Disciples who build movements

I’ve been reflecting some on Milfred Minatrea’s Shaped by God’s Heart: The Passion and Practices of Missional Churches
Adapting his essential practices of missional churches, I’ve been building a list to describe the kind of disciples “who build movements everywhere.” If true, then these are the kind of men and women we need to build….these are the kind of men and women we need to be.

Disciples who build movements are:

1. Real, not real religious. Authenticity is critical to effectiveness. The litmus test of a multiplying movement is how its members live when scattered during the week. They must prove the validity of their transforming faith in schools, sports teams, at the office, and on the golf course. If disciples are not transformed, we can have no movement.

2. Teaching others to obey rather than to know. Discipleship training has to be in doing, not just knowing. Discipleship includes information that changes attitudes and alters conduct.

3. Living apostolically. All are missionaries. A person who does not believe every disciple of Jesus Christ is sent by Him into the world rejects the essence of the missional church. The apostolic sending of disciples is woven through the entire scriptural account.” (80)

Injustice is done to the term missionary when it is reserved only for professional or vocational ministry personnel who cross oceans or other geographical boundaries in their assignment. Missionaries are ones who are sent, and for the New Testament church that includes every believer.

4. Seeing mission philosophically, not geographically. Mission is not defined by the location to which the disciple goes, nor the number of oceans crossed in the process, but rather by the disciple’s message demonstrated and declared through an incarnational lifestyle.

Missional disciples share Christ naturally, inviting people to embark on a lifelong journey toward intimacy with God. . .Those individuals within a member’s own sphere of influence make up their primary mission field. . . To live apostolically, one must spend time getting to know lost people.

5. Expecting to change the world. The point of the Kingdom is transformation. Disciples who build movements recognize that missions and movement building conforms to spheres of influence. This means that missional responsibility begins among those with whom one has the closest relationships. It continues with intentional establishment of new relationships among those who do not know Christ. Ultimately, it extends to all the nations of the world.

6. Measuring growth by capacity to release, not retain. Disciples who build movements think first of extension, not enlargement. From the moment new disciples/volunteers come in, we are preparing them to go back out. The ultimate objective is every disciple/volunteer released to serve in God’s “glocal” (global/local) mission. Disciples who build movements see multiplication as God’s design for reaching new generations.

7. Placing Kingdom concerns first. Disciples who build movement cooperate rather than compete with other kingdom organizations.

No significant Kingdom accomplishment will occur until churches or movements value Kingdom more than their own sectarian accomplishments. . . They do not focus their passion on what separates them, but on that which unites them: the Kingdom of God. Missional churches are not building their kingdoms. Their primary allegiance is to His Kingdom.