E-Connected Archive - December 2009
Social networks & the gospel
How can the gospel take root within pre-existing communities, in such a way that the community or network becomes the main expression of church in that context? To understand why this factor is important, let’s contrast planting a church with implanting a church. |
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Typically, when people ‘plant a church’ they create a new social group. Individual believers, often strangers to one another, are gathered together into new fellowship groups. Church planters try to help these individual believers
become like a family or a community. This pattern of ‘aggregate church’ planting (also called the ‘attractional model’)
can work in individualistic Western societies. However, in societies with tightly-knit communities, the community
is undermined when believers are taken out of their families into new authority structures. The affected families
frequently perceive the new group as having ‘stolen’ their relative and the spread of the gospel is understandably
opposed. Even if the new fellowship group is very contextualised to the culture, the community feels threatened and
the believers feel torn between their family and the group.
By contrast, a church is ‘implanted’ when the Gospel takes root within a pre-existing community and, like yeast,
spreads within that community. No longer does a new group try to become like a family; instead, the God-given
family or social group becomes the church. The strong relational bonds already exist; what is new is their commitment
to Jesus Christ. Believers within the pre-existing family or community network gradually learn how to provide spiritual
fellowship for each other and testimonies and praise arise within their everyday interactions (as in Deuteronomy
6:6-9). The joy of the believers begins to infect the whole group.
This type of church (sometimes called the ‘transformational model’) was birthed in many households in the book
of Acts, such as those of Cornelius, Lydia and the Philippian jailer. The redemption of pre-existing communities is
a fulfilment of God’s promise to Abraham that all the families of the earth would be blessed (Genesis 12:3, 28:14).
When the gospel is implanted in this manner, the families and clans that God created are redeemed and transformed,
instead of broken apart. The larger community and society are also blessed in significant ways, as believers mature
spiritually while remaining within their relational networks. Let’s pray for many more testimonies to God’s saving grace
like these examples from two different countries:
A Muslim mother came to faith in Christ through reading the Injil (New Testament), hearing the testimonies of Christians and seeing her own hospitalised son healed inthe name of Isa (Jesus). Soon after she came to faith, she led her mother and her son to faith. She later led scores of friends and relatives to faith. Today her entire family believes, and a small movement is taking place with families and friends simply fellowshipping in their homes similar to how the early church is described in Acts 2.
A Frontiers field member invited a Muslim teenage boy to live in his home at the request of the young man’s father. This teenage boy came to faith and then led his entire family, including his mother and father, to Jesus. This boy’s siblings then led other relatives and members of their social network, often workmates, to faith. Today this group continues to grow and has amazingly spread to other ethnic groups through pre-existing relationships based on marriage, friendship and work.
"Bringing strangers together and calling them community is not comprehensible in most Muslim contexts." Frontiers field member, 2009.
Note: This article has been adapted from a paper by Tim & Becky Lewis, June 09.