At the Equipping Leaders Network gathering this week, I shared a relatively new teaching thought that I've been working on and tweaking for over a month. I received a positive response to it and will dialogue about it later. After I was finished sharing "The 12 Elements of a Movement" one of the pastors asked me which ones I felt were the most important for strong movement in a church or ministry. Here is what I said:
- Prayer: Every great movement in the Kingdom of God, from the Apostolic age to the Reformation to revivals and awakenings, was underpinned by intense prayer. Prayers of every length and kind. Individual and corporate. But all really believing that when they pray there is a collision between a supernatural God and natural man.
- Biblical Orthodoxy: Every movement was led by leaders that had an unwavering belief in the authority of scripture. This is key: not belief as in what we want to believe about the Bible, but the Bible - period.
- New: All Christian movements embraced the new. The gospel of Jesus was new. Before, it was the law; at the cross, Jesus fulfilled the law and became the law. Grace was radically new. The Reformation was new. It was new to a Christiandom that had fallen into old ways of salvation by works and many unbiblical truths added to the truth of Christ. Even today there are new ways to worship, new ways to function in the community, new ways to lead churches, and there even need to be new ways to be denominations. There is power in the new.
- Multiplication and Reproducing: All movements believed God when He called us to be fruitful and multiply. This was God's ask at creation and it is God's ask of us at re-creation. All followers of God have been asked to bear fruit, multiply and reproduce what God has done in us. This reproduction is commanded for individual Christians, local churches, denominations, ministries, Christian schools, colleges...the sky's the limit. Can you imagine what the Church of Christ would look like if everyone got this?
Comments