To Be A Movement, Once More
Kelcy Allen Hahn
Editor, ICOC Info
Before we were the ICOC, we were a movement.
Movements in Christianity are essential. Convictions weaken, men fail, hot churches cool. But this happens gradually--so gradually that there is seldom a clear point at which one can say, "Here marks the turning point. What was once faithful is now unfaithful."
In just such environments, movements are born.
We ourselves began this way, the product of a fellowship of churches especially suited to giving birth to movements. The mainline Churches of Christ are without organizational structure above the congregational level, themselves the outgrowth of an earlier Restoration Movement that tried to shed 1,900 years of traditions the world of Christianity accumulated along the way since Jerusalem.
And it really was a movement, with all the fluidity and change that the label "movement" implied. Even the name kept changing. We were called, and identified ourselves as, the Campus Ministry Movement, the Multiplying Movement, the Total Commitment Movement, the Crossroads Movement, the Boston Movement, and the Discipling Movement.
It wasn't until the early 1990's that we became, officially, the "International Churches of Christ." Before that, we were simply a revival movement. Bigger than a single congregation, smaller than a capital-C "Church."
Movements are messier than capital-C Churches. Capital-C Churches have defined boundaries of fellowship and, ironically, often struggle to define just what they stand for, since the boundaries reflect history and inertia as much as common convictions and direction.
The exact dimensions of movements, on the other hand, are fluid and hard to pin down. But since a movement is defined by what it stands for, there's seldom any doubt about its direction.
And for years--decades, in fact--before we were the ICOC, we were a movement.
We were a revival movement. Our churches grew. They aggressively planted other churches. They took a concept of mentoring, accountability and training--neatly wrapped up in the still-fresh (in the late 1970's, at least) term discipling--from its traditional, limited application to young Christians and aspiring leaders, and extended it to every member of every one of its congregations.
It would be hard to say exactly which churches were a part of this movement in 1975. Or 1979. Or even 1985. The list--when anyone bothered to try to draw one up--was always changing. Even the list in the appendix of The Discipling Dilemma in 1988 was out of date by publication time.
That dynamic changed somewhere between 1988 and 1994. For at least the ten years after 1994, we were a captial-C Church, with a crystal-clear definition of exactly how many congregations could be counted among us, a governing structure, a headquarters in all but name, an official media and an official spokesperson. Though not necessarily its cause, it certainly coincided with a period of steady and precipitous decline in success at what had before defined the movement: the multiplication of disciples and churches on a mission.
Might we be a movement again? Movements need not overly concern themselves with their fellowship boundaries, with determining who is part of the invisible Church and who is not. They need only to move.
Could we be a movement that challenges Evangelicalism to rethink its traditional interpretation of what the Bible teaches about becoming a Christian?
A movement marked by an every-church-plants-more-churches passion?
A movement that inspires our theological cousins in the Churches of Christ to rethink the need for every-member discipling?
A movement that obsesses, with righteous obsession, about spreading Christianity among the thousands of people groups where Christianity--any stripe of evangelical Christianity--is still almost 100% unknown? To the 1,565,000 Digil-Rahawiin, the 8,916,000 Sanaani, the 1,310,000 Tai Tho, the 68,000 Ergong? Then the other tens of millions in almost completely unreached people groups?
Could we be a movement urgent to plant churches in Shenyang (pop. 4 million), Ankara (3.6 million). Kano (3 million), Hai Phong (2.6 million), and Dar es Salaam (2.6 million)--not because we believe there are no other Christians in these cities, but because we must move the mission forward, regardless of how much or little others are doing? Could we plant churches in the 2,500 cities--each of them home to over 100,000 souls--our movement has yet to reach?
We needn't be "The Movement of God." But being anything less than a powerful movement of God--anything static and slow--would betray our heritage.
Could we just be a movement--a church-planting, world-evangelizing, every-member-maturing movement with strong enough momentum to attract like-minded churches to our great cause--once more?
