“Kingdom Movements”: Perceptions, Analyses, and Realities

Abstract

The most recent theme that has drawn the attention of many evangelical missions leaders has been labeled “Church Planting Movements,” “Disciple Making Movements,” or “Kingdom Movements”—the theme of this issue of Global Missiology – English. Several other publications have taken up this theme over the past several years, including multiple issues of Mission Frontiers. For example, the March-April 2020 issue theme was “Movements: God’s Way of Reaching Entire Peoples” (Frontier Ventures 2020). In his editorial, Rick Wood notes that “movements [are] the new popular thing in missions” (Wood 2020), while in the same issue Kevin Higgins quips that “we are in the midst of a ‘movement movement’” (Higgins 2020). Throughout evangelical missiological publications, many authors point to David Garrison (particularly his 2004 Church Planting Movements) as having brought the notion of “movements” to the forefront of evangelical missions strategizing.