to fill this place?’ The associate looked at his watch and answered, ‘I’d say just about eleven hours.’ He was right. The next morning every seat was filled and people stood around the perimeter of the tent — for both services.”¹¹

The movement gained national attention with its beach baptisms at Corona del Mar in 1970. Thousands of kids attended and enthusiastically spread their faith throughout the town. “They’re knocking on doors and telling people about Jesus and hugging them. …These kids would just sit down and talk to them about the Lord. They had no pretenses whatsoever.” Some householders called the police. The kids witnessed to the police. It took four pastors two and a half hours to baptize everyone who wanted it. Beach baptisms were held monthly for years, serving with volleyball and hot dogs along with a gospel message and baptism in the Spirit and the water.

Smith’s Calvary Chapel spawned dozens (now hundreds) of daughter churches. The movement is rapidly expanding and includes numerous mega-churches, but the average size of a Calvary Chapel is 138. In a 1997 survey, it was found that 25% of the Calvary Chapels were established since 1995, and 3/4 were less than 12 years old. In 1996, there were 711 Calvary Chapels worldwide.¹²

Calvary churches multiply through a natural indigenous approach. “Converts who feel a call to the ministry…are sent on their way with prayer and a blessing — but seldom with money.” Church planters have to figure out how to reach the people to whom they feel called to minister. Intuition and common sense, or, in Warren’s thinking, politeness, leads to respect for local people. Desire to avoid burnout leads to delegation of ministry tasks. Each church is separately incorporated and there is no reporting to higher-ups. The pastors of the mother and daughter churches have a mentoring relationship, and the up-line goes no further than one level. I’ll say more about this flat organizational style later.

Church growth is largely a result of word-of-mouth. As the church develops the means to support the pastor, many will market their teaching through audiotapes and books. Some churches give rise to bands that meet commercial success and indirectly serve as a witness to their church and others like them. Smith eschews seminary education, which only teaches people “how to keep their congregations down to a manageable size.”

Smith eschews seminary education, which only teaches people “how to keep their congregations down to a manageable size.”

V. Hope Chapel

In 1971, God spoke out loud to Ralph Moore in a restaurant, telling him to start a church in Redondo Beach. He targeted the community youth by setting up a hotline and putting up small signs saying, “Need help?” and providing a number to call. Within a few years he had 2,500 members worshiping in a former bowling alley. Hope Chapel grew out of the same beach culture as Calvary. As sociologist Donald Miller observed, “They seemed to be having fun! Their religion might be filled with commitment, but it was not at the expense of celebration. I didn’t sense, even among the youth, that they were there out of obligation.”

They seemed to be having fun! Their religion might be filled with commitment, but it was not at the expense of celebration. I didn’t sense, even among the youth, that they were there out of obligation.

Miller observes that Hope Chapel stays under the Foursquare denominational umbrella, dealing with “archaic rules and bylaws,” and opines that this explains why its growth is slower than Calvary’s.

VI. Vineyard Fellowship

The Vineyard was founded in 1974 by Ken Gulliksen and has been led by John Wimber since 1982. Gulliksen was with Calvary Chapel when he started a Bible study group in his house. His testimony is typical of many. “I played guitar and sat on a stool and led some worship and taught the Bible, answered questions in homes, and at the end invited anyone who wanted to receive Christ to come for prayer, which they did in droves.”

Wimber was a professional musician who became a Quaker. He led home groups that became too charismatic for the Friends, and eventually connected with Calvary Chapel. He met success as a church planter, but was more charismatic than suited Calvary’s temperament. At a meeting of several leaders to discuss this, Wimber met Gulliksen. Gulliksen and he clicked and combined their ministries. The Vineyards, that had been part of Calvary, separated. Gradually Wimber became the main leader of the Vineyard Christian Fellowship, taking with him 30 Calvary churches. These churches take a more spirit-filled approach, accepting speaking in tongues and healing. By 1996, some 22 years after its founding, there were 579 Vineyard churches worldwide.¹³ A glance at their websites reveals that the movement is healthy and growing in 2009.

The growth of local churches like the Baptist key churches, Saddleback, Willow, Calvary Chapel and the Vineyard reflects strategies and values that have always worked in the American religious environment. One measure of a movement’s vitality is its number of new congregations. For example, at the end of his study of these “new paradigm churches,” Miller states that his Episcopal church in southern California is doing reasonably well. In the last thirty years, in fact, it has grown in membership. Then he notes that it had not spun off any daughter churches. This tells the tale. Among Evangelical Protestant congregations, 58% were established after 1990. Among Roman Catholic churches in America, 5% were established after 1990.¹⁴

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Footnotes

Footnotes

1. Rodney Stark, Discovering God: The Origins of the Great Religions and the Evolution of Belief (New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007), Ch. 3: “Rome: An Ancient Religious Marketplace.” ↩

2. Nathan Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989), p. 6. Johnson, op. cit., p. 109. ↩

3. Hatch, op. cit., p. 9. ↩

4. Paul Johnson, A History of the American People (New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 1999), p. 116. ↩

5. See Donald G. Mathews, “The Second Great Awakening as an Organizing Process, 1780-1830,” in John M. Mulder and John F. Wilson, Religion in American History: Interpretive Essays (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1978), pp. 199-218. First published in the American Quarterly, XXI (1969), pp 23-43. ↩

6. Timothy Ahlen and J. V. Thomas, One Church, Many Congregations: The Key Church Strategy (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1999), passim. ↩

7. Tyler Hendricks, Family, Church, Community, Kingdom, pp. 103-4. ↩

8. Ahlen and Thomas, op. cit., pp. 64, 77-78. ↩

9. Most of this material was derived from chapter 11 of Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church: Growth Without Compromising Your Message and Mission (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995). ↩

10. This narrative was derived from Hybels and Hybels, Rediscovering Church: The Story and Vision of Willow Creek Community Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995), Ch. 1. ↩

11. Balmer, Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory, pp. 19-21. ↩

12. Miller, Reinventing American Protestantism, pp. 194-6. ↩

13. Miller, Ibid. ↩

14. Hartford Institute for Religion Research, published in The Citizen (Rhinebeck, NY), 1/7 (Fall, 2002). ↩