Your ability to launch and grow a Destino movement comes down to two things: 1) how much God moves and 2) how successful you are at multiplying leaders. This is the core thing you need to focus on. If all you do is gather Christians, then you’ll never reach the campus.

A great resource to help you take new believers and begin to develop them into leaders is the Essentials bible study. We’ve blogged about it why we think it is so great before, but they just came out with some exciting updates that we wanted to pass your way. Watch this video and then head over to http://essentials24.org to learn more. We highly recommend this Bible study resource.

If you have been a part of my organization for a while, you’ve probably seen a video called “This Is Where I Live“. It’s a recruiting video encouraging students to step out in faith and live in a new place somewhere in the world. Every person on the video talks about what country they live in and what it’s like to minister there. The tagline is “This Is Where I Live”.

I’ve been thinking about this video and wondering how different ethnic minorities in our organization would describe the place they live. Each has their own specific story being lived out in a different role and different ministry, but all are wanting to bring the full image of God with them into that place. That place where they live. The place that is always filled with ambiguity and tension as they live out the bicultural life.

There is a quote by Orlando Crespo from his book Being Latino in Christ that I feel like gives a small glimpse into where I live. He writes about how in coming to terms with what it means to live life as a mestizo (a person living in two cultural worlds) he has also come to understand his own struggles with inferiority and low sense of self-worth. I really resonate with this paragraph below:

Negative thoughts about myself are always with me, lurking behind every new way, ready to pounce just as I am about to trust God in a new way…. Having a healthy perspective on being Latino is an act of faith. Our blood is from a mixture that was viewed negatively from the very beginning of our people’s history. This is not something you just deal with and move on from, because it eats at the soul of a people.

This quote speaks to such a deep place in me. A place in me where I struggle to step into any new opportunity, even though it may be enticing and exciting. A place where, just as I get comfortable with bringing my whole self to any given setting, I’m standing and staring straight into the face of another big step of faith and risk that I’m unsure I’ll be able to make. I’m realizing that this place is not unique to me but is a part of many people’s stories that are living out the ethnic minority experience. It is a part of our collective narrative.

I also live in a place where, as a Latina, most people around me have more power and more of a voice than me. For some it comes from their background, the way they were raised, or their ethnicity. For me, my low sense of personal power comes from my own history, how I was raised, and the ethnicity I’ve grown to embrace as a part of me. The place I live has people around me that both encourage me on my journey towards embracing my own strength and some that discourage me in that pursuit too. Both have an impact. Both have influence over me.

I’ve also learned that in this place I live, I have to lean into the deeply spiritual in me in order not to lose hope. That deep core of me where I meet with God has to be nurtured continuously in solitude and silence so that I can remember, when I feel like I don’t belong anywhere, that I am a child of the King. I’m his daughter. I’m family.

The place I live crosses paths sometimes with advocates too. They are people that love me and want to see me fully living out of my God-given identity. Those people are blessings to me and speak life into me when things are hard or when the world around me feels unwelcoming to strangers.

The place I live is one where I am always aware of the power structures around me. I’m aware of who carries the most power and who has the least. I’m aware of what influence I can or can’t have on the events encircling me.

Where I live is also a sweet place of intimacy with the Gallilean Jesus. He knows what it feels like to live on the margins. He knows the bicultural story because he lived it in all his humanity. The human Jesus meets with me in this place and says to me, “I know you. I see you. I want to walk with you.”

So what does your world look like? Where do you live? Do you live in a place that grants you access to the spaces of influence? Do you live in the shadows, afraid even to be seen? Or are you like me, a Latina fighting to find her voice in a place that feels resistant at times to such a goal?

My prayer for myself is that I will learn to be bold in the place that I live. I pray that I will learn to embrace the image of God in me in all its beauty, and that I would also allow him access to all the broken places in me that are still in need of redemption. My prayer is that I would not hold back, but I would move forward in faith in those moments when He is calling me to more. The strain I feel in those times is hard, but it is worth it.

My prayer for all of us, both as majority and minority culture ministers, is that we would all learn to truly love one another in our different stories and lives. That we would live out the peaceable kingdom to come with one another. That we would display to the world that we are partnering together with God to make right all that is still broken in and around us, including our relationships with one another.

Let us love one another in the different places that we live. To even begin to do that we need to really SEE one another, and really enter into the realities of people different than ourselves-especially when they live right next door. Loving begins with seeing. Do you see where others live?

photo courtesy: joshpatten

A friend introduced me to the idea that “ministry is as much about us as it is about those to whom we minister.” This picture could not be truer of my experience with Destino.

This post is born out a recent experience that led me to reflect upon the person I have become culturally and ethnically. My hope is that as I invite you into my journey you’ll be able to reflect upon yours and/or give some guidance to Destino students who may have some similar experiences.

I have been transformed and I have grown much as a result of entering into this field and into the life of the students with whom I work.

When I began interning I was placed in a team made up mostly of Asian American brothers and sisters. It was a place where I felt welcomed and understood. For the first time I realized I was a minority and felt like one. As they shared their experiences of not fitting in well I slowly began to look into my life and realized that over the last few years of being in the US I too had had some of those experiences. They spoke about honor and shame and I felt I belonged there because to a certain extent because I could relate in ways that I could not relate to the majority culture.

After a year of being together, encouraged by some and with personal hesitation, I came to embrace what seemed like a sad reality – though some of my experiences were similar to those of my teammates, I was not Asian American.

I began feeling different and distant from my teammates. This pushed me to explore more about my own ethnic identity. Soon it became evident that in order to define and discover who we are it is helpful to know who we are like, but it is also important to know who we are not.

Realizing I was Latina became a problem before it became a gift.  There was not much I could do about this part of me, I did not choose it. I had little to do with the fact that my culture was presenting roadblocks to my effectiveness within this ministry. The gain came in that I became aware of how my culture was playing a part in my interactions and experiences.

I chose to get angry about how this culture, I did not choose, was having a great impact in my life. I thought I could scratch it out altogether and try to adopt another way of doing life and eventually I could figure out a way to cope with the shame of how wrong getting rid of it this felt. But it did not work.

Through the affirmation and encouragement of friends I jumped back in the game towards realizing that I honor God by being who He made me and this includes my Latina-ness. He determined the times and places where we live so that we can come to know Him (Acts 17:26, 27). I am Latina largely because of the times and the places of where I have found myself and the people who have been there in these times and places. All of this is intentionally determined so that we can know God.

I am used to missing it in interacting with majority culture friends. I am used to people explaining words and phrases to me. I am used to friends introducing me to books, music, and movies. I am used to having to learn how to function well here.

But up until earlier this year I was not used to missing in “my own.” I stumbled upon the unspoken rules of courtesy and saving face many times throughout the night. It was unusual.

To be honest I have been out of “my own” for a quite a while. Others have become my own and are no longer other to me. It was a conscious choice I made to serve among us, Latin@s, but I did not realize the depth of transformation it would involve or the pain and joy this experience would produce.

Before, I was able to go into one parent culture and be ok with stumbling because I could go back to the other parent culture where I belonged and functioned almost impeccably. Going back and forth was done with ease. But now I belong to neither. Today I am jumping from a third culture into both. I am jumping from a place where I have taken elements of both. I confess when I first moved to the US I disliked the sound of Spanglish yet today it comes so easily. 

Being Latina is such a gift to me today as I belong to a people that sometimes does not belong. I see so much beauty and richness in my fellow Latin@s and truly believe we can contribute so much to the greater story of God.

Ministry has largely become about my heart and my life transformation. Further, those around me have been impacted as I have grown. A large part of this growth has come from crossing cultures and becoming more aware of my own.

What about you? How are you under construcción? How have you culturally been transformed by serving with Destino?

What area some areas where your How can we help Latin@s and others connect with the grief of living in between cultures?

How can we help others appreciate the gifts that come from some these painful experiences?

The Four Aims

A graphic representation of the Four Aims model.

As a team leader looks at their ministry context and scope there are four goals they should have in mind, even from the beginning of their movement. Though not a perfect correlation, these aims closely mirror Jesus final words to his apostles in Acts 1:8:

• Initial Context: where the ministry starts (Jerusalem).
• Nearby Campus: culturally similar yet geographically close ministries (Judea).
• Cross-Cultural Movement: culturally different yet geographically close ministries, usually ethnic minorities (Samaria).
• International Movement: culturally different and geographically distant movements (Ends of the Earth).

The Four Aims parallel Jesus' words to his disciples in Acts 1:8.

The Default Order to the Four Aims

Even though it has been explained that there is not a particular order to the Four Aims, a pattern has emerged in practice that shows a default sequence. While I will talk about it in terms of campus movements, it applies to the North American Protestant Church as a whole as well.

A movement always begins with their initial context. They begin to trust God to see something happen on their campus (or if a church, in their local community). They start to see leaders raised up to labor in the power of the Holy Spirit to launch a movement.

Next most campuses (and many churches) start an international partnership to join with what God is doing around the world. They are a blessing to the church around the world as they minister for a summer or a stint year. This often can bring incredible momentum back to the initial context as students or church members travel and participate globally in the Great Commission.

What the model looks like when we go Internationally after our initial context.

When these students return back to campus or their local church they minister with a newfound global perspective. They continue growing their movement in its local context and often work to recruit new people to participate in God’s global mission by going overseas the next year. God has used this model in fantastic ways to advance His kingdom, both here in the U.S. and around the world.

Problems That Often Arise

In our desire to be a part of God’s global mission we often jump directly from our initial context (Jerusalem) to an international context (Ends of the Earth) without going through Judea or Samaria. While the intention to reach the world is good and should be applauded, this skipping over of Samaria in particular causes three problems for the movement (or church):

• It becomes all too easy for those of us from the majority culture to “miss” ethnic minorities. We get so focused on reaching the world that we fail to see people of different ethnicities living right around us.  As Orlando Costas has said, “It is easier to love our furthest neighbor than our nearest neighbor.” (quoted by @destinokristy) We unintentionally continue the cycle of jumping (or flying) over Samaria to go reach the world.
• The majority culture movement or church misses the opportunity to grow in loving people cross-culturally. It is no accident that the early church was forced to respond to the controversy of the Hellenistic (read: ethnic minority) widows not being cared for before they took the gospel to the world. Until they had learned to care for their nearest cross-cultural neighbor they weren’t prepared for reaching their furthest cross-cultural neighbor. We are so focused on getting to the world that we miss a fantastic opportunity to steward our power well and become better ministers.
• As mentioned in “FROM“, by jumping over Samaria we fail to empower ethnic minorities to participate in the Great Commission. If continued for a long period of time our mission movement can become mono-ethnic and not represent God’s true desire for the Church.

A Biblical and Strategic Order to the Four Aims

For the most part, for 200 years we’ve followed our default order to the Four Aims. If we want to fix the problems above we need to be intentional about changing the sequence. We always need to allow freedom for God to move in any order He sees fit, but I believe there are strategic and Biblical reasons for pursuing a specific order to the Four Aims.

What if instead of jumping over Samaria our movements went through it to get to the world? 

Going THROUGH Samaria to the Ends of the Earth, instead of jumping over it.

The early Church grew a variety of ways, but the main paradigm follows Acts 1:8. The gospel flourished in Jerusalem and started to expand to Judea and Samaria. As the Church grew it faced its first cross-cultural conflict in Acts 6. Bi-cultural deacons were chosen to address the issue and quickly became leaders in the Church (Stephen, a bi-cultural Jew was tried and condemned to death in the Synagogue of the Freemen, a synagogue for bi-cultural Jews).

While Peter was having trouble accepting that the gospel was for Gentiles in Acts 10, bi-cultural Jews like Barnabas (a Levite from Cyprus) and Saul/Paul (a Jew from Tarsus) were easily crossing cultures to share the good news of Jesus with non-Jews. In fact, the moment where the Christian movement made the biggest jump from Jewish culture to Gentile culture was in Antioch in Acts 11:19-26. Jews had only been sharing the gospel with Jews. It took bi-cultural Jews from Cyprus and Cyrene (modern day Libya) to share with Gentiles. It makes sense, these bi-cultural believers had grown up in two cultures so it was second nature for them to interact in both. (For more on this, read Bridge People – The Role of Biculturals in World Evangelization.)

Going to the world through Samaria can do the following for our movements:

• Helps them learn early on how to cross cultures and steward our power well among people of different ethnicities. They learn valuable skills and have our heart attitudes changed as we see, value, and platform ethnic minorities.
• Increases the effectiveness of ministers as they go internationally. They’re able to take the skills they’ve learned at crossing cultures and apply them when visiting an international location.
• They’re able to involve ethnic minorities in the Great Commission. Instead of missing them as the movement jumps from Jerusalem to the Ends of the Earth,  we now involve them in taking the Gospel to the world. Because of their bi-cultural identity they serve as Bridge people between the initial context and the world. This follows the model of how the church expanded in Acts, as “The Way” was led by bi-cultural Jews like Paul and Barnabas.

What This Means for Destino

In Destino we haven’t always lived out this strategic sequence to the Four Aims. After starting a Destino movement on our local campus the next thing we did was establish an international partnership. Only after spending time in the book of Acts did we realize we had made the same mistake of skipping over our Samaria.

We’ve since gone back and are now address all of the Four Aims. We’re helping launch Destino movements on 3 nearby campuses. We’re also going to our Samaria, launching Cru at a smaller school about an hour away. These experiences have grown our Destino movement in our initial context and better prepared our students and staff to go to the world.

While we may not make it a hard and fast rule nationally, our desire is for each of our Destino movements to choose a cross-cultural movement to launch before choosing an international partnership location. We believe that having Destino students and staff learn to launch Cru, Bridges, Epic, Impact, or Nations movements will better prepare them to go to the world.

Conclusion

If God is calling your movement to form an international partnership before going to your Samaria, by all means, follow His leading. By suggesting this strategic model we don’t want to say it is the only way (the title of this post was chosen specifically to show what one Biblical order could be). But we do want to stress that choosing to launch an ethnic minority movement locally before forming an international partnership makes enormous sense strategically and has significant Biblical precedent. Regardless of the order God takes you, we pray that all of our movements will take initiative and be successful in reaching all of the Four Aims in the power of the Holy Spirit.

• Evangelistically. Lent is a great time to be sharing your faith on campus. For Hispanic and Latino students this is often one of the most spiritual times of the year, even if they don’t attend church. Students who rarely go to mass will give up something for Lent, even if it is something (seemingly) trivial. You don’t want to miss this chance to be sharing the gospel with as many students as possible.
  

  Lent outreach at Texas A&M. "What are you giving up for Lent?"

  Last year on our campus a group of students decided to do a special outreach for Ash Wednesday. They created a “Giant Board of Lent” that they painted and brought on campus. They passed out sharpies and asked people to write down what they were giving up for Lent. More than 150 students stopped by to write on the board. The students were able to have great spiritual conversations. They had each student who signed the board fill out a survey about people’s spiritual interest and how Destino might help them grow spiritually during Lent. We then followed up the surveys in the following weeks.

• Interdenominationally. Lent is most often celebrated within the Catholic church, but some Protestant churches participate as well. This provides a unique opportunity for your movement to learn more about the different denominations that are represented. Last year we had Catholic students share with the entire movement about why they celebrated Lent and what it meant to them. It was a meaningful time for non-Catholic students to learn more about the faith of their friends. (One year we even took Protestant students to an Ash Wednesday mass).
• Spiritually. Lent is an inherently spiritual time. It is a season to focus on your walk with God. It can also be a great experiential way to teach your students about fasting and spiritual disciplines. Latinos are communal and Lent provides a way to fast communally. You can deepen the faith of your students through some of the various rituals associated with Lent.
  

  How one campus used Lent to grow their students spiritually.

  Last year Destino at Long Beach invited a pastor to come to their weekly meeting and share some of the reasons why we do the things we do for Lent. It’s a great opportunity to take something students are already familiar with and infuse it with more meaning than they may currently know.

• Advocacy. World Vision and Intervarsity are using Lent to help students examine what it means to live a life that matters. Through their campaign, ReLentless Acts of Sacrifice, they are calling students to see how God might use them to be advocates for the marginalized and for the poor around the world. Each of the 6 weeks of Lent has a different theme for your movement to live out in community. I highly recommend watching this video and checking out their website, this could be an incredible to grow your movement in the area of identity, sacrifice, and advocacy.

However God leads you to use Lent this year, don’t miss the incredible opportunity He has provided for you. Your students are already thinking about Lent. Their families are thinking about it. Take what’s already happening and infuse it with even greater significance. Let Lent propel your students and your movement to places you’ve never been before.

How are you planning to use Lent in your movement?

Two hundred years ago this week the first North American Protestant missionaries left the United States and were sent to the world.Their courageous example paved the way for the last two centuries of American involvement in the Great Commission. Remembering this anniversary allows us to celebrate how far we’ve come, but also honestly assess how far we have yet to go.

Mission TO: The Three Eras

The history of North American Protestant missions has been told via the structure of three eras: to the Coastlands, to the Interior, and to Unreached Peoples. Ralph Winter’s article from the Perspectives course, “Four Men, Three Eras, Two Transitions: Modern Missions“, is a great introduction. This is a common way to understand the last 200+ years of Western Protestant Missions. (I choose these modifiers purposefully. Missions has been occurring since Christ, including by Catholics, the Orthodox Church, and others. Another post for another time.)

An overview of the three eras of protestant missions from Ralph Winter's article in the Perspectives course.

Reading the history of great men of faith such as William Carey, Hudson Taylor, Cameron Townsend, and Donald McGavran reveals their desire that no person be without a chance to hear the gospel. For Carey it was the non-European world, for Taylor the millions who did not live on the coast, for Townsend and McGavran it was people who were socially and linguistically isolated from the gospel even though not geographically. Their example of continually pushing the church forward to new fields should be celebrated and emulated.

As you can see, the structure of the “Three Eras” fundamentally views missions from the perspective of the recipients. Who are we going TO? TO the coastlands? TO the interiors? TO unreached peoples? While this “TO” paradigm is helpful, I think it blinds us to some of the changes needed to see the fulfillment of the Great Commission in our generation.

Mission FROM: A New Paradigm

For all our focus on who we are going TO, we’ve all but ignored a question just as important, “Who is the gospel coming FROM?”. In our desire to go to the world we have created a movement that fails to help all Americans be a part. Many have been left out.

Did you know that African Americans make up ~12% of the U.S. population, but less than 1% of the American missionary force to the world? #fb

— Tiffany Robbins (@TiffRobb) October 11, 2010

While our passion to get the gospel message within reach of all peoples is to be commended, we’ve made a critical mistake. We’ve setup systems and structures to recruit and mobilize primarily only from the Caucasian community in the United States. Think about it, when you see a missions magazine or promotional materials from an agency, what ethnicity are the missionaries in the pictures? Rarely are they non-White. Look at the websites of various organizations, what ethnicity are their presidents or board of directors? (Of course God desires to use Caucasians in ministry, don’t misunderstand. I’m simply pointing out that there are few ethnic minorities involved in missions domestically or internationally. Far too few.)

I can count all the American Hispanic missionaries serving on the field for more than a decade on just two hands. — a presenter at a recent COMHINA conference

What does this say about us as a North Atlantic missions movement, that in order to participate globally in the Great Commission you have to be part of the ethnic majority? What does this say to the people we travel overseas to reach? If the medium is the message, what are we communicating?

How much more powerful would our message be if all types of people were involved in sharing it? Imagine Hispanic teams, Asian-American teams, and African-American teams serving all around the globe bringing light to a dark world. Imagine multiethnic teams ministering in a world that is increasingly globalized. This is the gospel. (These types of teams do occur now, but far too rarely.) This is a paradigm we need to think of when we look back at the history of missions.

Achieving this vision will take enormous amounts of hard work. For 200 years we’ve put systems in place that send mainly majority culture missionaries to the world. These systems need to be adapted. We’ve got to rethink everything from the ground up. Some things we’ll keep, others will have to be reinvented.

We’ll have to take an honest look at our application processes, our support raising strategies, our recruitment tactics. How we do team care and conflict resolution will need to change. These have all been built to mobilize majority culture missionaries, but for the most part they’ve missed everyone else. Ethnic minorities have rarely been platformed and empowered in American missions. We’ve left out those people closest to us as we’ve tried to care for others around the world. If we’re truly serious about a including a new mission model of FROM, how we care for our nearest neighbor becomes just as important as getting the gospel to our farthest neighbor (quote from @destinokristy by Orlando Costas).

Mission FROM Everyone TO Everywhere: Creating a New Era Together

We don’t have to replace the old model of “Missions TO”. It has served us well as we think about how to get the gospel to everyone. But we do need to add to it. Mission must now be thought of in terms of both TO and FROM. This is what theologian Samuel Escobar has called, “The New Global Mission: The Gospel from Everywhere to Everyone“.

We’ve begun to understand this concept at a global level. Koreans are active around the world. The Chinese church has a vision to take the gospel back to Jerusalem. While we’ve comprehended the idea that every nation has a role to play in missions, we’ve missed helping every ethnic group in America take part. Reaching every people group is not enough. We must send every ethnos.

A New Missions Paradigm: FROM and TO

I want to be a part of a new era of American missions. One that empowers all people to be a part of the Great Commission. One that develops systems and structures that serve everyone: men and women, members of the majority and minority culture, young and old. An era that lives out the truth of the gospel: the coming of Jesus Christ is good news for all peoples, from all peoples.

This vision motivates me to be a part of sending waves of Latino missionaries all over the world. I want to see them lead the way in some of the most difficult places on earth. The gospel hasn’t come to complete fruition until this happens.

Will you join with me in creating this new era of American missions? It is going to be hard work. For 200 years it hasn’t been done. But that’s exactly the place that I want to be. There’s the tension of excitement and disappointment, joy and frustration, future hope and current reality when ministering on the cutting edge. But most of all there is faith, because without it the good news won’t go forward. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

photo courtesy: walkingsf

Do you trust the students in your movement? As a staff person or a student leader, do you really believe in the students involved? If you’re anything like me, you’re probably subtly holding them back from accomplishing something truly spectacular.

If you had asked me this question during my first few years in ministry I would have answered, “Of course I trust the students to lead and grow the movement!” But my actions weren’t living that out. I led the Bible studies. I shared my faith, I led the ministry. I rarely empowered others to step up and lead themselves. I liked being the one in charge, and I didn’t trust the guys I was working with to be mature enough to lead the Bible study or share their faith on their own. (There’s a lot of “I’s” in that paragraph!)

Roland Allen, in his book Spontaneous Expansion of the Church and Causes Which Hinder It, describes how this attitude limits the growth of the ministry:

The conviction that new converts can beget new converts leads them from strength to strength: the conviction that they will fall if they are not nursed leads them from weakness to weakness. The difference lies not in the nature or in the environment of the converts; but in the faith of the missionaries. (kindle location 570, emphasis added)

In essence Allen is saying that the ability of the students who get involved with us to become leaders is in some measure dependent on our faith in them. If we think that a new believer can learn to share their faith immediately and pass it on, we instill value in them. If we think they needed to be slowly trained for a long period of time before trusting them with the gospel, then we suck the life of spontaneous expansion out of them. Same student, different results. All the result of our faith (or lack thereof) as leaders.

Our History of Trusting Students

A few years ago Steve Douglass, president of CCCI (of which Destino is a part), was asked to describe the best years of our organization’s history. His answer included the following descriptions:

• Quick Turn Around: After someone trusted Christ they were out sharing the next day. You could become a new believer and be teaching basic lessons in less than three weeks.
• Student Ownership: “I owned it – and so did my roomates. Not that we did it perfectly, but we deeply owned it and were allowed to run.”

It’s not an accident that these were two of the descriptions that Steve gave that day. When we trust students enough to let them share the gospel the next day or be leading basic lessons in just a few weeks, of course they’ll take ownership. They’ll feel believed in. They’ll be inspired. And they just might take over their campus.

What can you do today to start trusting your students more with the ministry?

• Do you need to train them to share their faith from the very beginning of their walk with God?
• Do you need to stop speaking at your weekly meetings and start letting students lead?
• Do you need to get to know more of the students involved so you can find out what they are good at and set them loose to do it?
• What idea do they have that you need to champion?

photo courtesy: mikebaird

Our desire to protect new believers and our ministries from falling is the very thing that keeps them from growing. In his book, Spontaneous Expansion of the Church, Roland Allen writes:

It is said that when God announced to the Angels His purpose to create man in His own image Lucifer, who was not yet fallen from heaven, cried, “Surely He will not give them the power to disobey Him.” And the Son answered him “Power to fall is power to rise.” Lucifer knew neither power to rise, nor power to fall, but that word, “power to fall” sunk deep into his heart, and he began to desire to know that power, and he plotted from that day forward the fall of man. He fell himself, and he taught man to know his power and to use his power to fall.

When in the fullness of time he saw the Redemption wrought by Christ, he began dimly to understand that power to fall is power to rise; but he understood it crookedly. Hence, as Christ’s disciples began to multiply, and his own kingdom to be mini shed, his mind turned instinctively again to this power to fall. If he could check, or hinder, the power to fall, he might also, he thought, check the power to rise. He began by trying to induce the Apostles to bind all the Gentile converts within the hedge of the Mosaic La, and he was foiled by the boldness of the faith of the great Apostle of the Gentiles.

But ever since he has sought to attain his end, striving to induce the servants of Christ to deprive new converts of the power to fall, by hedging them round with laws of one kind or another, in the hope that so he might deprive them of the power to rise: and men, knowing the terrors of falling, and dreading the power to fall for new converts, are only too ready to listen to him; for he plays upon their fears. (emphasis added, kindle location 274)

Any attempt to control new believers or young ministries, even if it seems for their benefit, hinders their future ability for growth. The Judaizers in the book of Acts thought they were helping the growing church by insisting they follow the Law. After all, is anything wrong with the Law? But had they succeeded they would have severely hampered the growth of Christianity.

Control is always bad, even when done to prevent people from making mistakes. It doesn’t allow people to grow to full maturity. It removes the possibility of spontaneous expansion. Control and freedom cannot coexist. Because spontaneous expansion needs freedom, control can play no part.

If we are not to try to control new converts or ministries, then what is to prevent them from falling? This is the central question, and in the answer lies a crucial distinction:

Given spontaneous zeal we can direct it by instruction. Aquila [and Priscilla] could teach Apollos the way of God more perfectly. But teaching is not control. Teaching can be refused; control cannot be refused, if it is control; teaching leads to enlargements, control to restriction. (kindle location 197)

As movement launchers and leaders our job is to come alongside people who are zealous in their faith. We can teach and direct them to become more like Christ. But we must do so without controlling them with our rules, our standards, our limitations.

This was a hard lesson for me to learn as our Destino movement was growing. It was easier at the beginning to just control things. That provided security for the moment. It helped keep our movement from being messy. In reality I was working against what I really desired: students aflame with a passion to share Christ with everyone they knew. My desire to avoid messiness insured that I’d never get a movement. I had to learn that power to fall is power to rise.

Discussion Questions: (respond in the comments below)

• How have you seen yourself try to control your movement?
• In your mind, what is the scariest part of giving up control over your movement?
• Do you think it could really work to step back and teach new believers without trying to control them? What would be the positives? What could go wrong?

photo courtesy: JerOmm

” The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Luke 4:18-19

Libertad. I remember talking as a conference team last Spring about these verses being the focal point of our time together.  When we all talked about our different movements around the country, there was a common need for students to experience real freedom from areas of sin that had them stuck in their relationship with God and with one another.  We really believed this was the moment we were in as a movement and what we wanted to drive at during the conference.

After months of planning, it was so gratifying to be at our Destino Winter Conference last month and see that vision lived out in the few days we were together. Several highlights for me were connected to some of the things I heard non-Destino staff express that they were learning and experiencing from their time with us. I wanted to share some of what they were picking up that weekend because I think it captures well who we are and what we value.  I loved that they intuitively sensed these things rather than anyone explicitly stating them.  I think thats how culture and identity is ultimately formed- it is felt and experienced.

1. There is a strong use of story and vulnerability in Destino. Novelas are popular in the Latino community for a reason. We love learning through story. Every speaker and many of our seminars connected and weaved their own personal stories into their talks. We heard student testimonies of God liberating them from addictions, wounds, and hidden sins. Our keynote speaker, Dr. Adam Saenz, shared openly and honestly about his life, and invited our students to do the same in genuine community.Vulnerability and story really permeated every part of our time together.We often talk in Destino about how we want to be a place that reflects “redemptive familia”. Familia is already embedded in the Latino identity, but the redemptive part represents how the Gospel shapes that very identity.  I saw and others saw how our conference reflected that theme.
2. Destino focuses on the whole person in discipleship. Because the spiritual life isn’t disconnected from the rest of life, we don’t disconnect them in our discipleship either.  Our conference displayed this holistic approach and it was encouraging to hear non-efm staff express how much that mattered to them. We talked with students about things like finances, academics, ethnic identity, and morality. All of these are intimately connected to our relationship with God and our overall maturity in the Christian life. Destino is a movement that addresses the whole person.
3. Space for the movement of the Spirit is more important than a schedule. This is one of the things that I’ve most noticed causes major stress in non-Latino staff. There is more flexibility in the schedule at our venues than what most Cru staff are used to experiencing. Many of our meetings this conference started late and ended late, testimonies went long, speakers went over in their time, and worship went until the students felt like being done. Nothing was rushed or forced. The best word to describe this was, “space”. There was space for whatever the Sprit was doing in any given moment.  This value is part of what I love most about who we are as a group of believers. We love to listen to the Spirit and move with him. It can cause anxiety in people that value tightness in a conference, but it is something many come to appreciate and enjoy over time.
4. Destino is a safe place for the marginalized. We are always very clear with people that we are a movement that advocates for the marginalized. For our community this includes the undocumented students in our midst. At the conference we had students openly sharing that they were “DREAMers” (undocumented students that would benefit from the dream act bill).  Many of the students we had on stage leading were undocumented as well. God is using these students in significant ways in our movements and we have worked hard at creating an environement that communicates to them that they are wanted. While the rest of society villainizes them and calls them “illegal”, we in Destino call them family and stand with them as our own. One of our speakers, Father Virgilio Elizondo, described the way US society treats the undocumented as,  ”A crime whose cry goes straight to the heavens.” No one could have attended the conference and missed out on this very important Destino value. It is an integral part of our identity.

Overall, I really felt like our students walked away from their time with us having experienced true freedom (Libertad) in Christ. I’m also so thankful for what that time revealed to others about who we are and how God is at work in us and through us in Destino. Two students recently blogged about their experience at the conference too. I encourage you to read their stories and celebrate with us what God is doing in the Latino community:

Destino Winter Conference Highlights by @danielbecerra

My Story: Destino Winter Conference 2012 by aliceivette

May we continue to invite people into this beautiful familia.

In his book, Spontaneous Expansion of the Church and the Causes Which Hinder It, Roland Allen states:

They [St. Peter, St. John, and the apostolic writers] do not seem to feel any necessity to repeat the great Commission, and to urge that it is the duty of their converts to make disciples of all the nations. What we read in the New Testament is no anxious appeal to Christians to spread the Gospel, but a note here and there which suggests how the Gospel was being spread abroad: ‘the Churches were established in the Faith, and increased in number daily,’ ‘in every place your faith to Godward is spread abroad so that we need not speak anything’; or as a result of persecution: ‘that they were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the Word.’  (Kindle Location 95)

Allen points out that it doesn’t seem that anyone had to remind the early believers to share the gospel. They simply spoke the good news of Jesus everywhere they went. It was as if a part of the DNA of the gospel was that it spread uncontrollably.

The early church saw growth rates that were incredible. In less than 300 years “The Way” went from 120 people in an upper room to the official religion of the Roman Empire. And yet during that time, at least in their writings, it seems the believers felt little need to emphasize the Great Commission over and over.

While Christianity is still growing today, we’re not seeing it expand at anywhere near this pace. But you won’t be at any of our missions conferences long before you hear someone mention the Great Commission.

This brings us to the crucial question: How did the early church expand so much faster than Christianity does today while (seemingly) emphasizing the Great Commission so much less?

For Roland Allen, the answer to why Spontaneous Expansion rarely happens today lies with us, and with our sin:

I set out the difficulties which hinder us from giving place to [spontaneous expansion], the terrible fears which beset us, fears for our doctrine, our moral standards, our ideas of civilized Christianity, our organization. In doing this I argue that such fears are real and natural but wicked, that the standards we so highly prize are not our Gospel, and the attempt to maintain them by our control is a false method. Spontaneous Expansion must be free: it cannot be under our control….” (Kindle Location 78, emphasis added)

Ultimately, if we are honest with ourselves, we are afraid of spontaneous expansion. We are afraid that if we let the gospel run unchecked among our students or in our communities that heresy might creep in. We think, “They’ve only been a believer for 6 months, they shouldn’t lead a Bible study yet. What if they start teaching something wrong?” We worry that converts might not live up to our moral standards. People might even start to live the Christian life in ways that we disagree with.

So because of our fears we seek to control the situation. It is a normal and natural response, but it is wicked. Our fear of the uncontrollable growth of our movements causes us to subtly put safeguards in place. It is these safeguards and rules that prevent our movements from growing. And it is these safeguards that finally require us to go back to the Great Commission over and over again. Our movements lack the freedom to expand spontaneously, we’ve taken that away from them with our list of rules. So we have to try to keep motivating them over and over with the Great Commission.

Obviously I’m not saying there is anything wrong with the Great Commission or with sharing it (Jesus gave it!). But I do think it is incredibly important to be ask ourselves why we emphasize it so much but see so little growth as a result. The problem lies not in the Great Commission but with us. We are fearful and controlling, and as a result limit what God wants to do through us.

Discussion Questions (respond in the comments):

As you read the first two chapters of the book, what stuck out to you? Do you agree or disagree with Roland Allen’s diagnosis of the current state of the church?

What would happen if we stopped trying to control our movements and instead starting empowering them? Is this really even the problem?

What if we as leaders stepped out in faith instead of fear? Would we need to emphasize the Great Commission as much? Or would it just happen now that we’ve gotten out of the way?