■ It has been over 50 years since the controversial Homogenous Unit Principle (HUP) was propagated through Donald McGavran’s book Understanding Church Growth. The HUP held that evangelism and church growth are most effective among groups of people with similar characteristics, people being more likely to become Christian if they do not have to cross cultural, linguistic, or ethnic barriers. While some church planters, evangelists, and missionaries used the HUP in their work, like Rick Warren and his megachurch Saddleback, for others it became a long-lasting bone of contention, challenging church ministries to diverse populations, such as in cities. The current double-issue of the International Journal for Frontier Missiology (Vol. 40: 1-2) reviews the effects and current developments in mission and church growth ministries stemming from the HUP.
While the issue carries informative accounts of the conferences and debates surrounding the HUP, often revolving around Fuller Seminary, what is most noteworthy is how the debate is circling back to American churches after a decades-long emphasis on attracting diverse followings. In one article, Greg Parsons writes that recent research on multi-ethnic congregations has shown that they often attract those who are already Christians and that there is still discrimination in such settings. Another article finds that the emphasis that McGavran and others placed on reaching out to those of similar ethnic and cultural backgrounds has widened to include such demographic characteristics as region of birth, age, education levels, and even hobbies and musical and artistic preferences. In other words, McGavran recognized the important role of social networks that are now commonly advocated by church planters. Still, the debate continues; in studies of world missions, highly diverse congregations are found to be better at drawing in marginalized people. Alan McMahan concludes that the combination of homogenous and heterogenous models is being used in large churches and urban contexts. For more information on this issue, visit: https://www.ijfm.org/index.htm
