Many times pastors will look at the models and programs of successful churches and attempt to implement the same activities in their own church. As the pastor takes the new ideas back to their church, they can either reproduce the program exactly or create something with the same basic structure with common characteristics; they can have a factory or a farm.
The reproduction of a model is like a factory. A factory can readily reproduce reliable copies of the original product, given the appropriate resources are provided. However, they do not, in and of themselves produce life, nor are they capable of recreating life on their own.
On the other hand, a model with similar characteristics is more like a farm. A farmer studies the conditions a life form needs to flourish and the dangers from which it must protect. In this way, a farmer can extract the key characteristics that make that life form successful.
Both of my parents are avid gardeners. They enjoy growing plants and landscaping our yard. However, most of my house is in the shade. This means that only certain kinds of plants can grow around my house. If I were to plant a plant that requires full exposure to the sun, like roses, they would without a doubt shrivel up and die. However, if I planted a hosta around my house it would survive. In the same way, if the methods of a wealthy middle-class large congregation are implemented in a church in central Africa, they certainly wouldn't survive. This demonstrates that exact copies of a church's methods and programs will fail when put in a different context. Therefore, in order to spread the gospel and create a sustainable Christian movement, the gospel must be contextualized to each culture it is in.
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