An Emerging Movement

In the most recent edition of Foreign Affairs, Anne-Marie Slaughter writes: “Hierarchy and control lose out to community, collaboration, and self-organization. At its core, a company can be quite small, often no more than a central node of leaders and manager-integrators. But with the right networks, it can reach anywhere innovators, factories, and service providers can be found. In this world, as Tapscott and Williams write, ‘only the connected will survive.’” (http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20090101faessay88107/anne-marie-slaughter/america-s-edge.html)

What if in 2009, a ragtag group of Baptists from around the world who as 20s, 30s and 40 somethings decided to start a movement? A movement of radical discipleship. To feed the hungry. To care for the sick. To be accountable to widows and orphans. To stand with the oppressed. To build the church. To live without fear. To love without borders.

A movement that was not based on hierarchy or control but on community, collaboration and self-organization so that each one of us fully lived our lives in service to Christ and to each other.
In this kind of a movement – and in reality, in the world as we find it today – “only the connected will survive.” So what would happen if we started an emerging movement of global Baptists who were connected to one another? If as we shared what God was doing in our own corner of the world, we began to see that taken collectively we already form a powerful patchwork of kingdom growth that can learn from each other, share in the needs of each other and work together in coordinated unison to advance the kingdom of the Son.

This blog is by no means the culmination of such a vision. But it is one more tool, one more point of connectivity. At the top right hand of this blog, for example, you can click to join as a “Member of the Movement.” And as more of us join this movement, we will be able to connect more deeply and minister more powerfully.

As part of this new movement endeavor, starting this week this site is also going to post regular interviews with current Baptist leaders, profile the stories of other emerging leaders and share emerging insights from around the world. This week is a new beginning, a new opportunity to build together an emerging Baptist movement.

At its core it only takes a small group. It is always so. The question however remains:

Have you joined the emerging Baptist movement?