what are the advantages of church planting movements over against ...

St Francis Magazine Vol 6, No 6 | December 2010
networks of relationships” to gather with “former strangers” in “new
‘communities” of faith, “IMs see God-given family and clan structures
transformed from unbelieving communities into largely believing
communities” as “the gospel continues to flow along preserved relational
pathways.” 53
Secondly, In IMs, people groups are freed “from the counterproductive
burden of socioreligous conversion,” in particular, from
‘the constraints of affiliation with the term “Christianity,”’ and instead
“remain inside their socioreligious communities by retaining
their given birth identity.” 54
Lewis carefully distinguishes IMs from the “C5” position on John
Travis’ spectrum of “Christ-Centred Communities,” 55 with which
they are often associated. 56 For Lewis, a C5 community which “requires
a change in one’s identity to a new network would not be considered
an insider movement, no matter how ‘contextualized.’” 57 By
contrast, IMs may reflect any point along the C-scale: ‘all that matters
is that no new communities (no “aggregate churches”) are formed
to extract believers from their pre-existing families and networks.’
58
53 Ibid., pp. 75-6.
54 Ibid., p. 76.
55 Travis describes “C5” as a “Community of Muslims who follow Isa yet remain
culturally and officially Muslim.” John and Anna Travis, ‘Factors Affecting the
Identity that Jesus-followers Choose’, in . J. Dudley Woodberry (ed), From Seed to
Fruit: Global Trends, Fruitful Practices, and Emerging Issues among Muslims
(Pasadena, Calif.: William Carey Library, 2008), p. 194.
56 See e.g. Gary Corwin, ‘A Humble Appeal to C5/Insider Movement Muslim Ministry
Advocates to Consider Ten Questions’, IJFM 24.1 (2007), pp. 5-21.
57 As cited in Corwin, ‘A Humble Appeal’, p. 18. Emphasis original.
58 Lewis, ‘Promoting Movements to Christ within Natural Communities’, p. 76.
Emphasis original.
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St Francis Magazine is published by Interserve and Arab Vision