The seed of Key 73 was planted in the offices of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. Following a challenging editorial in this magazine the Key Bridge meetings were held, and out of them developed Key 73.
Last fall when I was in Los Angeles I arranged to have lunch with the faculty members of Fuller Seminary’s School of World Mission and Institute of Church Growth. We discussed Key 73 in relation to the church-growth principles these men have enunciated. While some of the principles underlying church-growth strategy are not new, the emphasis has been revitalized. The central person behind this renewed thrust is Donald McGavran, longtime missionary and missions statesman.
One of the results of my visit was the promise of School of World Mission professors to write articles that would suggest principles and strategies useful to all Key 73 participants. In this issue five articles and The Minister’s Workshop are devoted to the subject of Key 73 and church growth. We think that this material merits distribution beyond our own family of subscribers, but time did not permit working out advance arrangements for extended use. If there is sufficient demand we could reprint the articles in this issue in booklet form.
May 1973 be the year of great spiritual awakening!
