Kingdom IS coming
- deansimpson7
- 5 days ago
- 4 min read
Salvos Online journalist LAUREN MARTIN recently spent a week in London attending the Movement Leaders’ Collective global gathering with three other Aussie Salvos. In this Viewpoint article, she shares her reflections on the experience and what it means in an Australian context.
What did I learn at the Movement Leaders Collective (MLC) global gathering in London in May?
Well, I spent much of the first day at the gathering (it’s not a ‘conference’, it’s a ‘gathering’), partly jet-lagged and partly wondering what the heck I was doing there.
Most attendees were leaders of networks or held leadership positions within churches or missional organisations. I had come with three others from The Salvation Army, all of whom held leadership roles. Yet here I was, an untrained, part-time ‘tent-making’ mission leader from a small town in Australia. An everyday Christian from The Salvation Army, just trying to be obedient to God’s calling within my own local mission and ministry.
I soaked it all up, relishing the ample time provided to meet others and learn from their experiences seeing God at work building pockets of the kingdom of God outside the confines of a ‘Sunday-service-centred’ church.
The three-day gathering was led by Rich Robinson (speaker, author and leadership coach), Alan Hirsch (mission specialist) and the MLC team, who recently visited Australia to teach and train Salvation Army officers, staff and ministry personnel. (To read that story, click here).
The focus was on creating a tipping point for movemental Christianity in the West. What would it look like to have a Jesus-centred, disciple-making ecclesia in multiple dynamic expressions transforming neighbourhoods, cities and entire nations? And how do we get there – reach a tipping point so that movemental Christianity is not just on the fringes, but the ‘norm’, and multiplying?
Insert brain explosion right here!
After the first day, I took a long walk along the River Thames and asked God the same question I had been asking myself all day – why am I here? What’s this all for?
Whilst I did not receive an ‘epiphany’ at that time, I had a peaceful sense that God’s work of renewal and restoration is already happening. It is both a current and a future reality. Kingdom is coming. God’s plans cannot be thwarted.
One day, the Pharisees asked Jesus, ‘When will the Kingdom of God come?’ Jesus replied, ‘The Kingdom of God can’t be detected by visible signs. You won’t be able to say, ‘Here it is!’, or, ‘It’s over there!’ For the Kingdom of God is already among you’” (Luke 17:20-21).
At The Salvation Army, I hold a privileged position as a part-time writer with the national editorial team, which allows me to speak directly with frontline, missional practitioners within our movement. I hear firsthand what Jesus is doing, bringing hope and life to communities across Australia. I also witness it firsthand as part of the Shire Salvos team in my other part-time role as mission leader at 2508 Salvos (my home).
Make no mistake, Kingdom is coming. God’s plans to reconcile all of creation to himself cannot be thwarted.
Is it happening as fast as I want to see it happen? No! (But patience is a fruit that rarely makes an appearance in my spiritual fruit-bowl!)
Do I trust God’s timing? Absolutely.
On the second day of the MLC gathering (not conference), one of the MLC team members mentioned the ‘such-a-time-as-this’ story of Esther from the Old Testament. What struck me most was not the call to rise, like Esther did, to the occasion that history is presenting, but the fact that Mordecai tells Esther that if she doesn’t act, ‘relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place …”.
Again, I got that sense that as surely as the river flows towards the ocean, Kingdom is coming. Renewal is already happening. And if we don’t act in accordance with it, it will simply ‘arise in another place’.
Let’s not pray for revival, let’s thank God that renewal is already happening, and ask him to show us where the Spirit is moving in our contexts and how we can join in!
And if you don’t know where to start (other than on your knees), seek out the MLC training that is currently being offered through The Salvation Army’s Faith Communities Development team. It is both practical and theological, focusing on movemental DNA, the five-fold APEST ministry model, and how to disrupt current systems in order to see and seek what God has for our movement and individual local communities.
What did I learn from the MLC global gathering in London in May? A lot. However, the most significant thing God showed me is that he is faithful and active in his plans to renew our world.
I’m excited to be part of a movement – The Salvation Army – that is so perfectly positioned on the frontline to witness and be part of God’s work in action.
