Sam Metcalf is right: The Catholics got it right. It would be hard to find another movement in history with the durability and impact of monasticism. Protestant missions languished until it came up with its own version of the Catholic religious order—the Protestant mission agency.
Wesley, Asbury and the Booths led dynamic church planting movements by creating Protestant equivalents to the Catholic religious orders. The Methodists lost their way when their circuit riders got down off their horses and became local pastors.
We’re not going to see church planting movements unless we embrace what Ralph Winter called the two structures of God’s redemptive mission.



One Trackback
[...] One of the difficult tensions we have been living in is the sodality/modality dichotomy. If that makes no sense then read at least the first 3 pages of this excellent article by Ralph Winter. (link from Steve) [...]