A pastor friend of mine sent me a book to review. Fortunately it was a book that was only 80 pages in length and lots of white space so I was able to go through it quickly. The author, who is the head of a missionary sending agency, was proposing a new missiological method for church planting; one that proposed universal rapid church growth. Though it has merit, there really wasn’t anything remarkably new and was short on particulars, but then again, what can you expect from a book that can be read in a couple of hours. I reviewed this book on the heels of finishing a study on the Enlightenment which today philosophers call Modernity and their mechanistic view of reality. Most people in my generation grew up with this mechanistic worldview, which believes if we just find the right formula or technique we can solve problems and can create programs that will be efficient, profitable and give good return on investment. Hiebert asserts that (1) techniques led to division of labor with an increasing number of specialists who are experts in their field but know little of the overall process involved (2) requires quantification (3) is amoral focusing on the “how” not “why” (4) efficiency and profit are the supreme value (5) turn everything into goods that can be produced and sold.
My cautious reaction to the book my friend sent me, which really does have some good thoughts, is due to my own epistemological shift as a moderate post-modernist. I’ve seen and tried so many techniques down through the years that I weary with another how-to approach to world evangelism. I sympathize with churches and donors who have a heart for the world and who are frustrated with missionaries who seemingly spend a lifetime on the field with little to show for it. However, the answer to the needs of a world without Christ has never been nor ever will be reduced to a technique, whether it be power-encounter, Jesus Film, prayer walks or Short-Cycle Church Planting. The world is too diverse, issues of politics and religion too complex to suggest that mechanistic formula will bring about mass conversions and multiple church plants. My post-modernism tells me there isn’t a single answer. That doesn’t mean that we should ignore new ideas and new techniques, but my view is that success in missions will only be created within the context of the field, not an overlaid formula from the West.
