Church Matters: Retrieving the Great Tradition

Session 6 Shared Spirituality and Church Plant Movements

You Can Only Go Forward by Stopping and Getting Things into Focus

The ultimate end for all Christians must be to glorify God. We glorify God when we reveal him in all of his fullness. Christians find the full ness of God in his Son and experience that fullness as his Son comes to dwell in our hearts and through our lives. In his grace, Christ con veys this same glory to all who invite him into their lives as Savior and Lord. For those who submit to his reign in their lives, Christ fills them with his glory, the very glory of God. This is why Paul could say with confidence, “Christ in you (is) the hope of glory.” This is why Jesus told his disciples, “This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit.”’ Mankind without Jesus Christ may bear God’s image, but not his glory. In Church Planting Movements, the glory of the Lord is spreading from person to person, people group to people group like a swelling river as it begins to spill out over its banks until it covers all the earth as the waters cover the sea. No other avenue so quickly and effectively multiplies the glory of God in the hearts of so many people. No other means has drawn so many new believers into ongoing communities of faith where they can continue to grow in Christlikeness. This is why Church Planting Movements are so very important. ~ David Garrison. Church Planting Movements: How God Is Redeeming a Lost World . Midlothian, VA: WIGTake Resources, 2004, p. 29.. I. Dynamic Church Planting Movements Express a Particular Tradition and/or Community Which Reproduces and Sustains Its Own Distinctive Shared Spirituality. Stunning growth of Christian commitment in China: from 1982, The World Christian Encyclopedia was accused of being overly optimistic when it gave the figure of 1.3 million Christians; just 18 years later, the second edition estimated the number to be nearly 90 million believers in Christ in China–the Chinese had an exponential growth rate of 7000%. ~ Garrison, Church Planting Movements , p. 52. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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