We’ve all heard of the six degrees of separation. We’re all just six handshakes away from everyone on the planet. Nicholas Christakis talks about the three degrees of influence—our behaviors have impact on our friends, our friends’ friends, and our friends’ friends’ friends. It’s technical at times but you’ll get the idea—the powerful influence of [...]
Category Archives: 3. Contagious relationships
Interview with Jay (4)
19 January, 2010 – 1:17 PM
Jay: So we have white-hot faith, commitment to a cause and I think your third characteristic of dynamic movements is contagious relationships? Steve: Contagious relationships reminds us that we are all half a dozen handshakes away from everyone on the planet. We can see this in Jesus’ ministry; he is recruiting disciples who bring their [...]
Nothing else comes close
15 December, 2009 – 8:46 AM
Until Jesus returns, this will remain the most important form of communicating the gospel. Two conditions: (1) the person doing the communicating is a new believer, and (2) a friend or relative.
Good to great church planting
7 August, 2008 – 12:14 AM
In a recent article Dietrich Schindler contrasts “Good” church planting from “Great” church planting. His thoughts on “Generational Distance” got my attention. My wife’s grandparents were married for more than seventy-five years when they died. Grandpa was 105 and Grandma was 97. They left behind over 150 progeny. In their lifetime, they saw themselves forwarded [...]
How they did it
30 December, 2006 – 10:34 PM
In the first century, if you had a church in your neighbourhood chances are: You lived in a port city. You lived in a port city that was Greek in language and culture. You lived in a port city that was Greek in language and culture and had a Jewish community. Q. Why a port [...]
Cities of God
29 November, 2006 – 5:56 PM
Plunged into Cities of God by Rodney Stark this morning. Three insights on church planting movements from first chapter: 1. No mission without monotheism The Jews were the world’s first missionaries because Judaism was monotheistic. Paganism doesn’t produce missionary movements. Within a polytheistic framework, new gods are supplements not alternatives. The Jews of the Diaspora [...]
Word of mouth
14 November, 2006 – 6:56 PM
Church planting movements spread through contagious relationships. So here’s a book every church planter and movement leader should take a look at: “Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking” (Andy Sernovitz) Sernovitz’s definition of WOMM: “Giving people a reason to talk about your stuff *and* making it easier for that conversation to [...]
How movements spread
4 October, 2006 – 3:56 AM
Jesus knhow important relationships are in the spread of a movement. From the beginning, the movement he founded grew through the favourable reports that spread from family member to family member, from neighbour to neighbour, from workmate to workmate. Jesus recruited his band of disciples through relational networks. John the Baptist, a relative of Jesus, [...]
Planting churches for different people II
23 May, 2006 – 4:20 AM
Charles Chaney has identified four groups within each ethnic or social subculture. Here they are again. Nuclear: those explicitly and self-consciously concerned about subculture identity. Fellow traveler: those to whom the subculture is a relatively important part of self-conscious identification; Marginal: those who occasionally think of themselves as belonging to the subculture; and Assimilated: those [...]
Planting churches for different people
22 May, 2006 – 11:18 AM
Back in the mid 70s our youth ministry reached out to Cambodian refugees. After twelve months we discovered no matter how much we reached out, loved and served them, they never really felt a part of us. As soon as a Cambodian church was set up in the area it thrived. Why? When we were [...]
