I’m sitting with a small stack of fascinating articles on my desk that revolve around a phenomenon called movement networks.
These articles are all talking about ways of collaborating in order to accomplish goals that are greater than any one organization could ever accomplish on its own. In fact, sometimes the objectives are so large that they require a movement, not just certain actions in order to successfully accomplish them.
When I think of tasks so large that no one entity can begin to accomplish it, I naturally go immediately to the task of going into all the world with the gospel.
When I was a boy, I was so proud of our church which sent a missionary to Africa and one to Brazil at the same time. I don’t know what was happening in the other 170 countries though?
Then as a college student, I joined a ministry to go to the Northeast U.S. We worked in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, Vermont, Connecticut, Delaware, and other heavily populated states, but the 20 of us really didn’t make a very big dent.
I’ve since worked with lots of churches that were very proud of sponsoring their missionaries fully—or not at all! They were seriously trying to do missions well, and it was these churches that were held up as the model for others.
But I keep looking around and I don’t see us making a very big dent in the task God gave us! We have to do something differently unless we want to continue getting the same results.
I wonder if movement networking might be something to try. The studies say a movement is this:
Movement – “a collection of persons or groups who come together around a common concern. Typically their mission is to bring about some type of societal change relative to their concern.”
Movements, they say, are characterized by
- collective intentional action,
- continuity of sustained action,
- outsider status,
- scope and scale, and
- formation of collective identity.
(Zemsky and Mann, “Building Organizations in a Movement Moment,” Social Policy: Organizing for Social and Economic Justice, vol. 28, no. 3, 2008).
It’s the collective nature, the networking, which really fascinates me. It’s about different groups of people working together. Could it ever be about different groups of churches and ministries and other organizations working together on behalf of the salvation of the world?
According to these studies, we would need to look for the following characteristics in movement networks:
- They are multi-organizational, therefore diverse, with all partners desiring to reach shared and mutually beneficial goals.
- Trust and accountability are achieved through personal relationships, not through creating a single organizational hierarchy.
- Partners agree on how to communicate and what constitutes progress toward goals.
- Shared resources from all partners are committed for reaching the shared goals.
Well, this just sounds like a lot of academic ivory tower language unless we could turn it into something concrete. Here’s my attempt at extrapolating some concrete ideas out of this:
- In October 2014, the Global Missions Conference is being held in Memphis for churches of Christ. What could happen if this conference were the launching point for a fellowship wide conversation on how to go to all the world?
- What if there were regional meetings for every American church that cares about missions, every ministry like LST, Great Cities, MRN, and as many foreign Christian church leaders as possible, along with foundations, trusts, and others with resources, and all those wanting to do missions were sitting in the same room talking about what it would take to go to all the world?
- What if even some of these found each other to be ready and willing partners and began collaborating?
Please note, I’m not talking about creating a super-organization or any kind of hierarchy of either talent or resources. But I am suggesting that we ought to be searching for like-minded partners rather than all of us trying to do it alone.
- Do you think any of us could ever agree on mutually beneficial goals for these partnerships?
- Do you think we could ever trust each other and be accountable to each other without having to decide who is in control?
- Do you think we could share resources? Or the holy grail: donor lists?
Is there really only one question keeping us from fulfilling the Great Commission? Is the only question one of whether we can love each other enough to work with each other? Whether we can subordinate our own congregational/institutional egos enough to give God all the glory?
Well, I’m willing to talk about it with you—if you will talk about it with me! Can we just start there?
Mark's Blog 