A Road Trip to Movement: "Let's go on a journey together this year!"
Here at NewThing we believe strongly that we can’t accomplish the Jesus mission alone. We need each other. This is at the core of everything we do, this sense of mission, urgency, and togetherness.
We know that movements are the future of the church. We talk about this all the time (you might even roll your eyes at hearing it...again) because we know that when we are aligned for mission through relationships, reproducing, residency, and resources that we are preparing for God to do a big work through us.
In Isaiah 43:18-19, we see God promising a new thing and we all want to be that new thing. In our first Global Leadership Community Call of the year, on February 4th, 2021, we talked about what this kind of collaboration looks like in the Bible and in our lives. We heard from Dave and Jon Ferguson about what this looked like in Acts 14:21-23 by exploring how the words, gospel, growing, discipling, persevering, apprenticing, and commissioning describe a movement. Each of these helps us to focus on multiplying our networks through being a leader who models multiplication in their daily lives through their focus, their modeling, their goal-setting, their language, and their accountability with each other.
And all of this is possible through the relationships between each other. We aren’t called to act alone or be alone in this grand mission, but to come alongside each other. Pastor Nuel Manufor of Covenant Light Church in Lagos, Nigeria spoke eloquently about how bonding in relationships sets the tone for everything we do. If we are bonded in love, we will go deeper even as we move further.
In this Covid-19 period, Pastor Manufor reminded us that relationships are still integral to who we are as the Church. This love-bonding must be entered into intentionally until we become the type of friends who have ‘fridge-rights’; people who are bonded so closely that you can go to their house and into their fridge and take whatever you want because you know them so well.
This type of closeness cannot be mandated, it must be entered into freely and grown organically over time. It starts with like-minded people who are headed in the same direction and then intentionally spending time together, knowing each other, loving each other, and becoming the people they turn to in crisis and celebration.
Fridge-rights is the goal. Fridge-rights might look different in this Covid period for a while longer, but it's the soil on which future collaboration is grown. It’s the start of becoming family. It helps balance the apostolic drive to go faster with the need to go deep in relationships.
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We can’t start a movement without relationships, without friendships, without collaboration. This year NewThing is taking a year long road trip toward movement. Everything we do will be aimed at building each other up, encouraging, and exhorting each other to keep moving forward - all done through relationship.
Stop One: February 4 - The Strength of the Movement
Stop Two: April 1 - The Support for the Movement
Stop Three: June 3 - The Practice of the Movement
Stop Four: August 5 - The Life of the Movement
Stop Five: October 7 - The Culture of the Movement
Stop Six: December 2 - The Soul of the Movement
Isn’t that what we’re all called to do? Develop relationship rhythms that honor God, honor our communities, and call us all into deeper-togetherness?
What are your relationship rhythms? How are you building relationships in your church, community, and family that will allow you go far and deep?
Upcoming Global Leadership Community Dates:
