From the Foreword
“One of the strengths of the book derives from the fact that JR and Dan are reflective practitioners; they have both planted churches, are leading a wonderful new movement called V3, and have been training planters all across North America… Furthermore, their understanding of movement is wonderfully minimalist without being reductionist. The result is that it can be practiced by ordinary, everyday, Christians. It is here, in my opinion, that they activate the essence of movement—where everyone, regardless of race, gender, and class is an active agent in the game. Jesus movement is people movement!”
– Alan Hirsch
Founder of 100Movements, Forge Missional Training Network, Future Travelers and award winning author and thinker in the Missional church movement. www.alanhirsch.org
“In The Church as Movement, White and Woodward rewrite what it means to cultivate and grow churches in the mission fields of post Christendom. Accomplishing the impossible, they provide an exhaustive preparation for those who dare to navigate this terrain. It’s a learning experience enormous in its aspirations yet so necessary for the task that lies ahead for the church in mission.”
-David Fitch
BR Lindner Chair of Evangelical Theology, Northern Seminary
Author Faithful Presence: Seven Disciplines That Shape the Church for Mission
“JR and Dan have produced a simple, intensely practical guide for those of us who want to shift from merely sustaining the ‘Religious Industrial Complex’ to unleashing a dynamic missional church planting movement. Church as Movement is full of ideas on missional discipleship, rhythms of life, cultural exegesis, fivefold leadership models and more, all anchored in a beautiful biblical vision of the sent-and-sending God.”
-Michael Frost
Author The Shaping of Things to Come, Exiles, and The Road to Missional.
“If you want to see the church through a radically different lens and recover the vision of how ordinary Christians, working together in the neighborhood, can become the greatest hope for change in these fractured and fragmented times, then this book is your guide.”
-Tim Soerens, Co-Founding Director of the Parish Collective; co-author of The New Parish
“Theologically and theoretically complex and robust, yet practically so transferable in its attentiveness to movement dynamics and awareness to places-based disciple making. This is a book that will surprise and challenge trained practitioners while offering tools that are adaptable enough for real movement. I believe even the title is a phrase that will become integral to the new vocabulary of church multiplication. I honestly wish I had written it myself!”
-Linda Bergquist, Church Planting Catalyst and Coach, San Francisco Bay Area, co-author, Church Turned Inside Out
“Practitioner led, biblically based, theologically sound, and movemental. In this book, JR and Dan have been able to navigate the line between missiology and strategy by presenting a team guide for discipleship and church planting. So buy this book, gather your friends together, and learn how to start a movement that will change your city!”
-Daniel Im
Director of Church Multiplication at NewChurches.com and co-author of Planting Missional Churches: Your Guide to Starting Churches that Multiply
“What I love about JR and Dan is that they don’t just write about the stuff of missional discipleship, they live it! The Church as Movement is a real gift to the church. It is not only crammed full of practical wisdom, but is written in a way that is accessible to everybody.”
-Debra Hirsch, Author, Untamed and Redeeming Sex
JR and Dan use their wisdom and experience to help churches plant churches that better reflect the effectiveness of the early Church, emphasizing the importance of community, discipleship, and more.
-Ed Stetzer, www.edstetzer.com
“Church as Movement is a book I wish I’d been able to get my hands on twenty years ago. I got into church planting because I wanted to be and make disciples of Jesus. Instead, I encountered a system that largely measured success in terms of attendance, budgets, and buildings. Woodward and White not only offer an alternate transformational vision, they have created an immensely practical resource. I’ve seen their work first hand and am deeply encouraged by their ability to come alongside leaders and equip them to embody the way of Jesus in their local communities.”
-Mark Scandrette, Founder of ReIMAGINE and Author of Practicing The Way of Jesus, FREE, and Belonging & Becoming.
“The early church was a spiritual-social movement. The Church as Movement insightfully shows what that means today. Woodward and White insist the church is not church if it is not a genuine community of disciples following Jesus. Woodward and White are right when they say: ‘We need to water the small, over and over, and allow God’s Spirit to blow on the embers.’ This is the powerful essence of The Church as Movement.
-Howard A. Snyder, Visiting Director, Manchester Wesley Research Centre, England
“This is a book on Christian movement and church planting that I enjoyed reading and want to commend to many others seeking to discern innovative ways of being God’s people in a time of massive change. JR and Dan have written with wisdom. They distill their on-the-ground experience into a book that is practical, instructive and informed with theological imagination. They offer the reader a direction for this journey toward a movement of God’s people in our day. Like any book one isn’t going to agree with everything but this is one of a few books in this field I want to recommend.”
-Alan Roxburgh, Prolific missional Author, team member, The Missional Network
“A church building or sign is no indicator that the community of God is truly present as a transforming force in any particular place. This book pushes us to see the church as it was meant to be biblically and as it needs to be today in order to advance the Kingdom of God. Missional, incarnational, movement, and discipleship cannot be optional ideas for the church, but must be core essentials so that the justice and truth of God is experienced in a broken world.”
-Efrem Smith, President and CEO of World Impact; author of The Hip Hop Church and The Post-Black and Post-White Church.
“In The Church as Movement, JR and Dan provide leaders who are concerned about being faithful to the values of the Kingdom lived out and taught by Jesus of Nazareth, a compelling examination of the kind of leadership required to touch the deepest yearnings of our generation. Instead of offering trendy relevance, the church imagined in this new book offers hope, by calling us to sacrificially Iove our neighbors and our neighborhoods as brothers and sisters, committed to live as followers of Jesus the Christ.”
Noel Castellanos, CEO & President, CCDA
“Much recent writing about how to do church has dealt with tasks and ideas. But if the church is God’s expression of himself on the earth then isn’t it important for the church to also grow from our own engagement with God? If the church is to be authentic, it will require us, as leaders, to submit to God’s ongoing work of personal transformation. This is hard work so we need guides in it which invite whole person engagement, trusting that as we experience the mission of God in our own lives, we know more deeply how to live it out in our communities. The Church as Movement is that kind of guide.”
-Mandy Smith, Lead Pastor, University Christian Church; author, The Vulnerable Pastor
“JR Woodward and Dan White Jr’s words have helped us incarnate in our neighborhood in Honolulu the very Word that desires to made flesh in all neighborhoods. While holding together the critical tension between imagination and implementation, they provide us with a missional map, a creative compass, technical tools, and a renewed sense of hope for the journey. A truly innovative offering.”
-Kevin and Christine Sweeney, Co-Pastors, Imagine Church, Honolulu
