A powerful and welcome trend today is the conversation about starting movements. Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, Seth Godin’s Tribes and Ori Brafman’s The Starfish and the Spider have electrified and mainstreamed this topic.
A movement is an informal grouping of people and organizations pursuing a common cause, characterized by discontent, vision and action. Movements change people, and changed people change the world. Christianity is a movement of movements.
John Chandler
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Author Steve Addison has contributed to this body of thinking in his book, Movements That Change the World: Five Keys to Spreading the Gospel. Addison examines Moravians under Zinzendorf, St. Patrick, Wesley and the Methodists, William Carey, Tim Keller today, persecuted but thriving believers in China and many others.
What are the key methods to approaching Christianity as a movement? Addison lists five:
1. White-hot faith. Movements begin with men and women who encounter the living God and surrender in loving obedience to his call.
2. Commitment to a cause. Movements require a high degree of commitment from each member and from each other.
3. Contagious relationships. Movements spread rapidly, through preexisting networks of relationships.
4. Rapid mobilization. Movements grow leaders from the people reached—usually unpolished, non-funded or centrally-controlled.
5. Adaptive methods. Movements keep the heart of the gospel but adapt the forms to fit the context.
Why are adaptive methods so important? Addison writes, “A key to the success of Pentecostalism has been its ability to bring together super-naturalism and pragmatism in a curiously compatible marriage. The intense religious experiences that vie rise to new movements would remain fleeting unless they are embodied in some form of human organization. This presents every new movement with a dilemma—how to give the “charismatic moment expression in social forms without extinguishing it.”
Movement thinking is an exciting trend. Adaptive methods are a major challenge. Will our Baptist tribe match the Pentecostal marriage of reliance on the Holy Spirit and commonsense outcome-based strategies?
John Chandler is leader of the Spence Network, www.spencenetwork.equip.htm.