Dear BPCWA worshipper, In contemporary history, parachurches have become so prevalent and accepted by Christians and unbelievers that some consider them as “alternatives” to churches for today’s Christians. Even those that don’t consider them as “alternatives” readily accept and support their activities. Christianity Today asserts, “prominent leaders in a variety of fields—”are more active in parachurch groups than in local congregations.” The most gifted and ambitious influencers in our movement serve and take their cues from the parachurch. In short, the parachurch has become a de facto leader in contemporary evangelicalism.” With its popularity, we must understand more about them and how we should view them.  In today’s pastoral, I want to touch a bit on parachurches and their activities. God willing, next week, we will see what is unbiblical with the current situation that parachurches have morphed into and how we should respond.

What are parachurches. Parachurches are organisations that work alongside (hence para) churches. When they started, they were not meant to be or replace churches, but instead to work beside and with churches, in the biblical-historical sense and understanding of what churches are meant to be. Wikipedia describes today’s parachurches as “Christian faith-based organizations that work outside and across denominations to engage in social welfare and evangelism. Parachurch organizations seek to come alongside the church and specialize in things that individual churches may not be able to specialize in by themselves. They often cross denominational and national boundaries providing specialized services and training.” While some of us may not have heard of the term “parachurch”, many of us would probably be familiar with the names of some of them, such as Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, World Vision, Alpha Course, Youth with a mission, Overseas Mission Fellowship (OMF), Prison fellowship, and Bible Study Fellowship (BSF). On campus, parachurches abound, with names like Cru (formerly Campus Crusade for Christ), Overseas Christian Fellowship (OCF), Navigators, and Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship. As you see these names, I am sure that you will begin to understand how widespread and pervasive parachurches have become as well as how accepted and integrated they are today with Christians and Christian activity. Many are highly regarded in Christendom. For the purpose of this pastoral, I will refer to and focus on those organisations which aren’t churches, don’t have the roles and structure of churches, do not function under the oversight of a church, but yet seek to take up roles that God has set down in His Word for churches, not organisations, to fulfill.   

Today’s parachurch movements. While already in existence in the 1800s, parachurches grew exponentially with the modernist-fundamentalist divide, spanning the doctrine divide and denominational differences. Parachurch organizations gave the New Evangelicals an institutional legitimacy and a means to promote their ideology. Today, the trend is that parachurches have largely moved from their original purpose of “coming alongside” and supplementing the work of churches and denominations, and morphed into a highly independent approach to ministry. Parachurch organisations range from small ones run by volunteers to large ones with a board of directors and departments which promote advertising and fund-raising to support the parachurch staff, organisation, and activities. Many of these are not small societies, but run across different countries, with their own organisational structures and vast amounts of resources, and may have thousands of members under them. It comes as no surprise then that Christianity Today, a parachurch organisation started by New Evangelicals to spread their theological vision, published an article entitled “Your Tithe Doesn’t Have to Go to Your Church, Most Leaders Say” and that “Evangelical Christians donate billions of dollars annually toward humanitarian, political, and evangelistic causes” through parachurches. Being hugely popular, Christians are now fellowshipping more within the parachurch movements than in their local churches, a recent development that Christians now find their primary fellowship outside of their local churches. BSF encourages such gatherings, as they say that “Christian growth accelerates in community, not in isolation. That’s why we are part of a body – the body of Christ, His Church. It requires immersion. We must embrace small-group attendance in our churches and in BSF groups, whether online or face-to-face.” With similarly strong campus presence at campus parachurches, many students have been “brought up” by parachurches during their key developmental years as university students.

Some parachurch activities. BSF is a very popular parachurch group in Perth and globally. This organisation was founded by a lady who wrote and conducted Bible studies for ladies. This has now mushroomed to today’s organisation which has Men’s, Women’s, Student, Children’s, and Newborn groups, with more than 400,000 class members in more than 120 nations. It is quite likely that most of you reading this pastoral would know of a friend who is or has joined a BSF group. Because these Bible studies are led by lay leaders, the latter are active in encouraging their peers and friends to join these groups as well.

Then, there are the very active campus parachurches. One such group describes itself as a “student led, non-denominational Christian organisation on campus. We hold bible studies and worships on a weekly basis . . . we have our annual Easter camps, fundraising events and combined events with [parachurches in other universities] . . . every member of [this campus parachurch] is given a chance to serve in this ministry (worship, bible study leading, tender loving care committee, Sunday sports etc) . . . A safe haven where they can grow in their relationships with God and His people.” Besides their attraction of catering to the student crowd seeking to “be comfortable with one another, sharing our similar beliefs”, these groups often promote themselves as “also a place for us to groom one another” as they provide the young people with opportunities for leadership development as well!  

As you can probably tell from the overview of parachurches thus far, they are immensely popular today. They owe their success to their marketing and how they encourage participants in their programs to actively promote the parachurches to their friends. They seem to be doing a good work – but are they? We will look more into this at next week’s pastoral.

Yours in our Lord’s service,
Pastor