by Robby Butler_,_

See, I am doing a new thing!

Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

(Isaiah 43:19, NIV)

As of mid-2019, the 24:14 Coalition research team reports that over 70 million people (nearly 1% of world population) have come to follow Jesus in just the past few decades, in more than 1,000 movements of rapidly reproducing churches. These are happening mostly among Unreached and Frontier People Groups. And this new move of the Holy Spirit continues growing exponentially!

In late 2015, researchers estimated about 100 total movements globally. They based this estimate on credible reports of movements verified by onsite visits. By late 2016, they estimated roughly 130. And in May of 2017, Kent Parks reported nearly 160 movements.

Within a few months, formation of the 24:14 Coalition expanded trust between movement leaders and researchers, leading many more movement leaders to share their progress. Credible organizations and networks quickly reported about 2,500 movement engagements. These included nearly 500 movements that had produced millions of new disciples. By mid-2019, the count had risen to more than 1,000 movements!

What brought this jump—from 160 known movements in mid-2017 to more than 1,000 by mid-2019? It was not due mostly to new work started, but to new working together. This in turn led to greater awareness of the Holy Spirit’s work.

How Has This Gone Unnoticed for So Long?

As in the first century, these movements spread rapidly through households and pre-existing relationships. They increase through daily interaction of believers in homes and public places without new, special buildings. Thus people who identify “church” with special buildings easily miss the quiet reality of movements multiplying.

Mission leaders share their reports only with those they deeply trust. Their goal is better collaboration. And they have good reason to restrict their reports to supporters and trusted colleagues:

   Outsiders, even with good intentions, can quickly damage a movement.

   Outside funding has killed many potential movements.

   Unwanted attention increases persecution of movements.

A small number of movements have ended. But most continue to grow rapidly. Some are also spreading to other UPGs. A few large movements have continued for 20 years or more. They have slowed in growth rate as they got bigger. However most movements are new and growing rapidly.

Movements multiply faster than they can be tracked by past methods. Good terms and methods for tracking such movements are still developing. In some cases it would not be wise for an outside team to visit a movement. In such cases, researchers seek detailed reports and confirming information from other sources. These reports lead to a truly…

Amazing New Reality

By early 2019, credible reports supported this fresh view:

   In 1995: at least 5 full movements with 15,000 new disciples.

   In 2000: at least 10 movements with 100,000 new disciples.

   In 2019: at least 1,000 movements with over 70,000,000 new disciples!

   And at least 90% of these movements are among UPGs!

Movements now exist in nearly 80% of Joshua Project’s people-group clusters. Several thousand more movement engagements are actively seeking to become full movements (having consistent reproduction of four or more spiritual generations in multiple streams – Level 5 or higher).

At present, only a fraction of Unreached and Frontier People Groups have a full movement. So thousands more movements are still needed. Yet we have many reasons to expect continued rapid growth of movements.

Encouraging Factors

The global count of movements will likely keep growing, through:

   Further review of movement reports

   Existing engagements becoming movements

   More church planters learning how to pursue movements

   Traditional (visible) churches learning to start movements

   Mobilization of more laborers to pursue movements

   More effective movement training, with guided experience

   New learning from each other’s successes and failures

   Natural spreading of movements to new peoples and places

   Planned multiplication of existing movements

   More believers praying directly for movements

   Further discovery of what God is already doing

Common Characteristics of Movement Churches

In movements, churches usually …

   Bless and disciple families and social units more than individuals.

   Raise up and equip natural leaders from within existing groups.

   Focus their study of the Bible on how to better know and obey God.

   Disciple more by Spirit-led discovery than expert teaching.

   Cultivate maturity by lovingly obeying what they learn.

   Meet in homes and public places more than special church buildings.

   Average about 15 people in regular, interactive gatherings.

   Aim to multiply new churches rather than grow in size.

   Employ simple patterns each disciple can follow and reproduce.

   Equip disciples to multiply rather than just serving them.

   Work toward many new generations (not just daughter churches).

   Spread mostly through relational networks.

   Prove more stable than churches of gathered strangers.

   Are not easily seen by outsiders and the community around them.

Real-Life Examples

   Ying and Grace were highly effective church planters. Each year, they would win 40–60 people to Christ. They would organize them into a church, then move to a new part of their city. (At the end of 10 years, if each of these churches doubled in size, this could have produced 1,200 new believers.) Then Ying was asked to try to reach an unreached population of 20 million. In the year 2000, Ying and Grace were trained in movement principles. They began training disciples to start small churches that would multiply quickly. Over the next ten years, 1.8 million new disciples were baptized. They were also discipled using a simple approach in which disciples trained new disciples. The number of churches multiplied to 160,000, with an average annual growth rate of 50%! Researchers later verified this movement. They found that the numbers were actually greater than had been reported.

   Trevor works among a 99+% Muslim people group. He began by finding local believers who desired to bless Muslims and were willing to try something new. He guided these believers to start multiplying small discovery Bible studies. He also helped them learn from each other’s successes and failures. Each of them started a movement of discovery Bible studies. Through these studies many Muslims came to faith in Christ. They shared with their families, friends and others they knew. Some of them moved to other areas and took the gospel with them. By August 2017, this network of movements had spread to 40 languages in eight countries. It included a total of 25 full movements and many more movement engagements. As of January, 2018, just five months later, this network had spread to 47 languages in 12 countries!

   VC reports: “Many missionaries came to my country but did not see the fruit of their work. We are privileged to see this fruit. We have gone from evangelism to disciple making, to church planting, and now to starting movements. We feel confident that by 2020 we will have a team in every village!”

   Dwight Martin was raised in Thailand and returned as an adult to serve the national church with technology to track the growth of the church. In April 2019, Christianity Today devoted its cover story to how this is clarifying the remaining need in Thailand, and how the existing movement Dwight discovered now plants more churches in two weeks than more than 300 evangelical missionaries with the Evangelical Fellowship of Thailand do in an entire year.

Further Clarity Regarding the Remaining Task

Since early 2018, the new classification of Frontier People Groups has brought fresh clarity to the remaining task. God is stirring united global prayer for movements among the largest remaining Frontier People Groups. Never in history has the Holy Spirit prompted such global cooperation in focused prayer and labor, nor such rapid progress.

This good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the world ….

He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.”

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.  (Rev 22:20, NIV)

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