Newsletter - QIV 2020 - MOVEMENT.ORG

QIV 2020 Newsletter:

Global Impact Update

WELCOME FROM MOVEMENT.ORG’s PRESIDENT & CEO

From Craig Sider

2020 is a most unusual year on so many fronts. I know it has been for many of you. The word, disrupted, has been in MOVEMENT.ORG’s language for several years, but never has it been more applicable than this year.

AND YET, our ministry has accelerated in 2020 more than any previous year. We are humbled with all that God is placing in our hands. City Movement leaders from around the world are being called on to foster unity in their cities and bring a unified Church to address the challenges and brokenness in our cities. Just in the last few months, we have seen God double the number of engaged leaders and move in remarkable ways:

Over 1,600 participants from 943 cities, 84 nations, and 6 continents engaged in ‘virtual’ Movement Day X (MDX), September 22-23. Coming out of MDX, over 100 cities expressed a keen interest in launching the Movement Day way in their city. Jim Liske gave extraordinary leadership to MDX.
Our Global Hub Leaders (Mark V. – India, Jim Liske – US and Latin America, Ian Shelton – South Pacific, Roger Sutton – Europe, Tim Day – Canada, Peter Watt – Africa) have led with humility, servant’s hearts, and creative leadership. They are an amazing team of godly and gifted leaders!
Our Founder, Mac Pier, launched the Movement Day Scholars Program in September. You will note the magnitude of the program in the Founder’s report. What Mac won’t mention is his unique gifting and calling to bring the Movement Day Scholars Program to life! We are indebted to have Mac serve as our Founder.
In late October we completed our 11^th Movement Day in NYC. Under the creative and visionary leadership of Adam Durso, it was a remarkable two days of creativity, inspiration, and challenge.
The Decadal Plan initiated in NYC, and outlined in Mac Pier’s book, New York Disrupted, is striking a chord with city movement leaders around the world. Look for a ‘How to…’ training session soon!
Movement Day is accelerating all across the world, shifting from in-person to virtual gatherings. Every region is engaging city leaders in regional zooms tailored to the specific challenges and opportunities they face.

Thank you for your vital role in this movement. The movement of unified collaborative action in cities is not owned by a city/country/organization, but it is a movement of the Spirit of God. We are grateful to be on this journey with you and anticipate all God will do in 2021.

With gratitude and anticipation,
Dr. Craig Sider

President & CEO

MOVEMENT.ORG

FOUNDER’S UPDATE

From Dr. Mac Pier

Movement Day Scholars: Training 1000 Leaders To Impact 1000 Cities by 2025

On September 18-19, 2020 we launched the Movement Day Scholars Program with 160 leaders from around the world. The 9-hour training was conducted over two days via Zoom. Seventy percent of the participants were from India and Africa, with strong representation from Southern Europe, North America, and Indonesia.

The vision of the program is to give city movement practitioners training in urban theology, organizational skill development, strategic planning, and designing a ten year plan for their city. Faculty included Dr. Ray Bakke, the most globally renowned Christian urbanologist.

He was asked by Dr. Billy Graham after the 1974 Lausanne Congress to study the cities of the globe. Bakke has been to 250 cities of a million or more people. Bakke has trained more than 400 doctoral students, including me. I finished my program with him in 2000. The scholars training is a companion to the 1000 city vision we have at Movement.org.

Globally there are more than 4000 cities of 100,000 or more with the strongest concentrations in India, China, USA, Brazil, and Mexico. We envision identifying, investing in, and accelerating leaders in 1000 cities to demonstrate measurable progress with the gospel in those cities. We just had our first mentoring session with 50 Brazilian and Bolivian leaders on October 17th.

Based on the enthusiasm from this year’s initial cohort, we envision being able to enlist 250 new scholars each year. The cohort is a three year model with follow-up assignments. We are partnering with four US seminaries and a seminary in Kiev, Ukraine who are providing graduate study opportunities.

My recent book New York Disrupted is a core curriculum for the program. In it, we share how a team of NYC leaders has created a ten-year roadmap to change their city for Christ, based on the power of prayer and the success of the past 30 years. The book is now available online as an eBook or Audiobook.

LATIN AMERICA

From Jose Duran

Florecimiento espiritual y social para cada ciudad de America Latina

We are very excited about finding ways to serve as a ministry and providing organization to the Latino leaders. We share the same vision and mission, with a specific contextualization in each country and city. So far we are serving leaders and forming teams in Puerto Rico, Chile, Venezuela, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Mexico.

With the leaders of each city, we are taking time to listen to their needs, and together we are envisioning and dreaming for their cities. We want the unity of their leadership to flourish and to create real opportunities so that the Gospel can be proclaimed and the cities will have substantial improvements.

We are praying with them weekly.

We are building trust.

We are in the process of finding the right people in each city.

Please pray for us for that.

Please pray for those leaders. That the Lord speak to each one of them and unites them to reach their cities.

Please pray for the Lord to provide the finances for each country.

Next year we are planning to have a Movement Day in at least five cities in five different countries.

AFRICA

From Peter Watt

An Opportunity to Expand Connectivity

2020 has been a COVID-disrupted year for everyone, but it has also provided some alternative opportunities. In the case of Movement Day Africa, the disruption of COVID-19 has helped us to fast-track the process of expanding the level of connectivity and gaining traction into more nations and cities in Africa due to online digital platforms.

One of the key strategic steps in the Movement Day Africa process has been the appointment of Regional Hub Leaders in 3 of the African regions – East, West and Central. This has been a very enjoyable relational journey, as well as a sense of significant expansion beyond the nations which initially pioneered the City Movements in Africa. You can meet the team and regional hub leaders on our Movement Day Africa website.

Movement Day Africa hosted a COVID-19 Response Webinar Series on three relevant and pertinent topics – The New Economic Reality of Africa (June), Business Response in Africa (July), and finally Food Security in Africa during COVID-19 and Beyond (August).

These were very effective in being able to engage with a range of attendees (from more than 20 African nations), and also to hear from a wide range of panellists and experts. We also began translating the webinars into French and Portuguese, which is vital in the African context.

In the month of September we had 270 Africans attend the MDX Global Online Gathering, from 24 African nations and representing 68 cities. This event was highly accessible due to it being online, and certainly helped all participants to realize that they are part of a global family, and also a global movement of city renewal initiatives.

During this same month was the launch of the MD Scholars Programme, with more than 50 out of 160 students being from Africa. This has led to an increased exposure to outstanding resources around City Theology and engaging with City Network practitioners. It has also led to the formation of learning cohorts in different regions, which is helping to build warm relational connections within regions and cities.

Before the end of 2020 we will be hosting 3 regional webinars which will seek to link city movement practitioners from cities in the region, and then we will be partnering with Africa Enterprise in the very significant Proclaim 2020 event in December, which will be an online gathering of evangelists from across the continent.

We look ahead to 2021 with much anticipation as we pursue our vision, which is to facilitate a movement of city gospel movements for the spiritual and social flourishing of Africa.

SOUTH PACIFIC

From Ian Shelton

Disruptions Lead to Clarity and Connections

What a year. Don't you love it when God disrupts all your plans! Although we didn't have a Movement Day Australia gathering this year, as we have for the past 3 years, we have had more connections than ever. Once COVID hit, we moved to regular national Zoom calls, which created a great space for many new people to join and hear the message. At the same time, our leadership team has been able to clarify our vision going forward into 2021. As COVID restrictions are lifting around the nation, we are encouraging our cities/towns to run a Movement Day event of some sort, even if it's for a few hours. A lot of our cities have unity groups, but now we are encouraging them to take the next step of looking at their city and how they can work together for the flourishing of their "place."

The book Disruptive City Women, published this summer, tells the stories of women around the world who have responded to God—disrupting silence & indifference, injustice, homelessness, domestic violence, abortion, prejudice & more.

Their responses have taken courage and required risk taking, and at the same time produced much fruit. We celebrate the impact on gospel movements in our cities when women are mobilized to make a difference. In a recent video message, Letitia Shelton offered an apology to the broken and vulnerable in our cities. Her message reflects our desire to be more strategic and coordinated, reach out more and get uncomfortable when necessary. “The church was never meant to exist for itself. We’re called to unite and move into our community.”

UNITED KINGDOM

From Roger Sutton

Transformation through City Focus

The Movement Day vision across Europe continues to expand, with new cities expressing interest on a regular basis. The city transformation vision is strong across cities like Berlin, Oslo and the Balkans. In the UK, Movement Day's unity vision has been developing well for some time with over 140 city unity movements already in place. We now have 20 cities across Europe developing a long-term Movement Day process.

Our main challenges are to do with the COVID crisis and the cancellation of several in-person large events during 2020-21. However, the crisis is also stimulating church leaders to think more about their cities and new unity movements are arising all the time.

Please pray for more resources to help nurture and mentor cities in the Movement Day way and pray for the cities of Europe who have been deeply affected by the virus. The road to recovery will be a long journey but there is hope if we work together and we will be able to build back better.

SOUTH ASIA

God is in Control

“In a time of great uncertainty and hopelessness, God has yet again proved that He is in total control and His work will continue without ceasing.” This is the bold testimony of Movement Day South Asia.

Before June 2020, the gospel movement of uniting churches, marketplace leaders and nonprofit leaders was active in 4 cities in the great sub-continent. Though we are in the midst of a pandemic and physical meetings were impossible, God opened up a way to meet virtually through which more than 24 cities are currently having an active Movement Day engagement.

One of the most important milestones is the Movement Day Expression in the city of Kochi, Kerala. This Youth Movement Day was virtually conducted in the month of September 2020. The city leaders came together, and sphere headed it and the youth of the city executed it beautifully. The focus was on the issues faced by the youth and the resource people nailed it with real time statistics and life experiences. This stirred the hearts of the young people and also challenged them to work for the transformation of the city.

In the next few weeks, city leaders from more than 50 cities in South Asia took part in the MD Global (MDX). The perfection and the dynamism of MDX encouraged many leaders to find out how they can be a part of this worldwide movement and we, the Movement Day South Asia team, are regularly being contacted by different city leaders.

Bengaluru, one of the largest tech cities in India, had a MD expression on the 24th of October. The city received it well with a vision for movement in all of its spheres.

Another major breakthrough is the completion of vision casting for more than 10 cities from the North Eastern part of India. Three of these cities are gearing up towards prayer summits in the current month.

The city of Chennai, which had the first MDE in 2017, is getting ready for the 3rd MDE this year, Youth Mentors Movement Day, on the 21st of November. The area of focus is to train and equip 400 youth mentors who will be working with the youth in the city and to stir a movement among them.

Kolkata, one of the largest cities in India, is preparing itself for the second MDE on the 28th of November 2020. It’s a city with great history, that has around 18 million residents and 230 pin codes. Sadly, more than 100 pin codes in the city do not even have one church and the total number of churches catering to this humongous population is less than 500. A network of city leaders is sincerely working with the vision to take God’s community to every pin code in Kolkata.

We praise God for the opening He has given in the cities of Colombo in Srilanka, Timpu in Bhutan and Kathmandu in Nepal, and we request your prayers for fruitful associations. South Asia has more than 1000 cities and we are praying and working to take this movement, led by the Holy Spirit, to each of them and to transform the cities for Christ.

CANADA

From Tim Day

Cities across Canada Continue to Battle the Spread of COVID-19

We conducted a national leadership survey in partnership with WayBase and a group of national researchers to identify the impact of the pandemic on Churches and ministries this fall. We discovered that the greatest innovation has been churches and ministries adding online services. Over 50% of all Christian churches are experiencing a significant decrease in donations. Almost 50% of people are continuing to engage churches through online services rather than in-person services. Finally, small group ministry and local community service are two of the top priorities for church leaders.

We are planning with our city movements and national ministries online events in 30 cities across Canada to help rally the Church to work together, to pray together, support each other, and become even better organized to serve their cities. WayBase is launching a new app called Engage to support this effort.

We are excited to have Daria Nardozza join our team from Christian Direction Montreal to help serve as our City Engagement Specialist. Jordan Taylor has taken a new role in our team as City Engagement Director. He is working closely with True City Hamilton. Together, Daria and Jordan will be growing our network of city movements across Canada.

NYC & Lead.NYC

From Adam Durso

More than a Moment

God is moving in and throughout the city of New York. The transformative power of Jesus Christ was evident throughout the virtual 2- day Movement Day NYC 2020 (MDNYC2020).

We were met with engaging keynotes sessions on Intersection between Kingdom and Culture by Dr. A.R. Bernard, The Process of Lament with Dr. Soong- Chan Rah, and the Next Generation by Dr. Kara Powell.

MDNYC2020 attendees came ready to receive and build relationships with fellow Christian leaders from all sectors pursuing the flourishing of NYC. Day- 1 walked attendees through the past year to reflect with one another on the disruptions that we have experienced. Day - 2 helped us look towards our hope for the future through a 10- year journey (Decadal Plan). In this activity, we imagined what a completely transformed NYC could be in the year 2030. There were also a few special MDNYC2020 surprises along the way! Grammy award-winning recording artist Lecrae stopped by to give us his insights on God-led leadership. Rev. Albert Tate also gave us an encouraging word on leading through significant disruption.

As a part of the body of Christ, we have a role in setting the growth trajectory of the places we live, work, and do ministry. Join us in accelerating the flourishing of our city for the next 10 years and beyond. This is more than a moment!

VIDEO: MDNYC2020 Recap

VIDEO: The Spoken Word

UNITED STATES

From Jim Liske and Lisa Mathews

MDX2020: A Global View

Thank you to everyone whose participation, enthusiasm and dedication helped to make Movement Day X 2020 such a success. With 1,900 registrants from 80+ countries around the world, this virtual conference brought together our global family of city gospel movements like never before. The ability to gather leaders together at MDX2020 – across time zones, over language barriers and around technical glitches – only enhanced the experience, creating a new energy in the process. Coming together for corporate worship, prayer, learning and celebration was a powerful, real-life example of unity in action.

With a look at the past 10 years in New York City, Mac Pier shared the North Star Vision for the next 10 years. This vision focuses on Marketplace ministry, reaching those in the Margins, uniting with Millennial and Next Gen leaders, Multiplying Churches and uniting in Prayer. City leaders were asked, what can God do in your city by the year 2030?

The MDX2020 Closing video offers a glimpse into the answers. The stubborn facts in our cities are daunting. But the promises of God and the hopes and prayers of His people will continue to bring light into the darkest places. As one attendee said, “I can be stubborn about a lot of things, but the best thing to be stubborn about is depending on God!"

Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for recaps and overviews of some great sessions and keynotes that we'll be sharing with you in the coming weeks. Also check out this interactive map of cities from MDX2020, with a grand total of 916 cities represented!