The Politics of Movements

I spend a lot of time on the road a lot looking for case studies and stories of movements that are multiplying disciples and churches.

One thing I’ve noticed — they’re not pursuing political agendas. They do one thing well — they make disciples and form them into multiplying churches.

Yet in the West politics is king. The kingdom has come and so we need to make the world a better place. God will renew the whole creation, so let’s get started.

There’s optimism about our prospects of transforming society in the light of the kingdom of God. That’s been the theme of Western thinking about missions for 100 years. The result has been the decline and collapse of mainstream churches. Today evangelicals in the West are going down the same path.

There’s a move of God that is transforming lives in the Texas prison system. It started in maximum security and spread to death row. Criminals are becoming disciples, and they’re planting churches in their day rooms.

Transformation is the by-product, not the goal of this movement. The gospel changes lives and it brings blessing. But the cross is not someone’s tool for social transformation. Transformation may come — or it may not. Jesus promised rejection and persecution wherever the gospel is proclaimed. That’s why all around the world where the gospel is spreading, believers are suffering.

Meanwhile, in the privileged West, we’re doing fine, but no one is coming to Christ.

Our leaders deny or remain silent about Jesus’ teaching on sexual ethics. The culture has shifted. It’s the price they pay for a seat at the table.

Tell the disciples in Northern Nigeria, as they die daily under Muslim persecution, that their real mission is “to speak truth to power.” Ask the believers of Laos or North Korea to stand up to their Communist overlords and they may be puzzled. They’re doing what Jesus commanded, taking the gospel of repentance for the forgiveness of sins to their world. They’re just trying to stay alive and beyond the reach of their persecutors.

Their world looks more like the Book of Acts.

Meanwhile in the West, we’ve stopped sharing the gospel with people far from God. Instead we’re making the world a better place.