The Apostolic Congregation: Church Growth Reconceived for a New Generation

George G. Hunter III
Abingdon Press, 2009
9781426702112
$16.00…30% off until February 15…$11.20

With his release of The Apostolic Congregation, George Hunter has written what will likely become both a standard textbook for seminary church growth courses and a reference for church planters, both inside and outside of the American mainline. He builds on How to Grow a Church, published in 1973 by Donald McGavran and Win Arn. In the preface, Hunter makes his case for why a new church growth text is necessary: (1) the "best stuff" has been forgotten, (2) many leaders never understood church growth the first time around, and (3) there have been new developments in mission and evangelism since McGavran's contribution. Hunter then defines church growth and lists the different ways churches grow. He has added two types of church growth to a list of four that developed years earlier from collaboration between MacGavran and other leaders in the field. Catalytic growth and proliferation growth are the new categories. Catalytic growth happens, for instance, when unlikely people are converted to Christianity, causing a spike in conversions across the population. Proliferation growth takes into account churches that reproduce themselves through new congregations, new services, side ministries and the recent rise of multiple campuses.

Hunter is a watcher of trends and he uses the right amount of case studies to make the book seem practical without overwhelming the reader. One study he includes, for example, shows the effectiveness of growth by proliferation. Craig Groeschel's Lifechurch.tv now has at least 12 campuses (plus an Internet campus), with 49 worship experiences and over 21,000 people per weekend attending. The sobering part of this story is that in the 1990s, Groeschel took his multi-campus vision somewhere else because his United Methodist conference told him that the idea wasn't viable.

Statistics come rapid-fire in The Apostolic Congregation. By the time I finished the first chapter, my mind was racing with ideas about the need for planting more churches in cities. For example, I had no idea that the church-to-person ratio in many urban areas and growing suburbs is about a tenth of what it is for rural areas and villages. Hunter says it well: "A disproportionate number of the nation's churches are placed where the people used to live, and not nearly enough churches serve city people."

The author continues with a major theme from his previous books—that the main business of any growing church is to reach pre-Christian people and make disciples. He has a chapter that analyzes the characteristics of churches that do this, and any new or seasoned church planter would gain wisdom from reading it. Apostolic churches, according the word's very definition, are "sent out." Hunter makes note of the high expectations apostolic churches generally have of their members when compared to traditional churches. With the recent debates about membership standards in The United Methodist Church, The Apostolic Congregation can be a valuable tool to help guide the denomination in future discussions.

I read the book from cover to cover using a highlighter, and I'm glad I did, because in retrospect, I see The Apostolic Congregation as more of a reference book than anything else. There are so many lists, stages, facts, and figures that it's hard to absorb everything the first time around. But make no mistake, there's nothing extraneous here. It's all useful information. Hunter's chapter "When We Reach Out, Whom Will We Reach?" asks what should be an obvious question, but I'm not sure it gets asked by many churches. In this same chapter, Hunter lists twenty points to help churches figure out where to target their evangelism. By the end of the chapter, I was convinced that many churches struggle to grow simply because they either don't know their target audience or don't have a systematic way of reaching it.

Hunter's book will be valuable to anyone interested in growing their congregation or planting a new one. It's not a light read, however, and more than one reading will probably be necessary just to absorb all the information. With solid research and extensive footnotes, George Hunter has made a substantial contribution to the study of the church growth movement, one that will work well in both academic and congregational settings.