Shifting Tracks: Resistance and Renewal

In episode one, we named the crisis. In episode two, we remembered what Jesus actually started. This week, we get practical: if we really want to move from institutional to movemental, what’s in the way?

We’re calling this one Resistance and Renewal because both are happening at the same time. The Spirit is inviting the church in the West into deeper imagination, but there are powerful currents pushing the other way. If we don’t name those, we’ll keep trying to pour movement wine into institutional wineskins and wonder why it doesn’t work.

Here’s where we go in the conversation:

1. Cultural blockers
Consumerism, control, and celebrity have discipled us more than we’d like to admit. They bend church life toward spectatorship instead of participation. They make “church as event” feel normal and “everyone plays” feel radical.

2. Institutional blockers
Even well-meaning systems—hierarchy, budgets, theological gatekeeping—can centralize power and slow multiplication. We talk about how to honor good stewardship without choking off innovation and everyday disciple-making.

3. Personal blockers
This is the part we usually skip. A lot of the resistance lives in us: fear of losing status, fear of being misunderstood, fear of risking what’s “working.” We say we want renewal, but we don’t always want the disruption that creates it.

And then we get to the hope.

The way into renewal is the same path Jesus laid out. Metanoia. The metanoia journey is at the heart of 100 Movements, All Change, and the mDNA work—letting go of what no longer serves the Kingdom so we can receive what the Spirit is actually doing now.

The invitation of this moment is simple and costly: leave behind what keeps the church stuck so we can follow Jesus into something new.

The church Jesus started was never built to protect our preferences. It was, and still is, a people willing to be disrupted for the sake of the Kingdom.

If this episode stirred something in you, here are your next steps:

→ Take the free mDNA Strengths Test to discern how you’re wired for movement and where resistance might be showing up.
→ Name one thing to release—fear, control, reputation, certainty—and tell a trusted friend or your microchurch.
→ Share this episode with a leader who’s caught between “I know we need to change” and “I’m not sure how to let go.”