A good friend of Brigada teaches for a seminary. He recently asked the missions prof at his seminary if the missions department ever focused on disciple-making movements (DMMs). The professor responded like many professors might: “I need some scholarly articles first.” We don’t suppose you’ve come across anything we could share? Are there any scholarly articles on movements? If so, please comment and, if you would be so kind, provide a URL? Thank you so much!
1) Scholarly Articles on DMM?
Here’s a dissertation : https://static1.squarespace.com/static/588ada483a0411af1ab3e7ca/t/58b5aab23e00be649a679df5/1488300723148/Miller%2C+Matthew%2C+The+Role+of+Outside+Leaders+in+Disciple+Making+Movements+in+East+Africa.pdf
Steve Smith T4T dissertation https://static1.squarespace.com/static/588ada483a0411af1ab3e7ca/t/58b5aaf1f7e0ab7dc2a596de/1488300805237/Smith%2C+Stephen+Robert%2C+An+Evaluation+of+Training+for+Trainers+%28T4T%29+as+an+Aid+for+Developing+Sustained+Church+Planting+Movements+%28CPMs%29.pdf
Michael Cooper book distilled from
dissertation https://www.amazon.com/Ephesiology-Ephesian-Movement-Michael-Cooper/dp/1645082768
Numerous articles in Mission Frontiers magazine. Some are more scholarly than others but a great resourced.
http://www.missionfrontiers.org/
Motus Dei (2021) may be a book to look into. From the book’s description:
Warrick Farah has expertly synthesized an extensive conversation between mission practitioners, scholars, and seasoned movement leaders from around the world. The resulting in-depth analysis of movements provides a multi-disciplinary academic investigation of an emerging “movements missiology,” highlighting the importance of theology, social sciences, ethnology and anthropology, communications theory, leadership theory, and statistical analysis.
I haven’t read it yet and don’t know if this is the type of resource seminaries are looking for, but this seems to be the most thorough book out there on DMM missiology/ecclesiology from an academic perspective. I would imagine Farah cites relevant research throughout that could legitimize movement practices to those who need more data and analysis before coming on board.
Here’s more from a Brigada contributor who shared so many URLs, our website considered him a spammer. Oops. So sorry.
The Motus Dei book is full of good scholarship on movements. https://missionbooks.org/products/motus-dei
There are many articles here: https://independent.academia.edu/WarrickFarah
Especially https://www.academia.edu/80063140/The_Genesis_and_Evolution_of_Church_Planting_Movements_Missiology
And
https://www.academia.edu/41724829/Motus_Dei_Disciple_Making_Movements_and_the_Mission_of_God
I hope this helps.
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Thanks!
1) I agree with WH. Mission Frontiers Journal has a number of articles and issues covering aspects of DMM. Although it is not considered a peer-reviewed journal, many of the references cited in its articles are academically sound which shows that many of their writers are placing their DMM thoughts within academically sound sources. Some examples:
Mission Frontiers 2018 Mar-Apr v40#2 Whole issue.
Missions Frontiers 2017 Nov-Dec v39#6 pg13-15 Disciple making Movements in East Africa
Mission Frontiers 2019 Sep-Oct v41#5 pg44-47 Do Short-Term Teams and Disciple Making Movements (DMMs) Mix
2) William Carey Publishing https://missionbooks.org/collections/all A search of “Disciple Making Movements” brings up 15 of their books, including some already mentioned.
3) There are also numerous movements of people to Christ within standard missions/church history writings long before the current DMM terminology became popular. It sort of depends on what he intends to study and how he is defining it.
As excellent as the Mission Frontiers articles are, perhaps one step higher in terms of scholarly DMM articles is The International Journal of Frontier Missions (IJFM).
http://ijfm.org/about_ijfm.htm
The International Journal of Frontier Missiology (IJFM) is the official journal of the International Society for Frontier Missiology (ISFM)
An initial search of the website for DMM articles brings this:
https://www.google.com/search?q=DMM&btnG=Search&domains=www.ijfm.org&sitesearch=www.ijfm.org
“Wrinkling Time” by John Massey looking at CPMs as a whole.
https://nextmove.net/old/uploads/Massey_Wrinkling_Time_SWJT.pdf
The book “24:14 A testimony to all peoples”
Pulls it all together. I just read it.