The Movement Strategy of Jesus in the Early Church

AUTHOR
Peter Roennfeldt

SYNOPSIS
Jesus cultivated a movement of disciple making which continued beyond His ascension to heaven. The five phases of His movement building were replicated by the New Testament church, and these undergird SHIFTm2M equipping and practice today.

SHIFTm2M is a process by which Christian leaders walk through the span of Jesus’ life to learn from His movement building and to apply the principles to their lives—to intentionally shift from doing ministry to cultivating movements. The purpose of this overview of the book of Acts is to explore how the early apostolic church cultivated the movement building of Jesus.

Jesus came to save—and to show how to make disciples. Fully God, Jesus became fully human—and through Him, the incarnation of God, both the gospel of the kingdom (the message) and the process of movement building (the method) are revealed. He equipped disciples and then commissioned them to make others.

On the evening of Resurrection Sunday Jesus met His disciples and said: “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (John 20:21, cf. 17:18). And His final commission could be paraphrased as: “My disciples, I have equipped you—so now go and make other disciples from all relational streams. Disciples make disciples!” (Matthew 28:19).

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