Parachurch Organizations

Para means “beside” or “alongside.” Thus parachurch organizations are usually understood as Christian ministry organizations that function “alongside” Christian congregations and denominations. InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and Promise Keepers, for example, are not denominations or congregations but exist to serve the church.

Parachurch organizations have often been controversial in the larger life of the church. This is because they raise basic questions about the nature of the church and its mission.

The three main characteristics of parachurch organizations as usually understood are (1) they are not congregations or denominational structures, (2) they exist to serve the larger church, and (3)they function interdenominationally. As we will see, however, this is not an adequate definition. Similar organizations that function within one denomination only and with some formal link to the denomination are generally seen as “auxiliaries” within the denomination rather than as parachurch organizations. A women’s missionary society within a specific denomination would not usually be seen as a parachurch organization. Yet its aim, structure and function might be much like those of a parachurch organization.

Well-known examples of parachurch organizations include the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, World Vision International, Campus Crusade for Christ, the American Bible Society and Youth With a Mission (YWAM). Christian colleges and seminaries might also be placed in this category, though the term is less often used of them. Many parachurch organizations operate internationally or globally, and those that function primarily in one country often have counterparts in other countries.

Dynamics of Parachurch Structures

Parachurch organizations may be grouped in two categories: renewal structures and outreach structures. Renewal structures endeavor to help Christians or churches become more spiritually vital and are usually mainly concerned with the internal life of the church. Outreach structures exist to help the church fulfill its mission in the world, whether in evangelism, compassionate service or social justice. Examples of renewal structures today include Renovaré, which works “for the renewal of the church in all her multifaceted expressions,” Walk Through the Bible, the Cursillo Movement and various charismatic renewal networks. Well-known outreach structures include the U.S. Center for World Mission, the Navigators and Jews for Jesus. Some parachurch organizations bridge these two categories, though their main focus is usually in one or the other.

Parachurch organizations are essentially entrepreneurial, with all the strengths and weaknesses that accompany such enterprises. Initially they tend to be dynamic, visionary, flexible and successful. They also tend to be autocratic in structure, independent of accountable supervision and competitive—and often undergo a crisis of organization and vision when the original founder passes from the scene.

A criticism often raised of parachurch organizations concerns accountability. Legally and structurally these organizations are usually accountable to no one but themselves, which can lead to abuses. Well-publicized scandals involving some U.S. televangelists in the 1980s are a case in point. Most credible parachurch organizations counter this danger by forming controlling oversight boards of respected Christian leaders and by following approved business practices. In the United States many such organizations are now members of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (itself a parachurch organization) and follow its guidelines for ethical conduct.

Parachurch Organizations and Voluntary Societies

Parachurch organizations are a type of voluntary society. Voluntary societies flourished in England, continental Europe and the United States over the past three centuries as society became more democratic and fluid. In late eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century England, for instance, hundreds of societies, such as the Society for the Reformation of Manners and the Society for Bettering the Condition of the Poor, were formed by concerned Christian leaders. Some five hundred such societies sprang up in England between 1800 and 1850, mostly through the initiative of evangelicals. In the established church environment of England many of these were seen as broadly Anglican, but most in fact came to be what today are called parachurch organizations.

Why have parachurch structures arisen over the course of church history? The most basic reason is a sense of vision and calling, often linked to frustration with existing church institutions. This is true of all parachurch groups (as defined more inclusively below), not just paradenominational structures. But three other factors have historically contributed to the proliferation of such groups.

1. Church-state issues. Where there was a state church, as in England, voluntary or parachurch societies might be formed by those who felt the church should not be allied with the state or to meet a need the state church was not meeting. In some cases such groups were declared illegal by the government because they were outside the control of the state-sponsored church. Conversely, in contexts of official state and church separation (such as the United States), parachurch groups proliferated in part because of the freedom to do so.

2. Democracy. In pluralistic democratic societies, parachurch organizations have flourished because the society itself was voluntaristic and encouraged independent, entrepreneurial endeavors. Some observers suggest that in the United States this was compounded further by the “frontier spirit,” especially in the nineteenth century. In such democratic contexts parachurch groups often have many secular and philanthropic parallels. In the United States, secular parallels would include the American Red Cross, the American Legion, various lodges and service clubs such as Kiwanis and Rotary.

3. Intradenominational battles. Doctrinal disagreements and struggles, often compounded by political and financial issues, have also spawned many parachurch groups. Some were formed to promote a particular cause within the denomination, others to carry out a task being neglected by the denomination. Thousands of such organizations exist. Some examples are Presbyterians United for Biblical Concerns, the Mission Society for United Methodists and various charismatic renewal committees.

Underlying all these dynamics is the theological and sociological fact that Christians live in particular cultural contexts where they must necessarily create structures or “wineskins” for shared life and mission.

There are tens of thousands of parachurch organizations throughout the world. Recent decades have seen a flowering of new organizations of this type in places like Hong Kong, Brazil and Korea as church membership and mission consciousness have grown dramatically in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Is “Parachurch” Still “Church”?

Fundamentally, parachurch organizations testify to the energy and vitality of the gospel and the church. They spring up because Christians want to renew and extend the church’s witness. They are, and have been, a fact of the church’s life.

Missiologist Ralph Winter argues that parachurch organizations have always existed in church history. Winter uses the term sodality (common in Roman Catholicism), meaning a mission structure that does not claim to be a congregation but that exists for a specific and limited mission. A congregation or denomination Winter calls a modality. The apostle Paul’s missionary network and the various orders within the Roman Catholic Church would be examples of sodalities. Much of the missionary work of the church has been carried out by such structures, whether Catholic orders or the more or less independent Protestant missionary societies that have proliferated from the nineteenth century till today, especially in areas where the church has been growing rapidly.

Yet there is a continuing debate about these organizations. Do they really have a proper place in Christianity? Are they theologically and biblically valid? Denominational and other church leaders have sometimes accused parachurch organizations of competing with the church and, like parasites, drawing off leadership and financial resources. Parachurch leaders respond that their organizations exist solely to serve the church and its mission, often adding that they are doing work the church has failed to do.

This discussion actually raises more basic questions of church and church structure. What is the church? If the church is the body of Christ, the community of God’s people, then what shall we say about all the diverse institutions, organizations, denominations and architectural structures that we commonly include under the umbrella “church”? What really is “church” and what is “parachurch”? If the church is in fact the whole Christian community, living and serving in a wide variety of organizational structures, we may view parachurch organizations as all those secondary but important structures that God uses to extend his kingdom throughout the earth.

Historically the debate over parachurch structures has involved two opposing tendencies. One sees recognized ecclesiastical structures as part of the essence of the church. This tendency “sacralizes” these structures; that is, it considers them sacred (since they are part of the church) and thus not essentially to be questioned. The opposite tendency takes a thoroughgoing anti-institutional stance, saying that all such structures are unbiblical and invalid, and must be scrapped. Both, really, are extreme views with no clear biblical basis.

The Church and Its Structures

A better option is to see all human-made structures, including denominational ones, as pragmatic parachurch structures, not part of the essence of the church itself. All these structures—church buildings and denominational bureaucracies, as well as organizations like World Vision or Campus Crusade for Christ—are really parachurch structures, because as structures they exist alongside and parallel to the living, breathing community of God’s people. They assist the church (if they function faithfully) but are not themselves the body of Christ. These structures are useful to the extent that they aid the church in its mission. But they are human inventions and are culturally determined. A denominational structure is as much a human invention as is a missionary society. Both were created by Christians to help believers faithfully fulfill their Christian calling as they understood it. Neither the structure of the United Presbyterian Church nor that of Youth With a Mission, for instance, is prescribed in the Bible. But both seek to help Christians be faithful to what Scripture tells us.

Whereas the church itself is part of the “new wine” of the gospel, all parachurch structures are “wineskins”—useful, at times indispensable, but also subject to wear and decay. Biblically, the church is the body of Christ, the family of God, the community of God’s people. If it is faithful to Scripture, the church can be nothing other than this. Institutional structures, then, are best seen as something different from the church—potentially useful aids to the church’s life and ministry, but never a part of the essence of the church. But Christians themselves, living and serving in many subcommunities within these structures, are the church.

Generally, parachurch structures have been thought of as extradenominational or interdenominational organizations such as the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association or perhaps a council or association of churches. Denominations themselves are not usually thought of as parachurch structures. But since biblically the church is always people and can only be people, any institutional structure—a denomination, mission agency, Christian college, evangelical publishing house or evangelistic association—is a parachurch structure. In other words, biblically speaking, both an evangelistic association and a denominational organization are parachurch structures, while the communities of believers within these structures are the church. Parachurch structures, including denominations, may be legitimate and necessary but are not themselves the church.

Does this mean that all church structures are really parachurch structures? That no structures are themselves part of the essence of the church? When we look at the New Testament, we find no specific denominational or organizational structures prescribed, though we do find the beginnings of organization (for example, elders and deacons). Just for this reason, Christians down through history have developed different understandings as to what are the best or most biblically faithful models of organization. In the case of denominational structures, for example, three main traditions have developed: episcopal (based on the centrality of bishops [episkopoi in the Greek New Testament]), presbyterian (based on having “presbyters” or “elders” in each church) and congregational (based on the shared life and decision-making of each congregation).

Biblically speaking, all these human-made structures, denominational or otherwise, are best seen as parachurch. This distinction between the church (as the community of God’s people) and parachurch structures helps us practically in three ways.

First, that which is always crossculturally relevant (the biblically understood church) is distinguished from that which is culturally bound and determined (human structures). Thus we are free to see the church as culturally relevant and involved and yet not as culturally bound.

Second, we are free to modify these parachurch structures as culture changes, for they are not themselves the church and are largely culturally rather than biblically determined.

Third, this distinction makes it possible to see a wide range of legitimacy in denominational confessions and structures. We do not need to think other Christians are wrong if they hold to a different denominational or organizational tradition. Since these structures are not themselves the church and are culturally determined, whole volumes of controversy and polemic lose their urgency. They become merely secondary. Widely varying confessions are freed (at least potentially) to concentrate on that which unites them: being the people of God and carrying out their kingdom tasks. Thus structural differences and questions can be relegated to the plane of functionality and historical relativity. The crucial consideration for structure, then, becomes not biblical legitimacy but functional relevancy. The important question becomes not the theological validity of our structures but whether our structures help us fulfill God’s mission.

Three Practical Lessons

Viewing parachurch structures and their relationship to the body of Christ in this light, we may draw some practical conclusions for church and structure today.

1. From a biblical standpoint, the key missionary structure is the church as the community of God’s people—not the particular organizational forms it uses. Any faithful group of Christians engaged in mission can be a legitimate embodiment of the church, provided the structures they use are not incompatible with the church itself. This is true of foreign missionaries as well as of Christians in their own neighborhoods. Wherever faithful Christians are, there is the church; and these believers are responsible to demonstrate the visible reality of Christian community. The real point of distinction therefore is between the church as the community of God’s people and all institutional expressions of the church. If Christ is really in them, Christian believers can never go to another culture and leave the church behind. But they can, and often should, leave behind or modify the parachurch forms peculiar to their own culture.

2. Parachurch structures for the church’s mission of evangelism, service and justice may be created wherever necessary to get the job done. While the church is God’s agent for cosmic reconciliation, dynamic parachurch structures can be effective human agents of reconciliation. God uses them to spread his kingdom more rapidly and effectively. Denominational groups can freely collaborate with other parachurch structures that do work they themselves cannot do or that help them carry on their own witness. Such organizations, however, should always be directed ultimately toward the formation and edification of the church (though in widely different ways) or the extension of the church’s ministry in the world, not allowing themselves to be confused with the church or to become ends in themselves.

3. Since they are human and culturally determined, all parachurch structures should be subjected to continuous, rigorous sociological and theological evaluation to monitor their fidelity to the church and their effectiveness as instruments of God’s mission. Today many parachurch structures welcome this kind of evaluation and even provide for it themselves.

Christian leaders should not hesitate to make the most exacting sociological studies of mission agencies, evangelistic movements, denominational structures and so forth. Some parachurch structures should be devoted exclusively to this task, serving as “think tanks” and research centers (as a number of structures are in fact today). History teaches us that with time ecclesiastical structures often succumb to institutionalism, hindering rather than helping the church. The fact that God has raised up a movement is no warranty against eventual infidelity or self-centeredness. If we remember that these structures are not themselves the church but are parachurch, we can freely ask whether they are really serving God’s mission—and change or abolish them if they are not.

An institution, it is said, is the lengthened shadow of a pioneering leader. History bears this out. If we think of the Franciscan Order, we think of Saint Francis; if we think of the Lutheran Church, we think of Martin Luther; if we think of the Overseas Missionary Fellowship (formerly China Inland Mission), we think of Hudson Taylor. Anthropologist Anthony Wallace says all organized religions, in fact, are “relics of old revitalization movements.” While this may be going too far, it does underscore the fact that most parachurch organizations within orthodox Christianity trace back to people and movements that God apparently used to revitalize the church.

What has been true in the past will probably continue into the future. God will continue to raise up leaders and movements, but because of human weakness none of these will be perfect and all will make mistakes. New forms of parachurch organizations may develop as the Internet and other electronic networking become more common. Christians everywhere will continue to face the challenge of creating and using structures that are redemptive and effective, not merely self-serving—structures that are both biblically faithful and culturally relevant.

» See also: Denominations

» See also: Mission

» See also: Missions

» See also: Structures

References and Resources

C. J. Mellis, Committed Communities: Fresh Streams for World Missions (South Pasadena, Calif.: William Carey Library, 1976); B. L. Shelley, “Parachurch Groups,” in Dictionary of Christianity in America, ed. D. G. Reid et al. (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1990) 863-65; H. A. Snyder, The Community of the King (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1977); H. A. Snyder, The Problem of Wineskins (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1975); R. D. Winter, “The Two Structures of God’s Redemptive Mission,” in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement, ed. R. D. Winter and S. C. Hawthorne, rev. ed. (Pasadena, Calif.: William Carey Library, 1992).

—Howard A. Snyder