On Leading Well

Category: Movements

  • Two Common Movement-Killers

    I hate to admit this. I have made this mistake three different times. Each time it happened after I had been assigned to a new campus. The first time the mistake could have been expected. The second and third times, well, that was my own fault.

    What was my mistake? At the beginning of a new school year I simply began discipling the first students in the ministry who expressed need. I thought I was being helpful and loving these students. All three times I ended the school year with very emotionally needy or fun-loving students, but not with whole-hearted disciples of Christ. What went wrong?

    Movement-Killer #1 – Hasty (or No) Selection

    “…and He spent the whole night in prayer to God. And when day came, He called his disciples to Him; and chose twelve of them…” Luke 6:12-13

    “It does not matter how many we enlist for the cause, but how many conquer for Christ. That is why all along our emphasis must be upon quality of life. If we get the right quality of leadership, the rest will follow; if we do not get it, the rest have nothing worth following.”
    -Robert E Coleman, The Master Plan of Evangelism

    My problem was that I lacked the foresight and courage to realize: If I commit myself fully to this small group of 5-8 students right now, then I am consciously making a choice to say “no” to the other 20,000 students on my campus for the rest of the year.

    I observed wiser and more successful friends do three things to help avoid this mistake.

    1. They prayed. They spent extended time in prayer, like Jesus did, before selecting any students to invite into an ongoing discipleship relationship.

    2. They took their time. They did not rush to “get a group.” They kept sharing their faith and doing basic follow up through November and December. They invited faithful believers to the weekly fellowship. They brought them to retreats and invited them to pray. BUT they had the wisdom to wait on God, observe their behavior over time, and let God bring more new believers into the movement before selecting and committing themselves to a few.

    3. They avoided…

    Movement-Killer #2… Filling Their Schedule with 1-1 Appointments.

    Yep, nothing helps justify our existence more than staying busy with a full schedule. And few behaviors ultimately kill a genuine movement more stealthily than regular 1-1 appointments.

    Sometimes it seems like the weekly 1-1 ministry appointment is a hallowed requirement. Why is that? When I study Jesus’ three years of ministry, I cannot find a single time that he met 1-1 with any of his 12 disciples after calling them to follow Him. I’m not saying that Jesus never had personal time with a disciple, simply that the 1-1 discipleship appointment was not part of his core development strategy for his men. He met in 2’s, 3’s, small groups and larger groups. He confronted disciples in front of each other. Anyway, it seems odd that the greatest movement builder of all time did not incorporate the weekly 1-1 into his strategy. Go figure.

    Why can 1-1 appointments kill movements?

    Leadership Challenge: If you can find Jesus having a 1-1 appointment with any of his 12 disciples, please post a reply. I’ll buy you a dinner. Seriously.

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  • What Is A Movement?

    Here’s the best definition I’ve seen recently:

    “A movement is a group of people who consciously, and at their own cost, connect to change the status quo.”

    This simple definition applies to any type of movement that is focused on change. We’re interested in spiritual movements – movements that seek lasting transformation of hearts and lives while honoring the one true God.

    Most historical movements go through a fairly predictable life-cycle. The birth usually centers around a charismatic personality who champions a compelling cause. During this phase, most outsiders view the movement as odd, fringe, or something to be ignored. Following some early successes or positive comes a recruitment phase. Wikipedia comments:

    After the social movement is created, there are two likely phases of recruitment. The first phase will gather the people deeply interested in the primary goal and ideal of the movement. The second phase, which will usually come after the given movement had some successes and is trendy; it would look good on a résumé. People who join in this second phase will likely be the first to leave when the movement suffers any setbacks and failures.

    Eventually most movements dwindle or die. This may be due to fulfillment of the stated objective (i.e. women granted the right to vote) or loss of momentum due to poor leadership, lack of ownership among the masses, or a cause that is less-than-compelling.

    Any honest student of history must acknowledge that the movement begun by a carpenter’s son 2,000 years ago in Israel which continues to grow today meets all the qualifications of a successful spiritual movement. In fact, we could easily argue that Jesus Christ was and is the most successful movement leader of all time. Why?

    • This movement is centered around a Person, not just a charismatic personality.

    • It is empowered by humble dependence upon the Holy Spirit, not fads and trends.

    • Its driving force is the most compelling cause in the universe: the glory and fame of the One true, loving God among all peoples and all nations.

    • Millions of true followers have endured harassment, persecution, torture, death, defamation and hardship with love, joy, peace and self-control.

    • The movement (aka the church) continues to rapidly grow with amazing fruitfulness after 20 centuries.

    • It is completely inclusive: no one is excluded due to gender, race, financial status, ethnicity, social caste, intelligence or religious background.

    • Its visionary end possesses the broadest possible scope. In other words, it is worthy of giving one’s entire life to help fulfill.

    Next topics:

    1. Four marks of a movement that changed the world in half a generation.

    2. Common mistakes that we all make in building movements.

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  • Response: Ministry or Movement?

    Let’s dive in. By way of context, I’ve been doing field evaluation of local ministries/movements in cross-cultural settings for the past 11 years. I’m not saying I’ve seen everything, but I will say that common trends emerge very consistently from trip to trip and from campus to campus.

    Scenarios 1 (The Place to Be) and 3 (Generations) most likely represent ministries rather than movements. Neither example gives us sufficient contextual information to be completely sure, but both smell like ministries. Why can we say this? The first scenario describes a ministry that contains two elemental barriers to genuine movements. One barrier is the reliance upon one (or a few) key personalities to sustain successful ministry. The giveaway clues were found in the reasons given for people coming to the weekly meeting. The second barrier is the possibility of false success due to program-centered values. 600 people coming regularly to anything gives the appearance of energy, vitality and motion. It’s easy to fall into the “bigger is better” trap. We like numbers. Numbers represent people, right? But the question remains: Where are these people going? Genuine movements move toward a common purpose that everyone understands. In the absence of crystal clear purpose for gathering, all this meeting is is a big party. If the great teaching and excellent band suddenly disappeared one week, would there be sufficient DNA to replicate, multiply and continue? Continue what?

    Scenario 3 (Generations) demonstrates what I refer to as stacking generations. Technically, I suppose, you could line the bible study participants up by grade status, snap a digital pic, and call it four generations of multiplication. This meets the letter of the law, but the spirit has clearly been violated. The core question is: Who actually multiplied their life into someone else? Some of the students probably did multiply, but the scenario described a team of people assigning others to lead groups. Though not completely arbitrary, this type of management inadvertently undermines the frustratingly slow process of student ownership, which is the key to genuine student-led movements. Much more will be said about this issue later this month.

    Scenario 2 (The Faithful Few) smells much more like a movement. The core essentials are in place: prayerful dependence, outreach, a purpose bigger than merely sustaining the existing group, and demonstrated fruit of changed lives. Let’s not be fooled by the smaller numbers. The DNA is what counts. Healthy DNA will reproduce life if given a good environment of light and heat. Now, if we came back one year later and the numbers were still the same, we’d probably classify this as a ministry too, since no movement or growth had occured.

    Lesson: Honest evaluation is not fooled by numbers. Numbers do matter, but wise leaders look for the story between the numbers.

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