Gospel Movement

Book Review – A Disruptive Gospel by Mac Pier

Mark Peterkins Book Review, Gospel Movement, Leadership 1 Comment

Last fall, a number of Ottawa leaders attended the Movement Day Conference in NYC.  It was an excellent time bringing together over 3,000 international leaders.  As part of the welcome package, each participant received the book A Disruptive Gospel: Stories and Strategies for Transforming your City by Mac Pier.

This book fired my imagination for what can happen in a city.  The recent history in NYC is an example.  The book cites Tony Carnes’ research that indicates the percentage of the population in Manhattan who worship in an evangelical church has jumped from less than 1% to more than 5% in 25 years.  Pier credits a number of things for this. His big idea is:  As leaders are increasingly present to one another, God is increasingly present to the city.  He goes on to credit united prayer, effective preaching and grace to enhance the planting and growth of churches.  He notes there also has been significant effort in developing millennial leaders to ensure the future of the movement in NYC.

The book looks at movements in a number of other cities and countries from around the world.  These include Dallas, Manila, Mumbia, Chennai, Dubai, Singapore, Port-au-Prince, Pretoria, Kigali and the United Kingdom.

I was particularly struck by the discovery in the United Kingdom that there are at least 116 unity movements.  These movements are found all across the UK in nearly every major city and town. All of them birthed for mission and transformation.

Here are some of the elements that Pier suggests for a healthy city movement:

  • Everyone involved – the movement does better when it includes the majority of church leaders, Christian organizations and key Christian leaders in the cultural spheres.
  • Friendship and prayer – a healthy movement sees both of these as growing and important.
  • Mission – the city leadership must share a regular joint mission with special focus on the most vulnerable.
  • Transformational vision – people must have a vision to see their city significantly transformed culturally, socially and spiritually over the next thirty years.
  • Partnership approach – the leaders must be willing to link significantly with public, private and third sector partners.
  • Spheres focus – church leaders should enable, train, and release church members to be whole life disciples in their spheres of life and influence.

As I was reading the book I was evaluating where we are at in Ottawa.  I think we are doing well in terms of relationships and friendships. Where I think we can grow is the following:

  • I am looking for more leadership buy-in across the city.  Leaders who catch this vision and are willing to partner.  I’m encouraged to see how much buy in we have and how many leaders are now working together, but we need more.
  • More passionate, bold  and strategic prayer.  I long for God to visit and disrupt our city and for our leaders to be praying more together.
  • Creative ways to engage our younger leaders to release them into starting Kingdom focused businesses, social enterprises and churches.

If you want to get stirred up about Gospel City Movements and need some ideas on how to move that forward, pick up this book.  I recommend it.

City Gospel Movement

Mark Peterkins Gospel Movement, Leadership 1 Comment

As some might know, I give leadership to an organization called One Way Ministries.  Last October I had a chance to attend a conference called Movement Day in New York City.   The conference brings together leaders from around the world who have a passion and vision to reach their cities.  City Reaching (as we’ve called it in the past) has been our passion.  I’ve noticed that people are begining to use a new name, “City Gospel Movement”.

Tim Keller (Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church) has long been involved in City Gospel Movements and his church and ministry are the organizers of Movement Day.  Tim Keller’s definition of a City Gospel Movement is, “Christians and Churches coming together across racial and denominational lines in a city unified by (a) the gospel and (b) a vision to reach that city.  Which means to see the urban body of Christ grow in quality and quantity faster than the population.  That the salt and light of Christian love and truth will influence the life of that city, renewing it, improving it socially, influencing it culturally and lifting Jesus’s name so that it’s increasingly respected and honoured in that city.”

So much can be unpacked from this, but one of the things I’ve been thinking about and praying into for years is the idea of knowing the condition of the body of Christ in Ottawa.  People often ask me, “How is the church in Ottawa doing?”  My answer is, “I don’t know.”  I might be able to tell you how some individual churches are growing or seem more healthy, but overall I don’t know.

At this conference, it was reported that the evangelical churches of NYC had grown by 500% over the last 25 years.  This statistic is amazing and encouraging given all we hear about how the church is declining in North America – including Canada.  But what’s got me thinking is that someone must have collected that data in order to report how the church is doing more broadly in NYC.

So how is the church doing in Ottawa?  My prayer and desire is to see us find a way to gather that data.  We need this.  What is the level of spirituality in our city?  Are our churches growing or declining?  Are we losing our youth?  Are we planting more churches than are closing that are sustaining and reaching people for Christ?

Would you pray with me for a team who would catch this and the funding to make it happen?