OnMovements

Movement Building and Training

January 12, 2006

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I ran across the following quote from Bill Allison of Cadre Ministries.

On September 11, 2001, a small band of extremely well-trained men changed the world as we know it. These men were not just well taught. These were not your run-of-the-mill religious folk. No these men really were fully devoted disciples of their religious sect. They did not just know about their beliefs they did not just know about how to execute their evil mission. They were intentionally, proactively, and systematically trained to carry out their mission with precise detail and timing. These men were scrupulously trained physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. In the end, it was not their superior intelligence, abilities, weaponry, or money that equipped them to take the world’s most powerful nation by surprise. It was their masterful training as evil as that training was. It was their fastidious training that enabled them to disregard the strongest of human drives self-preservation so they could die for their evil cause. And though they were small in number just nineteen of them they changed our world forever. These men were a true cadre for evil and should be a constant and painful reminder that for good or evil. Training makes all the difference! — Bill Allison of Cadre Ministries

Like Bill, I believe in training…training…training. It’s clear that Jesus spent the majority of his time with his disciples—because as Robert Coleman (The Master Plan of Evangelism) so well argues, Jesus wanted multiplying disciples not just converts. I’m struggling, however, with some church planting literature that advocates rapid reproduction, easily transferable methods, the rapid empowering of young believers to leadership, etc. Not sure this conflicts with quality training or not. Thoughts? Drop a comment.

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Marks of a Movement, Movement Building

2 responses to “Movement Building and Training”

EthanWiekamp

January 13, 2006

We just got done with the Denver Christmas Conference last week, and I got the chance to dialogue with one of our students who had recently (about a year ago) accepted Christ. It was interesting to hear her story: She accepted Christ in the afternoon, and that evening the CCC person who had led her to Christ was going with her to share with her friends. It’s now one year later and she is still sharing her faith more regularly than anyone else on her campus. She left the conference having purchased about 50 KGP booklets.

I think the “rapid empowering of young believers to leadership” is fraught with peril. To steal from Neal Cole’s emphasis on the soils parable: it would seem that thrusting young believers into leadership prematurely would be more likely to result in a poor system of roots than a steadfast disciple of Christ.

On the other hand Cole makes a good point in that ‘the Church’ tends to take new believers out of their primary oikos to train them. Thus, taking them from the place where they will be most effective as a missionary.

I think the middle ground is somewhere in the area of coming alongside the new believer so that they can be a missionary to their friends and family immediately, while leading them to grow and develop without having to lead in other areas. Can you imagine if every person who accepted Christ went and shared with someone that day? I imagine that they would come back from those times with a real desire to get in the word so that they could answer the questions that were encountered, etc.
Steve Van Diest

January 16, 2006

Ethan’s insights are genious. I have been challenged by this concept. Rolland Allen give some great insights. I think if we take the focus off the gathering of believers for training, growing, huddling, encouragment without the mission, living in the oikos groups, you’re right it seems doomed for failure. Is intentional training needed? Yes! But if we continue to train and not expect obedience to the mission and ministry then we are growing dependant, consuming Christians.