PUTTING AN END TO WORSHIP WARS - Elmer Towns

2. Church Planting. At the beginning of the movement many equated Church
Growth with church planting. McGavran said the best way to evangelize a caste is not for a
foreigner to preach to them. Because they were "untouchables," there always was a barrier when
an evangelist tried to communicate the gospel to them.
McGavran concluded the best way to reach an "untouchable" was to plant a church in
their culture, and have members of that church who were "untouchable" to evangelize his friends,
neighbors, relatives, and associates. Church planting resulted in "untouchables" evangelizing
"untouchables."
Church planting in a culture, by the people of that culture, who govern and support the
church in their culture; is the biblical principle of evangelism. While church planting is a part of
the Church Growth movement, Church Growth is more.
3. A Science 1 . McGavran realized we must follow principles for effective
evangelism. At first he began to formulate principles from his observation. When these
principles began to crystalize in his thinking, he wrote them down and gave them names or titles
such as The Homogenous Unit, People Movement, etc. He recognized it would take certain
expressions of evangelism to overcome barriers, so titles were given such as "E-1" which is
"Evangelism to overcome the first barrier, which is the church building, church name, or outward
expressions of Christianity. Hence, E-1 evangelism overcomes the Stained Glass Barrier.
Obviously, stained glass is not always a barrier to evangelizing people outside the church, but
stained glass was a symbolic word that stood for the external factors that stood in the way of
evangelism.
E-0 Evangelism of those already in the church.
E-1 Stained Glass Barrier, evangelizing those outside the church.
E-2 Cultural and Class Barriers, evangelizing those of a different
culture.
E-3 Linguistic Barriers, evangelizing those of a different language.
The term "science" scares some readers, and immediately they think that science has
thrown God out the window. They think science explains things without the supernatural. But
that is not the case, as a matter of fact, the opposite is true. True science will consider all facts,
which is another way of saying true science will consider all truth. It must consider the data about
God, the Scriptures, the history of Christianity; i.e. all truth must be evaluated in arriving at true
principle.