by Rodney Martin

Glenn Kauffman and I recently completed a survey asking how many leaders LMC has trained in the past year.  After we thought about it for a moment we realized, to our surprise, that the number is higher than we imagined.  

In our movement development work, Glenn and I are leading—or learning to lead—two different labs by the Movement Leaders Collective. They are training us through consulting and resourcing to help LMC be a multiplying movement. The Movement Lab guides participants in learning a metanoia (Greek for repentance and means change of direction) process for developing change, in partnership with the Holy Spirit, in the church. This is about deep level cultural change from what is to where God is calling a community or organization to become; the change of direction that is needed. 

The Movement DNA lab teaches participants the six elements of movement: Jesus is Lord, Disciple-Making, Missional Incarnational Impulse, APEST, Liminality and Communitas, and Organic Systems. If you’ve hung around LMC recently, you may have picked up some of this language. Movement DNA is the operating system, the platform on which a multiplying movement is built. The activation of these elements in the church, with the Holy Spirit, creates a multiplying disciple-making culture. 

This past January we completed the first Movement Lab with eight bishops, including the Bishop Elders and Marvin Lorenzana, president of EMM. We currently have another nine bishops going through a Movement Lab. Each bishop in these labs is invited to bring several additional leaders from their district. Glenn and I are also currently leading a Movement DNA lab with forty-plus credentialed and non-credentialed leaders in the Conestoga River, Martindale, and Susquehanna districts. Additionally, EMM and LMC staff went through the Movement DNA lab.  

Altogether, it’s well over one hundred leaders that LMC has trained or is training this year. I am excited this is becoming a significant part of our time and investment in LMC. To be a Spirit-led movement calls for leaders who are led by the Spirit to be trained in the ways of movement and empowered to try new things in multiplying disciples of Jesus. Your investment in LMC makes this possible. Your prayer for LMC is appreciated. Movement Labs are about deep level changes to live into the new that God is calling us to as we seek sow seeds of the gospel.

Rodney Martin serves on the Bishop Elder Team for LMC. His passion is to see the church in movement, connecting with younger generations to make disciples who live Christ-centered lives that are transforming the world.