Malcolm Gladwell's seminal work, The Tipping Point, offers profound insights into how small changes can lead to significant shifts, a concept that aligns seamlessly with our core missionary objective. This article will discuss how the principles outlined in the book can be directly applied to our core missionary task, emphasizing the importance of context, stickiness, and the roles of connectors, mavens, and salespeople in achieving our goals.

Simply put, the Metric Black Hole is the idea that there are many things that we do for which we do not have an accurate measurement of how they contribute to the bottom line.

We’d been on the road in South Asia for three weeks. We’d covered thousands of kilometers and met hundreds of people. The purpose was to hear their stories and experience the life of a movement of God.

In the early days of my disciple-making journey, I went door-to-door on a weekly basis with others in Austin, TX. We prayed and shared the Gospel with those who would open their doors. Candidly, I didn’t like it.

We see in this passage that Jesus saw what the disciples completely missed. They missed the opportunity to reach the Samaritan village.

One balmy summer evening, I was prayer walking with my friend through a predominantly Muslim area in my city. It wasn’t the smell of street food and masala chai or the horns of the gridlocked vehicles that overwhelmed me the most; it was the sheer amount of people bustling through the tight streets who I knew had never - and likely would never - hear the good news about Jesus that hit me the hardest at that moment.

Without prayer, there simply is no movement of God among any person or any place. Prayer is the greater catalytic work in movements just as blood is the fluid of life in the human body. It flows through every part of the miracle of reproducing disciples and churches.

Today, there is more qualitative and quantitative research on the core missionary task than ever. Those not involved in research or directly receiving the information often do not fully understand the purpose, benefit, or process of good missiological research.

Entire books have been written about the interaction Jesus had with the woman at the well in John 4. Let’s look at it with this question in mind: How does Jesus engage a person who is far from God? 

Some missionaries today stress the importance of this passage for missionary evangelism and practice today. But others disagree strongly, arguing that these instructions were only intended for the specific time and place that Jesus gave them. I want to examine these Scriptures with you and share why I believe these instructions are still applicable and instructive for our missions practices today.