Interview with Jay (4)

Jay: So we have white-hot faith, commitment to a cause and I think your third characteristic of dynamic movements is contagious relationships?

Steve: Contagious relationships reminds us that we are all half a dozen handshakes away from everyone on the planet.

We can see this in Jesus’ ministry; he is recruiting disciples who bring their friends or their family, their workmates. Whenever you see the gospel expanding exponentially it’s expanding along networks of pre-existing relationships.

So the people most likely to come to faith are those who have seen someone close to them, seen their life change recently. That’s how movements grow, how they recruit workers, how they do evangelism. It’s why you see that rapid growth because those networks are already in place and the gospel continues to spread across them.

This works in the secular world, it works with the take up of new technology or it works with how fashion spreads or any fad or trend. It’s the way God has made us. You know the Internet is fine and you can see the contagious relationships on the Internet, but even more important are those face-to-face relational encounters where friends, family members and workmates gossip the gospel.