The Church As A Movement

I’d like us to think about The Church As A Movement. If we think of a movement, what comes to mind? What would be some examples of movements?

· Black Lives Matter

· Me Too Movement

· Climate change activism

o School strike for climate

· Gay rights

· Pro-Life movement

· QAnon

· Anti-vaxers

· Current Iranian protests

· The liberation of Ukraine

What do you think are the characteristics of movements?

· Common cause

· Spontaneous growth

· Passionate people

Let’s consider some definitions of movements…

In a general sense, movements are informal groupings of people and organisations pursuing a common cause. They are people with an agenda for change. Movements don’t have members, but they do have participants. The goal of a movement can be furthered by organisations, but organisations are not the totality of the movement. A movement can have leading figures, but no one person or group controls a movement. Movements are made up of people committed to a common cause.

(Steve Addison, Movements That Change The World)

“A movement is something that is united by vision, and is contrasted to an institution. People come together to cooperate and make sacrifices for the vision rather than having rules and regulations unite them, because they realize the cause is the thing that is most important.” (Tim Keller)

A (sometimes rapidly) growing group of people pursuing a common goal, the growth occurring as current participants influence and recruit others. (Peter Cheyne)

People have studied movements. I will try to summarise the key characteristics of movements. See if these ring true for the types of movements we have mentioned.

There are four major components of movements:

1. A Cause – what you want to see achieved; an idea or a lifestyle

2. Recruits – the people who want to see it achieved and put effort into it

3. Multiplication methods – the mechanisms by which the idea can be disseminated and recruits recruited.

4. A Culture – the set of values and practices that enable the growth of the movement.

If we think of the MeToo Movement…

· Cause – exposing and ending the sexual abuse that so many women have suffered

· Recruits – those who have been abused and those who support them

· Multiplication methods – using a hashtag!

· Culture – unity, indignation about an injustice, mutual support…

We don’t have time to go into this more thoroughly but summarising…

1. The cause needs to be compelling, clear and comprehensive (something people understand, are passionate about and will give their lives to).

2. The recruits need to be captivated, committed, contagious and capable

3. The multiplication methods need to be relational, readily available, reproducible and flexible

4. The culture needs to be:

   1. Ambitious

   2. Trusting but disciplined

      1. Trusting – control is dispersed. Movements grow through the grassroots.

      2. Disciplined – the cause is all-important. Participants must be committed and faithful to the cause. It cannot be casual. It requires accountability.

   3. Committed to developing people

      1. Growing the grassroots with understanding, character development and skills

      2. Equipping and supporting

      3. Prioritising developing leaders

   4. Innovative yet structured

      1. Innovative – agile, adaptable, looking for ways that work, give things a go

      2. Structured – some structure is required but not so much that it stifles. Structure needs to serve the cause.

         1. Think about the structure of say the MeToo movement. There emerged some key people and some networking and administration in different places but there is no overall structure or overall leader.

   5. A tight but open community

      1. Tight – committed to each other (relationships), united in their cause, loyal, working cooperatively.

      2. Open – Not exclusive; always open to new members.

That was too quick but do you get a feel for movements? Any responses?

Let’s think about the church in its first 300 years. It started with one individual from an inconsequential village in a tiny, occupied nation on the edge of an empire. How did Christianity grow from that to be the largest religion in the world with 2.2 billion members (about 28% of the entire population)?

The leader gathered 12 less-than-promising followers and invested heavily into their lives. He was then killed and his followers were ready to give up except that they had been profoundly influenced by Him; He rose from the dead and He commanded that they spread the message. The Holy Spirit was poured out on them. They began preaching that message. People were converted. They gathered those converts into community and continued modelling the leader’s message and lifestyle – training the converts.

Acts 2:40-47

⁴⁰With many other words he [Peter] warned them; and he pleaded with them, ‘Save yourselves from this corrupt generation. Those who accepted his message were baptised, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.

⁴²They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. ⁴³Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. ⁴⁴All the believers were together and had everything in common. ⁴⁵They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. ⁴⁶Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, ⁴⁷praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

The people in Jerusalem for Pentecost were “Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs.” They went home and told others what they had experienced. Suddenly, Jesus was being talked about all over the world.

Persecution broke out in Jerusalem and the ordinary believers (not the leaders) were scattered.

Acts 8:4 Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went.

God was at work in different places. For example, the church in Antioch became a hub.

Leaders were sent out to help but the spread of the gospel did not depend on the leaders. Firstly, it was a work of God. The expansion of the church wasn’t planned. It just happened. Pentecost wasn’t planned. The persecution wasn’t planned. The conversion of Paul wasn’t part of a strategic plan. The conversion of Gentiles certainly wasn’t planned. The church didn’t know how to cope with that. The church was scrambling to keep up. God was doing things. The Christians simply had to cooperate.

Secondly, it was a grassroots movement. Leaders had a crucial role in encouraging, equipping, and guarding the integrity of the message but it was a grassroots movement.

Paul was converted and took the gospel throughout Turkey and Greece and Italy. He started little churches all over the place. Sometimes he stayed for a while (or returned later) to strengthen the believers. He appointed local elders. Then he moved on expecting those churches to partner with him in the gospel. There were some key leaders but the expansion of the church was still in the hands of ordinary Christians. The 2^nd century Greek philosopher, Celsus, complained that Christianity was spread from house to house “by wool workers, cobblers, laundry workers and the most illiterate and bucolic yokels”.

Paul trained apprentices on the job. He deployed some of those apprentices to lead various churches.

Sociologist, Rodney Stark, has studied the growth of the church. There were good periods and bad periods but smoothing those out, this graph represents the number of Christians in the Roman Empire in the first 300 years of the life of the church. We know about the growth of the church in the West but there was also phenomenal growth in the East – along the Silk Road from Syria through to China.

Jesus started a movement that conquered the world. If we look back at the characteristics of movements, are they true of the movement Jesus started?

· Was there a cause that was compelling, clear and comprehensive?

· Were there recruits who were captivated, committed, contagious and capable?

· Were the multiplication methods relational, readily available, reproducible and flexible?

· Was there a culture that was ambitious, trusting but disciplined, developed people, innovative yet structured, a tight but open community?

There is one other thing that distinguishes Christian movements from other movements: They are always empowered, and animated, by the Holy Spirit.

It is not only the early church. We could talk about the Reformation or the spread of Methodism in Britain first, then in America, or the growth of the church in China when all missionaries were expelled from the country, or church planting movements today that are seeing phenomenal growth.

It is the nature of the church to be a movement. Jesus started that movement with these words:

· All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

o And surely I will be with you until the very end of the age. There is the promised presence of the Holy Spirit.

· Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations. There is the command to spread the movement by enlisting more and more recruits from all nations. There is the ambition.

· Baptising them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Baptising shows that the gospel has been preached and believed. There is the compelling, clear and comprehensive cause. It is about the spread of the Kingdom of God as people are saved through faith in Jesus.

o There is the multiplication method: individuals sharing the gospel with individuals. Relational, readily available, reproducible and flexible.

· And teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. There is the investment in mature, trained disciples.

· There also is the culture. The nature of the church is determined by everything Jesus taught.

The church is meant to spread rapidly at the grassroots. But, in the West we are not seeing explosive growth. In fact, in general, the church is declining. There are many reasons for that. I do not want to suggest that the solution is easy, but we might ask ourselves if the church is still a movement or if it has become institutionalised. The characteristics of institutions are the opposite of movements. For example, movements empower people to act. Institutions focus on rules and regulations that tell members what they cannot do.

The church we see in the Bible is dynamic and exciting and vibrant and growing. We can look at those characteristics of movements and say we want those in our church. What would it require to make sure the cause was clear, compelling and comprehensive? How could we have church members who are captivated, committed, contagious and capable? Let’s rethink our multiplication methods. How do movements grow? Can we have that sort of culture that is a tight-knit community that empowers and trusts people but is also disciplined?

Yes, we can! Let’s think of church in the ways that God thinks of church. Let’s not get trapped in institutional thinking but pray that we might be part of the movement Jesus started.

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