APU Digital Archives (Azusa Pacific University)

https://digitalarchives.apu.edu/barfield-images/1233/thumbnail.jp

Stuart

Unidentified Woman 51

https://digitalarchives.apu.edu/barfield-images/1443/thumbnail.jp

James Valentine & Sons

Unidentified Woman 37 [reverse]

https://digitalarchives.apu.edu/barfield-images/1051/thumbnail.jp

Davey, Walter

1892, Baines, Cecil Mary

https://digitalarchives.apu.edu/barfield-images/1261/thumbnail.jp

Crowe & Rodgers

1882 September, More, Givea, Shelford, Edith, with Barbara [reverse]

https://digitalarchives.apu.edu/barfield-images/1082/thumbnail.jp

Debenham & Gabell

Reed, Lizzie, Cousin

https://digitalarchives.apu.edu/barfield-images/1468/thumbnail.jp

Urquhart, Robt [Robert] Douie [reverse]

Morris, Mike

7G R E AT  C O M I S S I O N  R E S E A R C H  J O U R N A L
INTRODUCTION
V O L . 1 0  •  N O . 1  FA LL  2 0 1 8  •  7  -  9
Mike Morris, General Editor
I am honored to follow Alan McMahan as general editor. Alan is 
now our book review editor. Our journal will continue to be a broadly 
evangelical publication, and we will continue to emphasize the Great 
Commission, as our name implies. I agree strongly with Alan’s statement 
in the introduction of the winter, 2018 issue of our journal: “The purpose of 
the Great Commission Research Journal has always been to communicate 
recent thinking and research related to effective church growth and 
evangelism.” I am thankful to Biola University for being our publisher for 
many years; the Great Commission Research Network (formerly known 
as the American Society for Church Growth) is now our official publisher.
In this issue of the journal, we first turn our attention to the Pentecostal 
movement in global missions. Wonsuk Ma of Oral Roberts University 
discusses Yoido Full Gospel Church, which has generally been recognized 
as the world’s largest megachurch, and its role in global Christian 
movements. Next, Blayne Waltrip of the Pentecostal Theological Seminary 
talks about the missionary force coming from the Global South, and he also 
8
describes a new category of missionary that he calls a “global missionary.” 
Jacob Kehinde Oladipupo, who was reared in Nigeria (the most populous 
country in Africa), gives a specific example of the missionary wave coming 
from the Global South as he explains the Pentecostal “reverse mission” 
from Africa to the West.
David Dunaetz, Hannah Jung, and Stephen Lambert (all of Azusa 
Pacific University) next tackle the fascinating topic of pastoral narcissism. 
They utilized quantitative research to reach their conclusions about the 
difference in tolerance of pastoral narcissism between larger churches 
and smaller churches. They also discussed strategies that pastoral search 
committees can utilize to avoid hiring narcissistic candidates.
In the next article, Stanley Granberg, the executive director of Kairos 
Church Planting, analyzes the history of numerical growth of the Churches 
of Christ. He discusses the importance of church planting for the growth 
of this group. He ends the article with three difficult challenges facing the 
Churches of Christ and three strategies needed for growth.
Matthew Niermann of California Baptist University researched a 
subject that some church growth thinkers do not often consider. In his 
article, he discusses the effect of church architecture on unchurched people. 
He also challenges some false assumptions about buildings that can lead 
to expensive mistakes. Further research is needed in this area of concern.
The final article is another excerpt from Gary McIntosh’s biography 
of Donald McGavran. This excerpt is chapter eight, entitled “Turning to 
North America.” I encourage all our readers to obtain Gary’s definitive 
biography of McGavran.
Alan, our book review editor, has gathered some interesting and relevant 
reviews for this issue of the journal. Thanks go to David Thiessen, Chris 
Messerer, and Harvey Mitchell Jr. for their reviews. We realize that many 
of our readers have a limited amount of time and money to spend on books, 
so we hope these reviews will be helpful in that regard.
Alan and I have switched places on the journal staff. Besides that change, 
other people have been added to the staff. Our associate editor is David 
Dunaetz, who I consider to have wonderful expertise in quantitative research. 
He has been very helpful to me. Our journal includes both qualitative and 
quantitative research. Our North American editor is Kelton Hinton; he 
9G R E AT  C O M I S S I O N  R E S E A R C H  J O U R N A L
leads the Johnson Baptist Association in North Carolina. His research on 
pastors, published in 2015, is helpful for pastor search committees. Our 
international editor is Moses Audi, a Nigerian who has two PhDs (one in 
Systematic Theology and one in World Christian Studies); he has served 
as a missionary and now serves on a seminary faculty in Nigeria. Gary 
McIntosh and Len Bartlotti served on the previous staff and will continue 
as consultants on the new staff. Our email addresses can be found on 
the copyright page of this journal. Feel free to submit articles and book 
reviews as email attachments to the appropriate persons. Please copy me 
on any submissions, and also send me any questions that you have about 
subscriptions, etc.


English

Introduction

Christians have long recognized the amazing growth of Yoido Full Gospel Church. It has been a pioneer in the Church Growth Movement and has set an example in its dependence on prayer and the work of the Holy Spirit. The church faces challenges/opportunities in the future as it relates to the church growth in the Global South, the changing culture in South Korea, and the Pentecostal/charismatic movements around the world

Ma, Wonsuk

The Future Growth of Global Christianity and Yoido Full Gospel Church: Its Potential Role in the New Context

Thiessen, David

175G R E AT  C O M I S S I O N  R E S E A R C H  J O U R N A L
through with their leadership as they work together to re-envision how 
God wants to restore them back to health and vitality.
Hunter, Kent R. Who Broke My Church?: 7 Proven Strategies for Renewal and Revival. New 
York, NY: Faith Words, 2017. 261 pp. $16.99.
Reviewed by David Thiessen, Executive Pastor at Mountain View Community Church in 
Fresno, CA, and D.Min. student in Church Growth at Talbot School of Theology.
Who Broke My Church? is the latest book by Kent Hunter, founder of 
Church Doctor Ministries and author of 30 books dealing with various 
topics related to church health and church growth. In this book, the 
author seeks to provide practical strategies that will produce an organic 
growth movement in local churches. Typically called revivals, these growth 
movements have been observed in various countries by Church Doctor 
Ministries. Research has revealed “Kingdom culture” as the “spiritual 
DNA” that drives these movements, and the author describes this unique 
culture in detail and identifies strategies to break through seven “ceilings” 
that prevent Kingdom culture from flourishing. 
The book explores the priority and nature of Kingdom culture in the 
first few chapters. While conducting survey research in 2006, the author 
observed that increasing numbers of Christians surveyed were articulating 
a “holy discontent” and anticipating significant growth of the church. These 
kinds of observations were particularly common in Great Britain, where 
much of the research for the book appeared to be centered (15). Evidently, 
church growth and vitality there is tied not to specific programs but to the 
spiritual health of individual disciples within the church (29).  
In chapter four the nature of Kingdom culture is fleshed out, though not 
in detail. A Kingdom culture church is characterized by features like a priority 
on making disciples slowly and in small numbers (53). The priority is not to 
gather crowds but to equip Christians to disciple the people in their immediate 
sphere of influence—family, close friends, etc. This is put forward as the key 
to moving a church that has drifted from Kingdom priorities back to spiritual 
faithfulness that will, in turn, produce healthy and sustainable church growth.
176
The balance of the book explores seven strategies for removing obstacles 
or “ceilings” that cause churches to “drift” from Kingdom culture. The 
strategies are as follows: 1) Eliminate corporate confusion by adjusting 
church structures to facilitate a low control/high accountability movement. 
2) Overcome the ‘country club’ mentality by re-defining the mission of 
the local church as the continuing fulfillment of Jesus’ great commission 
in Matthew 28. 3) Don’t substitute “baby food” for regular Bible intake 
by every member undergirded by a strong commitment to the authority 
of Scripture and to faithfully applying its truths personally. 4) Replace a 
resistance to change with a hope-filled posture towards the future and a 
willingness to try new ways to reach the unchurched. 5) Equip every member 
to multiply themselves through intentional discipleship, thus enabling the 
church to grow by multiplication instead of merely by addition. 6) Discard 
volunteer recruitment in favor of spiritual gift identification with the goal 
of releasing people to serve in their area of strength and to train others to 
do the same. 7) Cultivate an atmosphere of generosity in all areas of life, 
replacing a scarcity mentality with an abundance mentality.
Who Broke my Church? concludes with advice for leading change in 
the direction of Kingdom culture. Patience is encouraged, and the Jesus-
modeled practice of prioritizing making disciples over making leaders is 
key. Given that leaders are often tempted to do all the work themselves, 
“failure to let God grow the garden” (219) is described as the leaders’ 
greatest obstacle.
The book’s findings are based on research conducted by Church Doctor 
Ministries over the years involving thousands of individual churchgoers. 
CDM developed a plan to “field-test” their conclusions regarding the key 
role of spiritual health with local churches, and they coached numerous 
congregations through “Kingdom Culture Development” in an attempt to 
break through the seven ceilings described above (19). Individuals in the 
participating churches were surveyed before consultation began and then 
again with the same set of questions six months later. Various markers 
increased 13-34%. The results are summarized in an appendix on page 
257. Unfortunately, there is no information given regarding the numerical 
growth of the individual churches during this time.
The chief strength of Who Broke My Church? is its focus on cultivating 
177G R E AT  C O M I S S I O N  R E S E A R C H  J O U R N A L
a Kingdom culture that prioritizes making disciples over all other activity. 
“The Kingdom cause is not first about quantity. It is about quality: making 
disciples. Growing Christians to spiritual health is always the first and 
most important step for an outreach strategy” (83). While this observation 
may seem self-evident, in the author’s research—including thousands of 
respondents from Christian churches—only 51% of respondents could 
correctly identify the goal of the Great Commission as “Make disciples of 
all nations” (181), and only 34% of respondents identified the main purpose 
of the Church as “to make disciples” (99). This reality gives the book its 
urgency and relevance. It reveals that the development of a disciple-making 
culture is not a high priority in many churches, thus limiting the potential 
for sustained church growth.
Acknowledging the reality that it takes time to build Kingdom culture is 
a second important contribution. “How to” books understandably focus on 
action that can be taken immediately, but they sometimes fail to mention 
that new strategies have to be faithfully implemented over long periods 
of time—often several years—before yielding results. The importance of 
perseverance comes through loud and clear at various points in this book. 
Addressing leaders in particular, the author states, “The movement toward 
Kingdom culture is likely to take two and a half to three years” (219).
Though the emphasis is on the long-term development of a disciple-
making culture, the book also offers many points of immediate application. 
Particularly strong are the strategies offered to help people take action 
to reach out evangelistically. Developing a culture of “storytelling” is 
encouraged, that is, teaching people to share their testimony as a more 
natural form of evangelism that everyone can participate in (175). A 
practical way to identify personal networks of “not yet Christ-followers” is 
offered in the form of a sociogram—a simple chart that identifies various 
social relationships such as friends, neighbors, relatives, work associates, 
etc. (176). 
This book could be improved by reducing the number of Christian cliches 
employed without adequate definition. Kingdom culture was referred to 
throughout the book, and occasional contributions to its definition were made, 
but an overall summary of what Kingdom culture is was missing. Culture itself 
was defined as comprising values, beliefs, attitudes, priorities, and worldview 
178
(8), but the practical unpacking of these components with respect to the 
Kingdom of God was uneven, leaving the reader without the tools necessary 
to lead a movement towards Kingdom culture in the local church.
Interesting statistics were put forward but were often obscured by unclear 
language, and conclusions based on the numbers were sometimes offered 
without adequate explanation. For example, “breakthrough potential” 
was the label given to a church with 40-50% of its participants active in 
Kingdom culture and “breakthrough readiness” for churches with 65% or 
more (229). Why this particular change of 15-25% was a tipping point 
was not explained, and the difference between “potential” and “readiness” 
in this context remained undefined. As a result, how one would effectively 
distinguish between one kind of church congregation and another remains 
a mystery.
Also, the vital role of preaching in culture-building was overlooked. 
Critical to any kind of shift toward a Kingdom mindset within a local 
church would be teaching on Kingdom subjects, yet this crucial area of 
ministry was left virtually untouched. One assumes that the author would 
agree that no meaningful development of a new culture of disciple-
making can ever be realized without a systematic teaching plan. But the 
nature of what that plan might look like is never explored. Given the 
clear implication from the author’s own research that Kingdom Culture 
is not being systematically taught in most of today’s churches, this crucial 
component of renewal must be directly addressed. 
Finally, in the author’s discussion of tradition and the temptation for 
Christians to do what “feels good” instead of what is effective for outreach, 
the focus inexplicably landed on Christmas carols. “Away in a Manger” was 
dismissed as largely meaningless to today’s culture (152), and the singing 
of favorite carols for adults was similarly disregarded as “traditionalism” 
(161). This seems oddly off the mark since in American culture these carols 
are virtually the only Christian songs that are annually piped through 
shopping malls, secular radio stations, and small-town main streets. They 
are frequently still sung in public school Christmas programs from Florida 
to California. Granted, they aren’t fully understood, but their ubiquity is 
actually an opportunity for the Christian church to connect them with the 
life-changing Gospel message.
179G R E AT  C O M I S S I O N  R E S E A R C H  J O U R N A L
Who Broke My Church? offers some helpful priorities for church leaders 
longing to see their congregations renewed with a passion to fulfill the 
Great Commission. In particular, it offers a clear call back to Jesus’ priority 
of making disciples that make disciples. For this reason, it is a helpful tool 
for church leaders looking to build their church growth vision on a biblical 
foundation of disciple-making. 


Who Broke My Church?: 7 Proven Strategies for Renewal and Revival. By Kent R. Hunter

Atkinson, Matilda; Training School for Christian Workers Presidenthttps://digitalarchives.apu.edu/presidential-portrait/1015/thumbnail.jp

Azusa Pacific University

Not a member yet