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How to Create Momentum in Your Ministry

Remember Newton’s first two laws of motion? Here’s a refresher…

First law: Every object continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a straight line unless compelled to change that state by external forces acted upon it.

Second law: The acceleration (a) of a body is parallel and directly proportional to the net force (F) acting on the body, is in the direction of the net force, and is inversely proportional to the mass (m) of the body.

In other words, things that are sitting still don’t move unless something pushes them, pulls them, or otherwise compels them by force…including churches.

I realize this post will most likely get me into a bit of trouble, but I’m going to state what I believe to be in keeping with the way God has designed things to work. Churches often don’t see much movement because they don’t see much movement. Churches that are unwilling to adapt will die. This is simply the law of the universe in which we live.

If that sounds radical, consider that God Himself tends to move and speak in different ways, in different ages, through different means.

He has progressively revealed Himself through various dispensations and will continue to do so until literally everything changes when He makes all things completely new. Even within the New Testament era in which we live, God has used various churches and leaders quite powerfully to shape the direction of culture, but He tends to use them only for a season.

In his landmark book, The Purpose Driven Church, Rick Warren speaks about surfing spiritual waves. He points out that it isn’t up to us to make the waves, but rather to ride them well.

So if your church isn’t moving, growing, seeing fresh stories of life change, meeting new lost people, entering new missional territories, or raising up new leaders, then something must exert force upon your church to make it move again.

Or as Newton himself might put it, something needs to happen to create new momentum.