{"id":4842,"date":"2022-06-26T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-26T23:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=4842"},"modified":"2022-06-25T09:16:12","modified_gmt":"2022-06-25T15:16:12","slug":"reflections-on-movement-stoppers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=4842","title":{"rendered":"Reflections on movement stoppers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Yesterday, I turned David Shropshire’s comment on How to Stop a Movement<\/a> into its own blog: More Movement Stoppers<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today I just want to share examples from my own experience of David’s movement stoppers: leaders who don\u2019t want to decrease and potential laborers waiting for permission<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David wrote, “Leaders who don’t want to decrease,” who want to “accumulate a following of people…” It’s a long-time problem, and Jesus warned his future apostles to have no part in it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They love to sit at the head table at church dinners, basking in the most prominent positions, preening in the radiance of public flattery, receiving honorary degrees, and getting called “Doctor” and “Reverend.” Don’t let people do that to you, put you on a pedestal like that. You all have a single Teacher, and you are all classmates…” (Matthew 23.6 – 8, MSG)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A friend of mine, a trained and experienced disciple-maker, offered to help a pastor disciple the men in the church. The pastor was quick to respond, “If anyone teaches the men in this church it will be me!” I heard another pastor say in a sermon from John 21, “My job is to feed the sheep; your job is to serve the sheep by, for example, keeping the nursery on Sunday morning.” With pastors like this, it’s no wonder we have a hard time training and sending disciple-makers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other issue David points out is “…a lot of potential kingdom laborers who have the false impression they need a human\u2019s permission to labor in the harvest.” I’ve seen that too. Several of us were talking before a Spiritual Formation Team meeting in a large church while waiting for the associate pastor to show up and start the meeting. The lady had discovered a Bible study she really liked, and she intended to ask permission to gather some friends together and lead them through it. I said to her, “Who is going to stop you?! You don’t need permission!” I don’t know if she ever got “permission” and if she ever formed a group to help her friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Apostle Paul desired and expected church members to be on the frontlines with him – participants, not spectators!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel. (Philippians 1.27, ESV)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, I turned David Shropshire’s comment on How to Stop a Movement into its own blog: More Movement Stoppers. Today I just want to share examples from my own experience of David’s movement stoppers: leaders who don\u2019t want to decrease and potential laborers waiting for permission David wrote, “Leaders who don’t want to decrease,” who … Continue reading Reflections on movement stoppers<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8X9bo-1g6","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4842"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4844,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4842\/revisions\/4844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}