Pentecostal Pastoral Leadership and Global Missions — Unit 3: Indigenous Church Principles (Melvin Hodges, The Indigenous Church, 1953)

Key Verse

"I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase." (1 Corinthians 3:6, NKJV)

Learning Objectives

When you finish this unit, you should be able to:

1. Explain what an "indigenous church" is and name its three marks: self-governing, self-supporting and self-propagating.

2. Describe the origin of the three-self idea and the contribution of Melvin Hodges to Pentecostal missions.

3. Show from the book of Acts and the letters of Paul how the New Testament supports indigenous church principles.

4. State fairly the main objections to these principles and give the Pentecostal answer.

5. Apply the principles to a local church that is offered foreign money or foreign leadership.

The Voice of This Unit

This unit is written from inside the classical Pentecostal tradition, for pastors who belong to it. It is Trinitarian and conservative. In Unit 2 we saw the courage and the mistakes of the early missionaries. Here we look at one of the most important lessons Pentecostal missions has learned: the church that is planted must belong to the people who live there. Most of our readers are pastors in Latin America, Africa and Asia, and for many of you this is not a theory but the story of your own church.

The Problem the Principle Answers

Mission has always faced a danger. A missionary comes with the gospel and starts a church. Because the missionary has the money, the training and the experience, he leads everything. The local believers learn to depend on him. The church builds in the foreign style, pays its workers with foreign funds, and waits for the foreigner's decisions. When the missionary leaves, the church may weaken or collapse. Even when it survives, outsiders may call it "the foreigners' church," and the gospel may seem to be a foreign thing.

This danger is real in every tradition, including our own. It is not a new discovery. The question is how to plant a church that stands on its own feet in its own culture and is truly led by the Holy Spirit through its own people.

The Three-Self Idea

In the middle of the nineteenth century, two mission leaders, Henry Venn of the Church Missionary Society in England and Rufus Anderson of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, argued that the aim of mission is a church that is self-governing, self-supporting and self-propagating. These three marks came to be called the "three-self" formula, and many missions of different traditions have used them.

• Self-governing means that the local church chooses its own leaders and makes its own decisions under Christ and Scripture.

• Self-supporting means that the local church pays for its own pastors, buildings and work from its own giving.

• Self-propagating means that the local church carries the gospel to its neighbors and starts new churches by its own members' efforts.

Melvin Hodges and The Indigenous Church

Melvin Hodges was a missionary of the Assemblies of God in Latin America who became a leading Pentecostal thinker about mission. In 1953 he published The Indigenous Church. In it he took the three-self idea and applied it to Pentecostal work. His book was widely read by Pentecostal missionaries and has influenced Assemblies of God thinking about missions. Hodges and other Pentecostal missionary thinkers argued, in broad terms, that:

• the aim of the missionary is to plant churches that can govern, support and extend themselves, and not to build a permanent mission organization;

• local believers should be given real leadership early, and not only after many years;

• the church should not depend on foreign money for its pastors and ordinary work;

• the missionary should be a servant and an advisor who prepares to step back; and

• the Holy Spirit works in the local believers, so the work belongs to Him and to them.

We should state plainly that Hodges was one voice among several, and that other mission leaders held similar views. His importance for us is that he joined the principle to Pentecostal conviction. If the Spirit has been poured out on all flesh, the local believers do not need to wait for the foreigner to speak for them.

Later writers on mission have sometimes added a fourth mark, self-theologizing: the local church learns to read Scripture and answer its own questions, in its own language, instead of borrowing every answer from another culture. Pentecostals have usually welcomed this addition when Scripture remains the final authority.

What the New Testament Shows

The three-self idea is not a human invention added to the Bible. Its principles can be seen in the pattern of the apostles.

Paul planted, taught and moved on. On the first journey, Paul and Barnabas preached in the cities of Galatia, and on the return trip they "appointed elders in every church, and prayed with fasting" and "commended them to the Lord" (Acts 14:23). The churches were young, yet they were given their own leaders. Paul did not stay for years to run them. He wrote letters, revisited, and sent coworkers. The key verse of this unit puts it well: Paul planted, Apollos watered, "but God gave the increase" (1 Corinthians 3:6). Workers have their part, but the growth belongs to God.

Paul prepared others to teach. He told Timothy to commit what he had heard to faithful men who could teach others also (2 Timothy 2:2). Four generations are seen in that verse: Paul, Timothy, faithful men, and others. This is self-propagating in the New Testament.

The churches carried the gospel themselves. The gospel came to Antioch through believers who had been scattered, who spoke to Greeks there (Acts 11:19-21). Later Paul reasoned in Ephesus for two years, "so that all who dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus" (Acts 19:10). The message spread through a city center to the surrounding region, through local hearers.

The churches gave. Paul wrote that the churches of Macedonia gave generously out of deep poverty (2 Corinthians 8:1-5). Poor churches are not too poor to give. When the church in Antioch heard of famine in Judea, the disciples decided to send relief, each according to his ability (Acts 11:29-30). Giving was a mark of the young churches.

The gospel was not tied to one culture. In Acts 15 the council at Jerusalem decided that Gentile believers did not have to become Jews to belong to Christ. The church freed the Gentile believers from a cultural burden that was not required by the gospel. This is a root of the indigenous principle: Christ must be received, but a foreign culture does not.

Why These Principles Fit Pentecostal Churches

Pentecostal churches have often grown quickly in the poor world. Part of the reason is that our teaching suits the indigenous principle.

First, we believe that the Spirit is given to all believers. A farmer, a market seller or a young person can be filled with the Spirit, pray for the sick and preach. Leadership does not depend on a foreign degree.

Second, Pentecostal worship is participatory, with prayer, singing, testimony and gifts. It can be expressed in the language and music of the people.

Third, Pentecostals pray for healing and deliverance, and many people in Africa, Asia and Latin America take the unseen world seriously. A gospel that speaks of the Spirit's power meets real questions. Scholars such as J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu have written about this, and Allan Anderson has described how Pentecostalism took root among local leaders.

Fourth, many Pentecostal churches began with little money. Poverty forced early reliance on local giving, and this became a strength.

Applying the Three Selves

Self-governing. A young church should have its own elders or leaders from the start, who decide how it is run. Outside missionaries are advisers and partners, not rulers. Leaders should be chosen by their character and calling (see Unit 5), not because they speak the missionary's language.

Self-supporting. The local church should pay its pastors, even if modestly, and care for its building from its own giving. It should build in a size and style it can maintain. Foreign help may be given for particular needs, but it should not become a permanent salary for the local pastor.

Self-propagating. From the start, converts should be taught to tell others and to start new groups. A church that does not reach out is not yet fully planted. Prayer, evangelism, and church planting by local members are the fruit of the Spirit's power (see Unit 1).

Self-theologizing and self-expressing. The church should worship in its own language and music and should study the Bible to answer its own questions, for example about the dead, about witchcraft, about family and marriage, and about suffering. Scripture, read with the whole church of all ages, must be the test.

Fair Objections and Pentecostal Answers

Objection 1: These principles leave poor churches without help.

Critics say that demanding self-support is cruel to churches in very poor places, and that rich churches have a duty to share.

Our answer. The Bible does command sharing. Paul gathered an offering from Gentile churches for the poor believers in Jerusalem (Romans 15:26), and Acts 11:29-30 shows believers sending relief. We do not oppose help. The principle distinguishes between help that serves and help that controls or creates permanent dependence. A clinic, a famine fund or a one-time building gift, given through a written partnership with local leaders, can build up the church. A permanent salary paid from abroad, with decisions made abroad, usually weakens it.

Objection 2: Letting the local culture shape the church leads to syncretism.

Critics fear that adopting local music, customs and forms may mix the gospel with pagan beliefs or ancestor practices.

Our answer. The danger is real. We answer that Scripture, not culture and not the missionary, is the final test. We separate form from meaning. A drum or a local song is a form, and may be used to praise Christ. A practice that honors another spirit or denies Christ must be refused, as the new believers at Ephesus did when they burned their books of magic (Acts 19:18-19). The church must be taught the Word so that it can judge both its own culture and the missionary's.

Objection 3: The indigenous church principle is a Western missionary idea, and many churches became indigenous without it.

Some historians point out that in Africa, Asia and Latin America, many Pentecostal churches were started and led by local founders, with no help from foreign missions at all.

Our answer. We agree, and we are glad. The principle did not create these churches. The Holy Spirit did, working through local believers. Where missionaries came, the principle gave them a way to serve what the Spirit was doing and not to control it. Where local leaders began churches themselves, the principle describes what they were already doing.

Objection 4: The missionary who steps back leaves the church to face its troubles alone.

Critics say that withdrawal can be abandonment.

Our answer. The aim is not abandonment. Paul revisited the churches, wrote to them, sent Timothy and Titus, and prayed for them. The missionary who steps back from leadership may remain as a friend, teacher and partner for years. What changes is who holds authority, not whether love continues.

Pastoral Application

Pastor Samuel leads a church of about eighty people in a small town in southern Mexico. A church in another country offers to build him a large new building and to pay his salary for five years. The offer is generous and sincere, and some members want to accept at once. Samuel is not sure.

First, he thanks the other church and tells them he will pray about it.

Second, he gathers the elders and asks the church what it can do for itself. He shows them the Macedonian churches giving from poverty (2 Corinthians 8:1-5). The church begins a regular building fund, and each family decides what it can give.

Third, he asks the partner church to help in a different way. They agree to give toward the cost of the land and the roof as a one-time gift, under a written agreement that the local elders will own and run the church.

Fourth, he asks that no foreign salary be paid. Instead, the church sets a modest salary from its tithes and offerings, and the partner church sends a visiting teacher twice a year to train the elders.

Fifth, he begins to train two young men to plant a congregation in a nearby village, teaching them 2 Timothy 2:2.

The building is smaller than the first offer, and it takes longer. But the church owns it, pays for it and plants new groups from it. Samuel has learned the difference between a gift and a dependence.

Summary

An indigenous church is self-governing, self-supporting and self-propagating, and many add self-theologizing. Henry Venn and Rufus Anderson stated the three-self idea in the nineteenth century, and Melvin Hodges applied it to Pentecostal missions in The Indigenous Church (1953). The New Testament supports it: Paul planted churches, appointed elders, trained faithful men, and saw the churches give and spread the gospel, and the council of Acts 15 did not tie the gospel to one culture. Pentecostal teaching suits the principle because the Spirit is given to all believers. Critics say that the principle neglects the poor, risks syncretism, is a Western idea, or abandons young churches. We answer that real help is welcome when it does not control or create permanent dependence, that Scripture is the test of culture, that the Spirit has often raised local churches without any formula, and that stepping back from authority is not stepping out of love. In the end, "God gave the increase."

Further Reading

• Melvin Hodges, The Indigenous Church (1953).

• Donald E. Miller and Tetsunao Yamamori, Global Pentecostalism (2007).

• Allan Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism (2nd ed., 2014).

• J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, Contemporary Pentecostal Christianity (2013).

• Douglas Petersen, Not by Might nor by Power (1996).

• Pew Forum, Spirit and Power (2006).

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