9| The Church on the Move

How God is Transforming Unlikely Places Today

This is the ninth and final part of the Boxed Wine & Bad Ideas series on how we killed a church movement and how we can get it back.

Closing Thoughts From the Authors

Adam Munshaw

I am convinced that I am among the last generation of traditionally trained pastors — and if not, I want to be. Why? Private, Christian, higher education in general has skyrocketed in price, let alone when considering a bachelors in ministry or a seminary degree. When entering a workforce that Jesus called to be last or to humble themselves, Jesus is talking about making one’s attitude that of a servant for the sake of others, but not a servant to debt. What I would rather see is a Kingdom force of men and women confirmed in their callings, operating in their giftings, trained faithfully according to Scripture, and leading in obedience to the Holy Spirit. Yes, we should produce biblically faithful, leadership-minded, spiritually-discerning, and theologically-educated pastors for ministry, but from our communities, in our communities, and for our communities. People who end up pastoring in the same church they were called in. People who can take classes, grow in community, and train as a minister right where they are, on their timeline, working around their normal jobs and lives, so that we might not be an obstacle to who God is calling.

I see a growing hunger among people in our church who are serving, tithing, leading, and still looking for more. I am convinced now more than ever that the future of the Church is sitting right in our pews. We just need to know them and be ready to train and equip them when God calls.

What we need is more and better pastors. I believe that God is always calling people, but we don’t always know who and when.

As the financial and physical requirements of the Church change in the next generation, so too does its training methods, supply of leaders, and strategies. I see a pathway for local churches to train local people right where they are at in seminary-caliber classes, while being anchored in real ministries and connected to real people exploring what God is doing right in their midst now. This is not a theory. This is not what we used to do. This is spiritual discernment when it meets God’s direction, gifted leaders, and God’s blessing. This is owning our spiritual responsibility to make disciples.

Let us mobilize more of our people to reach more people we don’t know yet, so that even more people might reach even more people we don’t know yet.

The reality is simple: the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Luke 10:1–3 states it plainly that we are to, therefore, ask the Lord of the harvest to send more workers. In addition, verse 3 commands us to “Go!” We need to both pray for more workers and ourselves go into the fields to do the work.

I just want to be the kind of pastor who raises up more workers to do the work, while I am in the fields doing the work.

Galatians 5:25 says, “since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.” Keeping in step with the Spirit, for me, is stewarding those leaders who God has given me, so that my work is not about me, but the seven I am raising up behind me. Keeping in step with the Spirit is pursuing creative solutions to honor tradition, but break molds to make new pathways that are accessible to all people and more effective in their real world application. Keeping in step with the Spirit is focusing on the dreams and visions that God has uniquely placed on my heart to bring to fruition and not trying to be anyone else. Keeping in step with the Spirit is recognizing that I cannot do this alone, but play just one small part in the greater scheme of the Kingdom, so that any of this might not be mine, but God’s.

May we be open enough and bold enough to the leadings of the Spirit that we would not take new wine and try to shove it into old boxes or categories, but instead build new structures and systems to support the fresh fruit that God is already producing in us.

That’s one of the reasons for framing this entire book in the language of holiness. Not the kind where you try to earn your salvation or work your way to heaven. Not the kind where you can’t listen to certain music or watch particular movies. Not even the kind that changes your life to match more of the desires of your heart. But the kind that actually changes the desires of your heart.

One of the traps that we’ve fallen into in modern ministry is the desire to make a name for ourselves. It’s about our church, the size of our congregation, or our great plan.

The problem is: when I look at Scripture, I don’t see Jesus asking you to be successful the way the world defines success. He asks us to be faithful and trust Him with the results.

The “well done, good and faithful servant” comes from who we are and how we live our lives.

Holiness is about the transformation of the heart, making our desires one with His desires. Our churches like The Church, where the only movement that matters is the Kingdom of God.

This is not a book about the right structures, plan, or strategy. This is about who God has designed us to be and the kind of lives we could live if we became more like Him.

That’s the fruit we are after. Fresh, flowing wine.

Curtis Hunnicutt

Ralph

I remember sitting in a coffee shop in southern California with Ralph Moore a few years ago. Ralph started Hope Chapel, a church that since has started over 2,600 churches across the world. We were watching a 19-year-old girl named Chloe talk to a room full of small church gathering leaders (sprinkled with a homeless person or two that liked having the company) about the Jesus gathering she started in a nearby park.

I leaned over and asked Ralph, “Why are you here?” He knew what I meant. First of all, Ralph could be anywhere he wanted. He’s sought after to teach all over the world and he has enough reward points to stay wherever he’d like. Secondly, Ralph’s no spring chicken. When someone’s in their late 70s, they tend to value their time a bit more.

“I see it happening again,” He said in a whisper.

He was referring to the beginning of the movement that he saw that sprang forth the expansion of his church.

“How do you know? What’s your metric?”

He pointed to Chloe as if to tell me to shut up and let him focus. With his finger still pointed at the young girl emphatically sharing about Jesus, he said: “Joy.”

That took me some time to digest. I’m so accustomed to the metrics that we use in culture that I forget the metrics of the Church. Wesley chose his leaders by his ability to see the Holy Spirit in them. The Holy Spirit produces attributes in the people that He is leading.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22–23

If I put joy as a primary metric on my district report, I’d be called in for a disciplinary meeting — but Ralph said it, so take it up with him.

What We’re Seeing Now

In 2021, shortly after this coffee shop conversation, my wife, our two-year-old, our newborn, and I sold and gave away most of what we owned, including our house, to travel around the country to learn more about what God was doing with believers outside of the traditional church context around the country.

On this journey from Maryland to California, we found business owners focused on discipleship. We found leaders starting and multiplying disciples, gatherings and mission projects. People who are passionate and joyful and tough.

I’ve seen beach gatherings that feed homeless people and tell Holy Ghost stories around the fire and do saltwater baptisms and a house church in a mansion in Malibu. I’ve seen a Texas barber by day run a backyard church that leads missions in downtown Dallas and in Mexico. (He had stories of fresh miracles from God each time I sat in his chair.) I’ve seen coffee shop owners that run a gathering in their shop on Sunday nights that argue over Scripture like family and love each other just as deeply, and they use the generosity from their group and profit from their business to build water towers in villages in Africa. I’ve seen Jiu jitsu gym churches in California that led to another starting in Germany. I’ve seen a Stockholm gathering in an apartment that meets in a famous pub once a month to reach people that would have no interest in a “normal” church service.

We’re seeing insane, sacrificial generosity with business owner’s time, money, and skill sets to develop creative ways to serve the poor and solve immediate and generational problems in society. We’re watching people start businesses as a means to their personal mission field — the people that God has called them to.

We’re seeing the Church rise up, whether or not a pastor or denomination gave them permission to.

I’m walking alongside organizations that are discovering, gathering, and training these passionate disciple makers. Finding ways to fund their work and making their resources available to anyone that has a calling and desire.

As I reflected on what we were learning about the early Methodist movement, I heard Ralph’s voice, “It’s happening again.”

On that trip, just about each day, my wife and I would open up to a fresh chapter in Jeremiah, we would read and we would pray.

Jeremiah 29:7 says, “Work for the peace and the prosperity of the city to which I’ve called you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, for if it prospers, you too will prosper.” Peace and prosperity. Shalom. Completeness.

Not just the peace, but the wholeness. Wholeness today includes excellent families, businesses, blue collar workers, tech executives, churches, missionaries, and all in between– all full of light and as salty as can be.

Society doesn’t change for the better from centralized control for a government or giant organization. It changes when the people that God has chosen aren’t hindered from doing the work that they were built to do.

Unity & Action

The Moravian movement referenced at the beginning of this writing called themselves, “the church within the Church.” Their goal was not to divide, but to become the engine that gave the gatherings energy and power.

My thesis is that people are hungry for a life that reflects what they see in Scripture. They don’t need to be attracted and kept; they need to be challenged and sent.

If the people we lead aren’t challenged by the life we live, they’ll either find someone else to follow or worse — they’ll settle for good enough. They need to be led by people who are living the life they are adamantly proposing.

If the standards that we set are selfish, meaning, they are just enough to not rock the boat so that they stay, we’re leaving vulnerable the people we are supposed to be protecting.

If the community that people are a part of doesn’t earnestly pray, break bread, serve the poor, and hold each other accountable for the parts of life that the rest of the world doesn’t see, then how are we labeling that as Church?

If in your lifetime, the work you did led to the salvation of thousands, but you never got the chance to quantify it and stamp your name on it, would you be okay with it?

I think the most attractive thing that I’ve found with this group of missional church leaders is that they don’t care who gets the credit. They don’t care which banner someone’s church flies under or who gets the credit for the mission work or whether the money comes through their hands so they can claim a part in the act. They only care that the work is being done.

And when they see the work being done by others, it’s celebrated as if it were being done by themselves.

Conclusion

I don’t think we’ve shared any ground-breaking secrets in this series. I certainly don’t think the Methodist movement needs to be recreated as the thing that saves the Church.

Yet I do think that a glimpse at history sheds light on something happening now that we might miss otherwise because we are so caught up in the way that it’s been for the past 100 years or so.

Rick Warren in Purpose Driven Church talks about surfers. Their job isn’t to make waves; their job is to let the waves come in. They learn how to recognize them, how to paddle, stand, balance, and ride what’s already coming to shore. Likewise, our job is not to create a move of God. Our job is to recognize what he’s doing over our own agenda, and use what we’ve been given to take part in all the fun.

We must “seep into the cracks” of society where one method isn’t designed to go. In the argument of big vs small, big typically wins because the economic model works and there’s obvious fruit. But we’re asking the wrong question. It’s not which one, but it’s how we reach those that aren’t. When are we going to admit that another program isn’t gonna cut it?

God will use big churches, denominations, small churches, missional churches, businesses that disciple, and weird creative projects that reach people that we don’t even know exist. All of it.

All we’ve got to do is step back and let Him rip that box of wine open once again.