Indigenous Church

I was looking over some notes from Perspectives the other night. I try to do that every few months, the class made such an impact on me. On the leaders retreat this past weekend, leaders had the chance to fill in some worksheets about their plan for their small groups for the school year. Those were turned in to the small group coordinators just for planning purposes. I told the leaders that if they were interested in a summer missions trip, to help, to execute one, or just to think about it, to notate it on the sheet and I would be in contact.
One of the leaders talked to me and said she would totally be willing to help. She has gone to some missions trip every Feb to the same place doing some kind of construction project. Every year, in addition to raising the support needed for the trip itself, they also raise a few hundred dollars to support purchasing the construction materials they will need during the mission trip. That is not indigenous leadership.
I thought these notes were really helpful in terms of thinking about indigenous, national, cultural leadership.
======
Indigenous church
- movement is at home in the culture in native form
- no giving up their culture to follow Christ
- viable Â? going to last, growing, health, well developed to reproduce

1. people movements
large number coming to Christ in a collective manner
decisions are made in a different way in the non-Western world-collective decision making
God wants churches to multiply Â? most effective energized church

2. spontaneous expansion
healthy, right opportunity, it will multiply
creates opportunity to multiply
evangelizing of whole families
Barna - the average person who becomes a Christian has no non-Christian friends within 2 years

3. Measure Growth
Not in numbers, buildings, budgets
Most church growth is not organic
Four kinds of church growth:
a. Internal - maturity, people from within
b. Expansion - children, transfer from other churches
c. Extension - planting other churches
d. Bridging - planting church across barriers
Everything should move towards planting a church