A study of disciple making program for the growth of the elim christian reformed church in garden grove, california

It is difficult to teach the people to give for the financial growth of the church. This is related to stewardship. Many Christians feel uncomfortable and disturbed by the concept of giving to the church. Therefore, it is difficult for the pastor to teach this, for the people often misunderstand and believe that he is really wanting the gifts for himself.

Nevertheless, the pastor should teach his people that these gifts and offerings are for God as it is written in the Bible. This concept can be successfully taught through stewardship training when it is included in disciple making within the church. The stewardship training program will enable the congregation to understand and accept the doctrine of giving to the church for God's use.

Hypotheses
What will the writer expect from the disciple making program? He can expect the church to grow. The following hypotheses will be considered in this study.
1. Use of the disciple making program in the Elim Christian Reformed Church for a period of six months will increase the membership of the church (quantitative growth).
2. Use of the disciple making program in the Elim

Christian Reformed Church for a period of six months

will cause members to gain greater maturity in their Christian lives (qualitative growth).

3. Use of the disciple making program in the Elim

Christian Reformed Church for a period of six months will result in an increase in giving to the church (financial growth).
Delimitations

The writer has limited his study to the disciple making program which he has put into practice at the Elim Christian Reformed Church located in Garden Grove, Southern California, in the United States.

The program has focused on the Disciple College students of the Elim Christian Reformed Church located in Garden Grove, Southern California.

The members will be limited to adults of any age and of either sex. The College students will consist of those in

their thirties to those in their sixties.

Three classes of the Disciple College students have been designed for this experiment on the growth of the Elim Christian Reformed Church.

Definition of Terms
1. Disciple making.

Disciple making is defined as an instrument of the church growth based on the scriptures. It implies that one (pastor or leader) makes the people of the church follow his example as he follows the example of Christ (I Cor. 11:1) and carry out His commands to the church. In Matthew 28:19, 20, it states, "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spririt, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you."

2. Church growth.

Church growth is defined in three dimensions: (1) numerical increase of church membership, (2) spiritual maturity in Christian lives, and (3) financial increase in giving.
3. Immigration ministry.

Immigration ministry is defined as the ministry to Koreans who have lived in the United States and have

experienced a heterogeneous culture different from

their home culture.

4. Pulpit ministry.

Pulpit ministry is defined as ministry focusing on preaching the word of God. This ministry should be the basis of the ministry of the entire church.
5. Laity training.

Laity training is a program focusing on laity movement for the purpose of training and employing them for growth in the church.

6. Laity mobilization.

Laity mobilzation is a movement through the laity already trained by the pastor and leaders of the

Disciple College, Disciple Graduate School, and

Disciple Seminary of the church for the purpose of

church growth.

7. Stewardship training.

Stewardship training is part of the disciple

making program by which the disciples are taught

to give their possessions, goods, and talents in order

to serve their church and to testify to those that are

unsaved.
8. Leadership training.

Leadership training is the training for the

leaders who have been selected from students in the

disciple making program. It is for the graduates

from the disciple college for the purpose of making

church leaders.
9. Evangelism training.

During the course of the program, the disciples

bring someone to church as a means of evangelism.

This is a training for the students to bring one on

one.
10. Quantitative growth.

Quantitative growth is defined as the numerical

increase of the church's membership.
11. Qualitative growth.

Qualitative growth is defined as spiritual

maturity in the Christian lives of the church members.
In this dissertation the church members primarily
focused on are the students of the Disciple College.

12. Disciple College.

The Disciple College is an institution of the

Elim Christian Reformed Church which was established

for the purpose of training the laity to mobilize for

growth in the church.

13. Disciple Graduate School.

The Disciple Graduate School is an institution

for the graduates of the Disciple College. This is an

extension of the program established to cultivate the

lay leaders of the church to promote growth.
14. Disciple Seminary.

The Disciple Seminary is an institution for

educating the graduates from the Disciple Graduate

School in theology to teach the lay leaders

professionally.

The writer tried to make an analysis and evaluation of related literature for the disciple making program and to apply that program to his church. Furthermore, he tried to develop the program at an advanced level by himself. The writer wishes to begin with a survey of the concept and the movement of church growth through the related literature so that this study may be based on the biblical and theological principles and also based on biblical and theological methods he wishes to develop as strategies for church

growth. Richard S. Taylor said, "it hardly needs to be argued that 'church growth' not theologically grounded is not the growth of the church but something else" (Taylor 1989, 29).

In accordance with the analysis of the principles and strategies for church growth the writer tried to develop and apply them to his church. One of the strategies for church growth is a making disciples. The writer has concentrated on the study of the disciple making program, and then applied the program to his church from July, 1992 to December, 1992. Of course, the first period of the program already was over. The experimentation of the period, therefore, should serve to measure and evaluate the results of this project.

Concept and Movement of Church Growth

The term church has just been designated qahal (or kahal) derived from an obsolete root qal (or kal), meaning to call; and 'edhah, from ya'adh, to appoint or to meet or come together at an appointed place in the Old Testament, and ekklesia, from ek and kaleo, call out, and sunagoge, from sun and ago, meaning to come and to bring together in the New Testament (Berkhof 1971, 555). Dr. Hyung Nyong Park also has explained the church as an assembly or a congregation consisting of the members who are called and come together out of the world (Park 1973, 17). In fact, "church" is to be preferred on etymological grounds as such (Kittel 1965, 3:531).

In the light of such interpretations, the term church

must be close to the growth (of church) because they

imply the same meaning, to call and come together. Church

growth at first must be achieved by calling and gathering many people into the Church of God, namely an organization as the kingdom of God: an important strand of Christian tradition identifies the kingdom with the church as a visible institution on the earth even though their relationship has been represented in various ways (Snyder 1991, 67). Of course, it must be given by God (Bartel 1979, 1). This may mean an evangelism for quantitative growth of church, but maturity of church members for qualitative growth begins with their involvement in church activities.

A. R. Tippett has emphasized the necessity of continuity of growth, both quantitative and qualitative (Tippett 1978, 27). In this sense, church growth can be compared to the growth of a physical body (Huffard 1983, 93) and to the growth of a tree (Dudley and Cummings, Jr. 1983, 13) because in them are life.

Church growth is not an event nor does it deal with spiritual addition, but a process of spiritual reproduction which produces Christian converts and Christian churches (Miles 1981, 50). The church, therefore, must plan not only evangelism but care of the convert (MacRae 1982, 81). In a word, church growth must be quantitative and qualitative.

The term church growth, in church history, has been derived from the theory (McGavranism) of Donald A. McGavran who founded the Church Growth Movement in 1955 (Wagner 1976, 13; 1989, 21). From that time the principle of church growth has begun to be positively applied to the churches in the world. Of course, early in the Church Growth Movement the evangelistic elements of the Great Commission were emphasized, but it must be based on total church involvement including discipleship. C. Peter Wagner says:

Church growth means all that is involved in bringing men and women who do not have a personal relationship to

Jesus Christ into fellowship with Him and into responsible church membership. (Wagner 1989, 177)

Church growth through the disciple making program speaks to human and divine aspects of church growth and it features the key biblical concepts (Matt. 28:19-20; Acts 6:1, 7; Eph. 4:15), imageries (Matt. 13:33; 5:16; 2 Cor. 4:6; Acts 26:18; John 4:35; Matt. 13:31-48; John 15:5, 8; Eph. 2:21, 22, etc.), and the dynamics of the disciple making which produces lasting church growth as asserted by John T. Sisemore (Sisemore 1983, 6).

The divine aspect of church growth could be identified with God's supreme order for evangelizing and discipling the people, and the human aspect with man's obedience to perform His supreme order through the programs for church growth such as evangelism, Sunday school, disciple making, and so on.

So many movements for church growth have risen in Christianity, generally classified as church movement and parachurch movement. The latter is a movement outside the institutional church for evangelism or mission such as Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC), Navigators, University Bible Fellowship (UBF), Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF), Joy Mission, Youth for Christ (YFC), Student Bible Fellowship (SBF), It includes all sorts of mission movements: is an inside revival movement in ministry such as revival meetings and Bible study meetings usually called Sa Kyung Hoe in Korea (Ro and Nelson 1983, 322). It is no doubt that such movements have contributed to the growth of the church.

Recently a new sort of lay movement called the discipleship training for church growth led by pastors of the local church has widely taken root in the local church in Korea. This has added to the effective growth of the church. Rev. Han Hum Ok, senior pastor of Sa Rang Church located in Seoul, Korea who has been a successful model case of the church growth pastor through the disciple training program, has insisted that the training program is necessary a task of the pastor of the local church, in his work, Call to Awaken the Layman (Ok 1984, 35).

As a matter of fact, the business of making disciples throughout the world for church growth also is the primary work of the church (Green 1972, 81). C. Peter Wagner has pointed out that the growth of church much depends upon how pastors motivate their laypeople. He stresses:

Pastors of growing churches, whether they be large or small, know how to motivate their laypeople, how to

create structures which permit them to be active and

productive and how to guide them into meaningful avenues of Christian service. (Wagner 1976, 69)

Importance of Church Growth
Church growth is of great significance both to God and
man because it is, in a sense, expansion of the kingdom of
God and the church on the earth as a means of salvation of man.

Supreme Order of the Triune God

God is concerned about the lost (Hamilton 1981, 14), and so He has been looking for the lost. Church growth, therefore, is will of God (Ezekiel 34:16; Luke 15:4;

Hamilton 1981, 5). God wants the church to grow (Orjala 1978, 13). Also it is the Great Commission of Jesus Christ to His disciples (Acts 1:8-9; Matt. 28:19-20).

In addition, church growth and the work of Holy Spirit cannot be separated from each other because church began with and has been growing through the Holy Spirit (Cho 1985b, 44). "The first and most essential underlying Pentecostal growth is the power of the Holy Spirit," said C. Peter Wagner in his book, Spiritual Power and Church Growth (Wagner 1986, 31; Acts 2:37-47).
The vital Issues and Problems of Church Growth

What is the big issue? It is that churches grow or die. It is a law of life that "where there is no growing, there is dying" (Schuller 1975, 30). Because the Church is like a living creature, it dies if it isn't growing. "Growth is an essential property of life. When living things cease to grow, they begin to deteriorate. So do churches" said Roger L. Dudley (Dudley 1983, 13). M. Wendell Belew says that he wonders why some churches grow and others die (Belew 1971, 14). This is very important. Not growing means a state of sickness. Ron Jenson and Jim Stevens have attributed the causes of the health of a church to its laity's involvement in the ministry of the body as follows:

The health of a church will exist in direct

proportion to its laity's involvement in the ministry

of the body. Noninvolvement of laity in the ministry is

a serious disease of the church. It is a hideous

disease which attacks the church's vital organ. (Jenson

and Stevens 1981, 126)

For this problem, George Barna has made an analysis
that there are two underlying reasons why churches seem

paralyzed when it comes time to respond to problems and opportunities: the failure of both pastor and laypeople: (1) because the pastor is not willing to relinguish control long enough to allow others to have a stake in the church's ministry. Pastors must move away from the old pattern of ministry. When they do so, they tend to develop a new leadership to be able to multiply and manage the congregation (Schaller 1979, 170), and (2) because of the laypeople's failure to become excited about ministry and take an active part in the church life (Barna 1990, 79-80). "You are important to the Lord Jesus! One marvelous thing about being a disciple of Jesus is that you never get lost in the crowd" shouted Winkie Pratney (Pratney 1977, 22). In this sense we all are called to have a witness and to minister to the ministry (Tillapaugh 1988, 131). The laypeople should recognize that they already are the misionaries sent by the Lord into their society (Kim 1990, 25). Thomas R. Bennett took the first interest in the ministry of laity in his "Project Laity" (Casteel 1968, 54). C. Peter Wagner says that if the first vital sign of a growing church is a pastor who is using his gifts to lead his church into growth, the second is a well-mobilized laity (Wagner 1977, 69). "Church growth depends upon the diversified services of the laypeople belonging to that church" said Dr. Bong Ho Son (Son 1985, 9). Frederick A. Agar said, "a competent church has not only good pastoral leadership, but also a properly developed, well trained lay leadership" (Agar 1924, 38). "Together pastor and people can impact a community for Christ" said Darrell W. Robinson (Robinson 1993, 195).

What then are the following problems? Kenneth Gangel

suggested three basic problems in utilizing people in the

service of Christ through the church. He states:

We face three basic problems in utilizing people in

the service of Christ through the church: misuse,

disuse, and abuse. The first is a reference to the

employing of unqualified teachers and workers; the

second, to the many uninvolved Christians that throng our church pews; and the last, to the problem of over- burdened workers in the church. (Gangel 1970, 325)

Another basic problem of the church is that no one programs for the individual, the layman (Green 1972, 163). In conclusion, the basic problems of church growth could be integrated to three: (1) do-nothing pastor, (2) uninvolved laity, and (3) no programs.

How to Produce Church Growth
The work for church growth must start from receiving the vision through the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, namely Holy Spirit (Acts 10:9-16; 16:6-10; Eph. 1:17; John

14:26). When a vision comes from the altar of God, it transforms the people who are in the presence of that vision (George 1993, 44). The church without vision dies because it cannot be led by God. The Bible says "Where there is no vision, the people perish" (Prov. 29:18 KJV). "Lake of vision or purpose afflicts many people" (Spader and Mayes 1991, 185). " Where there is no growing, there is dying" (Schuller 1986, 164). "Where the pastor has a vision for growth he becomes the key to growth" (Pointer 1984, 66).

The problem of dying churches is not a lack of ability but a lack of vision (Barna 1988, 80). What is vision? Some defined a vision as an ideal and unique image of the future (Kouzes and Posner 1987, 85). But vision is more than a mental or spiritual picture as a consequence of the personal experience of God's extrordinary contact.

Vision includes the driving force behind the activity of a motivated leader or group of people. Vision includes, therefore, even a possibility. Of course, this is not

naturally possessed by everyone, but a gift bestowed on

some people. (Barna 1988, 81). The pastor must have such a vision and see the possibility of growth through the grace

of Holy Spirit. Roy Pointer has called these insights "Church growth eyes" (Pointer 1984, 68). Robert H. Schuller has insisted that pastor has to accept posibility thinking as such, and defined the possibility thinking as follows:

Possibility thinking is maximum utilization of the

God given powers of imagination exercised in dreaming up

possible way by which a desired objective can be

attained. Possibility thinking is also called faith,

the kind of faith Jesus Christ was talking about when He

said, "if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you

will say to this mountain, 'move...,'and it will be

move; and nothing will be impossible to you." (Matt.

17:20 RVS; Schuller 1986, 76)

Therefore, he does dare to say "nothing is impossible!"

(Schuller 1993, 58). Accordingly, pastors must believe in God's power beyond man's. "God never performs a miracle until you've committed youself to something beyond your ability," said Robert A. Schuller (Schuller 1985, 126).

The pastor must show the vision to his people of the church, and develop the vision. The pastor also must have the desire for his church to grow (Cho 1978, 17, 18), and have a growing confidence through the vision (Cho 1986, 121). The pastor must make his people recognize the vision. After this, the pastor has to make an effective plan for church growth. Planning is one of the key for success (Wright 1985, 189). Without a plan, the pastor cannot attain church growth because there is no target of church growth which the congregation can see. The pastor as leader has to help his key people to see the big picture (Safire and Safir 1991, 32).

With this plan, the pastor has to motivate, enhance and

mobilize the people involved for church growth. Because the pastor alone cannot carry out all of the heavy work of his ministry to make the church grow, laypeople need to be motivated so that they will undertake their share of the work (Cho 1981, 136; Cho Yong W. 1985b, 13). Jethro pointed out that Moses could not handle his work alone (Ex. 18:18). Moses, therefore, had to do his main responsibilities, and the remaining tasks were done by other people (McConnell 1983, 88). Assigning work to ten laymen multiplies a pastor's time tenfold (Flynn 1966, 15). John C. Maxwell, therefore, says:

Most of us need to be motivated before we will

stretch. It's not something that comes naturally.

We need to learn how to stretch and motivate ourselves,

but we also need to know how to motivate others and

help them to reach their potential. (Maxwell 1988, 40)

"We must motivate members to keep them participating in worship and ministry because motivation is a key to continued success in the local church," said Michael Hamilton (Hamilton 1981, 106).

In addition, the motivation for church growth must emerge from the desire to bring lost souls to Christ as Savior but not as personal satisfaction and ambitious fulfillment (Sullivan 1988, 22). The pastor must enhance the people to move, and cause shock desire waves of church growth to rise to the other people. Paul Y. Cho said,

The desire waves of church growth having been

overflowing out of the preacher will rise and saturate

into the heart of the members of the consistory, of the

council, and of the laypeople. (Cho 1986, 126)

The pastor has to involve the people motivated and enhanced into the church growth movement. Without their paticipating in the movement, the movement itself is of no use. The pastor has to rise such desire waves of church growth throughout the whole church.

Using this principle, Rev. Paul Y. Cho, senior pastor

of the Yoido Full Gospel Central Church in Seoul, Korea has grown his church to the biggest church in the world, a membership of around 370,000 by 1984 (Cho 1986, 126) and of around 510,000 by April 1986 (Hunter 1987, 128).

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