Zane Pratt has served as an IMB church planter in Central Asia, associate professor of missions at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and the IMB vice president for global training. In this article from Global Missiology, he argues against the common CPM idea that the foundation of discipleship is obedience. Pratt writes, "[O]bedience is not the basis…
John Michael Morris is (or was) a professor of missions at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS). In this article from SBTS's Southwestern Journal of Theology, he contrasts two conflicting approaches to discipleship that are both based on different interpretations of Matthew 28:20, namely the phrase "teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you." CPM proponents…
In this article from 2014, Michael Scott Robinson addresses the promotion of young converts to church leadership. Specifically, Robinson responds to the claim that the church in Crete was young and that Paul's instruction to Titus to appoint elders (Titus 1) implies that Paul was permitting the appointment of new converts. Robinson argues from historical and theological…
In this article from the October 2014 issue of Global Missiology, Jackson Wu (PhD, SEBTS) challenges the common CPM idea that church planting movements are found in the Bible. Wu looks at various definitions of church planting movements and argues that such are not found in the Bible. He adds that attempts by CPM proponents to see…
John Henry Serworwora is a native Indonesian educated at Mid-America Baptist Seminary and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is also the former president of Jakarta Baptist Theological Seminary (2006-2010). In this 2014 article in the Great Commission Research Journal, he heavily critiques the ecclesiology of T4T, including using new converts as leaders, promoting women to church leadership,…
This article by John D. Massey is one of the more frequently cited critical CPM articles. It is somewhat lengthy (38 pages), but overall an excellent critique. "Wrinkling time" is a concept that David Garrison takes from Madeleine L'Engle's 1962 book A Wrinkle in Time. It essentially means to "shorten" time. Massey takes issue with this in…
Jeff Morton (DMiss, Biola) reviews Jerry Trousdale's Miraculous Movements: How Hundreds of Thousands of Muslims Are Falling in Love with Jesus (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2012). Morton quotes Trousdale saying that the book's principles are outlined and commanded in the Bible. Morton then traverses a list of principles found in the book and essentially asks, "Where is this…
George Robinson (DMiss, Western Seminary) reviews T4T: A Discipleship Re-Revolution in the October 2011 issue of Global Missiology. While favorable to movements, Robinson expresses concerns with issues of rapidity, ecclesiology, definition of church, and heresy. This review contains both positive and negative aspects of the book, and Robinson concludes that he would recommend the book with certain…
David Sills critiques church planting movements in Chapter 7 of his book Reaching and Teaching: A Call to Great Commission Obedience. He addresses issues of pragmatism and rapidity, but one of his main points is that movements and revivals are acts of God and no one can force them into existence. He ends the section with, "[T]he…
Lance Quinn, an elder at The Anchor Bible Church in Redlands, California, writes a short review of Bob Roberts' book, The Multiplying Church: The New Math for Starting New Churches (2008, Zondervan), on the 9Marks website. While acknowledging a few good points, such as Roberts' strong desire to see society transformed for Christ, Quinn ultimately says that…
