DESCRIPTION:

This course is a critical analysis of those factors (historical, cultural, sociological, psychological, spiritual) which provide a basis for understanding church growth and church planting in a Hispanic Roman Catholic context. It is an advanced study of church growth as a distinctive approach to practical missiology, with emphasis in the development of the Christian mission in Roman Catholic contexts, such as the Hispanic community in the United States.

This course will enable students to better understand and interpret contemporary church growth in the prevailing Roman Catholic context of the Hispanic communities of the United States, and to discern its missiological implications.

This is a two-week intensive. Pre-course reading will introduce the students to church growth and church planting principles. The class will meet daily for four-hour sessions (July 3-14, except for the July 4 holiday) in a lecture-discussion format. Emphasis will be placed on the Roman Catholic Hispanic context, and time will be allowed for class interaction. Post-course writing assignments will require participants to relate church growth principles gained through the course to particular case-studies in Roman Catholic Hispanic contexts.

Deiros, Pablo A. Protestantismo en América Latina. Miami: Caribe, 1997.

Deiros, Pablo A. y Carlos Mraida. Latinoamérica en llamas. Miami: Caribe, 1994.

Gibbs, Eddie. I Believe in Church Growth. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1990.

Hadaway, Kirk. Church Growth Principles. Nashville: Broadman Press, 1991.

Larson, Pedro. Crecimiento de la iglesia. El Paso: C.B.P. 1989.

Logan, Robert E. Beyond Church Growth. Grand Rapids: Revell, 1995.

McGavran, Donald. Understanding Church Growth. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990.

Miranda, Juan Carlos. Manual de iglecrecimiento. Miami: Editorial Vida, 1985.

Towns, Elmer L.; John N. Vaughan, David J. Seifert. The Complete Book of Church Growth. Wheaton: Tyndale, 1981.

Wagner, Pedro C. Su iglesia puede crecer. Terrassa, España: Editorial CLIE, 1980.

Weld-McGavran. Principios de crecimiento de la iglesia. S. Pasadena: William Carey, 1971.

• Students will read a total of 1,500 pages from the Bibliography in the Syllabus and the above list. A Reading Report sheet will be submitted to the professor.

• Students will write a paper of no less than 20 pages, typed, double-spaced, with bibliography and footnotes (or endnotes), on the particular application of any of the church growth principles discussed in class in a Hispanic congregation of his/her choice. The paper will be submitted in the two months after the end of the course.

• The paper will be the result of research on written sources and on-site observation of a growing congregation in a Hispanic context where Roman Catholicism is dominant. The student will take into account issues such as history of the congregation, location and socio-economic environment, organization, leadership, established goals, factors contributing to growth, spiritual life, and missiological issues involved. Special emphasis should be paid to underlying principles of church growth and church planting in operation.