In the original post of this series, I gave my definitions of parachurches and churches. I will now turn to a generalized history of parachurches and their relationships to churches. This is by no means an exhaustive or authoritative history, but a thumbnail sketch in order that we might be on the same page.

The history of parachurch organizations is difficult to find. It appears that these groups emerged out of the Second Great Awakening in the US in the 19th Century, but the immense proliferation of the size, number, and influence of these organizations came strongly after World War II with the newfound prosperity in the US (Mark Noll, A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada, 1992, 438). Though parachurches are not necessarily are a part of evangelicalism, many of them within the US are tied to the general evangelical movement. Especially in the older parachurches, there seems to be a strong emphasis on proclaiming the gospel through teaching to groups of people not touched by the churches. Most parachurch organizations are born out of necessity; they find their inception in a group of Christians seeing some need that churches do not meet. These needs could be anything from evangelistic and medical outreach in different nations to building low-income housing domestically to going onto high school campuses to make disciples. The key here is that parachurches exist because the churches for whatever reasons are not addressing certain issues. One could look at this phenomenon as an example of churches not doing their jobs and this is true to a certain extent, but we do not need to condemn our congregations. Instead of knocking churches, let us appreciate what parachurches are able to do. Parachurches by their more fluid and less institutional nature are perfect organizations to answer the call that certain issues demand. The overhead is generally far lower and the scope of their ministries is more focused (or limited, depending on one’s perspective) than local congregations.

Missiologist Ralph Winter argues that parachurches could be distinguished by their single-minded mission as compared to the multi-faceted mission found in churches. If churches are called modalities, then parachurches could be called sodalities. This is a nice idea, but as we saw in the previous post, the line between parachurches and churches is rather blurry. What we can likely say is that parachurches often began with a single purpose, even if their vision has developed beyond that purpose in subsequent years. (For example, Billy Graham’s traveling revivalist and evangelism organization now also equips and mobilizes local churches for discipleship before and after each crusade and also has a publishing house.)

There are some who believe that parachurches actually detract from churches by seeking believers’ resources of time, energy, and commitment. Also, some question the biblical basis for parachurches’ existence. (I will address these tensions in the next post.) Mark Shaw, however, argues that parachurches have helped the unity of churches, but does admit that a biblical basis for their existence has been difficult to find (Shaw, 10 Great Ideas from Church History: A Decision-Maker’s Guide to Shaping Your Church, 1997, 73).

Parachurches have helped the unity of churches and denominations because their focus tends to be action-oriented rather than building creedal institutions. For example, people and churches of different traditions and theological leanings readily support with money and labor groups such as Habitat for Humanity. It is through the shared mission the parachurches embody that has helped disparate and sometimes antagonistic members of the body of Christ work together and participate in what God is doing in the world. That is not to say that parachurches are the great mediators of the Christian faith, for they too have been antagonistic towards churches and competetive amongst one another. It seems to me, however, that parachurches on the whole have historically offered wonderful gifts to the Church and to churches and not the least of which is the opportunity for various churches to come together around a specific missional purpose. I will speak more about those and other gifts in a later post.

Next we will look at the tension that exists between churches and parachurches.