Missiological Models Of Church Growth

A number of models have been suggested as means for church growth. e two major ones are however the Mega Church Model and the Multiplication Church Model.

e Megachurch Model

Megachurches emerged in the 1970s, and they continue to grow even today (Vaughan 2016). With a membership approaching eight hundred thousand the Yoido Full Gospel Church is considered the largest of such in the world (Bell 2017). Megachurches are characterized by pastoral founders who exercise strong charismatic leadership and long pastoral tenure with spiritual authority. e message of the pastors attracts the members of the church and they maintain large organizations and e ective administration systems similar to business entrepreneurs as they embrace modernity as the tools for mission.

e Multiplication Model

Multiplication model churches focus on extending their churches across the nation and overseas. ey view the centralized megachurches to be unable to use the full potential of the whole church to evangelize and transform the whole world (Hong 2003). For example, Lim (2004) indicates that unless these forms of church growth truly decentralize to let each cell function fully as autonomous (self-governing, self-supporting, and selfpropagating) churches, with their own leaders, budgets, and programs, God’s church will continue to deprive almost ninety percent (the unequipped laity) of the church from exercising their priesthood, prophethood, and rulership in Christ.

Other Models of Church Growth

ese include cell church, the Alpha Course, natural church development (NCD), and multi-variance by the Institute for Church Growth in Korea (ICGK) among others. ey are models that both Megachurch and multiplication model churches adopt as part of their church growth approach mix. e Alpha Course model focuses on integrating non-believers into the church community. It is an evangelistic model designed to mainly target non-Christians through small group meeting at house (Hong 2003). e multi-variance model suggests that healthy growing churches manifest ten indicators as follows: excellent pastoral leadership, functional strategies for mobilizing laypersons, e ective organizational system, systematic evangelism, vitalized nurturing system, specialized ministries, meaningful experience of God through prayer and the fullness of the Holy Spirit, social service for the local community, mission-oriented church, and multiplying church through church planting (Hong 2003).

In the cell church model, it is the small group that plays a key role in growth by mobilizing all laypersons for ministry and evangelism (Donahue and Robinson 2001, 32–33). For example, various visitations and even passage of life ceremonies are done within the cell group.

Developed by Christian Schwarz, the NCD model is based on the principle that as organisms grow according to the principles of life, so churches also grow according to the principle of spiritual life. In order to have a healthy growth of a church, the model suggests ten action steps which forms the spiritual life of the church: build spiritual momentum, determine your minimum factors, set qualitative goals, identify obstacles, apply biotic principles, exercise your strengths, utilize biotic tools, monitor e ectiveness, address your new minimum factors, and multiply your church (Schwarz 1996).

Operational De nition of Church Growth

Hong (2003) classi es church growth into four types: internal growth (qualitative growth), expansion growth (as a result of biological growth, transfer growth, and conversion growth), extension growth (planting new churches), and bridging growth (planting new churches in di erent cultures). Paas (2017) adds that church growth can be due to births, transfers from other churches, and recruitment (conversions) and that, if gures for is study de nes church growth in terms of vertical (as in the megachurches model) and horizontal growth (as in the multiplication model). e vertical growth is the aggregate growth in numbers of the individual membership of the church. e other way of looking at church growth, the horizontal growth, is the extent to which the church is replicating itself through the creation and planting of new local assemblies. us, in this case growth is said to have taken place once a new local church is created or planted. is does not matter whether it is Hong’s extension growth (planting new churches) or bridging growth (planting new churches in di erent cultures).

Solomon Kwasi Kyei | 273 these categories exceed the losses by deaths, transfers to other churches, and church leaving, a church has grown. He then de nes and concentrates on three categories: absolute growth (all forms of growth minus all forms of decline), conversion growth (the number of converts), and net conversion growth (the number of converts minus the number of church leavers).

Methodology

Data Type and Source

e study employs a purely quantitative approach in arriving at its ndings. Quantitative secondary data on the performance of 1,301 districts of the Church of Pentecost (CoP) in Ghana was used. As the center of gravity of Christianity has moved from the western to the non-western world of Asia, Africa, and Latin America (Tsekpoe, 2017; Shenk, 2001, 99), it was only appropriate to concentrate on data from these regions. Johnson et al. (2016, 9) and Johnson (2009, 479) describe the Pentecostal movement as forming the fastest growing Christian movement, especially in the global south. It was therefore also appropriate to rely on the Pentecostals for this study. e CoP was listed as the largest Protestant Christian denomination in Ghana by the last empirical church survey of the Ghana Evangelism Committee (Onyinah 2016, 12). Even ten years earlier, Pews Research Center (2006) named it as the largest Christian church in Ghana. As a leading Pentecostal church in Africa with the necessary data required to achieve the objectives of the study, no Church denomination was more appropriate than the CoP.

Onyinah (2012, 124), in citing Leonard (1989), traces the origin of the CoP to the ministry begun by Pastor James McKeown at Asamankese,

Ghana, in 1937. As at the end of 2018, the CoP was operating in all continents of the world, with a presence in 101 countries. In all, the CoP had 21,802 local assemblies worldwide operating in 2,381 church districts (Nyamekye 2019, 33). It runs its operations in Ghana from its head o ce in Accra with a presbytery polity. In Ghana, as at the end of 2017, the CoP had 63 church areas grouped under 8 regional coordinating councils. Out of these, 228 church districts out of 1,301 were considered internal mission areas (Ibid: 36; Onyinah 2018, 34).

Econometric Analysis

In order to establish where to focus missionaries for church growth, an econometric approach was adopted. e objective was to establish the variables that determine church growth and hence require focus in the work of missionaries. e data analysis therefore passed through all the four main stages of econometric research outlined by Koutsoyiannis (1977, 11–12) except the evaluation of the forecasting power of the estimated model— speci cation of the model, estimation of the model, and evaluation of the estimates.

Model Speci cation

e study employed a cross-sectional data methodology of ranked performance of the 1,301 Ghanaian districts of the CoP. Cross-sectional data give information on the variables concerning individual agents at a given point of time (ibid., 17). e cross-sectional regression equation only di ers from a regular time series by the representation of the various time periods in the latter with the individual cases of the former. e general form can therefore be described same as the time series form as follows:

Y_i= α_i+βX_i+ε_i e subscript i denotes the cross-sectional dimension of the data. e le hand variable Y_i represents the dependent variable in the model, which in this particular study were rotated to be number of assemblies opened and change in membership. X_i contains the set of explanatory or independent variables in the estimation model with α_i taken to be constant speci c to the individual cross-sectional unit i. If α_i is taken to be same

| across units, ordinary least square (OLS) provides a consistent and e cient estimate of α and β. e OLS econometric method was adopted because the parameter estimates obtained have some optimal properties described as BLUE (best, linear, unbiased estimator); the computational procedure of OLS is fairly simple, the data requirements are not excessive, and the mechanics are simple to understand; it has been used in a wide range of econometric relationship with fairly satisfactory results and is an essential component of most other econometric techniques (Koutsoyiannis 1977, 48). e model was the author’s own creation based on eld experience and literature on possible determinants of church growth. is takes the form of equation 1 and the variable MGROW replaced with ASSO as stated in models 1 and 2. It must be emphasized that because there is no research on the use of secondary data and building of econometric models on church growth, the current study had no option but to rely on the intuition and eld experience of the author. With even primary survey data, Barna (2017) and Norris (2012, 1–2) highlights the di culties in modelling as a result of the wide di erences in church growth approaches and strategies.

MGROW = f (WON, WB, HSB, RAL, EVANG, HOME, MISSION)

Equation (1)

MGROWi = β0+β1WONi+β2 WBi+β3 HSBi+β4 RALi+β5 EVANGi+β6 HOMEi+ β7 MISSIONi+ε [Model 1]

ASSOi= β0+β1 WONi+β2 WBi+β3 HSBi+β4 RALi+β5 EVANGi+β6 HOMEi+ β7 MISSIONi+ε [Model 2]

Where:

MGROWi = Membership growth in district i in 2017

ASSOi = Number of local assemblies opened in district i in 2017

WONi = Number of souls won in district i in 2017

WBi = Number of Converts baptized in water for district i in 2017

HSBi = Number of converts baptized in the Holy Spirit for district i in 2017

RALi = Number of evangelism rallies held in district i in 2017

EVANGi = Number of adults doing evangelism as a percentage of total adults in district i in 2017

HOMEi = Number of active home cell members as a percentage of total adults in district i in 2017 ε = the error term

MISSIONi = Mission orientation of district i in 2017. Dummy variable was adopted such that districts with mission orientations and supports were coded 1 and others assigned 0.

De nition of Variables

e Dependent Variables

For the purpose of this study, church growth is operationalized using two di erent variables, namely membership growth and number of new assemblies created or opened within the period.

e Explanatory or Independent Variable

e explanatory or independent variables of the study were converts (number of souls won in a district), additions to the church (converts baptized in water), endowment of spiritual power (converts baptized in the Holy Spirit), extent of evangelism activities (number of rallies held), zeal for evangelism (number of adults doing evangelism as a percentage of total adults), extent of discipleship activities (number of adults active in home cell meetings as a percentage of total adults), and mission orientation of the church (dummy variable with 1 assigned to church oriented to be missional and 0 for others).

Results and Findings

Correlation Analysis Results

At an exploratory level, the correlation coe cients were considered for the independent variables and the measures of church growth. Table 1 summarizes the correlation matrix. It is expected that a positive relationship will exist between the measures of church growth and all the independent variables except mission orientation. e correlation coe cients indicated a direct relationship between the measures of church growth and converts, additions to the church, empowerment of the converts, and extent of evangelism activities at even 1% signi cance level. Zeal for evangelism was signi cant at 5% and 10% with membership growth and assemblies opened respectively. Extent of discipleship activities was also directly related to membership growth at 5% but not signi cantly related to assemblies opened.

Regression Analysis Results

e regression result is presented in table 2. In model 1, the result con rmed a negative association between mission orientation and vertical church growth measured by membership growth at 1% signi cance level as the t-statistics and corresponding p-values were -0.070 and 0.008 respectively. e nature of the association gives a good sense of inverse relationship, which indicates that mission-oriented churches ranked better in membership growth. us, controlling for the e ects of all the other independent variables, mission-oriented districts ranked 7% better in membership growth (-0.07). e results also con rmed water baptism as a proxy of additions to the church as directly related to membership growth at 1% signi cance level. Number of souls won was also found to be positively related but at 5% signi cance level.

e rst order test of the result recorded an R squared of 0.127 meaning the explanatory variables explain only 12.7% of the variations in church growth. However, the ANOVA result of the tness of the model registered p-value of 0.000, which denotes a 1% signi cance level. With regards to the econometric (second order) test, the data was found to support all the assumptions of multiple regression. For instance, multicollinearity was found to be absent among all the explanatory variables. Even though the rule of thumb has been to interpret the existence of multicollinearity if the VIF is more than 10, other literatures indicates multicollinearity even if the VIF is 5 (Freund and Littell 2000). But even though water baptism recorded a relatively high VIF values of 4.054, it still does not indicate existence of multicollinearity even if the rule of thumb of 5 is used.

Regression model 2 recorded a stronger negative association between mission orientation and church growth measured by number of assemblies opened. is con rms that mission-oriented churches are ranked better. In this model, controlling for the e ects of adult souls won, converts baptized in water and Holy Spirit, number of rallies held, and adults active in evangelism and discipleship classes, mission-oriented churches are ranked 21.7% better in number of assemblies opened (-0.217). Again, water baptism was found to be directly related to church growth measured by assemblies opened even at 1% signi cance level. e extent of evangelism measured by number of rallies held was also positively related but at 5% signi cance level. e explanatory power of the independent variables also increased to 13.3% with the tness of the model still signi cant at 1% signi cance level.

Conclusion and Recommendations

is study attempted to highlight areas where missionaries should be focused on for church growth through econometric analysis of determinants of church growth. e study found mission orientation, water baptism, and creation of converts as key determinants of vertical church growth (growth in memberships). Again, mission orientation, water baptism, and the extent of evangelism activities were observed to determine horizontal church growth (growth in local assemblies). Mission orientation seems to in uence horizontal church growth better than vertical church growth. A similar conclusion can be made for the extent of evangelism outreaches and rallies. On the contrary, water baptism seems to impact the same on both vertical and horizontal church growth. Generally, this study found multiplicationmodel churches are more likely to grow better by adopting the factors used as the independent variables. e seven independent variables could not explain a signi cant extent of the variations in church growth in both the vertical and horizontal de nitions. Two conclusions can be drawn from this —variables that can explain church growth better were not considered, or the God factor of church growth, which cannot be explained by any variable, cannot be ignored in the missio Dei.

It is therefore recommended that in order for missionaries to be more productive per God’s objective for His mission, missionaries should be spiritually, psychologically and emotionally positioned such that they consider themselves as missionaries in their context of work and personal dispositions. As a result of this, they will manage their a airs, lifestyles, work,

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Kwasi Kyei | 279

and, for that matter, preaching of the Gospel in a way expected of missionaries as proposed by the missional model. Churches are also advised to adopt various forms of mission orientation approaches in their participation in the missio Dei. In pursuance of the Great Commission given to the Church by Christ Jesus as a way of expanding His Kingdom, churches should focus not just on mission-oriented proclamation but also on the ordinance of the church like baptism of the converts. As described in Matthew 28: 19–20, baptism may be considered right a er conversion and not a er “teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you.” Again the urgency ordinances like the water baptism can be deduced in Mark 15:15, 16, where it was made part of salvation. Considering the extent of in uence on church growth measured in vertical and horizontal terms, megachurches should focus on winning souls in addition to mission orientation and emphasis on ordinances as approaches for church growth, while multiplication model churches employ all these in addition to holding evangelism outreaches. Because the explanatory power of the models adopted by the study were low, studies focusing on empirical evidence of other variables as determinants of church growth should be pursued.

Endnotes

1 Solomon Kwasi Kyei serves as a District Minister of e Church of Pentecost, Ghana. He is an independent researcher who has engaged in research, operations, and rural ministry for the past een years. His research interests are in Pentecostal theology and mission, gospel and culture, and church administration and Management.

Table 1: Correlation coe cient matrix for the dependent and independent variables of the regression

Dependent Variables:

MGROW = Growth in membership compared to previous year