The Sources of Motivation for Witness and Church Growth

by A. William Cook

Why are some churches able to mobilize their members for witness and consequent growth? This author, a veteran of many years experience and study in evangelistic outreach, examines four relationships that must interact effectively in the believer’s life.

Why are some churches able to mobilize their members for witness and consequent growth? This author, a veteran of many years experience and study in evangelistic outreach, examines four relationships that must interact effectively in the believer’s life.

During the twelve years that I was involved, directly or indirectly, in nation-wide Evangelism-in-Depth movements in nine countries in Spanish America, Europe and North America I was often asked, "What is your secret? Just what is it in your program that motivates so many thousands of people to share their faith?"

Quite frankly, it took me many years to find the answer to this question. As I studied the component parts of a typical Evangelism-in-Depth program, I could not find any secret ingredient, anything extraordinarily novel that would account for its success in involving so many people. As I continued to reflect upon the source of Christian motivation for witness in the context of an Evangelism-inDepth movement, I began to perceive certain elements of the program that seemed to exert a strong influence upon church members.

First of all, the thousands of prayer cells in which these Christians were gathered were often the source of a significant proportion of the total number of recorded professions of faith. In them believers were given an opportunity for a more natural relationship to their Lord and to their neighbors than in regular church prayer meetings.

Second, the training classes, which were usually given on Sunday morning and thus involved a larger number of people than would be the case at a special session held in mid-week, seemed to be another factor in their motivation. People would often come to know Christ in these classes. A study of the statistics coming out of the Evangelism-inDepth movements of the sixties shows a high correlation between the numbers of people involved in prayer cells, in training classes and in witness and the total number of recorded professions of faith. Somehow, the opportunities that these initial phases of the program provided for Christians to relate to God, to the Word and to a needy world interacted as a I powerful motivating force for witness.

The significance of this was lost to me, however, until several years later when I participated in a seminar on contemporary theology at the Latin America Biblical Seminary in San Jose, Costa Rica. It was there that I first came across the concept of a "theology of praxis in the light of the Word of God."¹ The pros and cons of this theology aside, I am profoundly indebted to it for forcing me to reflect creatively upon the role of evangelism, or "evangelization," as we prefer to call it,² in our present world. As I began to apply this concept to our experience in in-depth evangelism, I slowly began to perceive the sources of motivation for witness. As I studied the Word of God and reflected upon it in the context of my own experience, and as I prepared for a workshop on in-depth evangelistic methodology at the 1974 Lausanne Congress, one by one these motivating factors begin to impress themselves on my mind and on the minds of the members of our team.

The following may appear quite obvious to many. For me, what was needed was a clearer understanding of how these factors interacted with one another to produce the desired motivation. This does not in any way pretend to be an "answer" to the problem of motivation for evangelization, though as we have sought to apply it in our strategy of evangelism, we believe that it works. What we are saying here is basically intended to cause us to reflect more intelligently and creatively on our missionary task under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

FOUR BASIC RELATIONSHIPS
Four factors or relationships must be allowed to interact upon the believer if he is to be effectively motivated for witness: his relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ; his relationship to the world; his relationship to the Word; his relationship to the Body of Christ.

What the believer needs, then, is:

1. A personal, totally transforming relationship with Christ; an acceptance of the ultimate implications of his universal lordship for our lives as members of his body and as set forth in Scripture.

2. An involved and deeply concerned relationship with the world of men and women for whom Christ died, and with the social structure of which they are a part.

3. An open attitude toward Scripture. We must allow God to speak to us freely through his Word and to reflect upon it and apply it in the context of our interaction with the world and with the Body of Christ.

4. A relationship to the Body which is subject to our relationship with God, with his Word, and with the world.

All these relationships, brought into close interaction, produce motivation. The Holy Spirit, who is at work in all these relationships, is the final spark who ignites this "mix" of relationships – as in an engine cylinder – producing energy and movement. His power is manifested and his gifts poured out when Christ is exalted in the body-life of the church. He is also at work in the world, at times in the most unorthodox and unexpected places. And he speaks to us in ever new and exciting ways through Scripture as we reflect upon his Word in the light of our own pilgrimage in the world and as members of Christ’s body.

This motivation can be the result of a process, or it can take the form of a clear-cut, transforming experience in the life of the local church and of the believer. This experience can become lopsided, however, if all relationships are not allowed equally to continue to interact. A valid Christian experience is the convergence at a particular time and place of the four motivating relationships.

A word of caution is in order at this point. We are not speaking here of the relative importance of these relationships. If we were to judge them merely on this basis, we would have to conclude that our relationship to God and to his Word are supremely important. We are speaking here only of the need of interrelationships and not of relative values. The propositions of Scripture and the presence of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church are not abstract concepts. They have to be critically applied in the concrete and [always] varied contexts in which the church finds herself in the world. The problem for us is how to bring these relationships into meaningful interaction without inhibiting the contribution of any one of them. Because, where these four relationships converge, motivation takes place.

The problem with much of our evangelism is that we rely too much upon "centripetal" sources of motivation such as programs, methods, peer pressure and role expectancy. These are, of course, valid sources of motivation, because they are aspects of our relationship with the world. But they will fail if they are not balanced with the other sources of motivation which are both "centripetal" and "centrifugal. " On the other hand, however, in order to be kept alive, motivation must be channeled toward viable goals by means ‘of flexible methods and programs that take into consideration the psychosocial variables of motivation. Otherwise, motivation will die, because it has lost contact with the world.

SOME EXAMPLES FROM SCRIPTURE
In a number of passages of Scripture we find these four relationships interacting in the lives of people and producing motivation. Take, for example, Nehemiah. What motivated him to undertake the building of the walls of Jerusalem when he had no human reason for leaving his comfortable position at the Persian court? The first chapter of the book that carries his name shows how closely related he was to his own world, to the people of God, to his Lord and to Scripture. Later on, in 2:17, he communicates his motivation to the elders at Jerusalem on the very same terms and with the same results.

Another example is the story of the risen Christ’s walk with his two disciples on the Emmaus road (Lk. 24:13-35). What happened to turn two perplexed and frightened disciples into two witnesses with burning hearts (cf. v. 32)? What changed them from blind and discouraged persons with a biased understanding of Scripture (cf. v. 21) into joyful proclaimers of the resurrection? There are four words in this passage that are short-hand symbols of the four relationships: Christ, Road (world), Scripture, Bread (body life).

Jesus Christ met two people right where they were, on a dusty road walking away from where they were supposed to be. In fact, he walked several miles with them in the wrong direction just so he could minister to their particular needs. In the same way, the church has been sent into a "wrong-way" world to become incarnate in it in order to communicate the message of God’s love. We are called, as John A. Mackay has so aptly put it, to be "Christians of the road," and not "of the balcony"–to be participants, not spectators.

The disciples did not recognize him because their eyes were blinded by discouragement, unbelief, and by certain preconceptions regarding Christ’s mission in this world. Their encounter with Christ on the road brought them into a new relationship with Scripture, which later on they began to understand in a new way. Yet, it wasn’t until they insisted that he remain with them as their guest of honor, and received from his hands the bread in the fellowship around the table, that their eyes were opened. They then immediately returned to Jerusalem to proclaim the Good News. It is significant that, in reflecting upon what had happened and in recounting it to the assembled disciples, they took pains to point out the four basic relationships:

And they said to one another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures? And they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were gathered with them…And they told what things were done in the way, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread (Luke 24:32,33,35).

MOTIVATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS AND CHURCH GROWTH
If we accept these four relationships as being necessary prerequisites to motivation for evangelism, it follows that our methods and programs should be chosen with a view toward fostering these relationships in close interaction. We are much concerned these days about church growth. Much is being written about the relative importance of qualitative, quantitative, and organic growth.3 We suggest that the various dimensions of growth as we find them, for example, in Acts 2:41-47 are evidences of the presence of these motivating relationships.

When a church grows in apostolic doctrine and in power, it is proving that God’s people are entering into a proper relationship with Christ the Lord and with his Word. When a church demonstrates its concern for social ills and adapts its life-style to local culture, as did the early church, it is demonstrating its correct relationship to the world. When true body life develops, the church is evidencing still another important relationship. When all these relationships are manifested in close interaction, true numerical growth will take place as Christians’ hearts begin to burn and they are motivated to witness joyfully to the resurrected Christ. Yet, numerical growth in itself is not a sign that all the relationships are at work.

It has been our privilege to be involved in in-depth evangelism for twelve years and, in the process, to observe a number of growing and non-growing churches. The growing churches are not as many as one would wish, and most of them are not growing "holisticly" or, as Paul put it, in Ephesians 4:15, "in all things. " Unfortunately, some often-cited examples of numerical growth in Latin America can be shown to be unaccompanied by some of the other evidences of growth. They rather resemble growth that is associated with corpulence, or in certain extreme cases, cancerous growth.

There are, nonetheless, several examples in various parts of the world of the type of "holistic" growth we are talking about. Since our ministry has been primarily in Latin America, we are more closely acquainted with two churches in that part of the world where the motivating relationships have been allowed to work with consequent holistic growth. We make mention first of the Tabernaculo de la Fe in Buenos Aires, Argentina, pastored by Juan Carlos Ortiz. The second church is the much smaller and relatively unknown, Iglesia Biblica Nazareth in San Jose, Costa Rica, whose pastor is the Rev. Alberto Barrientos, a coordinator of the In-Depth Evangelism team. In both these congregations – the one a large successful and numerically- growing metropolitan church, and the other a small, dying church in a small city-holistic growth began to take place when the pastors began to lead their flocks into the four motivational relationships.

PRACTICAL TOOLS
Inductive Bible study in "reflection" or "discipleship" groups with pastors and lay leaders are one of the tools we have found useful in helping leaders and church members become motivated. Research into the life style of believers and into the attitudes of the surrounding people can also be used to motivate effective witness.

For example, when a Sao Paulo church discovered that one of its greatest hindrances to growth was a weak integration of families into the life of the church, concrete steps were taken that are slowly transforming the life style and witness of this church. Or, when a group of young people discovered that 70 percent or more of the middle class junior college kids in six schools were: (a) Catholics (though mostly disaffected from their faith); (b) believed in life after death; (c) owned a Bible or New Testament; (d) considered Christianity a valid option in life; (e) based their beliefs on personal conviction instead of on the beliefs of their parents or their peers; and (f) were willing to attend a Bible study anywhere (although less than 10 percent stated they would attend a meeting in a church!), it took no urging on the part of their leader to make them act. Part of their motivation came from their fellow students who kept asking them when the Bible classes that the questionnaire referred to would begin!

CONCLUSION
There is really no secret – to motivating Christians for witness. Perhaps what has happened is that we have failed to give equal weight to all the motivating relationships as a result of our varying cultural backgrounds and Christian experiences. All too often, after a good beginning, we have majored on one or another of these relationships, and have downplayed the others, and motivation has ceased.

Our churches can and must be motivated for witness. But we must pay a price for it. We will have to evaluate our priorities and goals, as well as our own preconceptions, in the light of the four motivational factors, and then make whatever changes are necessary, so that our churches "may grow up into him in all things, who is the head, even Christ" (Eph. 4:15).

Endnotes
1. By praxis is meant action based upon reflection, or the actualization of theory. Cf. Orlando Costas, The Church and its Mission: A Shattering Critique From the Third World (Wheaton: Tyndale Press, 1974), p. 71.

2. In Portuguese, the last four letters of the word "evangelizacao" spell "acao", action, denoting dynamic and ongoing communication, whereas the suffix of the term evangelism seems to imply a static communication that has all the answers.

3. We are grateful to the Institute of Church Growth for emphasizing these elements of growth, particularly quantitative growth. The Institute of Indepth Evangelism, while insisting on the importance of numerical growth, has sought to emphasize holistic growth and has broken down qualitative growth into measurable components that should accompany numerical and organic growth. Conceptual growth corresponds roughly to growth in knowledge of apostolic doctrine (Acts 2:42). Incarnational growth relates to growth in identification with the problems and sorrows of this world (Acts 2:44,45). The "wonders and signs" of verse 43 could possibly be considered still another element of growth which I call dynamic, or, growth in life style, or in evidence of God’s power through the church, although by definition, all growth is dynamic.

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