the flight of the dove (fellowship)

What eventually became known as DOVE Christian Fellowship International (DCFI) had its roots in a bible study involving young people coming to faith in the Jesus People phenomenon in the early 1970s. Larry Kreider, the leader of the group had became increasingly frustrated with the cultural mismatch of the prevailing church and the people they were reaching, and so began to develop what he called “an underground church model.” Gaining inspiration from the house churches in the book of Acts and around the world, they structured themselves in as a movement that met regularly in cells across the city and so began the story of DCFI. When the new movement officially started in 1980 there were 25 people meeting in one house church. By adopting the networked structures of Apostolic Genius, the movement had swelled to about 2500 believers meeting in over 125 cell groups all over south-central Pennsylvania by 1992. During this period they also began planting churches in Scotland, Brazil, Kenya, and New Zealand.

In spite of this significant growth, they felt that they had reached a growth barrier because they had become somewhat reliant on centralized structures to manage the growth and they decided that they “needed to adjust our church government and give the church away.” They felt that the vision God had given them was “to build a relationship with Jesus, with one another, and reach the world from house to house, city to city and nation to nation,” and this simply could not be fulfilled with their prevailing church structure at the time. And so they self-consciously began to transition into what they called an “apostolic movement.” Unlike a denomination or association of churches, which confers ordination and provides general accountability to church leaders through centralized structure, they conceived an “apostolic movement” as being a networked family of churches with a common focus minus the restrictive structures of a denomination.

They soon found that “apostolic ministry provided a safe environment for congregations and ministries to flourish and reproduce because the new model created space for growth by emphasizing leadership through relationship and influence rather than hands-on-management.” As a cell-based church planting movement, they soon recognized the strategic need to train church planters and leaders with a missionary heart and spirit. They felt called to “mobilize and empower God’s people (individuals, families, cells and congregations) at the grass roots level to fulfil His purposes. Every cell group should have a vision to plant new cells. Every church should have a God-given vision to plant new churches.” The new network structure combined with the apostolic movement ethos and leadership has allowed them to grow from the initial 8 congregations to around 100 networks involving exponentially more people in fifteen countries around the world.

August 9, 2008 | Filed Under organic systems, the forgotten ways |  

Comments

4 Responses to “the flight of the dove (fellowship)”

  1. Kai Schraml on August 9th, 2008 4:16 pm

    Thanks for reminding me of this story and some of its particulars. I forgot many of the particulars. How did the story end? There is a good story(ies) there too.

  2. Janet on August 10th, 2008 4:52 pm

    I’m also interested in whether it has evaluated the type of people it is reaching.

    I have heard it alleged that the megachurch movement has done a good job of sucking Christians out of smaller local churches (and given the NCD research suggests smaller churches do a better “per capita” job in evangelism, that’s a worrying trend.)

    An evaluation of Alpha in the UK has suggested it has been quite effective in reconnecting the “dechurched” with local churches, and not effective in connecting the “unchurched” with local churches.

    So I’m interested in more details of the story too… has this retained the “DNA” of a movement that connects with the previously unchurched?

  3. Alan Hirsch on August 11th, 2008 2:28 am

    Perhaps you guys can check it out a bit here. http://www.dcfi.org/ I know others have written about DOVE, but I can’t remember the names and details of the books.

  4. Janet on August 11th, 2008 10:51 am

    Based on reading their story, I don’t think it’s evaluated itself in the manner I’ve enquired about… but it DOES sound like it has retained mission and disciplemakeing as it’s absolute heartbeat, so I’d be confident it continues to reach the unreached. It sounds a truly wonderful movement.

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