How the Kingdom Spreads and Grows

[George Little]

It has finally dawned on me that to effectively work in God's kingdom you need to know how His kingdom works. Or at least, you need to know a little of how it works.

For years I have been finding methodologies and models and then trying to force them on His kingdom. Like many of have bounced from one evangelism model to another. Guerilla marketing, Sunday School, Personal Evangelism, Salesmanship, Impersonal Evangelism, Church Growth. I think I have personally kept many a publishing house in business with all the money I have invested in books, DVDs, seminar, materials etc that, at the time, seemed so integral to what I thought was needed to see His kingdom grow.

The attached article is where my musings about the nature of His kingdom is. I would really appreciate some feedback on this.

[James Nored]

Hey George. Great article. My last paper that I did at Fuller was on social networking. This is, indeed, how the gospel primarily spreads. Even as much as I believe that foundational to the church's mission is service to our community and should be done regardless of "results" (conversion results, that is), most conversions that I have seen have come through personal connections and networks. This is the indisputable research and the testimony of history. (Of course, we often impact our relational networks for Christ when they see that we are a church that serves, even if they are not the ones directly fed or clothes. People want to be a part of this kind of church or movement.)

If you like exploring this, I would recommend Alan Hirsch's book The Forgotten Ways. He has done a lot of research on organic systems and viral networks.

Good thoughts, George! Thanks for sharing