Movement and Institution Existing in the Same Space
The genius of God has created a reality in the Global Methodist Church that has not been seen in Methodism for over a century. A movement by its own definition is something that is living. You can have all the components of discipleship in a reproducible model that is intentionally and repetitiously practiced, but without life is dead. This is the definition of an institution.
An institution is not purposed to be “alive.” It is purposed to keep in perpetuity a design to support living things in a tool to help accomplish what the living has been created to accomplish. Institutions are by nature to serve the human mission. When institutions become “controlling” and have a life of their own, they become tombs for those that are alive. It creates a “zombie” type person that becomes separated from the living nature of God.
27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. 28 Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
Matthew 23:27-28
God’s very nature is a movement. God is always increasing and expanding because it is the nature of life. God is a “living” entity. God can never be contained because God is always growing. God’s nature is always more. We have been created in the likeness of God.
God’s creation is likened to an institution. It establishes a frame in which life grows and lives. Creation was created with “mechanisms” that support the life that God created. When things work apart from that designed order the mechanisms react. The creation has boundaries and yet is not imprisoned. Creation is living and giving life.
A movement is alive and when intuitions switch places with movements to become the lead agency, movements will die. When movements live out of an institution that recognizes it exists to give the movement life, the movement will thrive. When a movement thrives, our world is changed.
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
John 14:6
The Good News of Jesus Christ, the Gospel, spreads in a movement. It is a living witness of the Holy Spirit born on the lives of individuals filled with the Holy Spirit and living out of the wind of God. Don’t become a dead institution. Live everyday with Christ. Pray. Read. Worship. Live in Jesus.
Winning them to Jesus,
Gil Wise
Fayetteville District Presiding Elder
If you would like more conversation around what “Movement Minded, Vision Oriented, Prayer Focused Discipleship” looks like use this email to continue the conversation wisegil103@gmail.com