Keep calm and keep moving // our shape in detail #1

Succession, transition, multiplication… What’s going on here?

Church history shows the many strategies adopted by church movement pioneers as they look to transition from the first generation of leadership to the next. Some appoint a leadership successor or hand leadership over to a team convened for the purpose; some form a new denomination, while some simply keep going without any strategic consideration for the future.

“Such radical, intentional decentralisation is uncommon and very bold, and some might consider perilous to the future of any movement”

So often such movements can find that the catalytic impetus of spiritual entrepreneurship that launched the movement into being, dissipates with the successive generations as the pressure mounts to organise and manage the complexities of a growing operation. No-one wants their dynamic and agile movement to slide into moribund maintenance of past glories, yet time and again we can see how this has happened in generations past and even in generations present.

Newfrontiers: to be continued…

In July 2011 Newfrontiers - then a network of some 800 evangelical, charismatic churches in 50 or so different nations - held what was to be its last leadership conference. At that conference Terry Virgo, who had pioneered and led the movement to that point, commissioned those that he recognised as apostles to begin to form their own networks of churches.

“This discussion is far more important than simply movement succession for Newfrontiers - it is also indicative of a growing trend in embracing the apostle and the prophet as legitimate ministries for the contemporary church.”

He effectively multiplied the one apostolic network led by him, to multiple apostolic networks of churches led by men now recognised as apostles in their own right. These networks were to be autonomous, yet somehow remain collaborative and interdependent. Such radical, intentional decentralisation is uncommon and very bold, and some might consider perilous to the future of any movement.

Now, some 10 years later, this second generation of apostolic networks is approaching its own questions of future transition. When Terry Virgo and his generation of apostolic leaders considered this question it was towards the end of the first life cycle of the movement. For the second generation they knew the end from the beginning - they were already aware that multiplication is the end game. How will this second generation of network and movement leaders navigate this next transition to the third life cycle of the movement?

In July 2011, Terry Virgo recognised and commissioned a second generation of new apostles to gather and lead their own families of churches

Going forward: communicating our shape

In this series of blog posts I am hoping to unpack something of the dynamics of how a movement grows and multiplies with a very close eye to the principles and practices that we can trace in the New Testament.

This discussion is far more important than simply movement succession for Newfrontiers - it is also indicative of a growing trend in embracing the apostle and the prophet as legitimate ministries for the contemporary church. Once a marginalised and highly contentious doctrine, the belief that charismatic apostles and prophets are the provision of the ascended Christ for the blessing of the Bride of Christ today is gaining worldwide traction, and carries with it implications that are broad and potentially very helpful for today’s church.

In a series of articles, Maurice Nightingale will detail the change of shape at Relational Mission, and how the journey we are on has lessons for movements across the wider Church. Find them all here.