Under Luther Wishart of the YMCA the Student Volunteer Movement became a world wide movement for missions mobilization. Wishart was an unlikely founder: overweight, nearly blind, lacking the natural charisma of a leader. Regardless, he set off on a four year world tour determined to make college campuses the “strategic points in the world’s conquest.’” [...]
Category Archives: 2. Growth
Accounting for the rise of the SVM
10 December, 2009 – 7:01 PM
The Student Volunteer Movement was the greatest student missionary movement in the history of the church. What accounts for the success of its early years? 1. A passionate and practical faith The SVM was served by a lean and effective low cost organization with a minimum of paid staff. The real driving force was the [...]
The spreading fires of early Pentecostalism
19 March, 2008 – 10:27 AM
Allan Anderson has a new book out: Spreading Fires: The Missionary Nature of Early Pentecostalism. My copy is still on the way but I have read a summary article. Here are some highlights . . . According to Anderson, Pentecostalism is probably the fastest expanding religious movement ever. Here are five of the main features [...]
Pentecostal expansion: Reasons 4-7
26 April, 2006 – 6:26 AM
Allan Anderson provides four more reasons behind 100 years of Pentecostal advance: 4. Contextualization of Leadership The overwhelming majority of Pentecostal missionaries have been national people “sent by the Spirit,” often without formal training. In Pentecostal practice, the Holy Spirit is given to every believer without preconditions. One of the results of this was, as [...]
Pentecostal expansion: Reasons 1-3
25 April, 2006 – 6:25 AM
We’re in the month that celebrates 100 years since the Asuza Street revival that launched Pentecostalism as a movement. Towards a Pentecostal Missiology for the Majority World by Allan Anderson does a great job of unpacking what it is about Pentecostalism that makes it such a dynamic Christian movement. Perhaps the 20th Century’s most successful [...]
5 historical case studies
6 March, 2006 – 9:20 PM
Missionary and church planting movements that have made, and are making, history. Read the case studies. Distill the learning. Follow their example. Change the world. Or at least make a mess. “How the Irish Saved Civilization (Hinges of History)” (Thomas Cahill) “Wesley and the People Called Methodists” (Richard P. Heitzenrater) “A Cambridge movement” (John Charles [...]
Download: How the West was Won
25 January, 2006 – 6:23 PM
The latest addition to the WorldChanger’s Library: How the West was won: Methodists and Baptists on the American Frontier. Plenty of lessons for students of church planting movements. Happy Australia Day! Forecast: 40ºC (105ºF) in Melbourne. Australia v Sri Lanka in the cricket. Australian Open Tennis finals. I’ll be cranking up the aircon and staying [...]
How the (wild) west was won
24 January, 2006 – 6:15 AM
In 1771 there were just 300 Methodists in the American colonies led by four ministers. By the time of Francis Asbury’s death in 1816, Methodism could claim 2,000 ministers and over 200,000 members in a well-coordinated movement. This is the second in a series of case studies through the movement lifecycle. The first was on [...]
More on “How was it done?”
4 July, 2005 – 9:49 AM
Here’s just three of the reasons for the expansion of the early church. 1. The Legacy of Judaism The Judaism of the Hellenistic world was an evangelising faith. At the dawn of the Christian era there were significant Jewish communities to the east of the Roman Empire in Armenia, Iraq, Iran and Arabia and throughout [...]
How was it done?
2 July, 2005 – 8:20 PM
I’ve been neglecting my blog. Had a great but demanding week. First of all our CRM leadership conference. Then the Forge Summit. Ready for some down time chipping away at a dry stone wall I’m building in our backyard. At the Forge Summit, Ruth Powell from the Australian National Church Life Survey updated us on [...]
