Have you ever thought about the context within which the Jesus movement began? It began in the Middle East. Specifically, in and around the area of Galilee and then migrated to the city of Jerusalem. Many times we think of these places like Galilee and Capernaum as being little farm towns. The towns while being small were also dense. When you visit these sites you leave amazed at how compact they were. It takes mere minutes to walk from one end to another. The streets are narrow. The houses right on top of another, some times quite literally.
Why would God start a movement in a place like this?
One word, “saturation”.
If you have a message that you want communicated quickly and thoroughly, is it easier to do that within a large geographic area or a small geographic area? The answer is obvious. A small area. The towns around the Sea of Galilee were densely populated and this made it easy for Jesus and his followers to quickly and efficiently spread the message of the kingdom.
Think of a sponge, you can soak up quite a bit of water with one. However, once it is saturated the water begins to overflow. When we consider how to best reach people with the gospel we would be wise to follow the model that Jesus has set for us. This model is saturation.
Ypsilanti is a small urban environment. The neighborhood structure of the city proper creates densely populated people centers. The structure of our city lends itself to saturation and exponential growth.
This means that The Antioch Movement will focus on a neighborhood or two and seek to saturate them with gospel people and the gospel message. We are going to build the movement from the neighborhood that Dan and Amy live in and from the campus of Eastern Michigan University. The desire is that each person who calls The Antioch Movement their community to be saturating their spheres of influence and launching movements wherever they may be.
Saturation leads to exponential growth. When we see exponential growth happening we have a movement.
The Challenge
If we are going to saturate our spheres of influence we need to talk to people. The challenge is simple, talk to five people each week about Jesus.
