4.4 ACOP’s Church Planting Strategy

[Aidan]

I think a church can still be considered indigenous if it is making disciples and active in some form of outreach or blessing to the community. This goes back to the previous session and an addition model vs multiplication model of missions. God still uses churches with an attractional/program-based model of outreach so to not call these churches indigenous/established would be misguided. However, I think churches that do not reproduce or multiply are missing a HUGE part of God’s command to go into all nations with the Gospel. Churches that plant churches should not be as uncommon in Canada as they are now, and I hope in my lifetime I get to see God do a work in the Canadian church that revitalizes the primacy of disciple making and multiplication.

[Melissa Smyth]

If an Indigenous church is defined as self-supporting, self-governing, and self-propagating, then I think it would have to propagate in order to be an indigenous Church. Our calling is to go make disciples of all nations. If we are not continuing to make disciples who make disciples and start Churches which go on to start more Churches, then are we actually living in that call?

[Celestine]

Indigenous Church Definition

An indigenous church is typically defined as self-supporting, self-governing, and self-propagating. If a church has never self-propagated (planted another church), it may still be considered indigenous if it is self-supporting and self-governing. Self-propagation is an important aspect, but the absence of it doesn’t necessarily disqualify a church from being indigenous. However, it might indicate an area for growth and development in the church’s mission and outreach.

[Anna]

If, by definition, an indigenous church is self propagating, then if it is not doing so it is not an indigenous church. However, is our goal to reproduce churches or to spread the Gospel? I believe these are two very different streams. As we have seen in this course so far, the church may not be what we want to reproduce. What we want to multiply is the number of people who hear and accept the Gospel and then go out into their part of the world to share the Gospel with those around them; creating more disciples who will do the same thing, and so on and so forth. Whether or not we are an indigenous church in the world today is irrelevant because Jesus didn’t tell us to go and multiply churches, He told us to go and make disciples. We have spent far too much effort establishing and growing our own churches. I think it’s time for us to focus much more intently and intentionally on making disciples, as we have been commanded to do.