Anticipating the Return of Christ

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Response to Marks of a Movement Written by Winfield Bevins
Review by R. Joseph Ritter, Jr.

This is written in response to, or as a review of, Marks of a Movement (2019) by Winfield Bevins. I was asked to read the book, but a review was not part of the request. However, I feel compelled to write this review for a number of reasons as outlined herein.

At the outset, Marks of a Movement resembles much of the key tenets of the disciple making movement (DMM). A feature of DMM is “rapid” disciple-making and organic multiplication, including through church planting. For his part, Bevins is or was affiliated with the Acts 29 Network which highly resembles DMM. Some of the visible figures in DMM include those in the emergent church and seeker sensitive/attractional church camps. Marks of a Movement cites the work of and is endorsed by Leonard Sweet, who is often associated with the emergent church, and Sweet has co-authored a number of books with Brian McLaren in support of emergent church. Alan Hirsch, who is another visible figure in emergent church, wrote the afterword for Marks of a Movement.

If you are a person who disagrees with or questions Acts 29, emergent church, and particularly the work of Sweet, McLaren or Hirsch, Marks of a Movement will be read with a degree of caution. That Marks of a Movement receives their endorsement suggests its content lines up with their view of what church should be.

What Is a Disciple?

As I review Marks of a Movement and look at DMM, emergent church and Acts 29 Network, the question that should guide our focus is this:

What is a disciple? How does Marks of a Movement define “disciple?” How do the other, related camps define the word?

Reading Luke 14:26-33, we realize that a true disciple as defined by Christ is one who will go anywhere, suffer any cross, and give up everything, even to the point of death, for the cause of Christ. Because the concept of disciples in the church is given to us by Jesus Christ through the Bible, we must be guided by a Biblical understanding of “disciple.”

How does one become a disciple? Moses was 40 years in the wilderness preparing to lead Israel out of Egypt. Jesus was 40 days in the desert fasting. Paul was three years in the desert. Wesley went all the way from England to Georgia in search of an experience with God, and in those days, the trip was not as simple as boarding the next flight. George Mueller, Hudson Taylor, John “Praying” Hyde, Hans Egede, and many other great saints gone before us have grappled over varying periods of time with becoming a true disciple of Christ. A commonality among all of them is a “crisis” resulting in a call from the One True God to a higher service and deeper level of consecration. Some call the desert/wilderness “God’s school.” After gaining head knowledge, God’s school shapes the heart and hones faith and trust in Him.

J.D. Walt wrote in the Seedbed Sower’s Almanac of 2016/17 a review of an important George Barna survey. Barna categorized responses in one of ten transformational stops. Only 11% of respondents had moved past Involvement in Faith Activities to one of the categories representing a deeper commitment, such as Surrender and Submission, Profound Love for God, or Profound Love for people. The vast majority of respondents were stuck in sin, according to the survey results. This includes people who are awakened spiritually but not making significant forward progress. A true disciple of Jesus, according to Luke 14:26-33, would be someone who has moved past mere involvement in faith activities.

Do we need committed disciples as Jesus defines a disciple? Yes, we very much need these disciples in our churches today. It is evident that such a disciple is lacking most in Barna’s survey results. Marks of a Movement makes a valid point that intentional discipleship, as espoused in early Methodism, is not occurring on a widespread scale. Many of us can agree that more discipleship – not less – is important to the future of the church at large.

The concern arises here with what is intended by the term “discipleship,” however, because prominent emergent church voices (again, the book is endorsed by at least two emergent church figures) do not believe “disciple” has to mean a Luke 14:26-33 disciple. Take, for example, Brian McLaren in Generous Orthodoxy. “I don’t believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion.” McLaren goes on to purport that converts to Christianity can live pluralistic lives. McLaren’s assessment of “disciple” openly violates the first commandment to not have any other gods before the One True God and undermines the plain teaching of Christ.

Marks of a Movement does not provide a working definition of “disciple” or suggest an outcome of “disciple-making” beyond multiplication. The seeker sensitive/attractional church model does well with multiplication. With the awareness that discipleship in the 21st century is being watered down, not clearly defining discipleship casts a cloud over the book. That emergent church figures endorse Marks of a Movement, the concern is that the particular type of disciple-making described in the book is not the same type of disciple envisioned by Christ.

How One Becomes a Disciple

DMM and many who subscribe to platforms similar to DMM begin with the Great Commission when speaking about making disciples. Marks of a Movement is no different in this respect. Beginning with Scripture is vitally important. However, of greater importance is how that Scripture is interpreted, applied and framed.

Matthew 28:19, which we know to be the first verse in the Great Commission and which is cited in Marks of a Movement, arguably does not tell us to “make disciples.” Of the major translations of the Bible, the King James Version is the only text to avoid “make disciples.” In the King James, Jesus said, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations…” It is other major translations (NASB, ESV, RSV, etc.) which read “make disciples.”

I am not a Greek scholar, so my handle on Greek is negligible. However, my understanding of the original text is that it reads, “Having gone therefore, disciple all the nations…” “Teach” (or “disciple”) carries with it an understanding that the pupil should reach a measurable point after receiving instruction. An object of instruction is that the pupil adapt what is learned to practical application in life. Mere head knowledge does not make an effective pupil. Knowing about something is very different from being able to do something. “Make” is a word of manufacturing. When we consider these two words as they relate to discipleship, teaching is a far better understanding than manufacturing.

You may argue that this is mere semantics. Considering that Marks of a Movement discusses systems and pipelines in the disciple-making process, the difference between teaching all nations and manufacturing disciples becomes more readily apparent. Marks of a Movement advocates for learning from the systems and pipelines employed by John Wesley and implementing effective disciple-making systems and pipelines in our own churches.

At the end of chapter 5, Bevins writes, “Wesley’s discipleship systems not only made disciples, it produced leaders.” Then, over in chapter 6, he writes, “A leadership pipeline is an intentional system or structure that trains and equips people to become leaders. Wesley developed his leadership pipeline beginning with an individual attending class meetings and gradually progressing to the highest levels of leadership in the Methodist movement.”

It is difficult at this point in Marks of a Movement to determine whether the discipleship embodied by Methodism was the product of strategies and systems regularly employed in the secular business environment or an underlying spiritual vitality at the hand of God. (Does spiritual vitality matter?)

Is a spiritually vital disciple (Luke 14:26-33) a product of implementing sophisticated systems and pipelines leading to more populated churches, or does the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives prompt us to teach God’s Word and use our service to yield a harvest? Is it possible that, when conducting a factual review of the harvest, we can extract systems and pipelines of disciple making? God is orderly and of magnificent handiwork, so it is reasonable to assume that the work of the Holy Spirit will have the appearance of being orderly and methodical.

Marks of a Movement does not deal with this question and does not address the work of God in discipleship. Upon reading Marks of a Movement, I am left with the feeling that if we launch just the right systems, pipelines and methods, we can replicate the work of John Wesley.

“Much ink has been spilt attributing this troubling trend to a lack of faithfulness to orthodoxy and Wesleyanism, while urging the UMC to return ‘back to Wesley’ in response.” Joseph Rossell in How Marxism and Identity Politics Contributed to UMC Decline, February 5, 2018.

Rossell is reviewing an academic paper entitled The Mission Dei in the United States: The Challenge of Baffling Cultural and Political Context by Kenneth Collins, professor at Asbury Theological Seminary. In the paper, Rossell writes that Collins is reviewing the problem of Marxist-influenced cultural trends affecting the church. Rossell believes Collins is arguing for a renunciation of such influences in order to recapture the gospel within the church. This, he believes, is why the church is failing to resonate with more and more people.

For more information on the influence of Marxism in the church, links to various resources are provided at the end. This we must address before we can effectively teach the gospel as given to us in God’s Word. As we look at the life of John Wesley, he did the same – pushed for reformation of the existing church in an effort to return the church to the plain teaching of the gospel. “Getting back to Wesley” is only a small part of the real issue that is still waiting to be addressed.

More than this, the Church Growth Movement (McGavran, Wagner, Winter, Hunter, et al.) and the Seeker Sensitive Church (Hybels, Warren, Drucker, Shuler, Buford, et al.), which spawned DMM and emergent church, have failed. Yes, they were successful at growing churches and building empire-like mega churches. Yes, many religion-oriented books have been sold along with Bibles, television shows, radio and other means have broadcasted their message wider than ever before.

However, we must take a moment to acknowledge the great truth Marks of a Movement brings forward, namely, that discipleship is not occurring. In essence, the author clearly states that what we have been doing is not working, all the while mega churches get bigger and bigger. Barna’s transformational stops survey provides empirical evidence of the decline in discipleship. Mainline denominational churches are hemorrhaging members, and in 2021, the effects of a weakening church and a weakened Christianity are on full display.

Creating discipleship systems without renewing the root of the church is not going to produce the outcome predicted. This is where Marks of a Movement falls short. Marks of a Movement comes across as an indictment of the movement it represents. 

We cannot dismiss the grace of God at work behind awakenings in history. We understand the grace of God to be unmerited favor. Just what is that favor?

• We are saved by grace through faith, not by works that we should boast. Ephesians 2:8-9
• Grace enables belief. Acts 8:27
• Grace is for obedience to the faith. Romans 1:5
• Grace is the power for witnessing. Acts 4:33
• Grace lays the foundation for our works. 1 Corinthians 3:10
• Grace is given to preach the gospel [disciple the nations]. Ephesians 3:8
• Grace helps in time of need. Hebrews 4:16
• Grace is given whereby we can serve God. Hebrews 12:28
• Grace makes us perfect in strength and settles and establishes us. 1 Peter 5:10

The scene by the waters of Marah in Exodus 15 illustrates God’s grace well. It was the grace of God acting upon the water through Moses’ faith on behalf of Israel which brought clean water (salvation), and not through a series of filtration systems, purification pipelines, trenches, and so on built by the people (works) that they should boast. In other words, if we can act upon our own circumstances, then we have no need of God.

When Jesus Christ commanded us to go and teach all nations, it is implied that as we are faithful to God’s Word it is the Holy Spirit which will quicken the hearts of our hearers. If we are fully committed to the grace of God as the primary agent acting in our own hearts and the hearts of those who hear our teaching, then we will desire to be much more intentional in our teaching as Wesley earnestly sought to implement.

Because the grace of God at work in and through Wesley and in and through our discipleship is presented or clarified in Marks of a Movement, we cannot determine whether the book is primarily a call to develop new systems or seek to have God’s grace at work in our preaching and teaching of the gospel.

The Holy Spirit and You

In a cursory review of the entire book, Bevins has many citations and quotes of John Wesley. For large sections of the book, I find much that is agreeable because they are direct quotes or summaries of Wesley’s work. There is little about John Wesley with which to disagree. In chapter 4, there is a section on page 91 titled The Holy Spirit and You.

“Have you had an encounter with the person and work of the Holy Spirit? By this I mean something that is as real as the sun shining on your face, the summer breeze blowing through your hair, or the sand in your toes. For some of you, it may seem crazy to consider the possibility of an encounter with God. But [John] Wesley reminds us that this experience is available to us. You and I can experience the fullness of the Holy Spirit. I say this not as a theologian or pastor, but as an ordinary guy whose life has been deeply touched and impacted by the Holy Spirit’s work…”

The kind of experience Bevins ultimately advocates is, unfortunately, not described anywhere in Scripture. This is not to dispute his personal account, but to issue a caution about the reader seeking a similar experience and the risk that such a quest will lead away from the plain teaching of Scripture. Beyond the influences of DMM, etc., there is a degree of modern mysticism in the book.

Are we to seek an experience? Are we to seek confirmation of the Holy Spirit in our lives through sensation? If this is our focus, have we taken our focus off of a true relationship with God? I dare say that many sincere believers have never had such an encounter. That by no means suggests they are without the Holy Spirit. Advocating something like this which is not found in Scripture is problematic because it serves to get us off course. If I have not had this encounter, am I to go backward in an effort to get this encounter?

Hebrews 6 offers some insight here. First, we see that we are exhorted to go on toward perfection or maturity. We are to leave behind the elementary teachings and begin feasting on the meat of holiness which leads to spiritual maturity. What is this maturity? Is it not, as Barna’s survey suggests, a profound love for God and profound love for people? Is it not a perfect trust in God and a perfect love for God?

Second, Hebrews 6:11 calls us to realize the full assurance of hope, and verse 19 says that this hope we have is an anchor of the soul, a hope that is both sure and reliable.

John Wesley and other great teachers in the Wesleyan-Arminian heritage focus on Christian perfection (maturity) and assurance. I can think of no better explanation on this than sermons by Elmer Long and, particularly, a series of messages still available through the Fundamental Wesleyan Society. Elmer describes observing people seek an experience and believing they fell short of justification and sanctification when it didn’t come. In counsel, he would ask them if they have assurance. Then, he would lead them through the promise. God’s promise clearly is that if we confess our sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ we are justified. It is by faith through grace, not of works that we should boast. I was talking recently with a Baptist friend who asked, if I do not believe in eternal security, about the source of my joy. I told him my joy is in love for God and that my assurance comes from the promise. He will do what He has promised, and resting in that promise develops a profound love for God and a more perfect trust in Him.

An experience full of physical sensation comes through works and falls short of the assurance of a hope anchored in Christ. Again, I intend not to suggest Bevins does not have this assurance or mock his experience. However, teaching physical sensations as the way we experience the Holy Spirit falls short of clear Biblical teaching. The risk here is that well-meaning readers will get off track, which obviously subverts the very object of the book.

This review of how we understand the Holy Spirit is relevant to the question of how we define “disciple” and whether the grace of God is at work in our teaching of the gospel.

Following Jesus Today

Chapter 2 of Marks of a Movement is titled Changed Lives. Here, Bevins begins by briefly recalling the “life transforming experiences with the risen Christ” “encountered” by people throughout history. These include Moses at the burning bush, Paul on the Damascus road, Augustine, Luther, St. Francis, St. Patrick, and, of course, John Wesley.

Beginning on page 58 (after a lengthy factual discussion on how Wesley’s heart was strangely warmed) in the section titled, Following Jesus Today, Bevins writes:

“The call to follow Christ, first and foremost, is a call to total self-surrender. We must leave behind our self-dependence and resolve to follow Jesus, just as the disciples did in their day. We may not understand every doctrine of the Christian faith, but we must know that the one we are following demands and deserves our allegiance as the Son of God… Surrender your life to him today and begin to follow him! … Every Christian revival movement begins with a follower of Christ making a radical commitment to follow Jesus… If we are to have any hope of a revival movement in our day, it will begin with ordinary believers having a fresh encounter with the living Christ.”

Yes. But no. I agree with what he is saying, but there is much to disagree with as well.

A good place to read in Scripture on this point is Genesis 37 through Joshua 24. Conceptually, when God began to lead Israel out of Egypt, a series of tests were laid in their path. At every turn, they would rather have indulged selfish desires for worldly security than to trust in God. They wanted something more than they perceived God could offer. While we are definitely called to self-denial, Bevins’ remarks end with a focus on an “encounter.”

A common struggle many people face is whether we can exercise self-denial and surrender to Christ on our own (works) or whether it must be the Holy Spirit drawing us and giving us the strength (grace) to trust in Him to the exclusion of self. In short, we’re back in Romans 7:14-25. Many people get tripped up here, and frankly, this is where the Pharisees went wrong. They focused on rote obedience to a set of laws as the basis of their justification. When we focus on the outcome (the encounter), we miss God. Many would also agree that John Wesley was too focused on works (an encounter) before his heart was strangely warmed.

The other issue I see here – and this is rather striking – is that Moses, Paul, Abraham, Gideon and many others both in Scripture and after the Bible was written were not necessarily seeking something in particular from God. On the contrary, it was God who broke into their lives. God issued a challenging call bigger than their resources, and through faith by grace they trusted and loved God into obedience, self-denial and sacrificial service. This is the very essence of discipleship. Jesus said He would draw all people to Himself (John 12:32), and Paul writes that He who began a good work in us will perfect it (Philippians 1:6).

We cannot dismiss the drawing power of the Holy Spirit acting on our hearts even before we considered turning to God and drawing us to higher obedience once we do turn to God.

It is not the pursuit of an encounter, an encounter itself, self-denial, or radical commitment which sparks a movement. God works through His word – the very gospel itself. It is the message of the gospel as found in the Bible which draws people. It is God’s grace at work through the teaching of the gospel.

DMM articles and writers frequently point to Acts 3:41 and that we can replicate thousands of souls won for Christ and engage in church multiplication and rapid disciple-making. The methods behind DMM, Acts 29, and encounters such as Marks of a Movement propound are not what led to Acts 3:41. Instead, verse 37 plainly says they were pierced to the heart after hearing the message of the gospel, and they repented and were baptized as Peter exhorted.

This is where, if Scripture taught physical sensations and fresh encounters, we would see Peter say, “You will know when you have Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit when you feel ____________” [fill in the blank]. No. This is not the way to receive the grace Christ offers, and telling readers to pursue such an encounter leads them away from God’s grace.

In John Wesley’s Plain Account of Christian Perfection, we find this:

Question: When may a person judge himself to have attained this?
Answer: When, after having been fully convinced of inbred sin, by a far deeper and clearer conviction than that he experienced before justification, and after having experienced a gradual mortification of it, he experiences a total death to sin, and an entire renewal in the love and image of God, so as to rejoice evermore, to pray without ceasing, and in everything to give thanks…

Disciples are raised up through hearing the Word of God, and it is God who pierces their hearts and calls them through a transformation of the heart.

Concluding Thoughts

As Marks of a Movement concludes, Bevins makes a case for how and why churches (especially at the denominational level) fail to sustain the fervor of revival. As with other parts of the book, I can agree with him on a conceptual level.

It is in the specifics where I am left searching for something more. In chapter 7 (page 156), Bevins writes, “As we saw earlier, Wesley was a master organizer and had an intentional strategy for multiplication of the Methodist movement that reproduced everything: disciples, leaders, bands, class meetings, societies, circuits, and conferences.”

On a purely factual level, Bevins is not wrong. However, Wesley’s ability to organize and develop systems and pipelines is hardly the whole story. Wesley did not set out to create a movement. His primary desire was to reform the existing church. The focus of his efforts was only teaching believers to become mature Christians. It is the message of the gospel which transformed people that led to Methodism, the transformation of communities, and the sending out of people like Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury. Asbury, for example, could not have done what he did from systems and pipelines.

When we become focused on movements, systems and pipelines, the message of the gospel is lost. We must trust that God will move upon hearts as we teach, preach and proclaim the gospel.

Let us not forget that it is our teaching which has failed and not our systems or pipelines. Creating systems and pipelines will not produce the desired result. It cannot. This is mere works and attractional church. “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” John 15:5

Let us be about faithfully expounding on the Word of God, not shirking back from proclaiming the good news of the gospel, even to the point of jail, persecution and death. This we cannot do unless we are going on toward maturity and seeking the grace of God to act upon our hearts and the hearts of our hearers.

Let us be, as Wesley said, homo unius libri, and let that book be the Word of God.

 

For further reading, see:

• Hath God Said, Elliott Nesch (available free at https://holybibleprophecy.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Hath-God-Said-3rd-Edition-PDF.pdf)
• Emergent / Emerging Church Documentary, Elliott Nesch (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OF-CHA4Z2FQ)
• Church of Tares: Purpose Driven, Seeker Sensitive, Elliott Nesch (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9y9ly6YvCw)
• Communism in the Churches, Bishop Gerald Kennedy [c. 1960] (https://wallbuilders.com/sermon-communism-churches-c-1960/)
• Communist Infiltration of Protestant Churches, Brother James (theundergroundchurch.net/blog/2018/06/17/communist-infiltration-of-protestant-churches/)
• Meet God’s Communists (https://www.complicitclergy.com/2019/03/27/meet-gods-communists/)
• Harry Frederick Ward Papers, 1880 – 1979, The Burke Library Archives Union Theological Seminary, New York
• Henry F. Ward, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_F._Ward (accessed May 17, 2021)
• Can a Christian be a Marxist?, Joshua Bontrager (https://joshuabontrager.com/can-a-christian-be-a-marxist/)
• Peter Drucker: Leadership Network and the Emergence of the Modern Mega-Church Empire, August 23, 2014 (https://thenarrowingpath.com/2014/08/23/peter-drucker-leadership-network-and-the-emergence-of-the-modern-mega-church-empire/)
• Cultural Marxism: The origins of the present day social justice movement, and political correctness, Stephen Thomas Kirschner (https://thepolicy.us/cultural-marxism-the-origins-of-the-present-day-social-justice-movement-and-political-correctness-ffb89c6ef4f1)
• How Marxism and Identity Politics Contributed to UMC Decline, Joseph Rossell (https://juicyecumenism.com/2018/02/05/marxism-identity-politics-umc-decline-ken-collins/)