Shepherding Movement
As Shepherding Movement ( English , shepherding movement ; also shepherding or discipleship movement called) is called an American movement especially charismatic influences and put a special emphasis on the responsibility of community members towards the management company and the submission to the church leader. Here, each parishioner should (Engl. By a mostly elderly parishioner shepherd , shepherd ) are guided.
Origin and structure
In the course of the emerging charismatic movement in the 1960s, new congregations developed, whose congregation members had broken away from their original congregations on the one hand, and on the other hand did not want to join the existing Pentecostal congregations. These congregations, which were mostly independent and did not belong to a supraregional congregation association, were often led by believers who themselves had only undergone little formal training and who now faced the difficulty of guiding people inexperienced in the faith. In 1970, four Florida charismatic clergymen , Don Basham , Derek Prince , Charles Simpson and Bob Mumford formed their own organization in Fort Lauderdale called Christian Growth Ministries . They managed to convince several parishes to adopt their pyramid-like structure and leadership structure. The concept put each congregation member under the authority of a congregation elder, who in turn was subject to the authority of the pastor. The authority to issue orders went beyond the individual municipalities. Thus the structure provided that ward pastors in turn were subordinate to a regional leader of the movement, who ultimately received his orders directly from the leaders of the organization in Fort Lauderdale. Orders were directed downwards by the ladders using the pyramid structure, while collections and donations were transferred to the plant headquarters.
The structure and its handling soon led to complaints of abuse and manipulation. The shepherds sometimes determined all the concerns of the parishioners, from choosing a spouse to determining where to live.
development
While around 1975 some leaders of the Shepherding said they had made mistakes, the movement expanded into the Roman Catholic Church , such as the "Word of God Community" in Ann Arbor and the "People of Praise" in South Bend . In 1986 the movement finally disbanded. In 1990, Bob Mumford apologized to the movement's victims.
criticism
Conservative American television preacher Pat Robertson accused Christian Growth Ministries of teaching sorcery and compared the movement to the sect of Jim Jones who seduced his followers in Jonestown into mass suicide. According to the Pentecostal pastor Jack Hayford, many people have been severely wounded in the spirit of the shepherding teachings.
Individual evidence
- ^ J. Gordon Melton: discipling / shepherding movement . In: Encyclopedia of World Religions . Encyclopedia of Protestantism, No. 6 . Facts of File, New York 2005, ISBN 978-0-8160-5456-5 , pp. 186 (English).
- ↑ a b c Randall Herbert Balmer: Sherpherding Movement . In: Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism . Baylor University Press, Waco 2004, ISBN 1-932792-04-X , pp. 622 (English).