» 3. Contagious relationships

In the first century, if you had a church in your neighbourhood chances are:
You lived in a port city.You lived in a port city that was Greek in language and culture.You lived in a port city that was Greek in language and culture and had a Jewish community.

Q. Why a port city?
A. Easy access.

Q. Why [...]

Plunged into Cities of God by Rodney Stark this morning. Three insights on church planting movements from first chapter:

1. No mission without monotheism
The Jews were the world’s first missionaries because Judaism was monotheistic. Paganism doesn’t produce missionary movements. Within a polytheistic framework, new gods are supplements not alternatives.

The Jews of the Diaspora were very successful [...]

Church planting movements spread through contagious relationships.

So here’s a book every church planter and movement leader should take a look at:

“Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking” (Andy Sernovitz)

Sernovitz’s definition of WOMM:
“Giving people a reason to talk about your stuff and making it easier for that conversation to take place.”

Here’s what [...]

Jesus knhow important relationships are in the spread of a movement. From the beginning, the movement he founded grew through the favourable reports that spread from family member to family member, from neighbour to neighbour, from workmate to workmate.

Jesus recruited his band of disciples through relational networks. John the Baptist, a relative of Jesus, connected [...]

Charles Chaney has identified four groups within each ethnic or social subculture. Here they are again.
Nuclear: those explicitly and self-consciously concerned about subculture identity.Fellow traveler: those to whom the subculture is a relatively important part of self-conscious identification;Marginal: those who occasionally think of themselves as belonging to the subculture; andAssimilated: those who explicitly exclude themselves [...]

Back in the mid 70s our youth ministry reached out to Cambodian refugees. After twelve months we discovered no matter how much we reached out, loved and served them, they never really felt a part of us. As soon as a Cambodian church was set up in the area it thrived. Why?

When we were church [...]

As I never tire of telling my kids — life IS relationships.

The third characteristic of dynamic movements: Contagious Relationships.mp3.

EvangelismideavirusMovements

Any movement which has benefited society in the long haul has at its core a group of people committed to a cause that they consider greater than themselves and to one another as friends.

James McGregor Burnsvia Sam Metcalf with some provocative questions.

MovementsQuotes

From OnMovements: The Clapham Sect–A Company of Friends

An excellent post on the Clapham Sect, an evangelical movement led by William Wilberforce.

One of the sources they reference is also available: William Wilberforce and His Circle of Friends by Richard L. Gathro.

According to Gathro here’s what characterized this group of friends who changed the world:

They shared a [...]

Guy Kawasaki did a job search for “evangelist”. He found 611 matches—and none were for churches. It seems that “evangelist” is now a secular, mainstream job title. Indeed, the first eight matches were for evangelist jobs at Microsoft.

Here’s his wisdom for secular evangelists:

Create a cause.
Love the cause.
Look for agnostics, ignore atheists.
Localize the pain.
Let people test [...]