By George Hunter III

The foundational conclusions from the Church Growth Movement’s first half century of research are more true than we thought, but not as new as we thought. Church Growth people have largely rediscovered what many great apostolic leaders knew and practiced throughout Christian history, although the current body of lore is more extensive than ever before - with more “historic gold” yet to be discovered.

It is not fashionable today to regard some of history’s greatest Christian leaders as "strategists” who conceived, planned, led and achieved “the impossible.” We give all the credit to God, assuming He achieved great things like the exodus from Egypt or the evangelization of the Roman Empire through people who loved Him with their hearts, but not their minds! We regard historic Christian leaders, customarily, as desk theologians, or church reformers, or parish preaching models, or models of spirituality, or as evangelism practitioners. However, some of them were also leaders of powerful movements - who planned great achievements, knew what they were doing, mobilized people and resources to attain their goals and could show this generation how trails are blazed.

Our blindness reflects a wider conceit ~ which assumes that “strategy” is a twentieth century discovery of, say, industrial barons, management gurus and social movement leaders. We may recall that several ancient military leaders were sophisticated strategists - as the film “Patton” reminded us. And Roland Allen reminded us of Paul’s strategic consciousness. But when straining to find the way forward today, we do not often stand on the shoulders of Patrick, or Boniface, or Carey, or even Moffatt or Taylor to inform our cross-cultural missionary challenge. Nor do we learn from Augustine in preaching, or Francis in peacemaking, or Wilberforce and Garrison in the advocacy and legislation of justice, or Charles G. Finney or John Wesley in evangelization. True, some writers briefly allude to Wesley as “a good organizer” - as profound an insight as declaring Einstein a “good mathematician” or Mozart a “talented composer!” Indeed, the prodigious strategic mind of John Wesley can show some ways forward for today’s Christian movement, and his wisdom can illuminate today’s “Church Growth” discussion.

“TO SPREAD THE POWER”
Pieces of John Wesley’s unusual lifestyle are widely known and appreciated. He traveled by horse some 225,000 miles, preached 40,000 sermons, surviving hostile mobs and treacherous weather in carrying out his obsession. Some achievements are almost as well known ~ such as 140,000 converts in his lifetime, the establishment of Methodism as an apostolic (and reform) movement within Anglicanism which became a distinct Church after his death. He also planted and cared for a vast network of “classes” and “societies” governed by an annual “conference,” and out-posted a growing movement in America.

But, more deeply, what did Wesley intend to achieve by all this activity? Some of his goals are fairly widely recognized today. A fair number of Methodists and a handful of other Christians will recall that Wesley wanted to “renew the Church,” and “spread scriptural holiness,” and “reform the nation.”

But Wesley’s more apostolic goals are not as widely recognized. He basically sought no less than the recovery of the truth, life and power of earliest Christianity, and the expansion of that kind of Christianity. He singlemindedly managed the movement for 50 years by those objectives. He communicated these objectives to the growing ranks of Methodist people and leaders. He wrote and spoke frequently of the “increase,” the “spread” and the “advancement” of this apostolic movement and believed that its expansion was expressing “the design of God.” The movement purposed to “save souls,” which Wesley explains in “A Farther Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion”:

“By salvation I mean, not barely, according to the vulgar notion, deliverance from hell, or going to heaven; but a present deliverance from sin, a restoration of the soul to its primitive health, its original purity, a recovery of the divine nature, the renewal of our souls after the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness, in justice, mercy and truth.” (The Works of John Wesley, Vol. VIII, p.47.)

For Wesley, the ministry of evangelism towered as a moral imperative: We cannot with a good conscience neglect the present opportunity of saving souls while we live ...” (Works, VIII, 310). As the apostolic Protestant Reformer, Wesley did not, as did Luther and Calvin, believe that the Great Commission was intended for the original apostles only. Rather, that Commission points the way for the whole Church, in every generation, until the peoples of the earth are reached. Accordingly he taught his growing cadre of lay preachers that “you have nothing to do but to save souls. Therefore, spend and be spent in this work. And go always, not only to those that want you, but to those that want you most. Observe: It is not your business to preach so many times, and to take care of this or that society; but to save as many souls as you can; to bring as many sinners as you possibly can to repentance, and with all your power to build them up in that holiness without which they cannot see the Lord.” (Works, VII, 310.) 

Wesley regarded his growth objective for mission as no innovation. Indeed, he believed he had rediscovered the driving force of the earliest Church. He championed basic "scriptural Christianity, as beginning to exist in individuals; as spreading from one to another; as covering the earth.” (Works,V, 36.) He believed that the expansion of true faith is “the work of God” ~ an oftused phrase which, he assures us, “is no cant word,” but means “the conversion of sinners from sin to holiness,” a work he saw as both “widening and deepening.” (Works, XIII, 329.) He believed this work of God was so crucial that the leaders of Methodism in future generations must maintain a “single eye” in the service of its advancement.

The mission’s goal lodged in people’s hearts through Charles Wesley’s hymnody:
When He first the work begun,
Small and feeble was His Day;
Now the Word doth swiftly run,
Now it wins its widening way
(in Hildebrandt, 1956, p.43)

Their hymnody involved a bold expectation:
Saw ye not the cloud arise,
Little as a human hand?
Now it spreads along the skies;
Hangs o’er all the thirsty land;
Lo! The promise of a shower
Drops already from above;
But the Lord will shortly pour
All the Spirit of His love!
(Methodist Hymn Book, #263.)

Another Charles Wesley hymn reflects the extravagant hope with which the early Methodists yearned for and expected their movement’s powerful growth:

Savior, we know Thou art
In every age the same;
Now, Lord, in ours exert
The virtue of Thy name;
And daily, through Thy Word increase
Thy Blood-besprinkled witnesses.
Thy people, saved below
From every sinful stain,
Shall multiply and grow
If Thy command ordain;
And one into a thousand rise,
And spread Thy praise through earth and skies.
In many a soul, and mine,
Thou has displayed Thy power;
But to Thy people join
Ten thousand thousand more,
Saved from the guilt and strength of sin,
In life and heart entirely clean.

SANCTIFIED PRAGMATISM
John Wesley brought to Christian evangelization a sophistication that, perhaps, had not been seen for a thousand years. And his approach to informing the ministry of evangelism was remarkably close to that of today’s Church Growth Movement. For instance, he was an unapologetic pragmatist in the choice and development of strategies, models and methods. The supreme standard for evaluating any evangelism approach was its outcomes, i.e., whether or not the approach helped to achieve the perennial apostolic objectives of the discipling of people and the growth of the true Church. He wrote: “I would observe every punctilio or order, except when the salvation of souls is at stake. Then I prefer the end to the means.” (Quoted in Ensley, 1958, p.39.)

To be more specific, Wesley was a man of one Book, the Bible, and from that Book he received his message, the objectives of the mission and the ethical guidelines for its expression, i.e., he would employ no approach prohibited by Scripture. But he parts company with other would-be restorers of Christianity who try to imitate the forms and methods of the early church in its age and culture. Wesley developed (or borrowed) approaches that fit his target culture and were attended by God’s clear blessing. He taught, in A Plain Account of the People Called Methodists, that “the Scripture, in most points, gives only general rules; and leaves the particular circumstances to be adjusted by the common sense of mankind.” (Works, VIII, p. 255.)

Wesley probably came to this pragmatic stance through experience consistent with his acceptance of “experience” as one source (with Scripture, tradition and reason) of theological truth. For instance, in 1739 Wesley observed George Whitfield’s experiment in field preaching to miners at Kingswood, near Bristol. In the first meeting, Whitfield preached to about 100 miners. By the fifth meeting, only a week later, he was addressing 10,000! The two men perceived the approach as a clear winner! They did not cast about for additional warrants, biblical or theological. Wesley’s approach became so rigorously pragmatic that the following guidelines appear to have shaped his practice: 

1. If an approach or method ought to achieve your apostolic objectives, but does not, scuttle it - even if you like it!
2. If your employment of a method or approach is effective, use it to the hilt - even if you do not like it!
3.There is no perfect method which, like magic, will do the job for us. Rather, Christians evangelize, empowered by the Spirit, through culturally appropriate methods.

Wesley’s bold pragmatism stands as a needed corrective to two widespread assumptions in today’s ministry: (i) That I do what I enjoy, what “turns me on,” and thus gives me vocational satisfaction; (ii) That I do not do something that “turns me off” or with which I am not “comfortable.” Mr. Wesley would suggest that some people are too easily “turned off,” and that one’s comfort or enjoyment level has little to do with the validity of any ministry. Indeed, the test of our faithfulness may be our willingness to employ a demonstrably effective method that we may not enjoy. 

Both Wesleys passed this test, and their passing made possible a contagious movement. Charles was a cultured poet and musician with high church aesthetic tastes, but he shelved his preferences, condescending to write hymns in the “low-brow” music genre being sung in England’s public houses! And John, after 33 years of open-air field preaching to the unchurched, confessed that “to this day, field preaching is a cross to me. But I know my commission, and see no other way of preaching the gospel to every creature.” (Journal, Sept.6, 1772.)

STRATEGY FROM RESEARCH
Wesley’s pragmatism corresponded remarkably to today’s Church Growth Movement. Wesley’s approach even became “research based,” employing rudimentary versions of what became “qualitative behavioral science research methods.” For instance, Wesley practiced rigorous observation. His power for observing crowds (even while preaching) astonishes. He observed classes, societies, towns, hecklers and detractors, leaders, human behavior, parish churches, etc. He also gathered data through thousands of interviews with local Methodist leaders, new Methodists, local opinion leaders, people with needs and so on. He welcomed and received reports from Methodist leaders from across the movement. And over the years, Wesley recorded, in a Journal, his observations, interview learnings and many reports from others. These recorded studies stretched into multiple volumes.

Wesley reviewed his journal from time to time, to assimilate what he had learned, to analyze trends in various towns and regions, to perceive where receptivity was increasing, to anticipate what to expect and prepare for in return visits, to make mid-course corrections, to map itineraries of traveling preachers, to inform strategy development. He took data seriously, and on crucial matters took no one’s word for it and checked on the specific accuracy of data.

So, for instance, when his 1748 itinerary took him to Dublin, “I inquired into the state of the society. Most pompous accounts had been sent me, from time to time, of the great numbers that were added to it; so that I confidently expected to find therein six or seven hundred members. And how is the real fact? I left three hundred and ninety four members; and I doubt if there are now three hundred and ninety six! (March 16, 1748.)

“I returned to Norwich, and took an exact account of the society. I wish all our preachers would be accurate in their accounts, and rather speak under than above the truth. I had heard again and again of the increase of the society. And what is the naked truth? Why, I left in it 202 members; and I find 179.” (March 21, 1779.)

Wesley’s research was intended to answer such basic questions as the causes of growth, decline, and stagnation in churches. At times he employs a very McGavran-like historical analysis, discerning causes of both growth and decline by using the ups and downs of a “graph of growth” to dig out the reasons. In his Journal entry of October 12, 1764, he records available membership data in the recent history of the puzzling and volatile Norwich society which can be tabled (or graphed): 

Year                       Member
1755                            83
1757                          134
1758                          110
1759                          760
1760                          507
1761                          412
1762                          630
1763                          310
1764                          174
Wesley then delineated the known causes behind the fluctuations in this society’s history.

As Wesley then reflected upon this data, his powerful inductive mind developed an impressive body of church growth causes, barriers and explanations for the movement’s trends.

ON GROWTH AND QUALITY
Mr. Wesley brings needed depth and perspective to today’s controversy on the relation between “quantity” and “quality” in church membership strength. He challenges today’s widespread assumption in “mainline” denominations that the relation is inverse, i.e., as churches get smaller, they get “better.” Of course, such a case is possible; his Journal even records one such case in his first twelve years of itineration and analysis (the society in metropolitan Mount-Mellick, England, May 26, 1750.)

However, Mr. Wesley observed that normally a persistent correlation exists between quantity and quality. As a church grows, it becomes stronger and better; as a church declines it becomes weaker and less healthy. He also found a correlation between growth and depth; the societies in which members thirsted for and expected their own sanctification were also experiencing growth. To be sure, Mr. Wesley had no interest in puffed statistics and he tolerated no “number games.” In reflecting upon a case of the society in Dublin, he interpreted as "a warning to us all, how we give in to that hateful custom of painting things beyond the life. Let us make a conscience of magnifying or exaggerating anything. Let us rather speak under than above the truth. We, of all men, should be punctual in what we say; that none of our words may fall to the ground.” (Journal, March 16, 1748.)

His 1761 observation of the work at Bristol notes the correlation of membership growth and of quality growth, and typifies many such observations: "Here likewise I had the satisfaction to observe a considerable increase in the work of God. The congregations were exceedingly large and the people hungering and thirsting after righteousness, and every day afforded us fresh instances of persons converted from sin, or converted to God.” (Journal, October 1, 1761.) 

To be sure, Wesley perceived problems in the experiences of growing churches. For instance, in London "I found the work of God swiftly increasing here . . . Meantime, the enemy was not wanting in his endeavors to sow tares among the good seed. I saw this clearly, but durst not use violence, lest, in plucking up the tares, I should root up the wheat also.” (Journal, August 22, 1761.)

But he saw that declining churches and societies have problems too, and his wide experience persuaded him that the problems connected with growth were far preferable! In cases where the tares took over or had pathological influence in a society, Wesley knew and exercised appropriate interventions, frequently including the removal of unfaithful or unserious members from membership. Mr. Wesley preferred growth to decline, and saw that quality and depth typically accompany growth, because God is at work in “the work of God.”

“I observed God is reviving his work in Kingswood; The society, which had been much decreased, being now increased again to near three hundred members; many of whom are now athirst for full salvation, which for some years they had almost forgot.” (Journal, October 11, 1761.)

Evangelism efforts need God’s blessing and power for church growth to take place: “In the afternoon I preached at Alemouth. How plain an evidence have we here, that even our outward work, even the societies are not of man’s building! With all our labour and skill, we cannot, in nine years time, form a society in this place; even though there is none that opposes, poor or rich. Nay, though the two richest men in town, and the only gentlemen there, have done all in their power to further it.” (Journal, May 15, 1752.)

As late as 1777, he observed that “in most places, the Methodists are still a poor despised people, laboring under reproach and many inconveniences; therefore, where the power of God is not, they decrease. By this then you may form a sure judgement. Do the Methodists in general decrease in number? Then they decrease in grace; they are a fallen, or, at least, a falling people. But they do not decrease in number; they continually increase. Therefore, they are not a fallen people.’’ (Journal, May 8, 1777.)

TO RECEPTIVE PEOPLE
As the knowledge-leader of Methodism, John Wesley anticipated every major universal “mega-strategy” that I have identified from existing Church Growth research. He practiced and advanced several of them, and taught them to other Methodist leaders.

For example, Wesley discovered the principle of priority outreach to receptive people while it is “harvest time.” He pursued the principle even more avidly than Dr. Donald McGavran. For Wesley and the early Methodists, there were always “fields white unto harvest,” because, in every season, God’s seeking prevenient grace moved through the events and circumstances of some people’s lives to open their hearts to the gospel. Wesley learned to perceive whether people were hostile, resistant, indifferent, interested or receptive. Even before the 1738 experience at Aldersgate Street, which assured him of his justification and empowered him for apostolic ministry, Wesley had attempted to communicate the Christian religion to native American Indians in Georgia but came home, “there being no possibility, as yet, of instructing the Indians; neither had I as yet found or heard of any Indians on the continent of America who had the least desire of being instructed.” (Journal, October 30, 1737.) So he learned early to appreciate and respond to receptive people wherever he found them. He also learned to expend disproportionate time and energy where there was harvest to be gathered.

MULTIPLICATION OF UNITS
John Wesley pioneered and mastered the church growth principle called today (for want of a better general term) “the multiplication of units.” He was instrumental in the spawning of many hundreds of classes, bands, societies, and other groups with their distinct agendas, and he labored to develop the indigenous lay leadership this growing vast network of groups would need. He was driven to multiplying “classes,” for these served best as recruiting groups, ports of entry for new people, and for involving awakened people with the gospel and its power. Much of his entire strategy can be summarized in four maxims: 1. Preach and visit in as many places as you can; 2. Go most where they want you most; 3. Start as many classes as can be effectively managed; 4. Do NOT preach where you cannot enroll awakened people into classes.

You see how important class multiplication was in Wesley’s thinking by observing how he concluded a field preaching session. Seldom (if ever) did he invite people to accept Jesus Christ and become Christians on the spot! This is partly because, as Gerald Ensley reminded us: “He depended less on one grand effort than on the cumulative effect of many sermons. ‘To preach in one place and no more,’ he said, ‘very seldom does any good.’ He never cherished the delusion that the war with evil can be won by a blitzkrieg. He knew it is a war of attrition, where victory goes to the force that holds out the longest. He never conceived of evangelism in terms of a solitary appearance that would sweep thousands into the Kingdom at a stroke. Rather, he counted on the power of many successive small blows to bring the citadels of evil down. He visited tiny Wales 46 times on preaching missions; Ireland, 21 times; Scotland, 22 times. He embodied in his preaching strategy a wisdom gathered from a conversation between his father and mother about himself. ‘Sukey,’ said Samuel to his wife, ‘I wonder at your patience. You have told that child twenty times the same thing.’ ‘Had I satisfied myself with mentioning the matter only nineteen’ replied Susannah, ‘I should have lost all my labor. You see, it was the twentieth time that crowned the whole.’” (Ensley, 1958, p.45.)

Then how did Wesley conclude an open air session? Sometimes he announced that he would remain for those who wanted to converse personally. Often, to test the actual receptivity of apparently interested people, he announced a service the next morning at 5:00 a.m.! Most often, he invited people to join a class - sometimes a new class, that would meet that evening. He explained the one condition that people had to meet to join a class - simply the desire “to flee the wrath to come,” to know God’s acceptance, and live a higher life. (See Wood, chXIV, 1967.)

An entourage traveled with Wesley, and during open air services they scattered among the crowd, studying faces, conversing with persons, and inviting them to join a class. The salient objective in much of the field preaching was the starting of classes. Wesley’s rationale for this practice is rooted in his understanding of the process, by stages, in which people become Christians, and upon which he based his practice of evangelism. In brief, he believed that you:

1. Awaken people ~ to their lostness, their sins, their need for God.
2. Enroll awakened people into a class.
3. Teach awakened people to expect to experience their justification.
4. Teach justified people to expect to experience their sanctification in this life.

John Wesley, as one apostolic genius of the Christian past, offers still more strategic gold for this generation’s confused Church. He reminds us that many wheels do not have to be reinvented, and that we may stand on the shoulders of the achievers of the past and discover yet another piece of “the communion of the saints.” And he is no sectarian Methodist; his “catholic spirit” affirmed, celebrated and would advance every Christian tradition. 

Most of the proof, however, of Wesley’s published ideas for informing church growth is found in Methodism’s experience. British Methodism’s period of greatest growth came in the generation after Wesley’s death - a generation with him no longer at the helm, but one in which the leaders were soaked in his normative writings and ideas. Wesley had few (if any) Church Growth secrets. In his voluminous writing he shared, somewhat piecemeal, virtually everything he knew.

Wesley’s general diffusion of Church Growth principles enabled Francis Asbury to emigrate to America and duplicate Wesley’s achievement in the new country. Indeed, by Wesley’s death American Methodism had already grown to the strength of British Methodism. Though Asbury is commonly thought of as Wesley’s “apprentice,” there is no evidence of any extensive tutorial relationship. The achievement was informed by Asbury’s having become “possessed of Mr. Wesley’s writings, and for some years almost laid aside all other books but for the Bible, and applied himself exceedingly closely in reading every book that Mr. Wesley had written.” (Quoted in Baker, 1976, p. 116.) Indeed, Asbury’s sophisticated grasp of Wesley’s ideas enabled him strategically to adapt them to the different challenge the American mission field presented.

The day for John Wesley’s strategic wisdom is not over, for many of his principles have perennial validity. As Wesley the “strategist” is rediscovered, he will become one of the strategic fountainheads of the Christian movement facing the twenty-first century.