Through A Glass Darkly

“All in all, the result of twenty years of work is not some renewed vision of mission, nor a penetrating challenge to the secularism of a barren church, nor a revitalized clergy devoted to the rescue and saving of lost sheep under the sovereign rule of the Good Shepherd.  What we have is considerable theological disarray, shallowness, or indifference, a fostering of false hopes concerning what can be achieved by research and programing, and a rather conspicuous failure to face up to the radical demads of the Christian gospel.”

This is the evaluation of William Abraham in 1989 regarding the work of the “Church growth movement.”  I would say that this applies 20 years later as well.

William J. Abraham, The Logic of Evangelism p. 81.