Indigenous church mission theory

Indigenous churches are churches suited to local culture and led by local Christians. There have been two main Protestant strategies proposed for the creation of indigenous churches:

1. Indigenisation. Foreign missionaries create well-organised churches and then hand them over to local converts. The foreign mission is generally seen as a scaffolding which must be removed once the fellowship of believers is functioning properly. Missionaries provide teaching, pastoral care, sacraments, buildings, finance and authority, and train local converts to take over these responsibilities. Thus the church becomes indigenous. It becomes self-supporting, self-propagating and self-governing.

2. Indigeneity. Foreign missionaries do not create churches, but simply help local converts develop their own spiritual gifts and leadership abilities and gradually develop their own churches. Missionaries provide teaching and pastoral care alone. The church is thus indigenous from the start. It has always been self-supporting, self-propagating and self-governing.

Proponents


References

  1. Dann, Robert Bernard, The Primitivist Missiology of Anthony Norris Groves, (Tamarisk, 2007); The Legacy of Anthony Norris Groves, (International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol.29, No.4, Oct. 2005)
  2. David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1997), 450-57.

THE NEW WINE-SKINS-The Story of the Indigenous Missions in Coastal Andhra Pradesh, India By P. Solomon Raj

See also