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Five Principles of Indigenous Church Organization: Lessons from a Brazilian Pentecostal Church

1989; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 17; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1177/009182968901700107

2051-3623

Reed E. Nelson,

Christian Theology and Mission

Brazil's second largest Protestant body, the Congregação Cristã no Brasil, is one of the fastest-growing religious organizations in that country. It is also Brazil's most stable and harmonious church. Yet the Congregação Cristã no Brasil has only a bare minimum of formal organizational structure, no official mechanisms for proselytizing, and almost no written rules or policies. This paper is an effort to understand the apparent anomaly of an organization displaying parallel rapid growth and stability without explicit mechanisms to spur growth and to assure stability. Five principles of indigenous organization are proposed which appear to substitute for the formal mechanisms used in churches of United States or European origin. In conclusion, tentative implications of these principles for missiology are outlined.