When this article was published, George Terry was serving as a professor at Malaysia Baptist Theological Seminary in Penang, Malaysia. This article, which critiques T4T methodology, recalls Paul Hiebert's famous 1982 article named "The Flaw of the Excluded Middle." Terry writes that T4T "undervalue[s] the influence of context" (p. 335) and contains too many false dichotomies (thus…
Adam Coker is a former missionary with the IMB and currently serves as Assistant Professor of History and Christian Studies at Brewton-Parker College. In this article, he shares his personal experience of being trained in CPM methods as a new IMB missionary. He then critiques T4T methodology using seven T4T problems as his outline: Making the method…
This article by a Frontiers missionary in North Africa addresses the person of peace methodology advocated by David Watson and other DMM advocates. In this article, the author, "Bob," addresses the questions, "Did Jesus look for persons of peace?" and "Did Paul look for persons of peace?" Bob takes an extensive look at Scripture and argues that…
This is the most extensive article that I've read about the issue of teaching, a biblical practice that is forbidden by DMM proponents (at least in theory). "Bob," who serves in North Africa, summarizes this Radius International article by saying, "The New Testament includes a good deal of direct teaching" and "Reasons I have heard for discarding…
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…
