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A review by latviadugan
The Church as Movement: Starting and Sustaining Missional-Incarnational Communities by Dan White Jr, Jr. Woodward
4.0
JR Woodward and Dan White have written a valuable guidebook for recalibrating existing churches or starting new Christian communities from “a discipler mentality.” They recognize that one of the challenges facing the North American church today is that “things that once were productive … no longer are.” And yet, naturally, we remain “attached to the obsolete.” Simply optimizing inherited habits to reach a new world “is like trying to negotiate New York City with a map of Paris.” They challenge us to listen to the voice of the Spirit for what it means to be followers of Jesus today.
As Alan Hirsch states in his Forward, key to discerning the Spirit’s leading, engaging his mission, and rethinking local church architecture requires the restoration of apostolic ministry. We can rejoice that this is happening, and there is an awakening among God’s people as they rediscover that movements of God take place in the streets rather than in the building.
Concurrent with a renewal of apostolic ministry is the recalibration around Jesus as the paradigm for ministry. Jesus’ message was of the kingdom of God, and he ignited a kingdom movement by “confiding in three, training twelve, and mobilizing seventy.” This is how movements start. Movements happen when the focus is multiplying disciples. “We must die to our self, our infatuation with speed and size, and devote ourselves to the work of making disciples, training the few.” Jesus commanded us to make disciples. Not start a church service.
The book is organized around Distributing, Discipling, Designing, and Doing. “Distributing” is about growing a ministry four generations deep and four spheres wide (Acts 1:8). Church as Movement requires authentic engagement with the Holy Spirit, a missional theology, church simplicity, transferable and locally sustainable methodology and tools. Essential to this are the five ministries of apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd, and teacher. Leadership is polycentric where leaders “lead as a community from within a community.” Rather than getting our leadership models from business, we need to get them from the early church.
“Discipling” means changing the metrics of the local church. Discipleship isn’t identified by Bible studies, but by those who live the counter-intuitive, upside down life Jesus modeled and called his followers to embrace. Though Jesus had a public ministry, and though both Jesus and Paul taught in synagogues, the engine of their ministries was the purposeful gathering and training of a smaller group of friends.
“Designing” involves the community of disciples. The community itself is God’s gift to the neighborhood. It is a sign, foretaste and instrument of the kingdom of God. “For the church to be a movement, the way we express being the church should flow out of our theology.” This is expressed in communion with God, community with each other, and commission into the work of Christ in the world.
“Doing” the work of the kingdom is a community affair. “Community is the pod that carries mission.” “The church as movement starts with a discipleship core, hospitality with others, presence in the neighborhood and an inviting spirit.” “Jesus didn’t command us to remember him with mere words but with a meal.” The local church community should be a learning environment, a healing environment, a welcoming environment, a liberating environment, and a thriving environment. Leaders serve these purposes of the church community by connecting people to God and his mission. This requires trust building, truth telling and peace making.
“In order to live into church as movement, you will need to change the way you look at the church. You need to ditch the church as industrial complex. If you want movement, you need to be willing to start small and focus on making disciples, remembering that discipleship is more about imitation than instruction.”
The strength of “Church as Movement” is that it links disciple making movements with church, though to do so requires us to completely rethink our church paradigms and leadership structures. This is difficult because so many of us are invested in the current structures.
Its weakness is that its linear presentation and focus on church can reinforce the belief that a local church is the goal (rather than the fruit) and a discipling movement is the means to get there. More emphasis could have been given to the reality that Christ actively builds the church. It's his responsibility.
As Alan Hirsch states in his Forward, key to discerning the Spirit’s leading, engaging his mission, and rethinking local church architecture requires the restoration of apostolic ministry. We can rejoice that this is happening, and there is an awakening among God’s people as they rediscover that movements of God take place in the streets rather than in the building.
Concurrent with a renewal of apostolic ministry is the recalibration around Jesus as the paradigm for ministry. Jesus’ message was of the kingdom of God, and he ignited a kingdom movement by “confiding in three, training twelve, and mobilizing seventy.” This is how movements start. Movements happen when the focus is multiplying disciples. “We must die to our self, our infatuation with speed and size, and devote ourselves to the work of making disciples, training the few.” Jesus commanded us to make disciples. Not start a church service.
The book is organized around Distributing, Discipling, Designing, and Doing. “Distributing” is about growing a ministry four generations deep and four spheres wide (Acts 1:8). Church as Movement requires authentic engagement with the Holy Spirit, a missional theology, church simplicity, transferable and locally sustainable methodology and tools. Essential to this are the five ministries of apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd, and teacher. Leadership is polycentric where leaders “lead as a community from within a community.” Rather than getting our leadership models from business, we need to get them from the early church.
“Discipling” means changing the metrics of the local church. Discipleship isn’t identified by Bible studies, but by those who live the counter-intuitive, upside down life Jesus modeled and called his followers to embrace. Though Jesus had a public ministry, and though both Jesus and Paul taught in synagogues, the engine of their ministries was the purposeful gathering and training of a smaller group of friends.
“Designing” involves the community of disciples. The community itself is God’s gift to the neighborhood. It is a sign, foretaste and instrument of the kingdom of God. “For the church to be a movement, the way we express being the church should flow out of our theology.” This is expressed in communion with God, community with each other, and commission into the work of Christ in the world.
“Doing” the work of the kingdom is a community affair. “Community is the pod that carries mission.” “The church as movement starts with a discipleship core, hospitality with others, presence in the neighborhood and an inviting spirit.” “Jesus didn’t command us to remember him with mere words but with a meal.” The local church community should be a learning environment, a healing environment, a welcoming environment, a liberating environment, and a thriving environment. Leaders serve these purposes of the church community by connecting people to God and his mission. This requires trust building, truth telling and peace making.
“In order to live into church as movement, you will need to change the way you look at the church. You need to ditch the church as industrial complex. If you want movement, you need to be willing to start small and focus on making disciples, remembering that discipleship is more about imitation than instruction.”
The strength of “Church as Movement” is that it links disciple making movements with church, though to do so requires us to completely rethink our church paradigms and leadership structures. This is difficult because so many of us are invested in the current structures.
Its weakness is that its linear presentation and focus on church can reinforce the belief that a local church is the goal (rather than the fruit) and a discipling movement is the means to get there. More emphasis could have been given to the reality that Christ actively builds the church. It's his responsibility.