A New Look at Hospitality as a Key to Missions by Christopher Freet

Author:Christopher Freet
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Energion Publications
Published: 2014-11-04T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5: The “Person of Peace” in Modern Mission

Movements

Modern church multiplication movements (CMM) utilize hospitality coupled with the “person of peace” as crucial elements of their systems of producing more churches. For this study, as introduced earlier (see p. 5), we will specifically examine the system utilized by Bruce Bennett of South Africa.

Bruce Bennett and the

Community Church Planting Movement

In his “Community Church Planting” manual, Bruce Bennett defines the “person of peace” as follows:

A person of peace is someone who, even though they are not a believer, is open to listening and finding out more about Jesus. They are people that the Spirit of God has been preparing to play strategic roles in facilitating the expansion of the Kingdom of God” (p. 85).

Bennett finds an example of a “person of peace” in Zacchaeus (cf. Luke 19:1-10). According to Bennett, Zacchaeus was “God’s chosen vessel; an influential witness to God’s transforming grace long after Jesus had left” Jericho (p. 85). Bennett believes “Zacchaeus was looking for Jesus. Jesus was looking for Zacchaeus. Jesus sends us to find people of peace whom God has prepared. [People of peace] are looking for us. We must look for them. We are bound to find each other” (p. 85). According to Bennett this notion of the “person of peace” is the crucial component to church multiplication.

In the manual, Bennett also outlines three components which are found in a “person of peace” (p. 90): First, a “person of peace” is “receptive to the Gospel because of a prior work of the Holy Spirit in their lives.” Second, they are “reputable and [have] influence in their community.” And finally, he or she “refers God’s workers to others and has influence in opening the community to the Gospel.” These characteristics are found in such biblical examples as the Samaritan woman (John 4:1-42), Andrew (John 1:40-42), the lame man at the Beautiful Gate (Acts 3:1-11), Aeneas (Acts 9:32-35), Cornelius (Acts 10), Sergius Paulus (Acts 13:1-12), Saul at his conversion (Acts 9:1-22), Lydia (Acts 16:11-15), the jailer (Acts 16:25-34), and Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10).

Others have similarly pointed to the importance of the “person of peace” within church planting movements (CPM) and church multiplication movements (CMM). David Garrison, whose view of the “person of peace” is nearly identical to that of Bennett, has studied CMMs around the globe and attests to the importance of the “person of peace”:

Several of the Church Planting Movements we’ve examined attest to the missionary method of sending church planters into villages in search of God’s “person of peace,” that individual already chosen by God to receive the Gospel message. Their motivation is to adhere to the model established by Jesus. When Jesus first dispatched his disciples as missionaries, he sent them out two-by-two and commanded them to enter every village in search of the “man of peace” who would welcome them and their message (Church Planting Movements, p. 211).

Another example can be found in the work of Australia’s Steve Addison. Addison, like Garrison, is a student of the CMM.

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