Who Can Start a Movement? Three Possible Says of Being Involved in Starting Movements

EMQ » Jul – Sept 2025 » Volume 61 Issue 3

Summary: Movement catalysts possess distinct qualities in three areas: personality, spiritual, and social influence. They exhibit radical learning, innovation, drive to achieve, conscientiousness, assertiveness, and persistence. Spiritually, they have a hunger for God, deep prayer, listening to God, expectant faith, evangelistic zeal, transformational disciple-making, tangible love, and confidence in the Bible. Socially, they inspire others, influence beliefs, empower others, and have confidence in local disciples. People can get involved by starting a movement, joining a catalyst’s team, or serving an existing movement.

By Emanuel Prinz

Movement proponents such as David Garrison, David Watson, and Stan Parks have been casting the vision for movements and made the call for Christians to start movements everywhere. Growing numbers of Great Commission Christians have responded to the challenge. Justin Long estimates that there are at least 114 million Jesus followers within movements and 3,500 teams working towards starting a movement.[1] Many, like John and Anna, a couple with years of ministry experience who recently shifted to movement-oriented ministry, now ask themselves, “Who can start a movement?” “Can I? Can we?” And specifically, “How can we contribute to a movement?”

In 1 Corinthians 3:10–15, the Apostle Paul concludes his passage about church planting and building with, “The fire will test what sort of work each one has done” (v. 13, ESV, emphasis added). The Greek word hopoión, here translated “what sort,” means quality or manner. Thus, Paul states that the quality of a church planter’s ministry determines the outcomes. The results will either burn up or survive. Two factors determine a worker’s ministry quality: their ability to collaborate with God and their skill as a builder.

First, Paul refers to those who build God’s church as “God’s fellow workers” (1 Corinthians 3:9, ESV), “co-workers” (NIV), or “laborers together with God” (KJV). The Greek word used for fellow workers is synergoí, the root of the English word synergy. Effectively catalyzing a movement results from the synergy of the human element with the divine. David Garrison calls it “a divine-human cooperative.”[2] To build ministry that will last, a catalyst must be able to collaborate with God.

Second, Paul highlights the skills of a builder: “According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it” (1 Corinthians 3:10, ESV). Paul’s comparison of himself to a “skilled master builder” refers explicitly to the builder’s skills. Similarly, to start movements, people need to develop the right skills.

With my team at the Bethany Research Institute, I conducted a research study of 147 movements.[3] We defined a movement as “a rapid indigenous multiplication of disciples making disciples and churches planting churches in multiple streams within a people group to the fourth generation.” We surveyed 147 workers who had been identified as the primary catalyst of each movement. For comparison, we also surveyed a control group of 160 pioneer workers who had not started a movement. Several of the research team conducted 45 in-depth interviews with both effective catalysts and non-catalysts. The research participants had served in all six mega-cultures of the world.[4] Of the 147 catalysts, 109 were from the same people group where they catalyzed the movement, 17 from near-culture people groups, and 14 were expatriates. Surveys were conducted in English, French, Hindi, Indonesian, Spanish, and Swahili. From this research, we identified three possible ways to contribute to a movement and developed a self-assessment for people who would like to start a movement.

Ministry Possibility 1: As a Catalyst Who Starts a Movement

People who start movements can partner with God closely enough to synergize with him.

We found that these men and women share a distinct set of qualities regardless of where they are in the world. These qualities were less strongly evident in the 160 non-catalysts.[5] The following table presents these qualities.

Table 1: The Qualities of Catalysts

Personality Qualities	Spiritual Qualities	Social Influence Qualities
Radical Learning	Hunger for God	Inspiring Personality
Innovation	Deep Prayer	Inspiring Shared Vision
Drive to Achieve	Listening to God	Influencing Others’ Beliefs
Conscientiousness	Expectant Faith	Assertiveness
Personal Agency	Evangelistic Zeal	Transformational Disciple Making
Persistence	Tangible Love	Empowering
Agreeableness	Confidence in Local Disciples
	Confidence in the Bible

This differs from the missionary as hero paradigm in that these qualities include confidence in local disciples and empowering of others. At the same time, they expressed a desire for God more than for a movement and demonstrated their hunger for God through deep prayer. They listened to God and received revelation from him, having expectant faith based on this revelation.

In one catalyst’s story after another, a pattern repeated. Based on their close walk with God, God leads them, in his timing, to a place and a prepared community. There they find a receptive context and enough people to catalyze a movement. The East African catalyst Aila Tasse, for example, from a strong Muslim background, began to radically follow Jesus. With an intense hunger for God, he sought God in deep prayer for direction for his life. God gave Aila a vision in which he saw cabbages grow in the desert. Aila understood that God was showing him He would bring growth in circumstances where it looked impossible. This birthed faith in Aila that God would start movements even among the Muslim people groups of northern Kenya. Since that vision in 1989, God has used Aila to start several movements.[6]

Ministry Possibility 2: Join a Catalyst’s Team and Contribute to Starting a Movement

Rather than starting a new effort as a leader and pioneer, it is possible to come alongside a catalyst. Our research found that effective movement catalysts work in teams. A catalytic team is a group of individuals joined together to catalyze a movement, possessing among them the catalytic qualities. Through the combined capacity of the team and complimentary gifting of members, the qualities of a catalyst are collectively achieved.

To identify a good team for yourself, it is helpful to check your personality, passions, proficiencies, and gifting. A thorough understanding of your potential contribution can help you identify a catalytic team that is a good fit. You can add significant value to such a team by joining an aspiring catalyst who possesses the catalytic qualities that you don’t. You may have the opportunity to contribute to starting a movement, even if you are not the primary catalyst. I encourage you to prayerfully reach out to find an aspiring catalyst whose team is a good match for you and where your contribution is needed.

Ministry Possibility 3: Serve a Movement and Contribute to Its Growth and Multiplication

Surveys that Stan Parks has done at movement leader gatherings indicate that in recent years, most new movements have been started by catalysts from a near-culture movement. Only 10%–20% have been catalyzed by outside catalytic teams.[7] In response to this, Parks and Dave Coles have popularized the concept of a movement servant.[8] They assert, “Distant-culture workers can play a vital role in strengthening and deepening a movement, and/or in assisting a movement to expand and catalyze fresh movements among other UPGs [Unreached People Groups].”[9]

For a person to determine their best place to serve an existing movement, two questions can help:

1. “What can I do?” In other words, “What gifts, competencies, and expertise can I offer a movement?”

Answering this question for oneself and then communicating the answer to movement leaders can be helpful. However, anyone considering becoming a movement servant must also ask:

• “What needs to be done?” This question seeks to understand the needs of an existing movement and explore what contribution a distant-culture worker can make.

Movements don’t need or want an outsider coming with their own vision and plans. They may be helped, though, by outsiders approaching them with the offer to serve, willing to submit to the movement leader’s vision and contribute to it.[10] Humility and servant-heartedness are required for anyone considering this type of ministry role.

In addition, essential characteristics of movement servants include:

• Prior effort as a disciple-maker using a movement approach
• Good people skills
• Willingness to learn a local trade language at an appropriate level
• Willingness to learn and be sensitive to a new local culture(s)
• Faithfulness to keep commitments; a person of honor and integrity.[11]

Possibilities abound for serving existing movements. Coles and Parks offer a whole list with various possibilities.[12] The essential job criterion is “anything and everything that is needed” by the movement, as assessed by its leaders.[13]

By adding value to an existing movement in the posture of a servant, one can make a significant contribution to its ongoing growth and multiplying out to start other movements.

Two Steps Forward Everyone can Take

For all three of these ministry possibilities, we can point to two specific steps for moving forward.

Step 1: Praying for Movement Revelation

In story after story, effective catalysts have told me that at some point early in their journey God showed them that he was going to use them to start a movement. However, he doesn’t always do this. Therefore, if you seek God for such a revelation over a period of time and he does not grant it to you, this does not always mean he won’t use you to start a movement. If he does, however, you can confidently answer the question “Can I start a movement?” with an affirmative “Yes!” In my own experience, God giving me this revelation powerfully boosted my expectant faith. It gave me boldness and strengthened my persistence. I doubt we would have seen movement breakthrough if I had not had this God-given assurance.

Step 2: Identifying Your Own Catalyst Potential

Getting a realistic understanding of how much the catalytic qualities are developed in yourself, will help you identify your potential as a catalyst. Based on the research findings outlined in table 1, I have developed the “Catalyst Self-Assessment.” The self-assessment report will affirm you in the areas in which you are already well developed. It will highlight qualities that need to be developed to become an effective catalyst.

Whether one pursues a movement as primary catalyst, team member, or movement servant, everyone can increase their contribution and fruitfulness by growing in the catalytic qualities.

Developmental psychology tells us that the main predictor of superior performance is not innate aptitude but deliberate practice: the amount of systematic effort put into the development of a skill.[14]

Once a person has prayerfully found their best role and committed to it, the only direction forward is to pursue a movement and persist till breakthrough. For some catalysts, it takes only several months or a few years. For some I surveyed, it took 15 years.[15] Some movement practitioners, although they lay foundations as master builders, may not see the fruit of their labor in their lifetime. However, through their strong foundation, and someone else may see the movement breakthrough. A historic example is the experience of Charles Marsh among the Kabyle Berbers of Algeria. He began his ministry in 1925, but a movement broke through only in the 1970s after Marsh went to glory.[16] The most important thing, as Winston Churchill famously said: “Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never.”[17] Or as the movement catalyst St. Paul wrote, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest, if we do not give up (1 Corinthians 6:9).

Author Biography

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[1] Justin Long, “How Long to Reach the Goal?” in Mission Frontiers 45, no. 1 (2023): 34–35.

[2] David Garrison, A Wind in the House of Islam: How God is Drawing Muslims around the World to Faith in Jesus Christ (Midlothian: WIGTake, 2014), 255.

[3] For a full technical research report see: Prinz, Emanuel, Lewis, David, & Goldhor, Alison, Catalyst Competence Research: An Empirical Investigation into the Traits and Competencies of Effective Movement Catalysts and Other Factors Contributing to and Impeding Movements, unpublished (Bethany International, 2021), https://www.catalyticleadership.info/resources.

[4] Mega-cultures are a lens cultural anthropologists use to look at the world from a macro level. David C. Lewis, “Ethnicity and Values,” in Republica Literaria 2, no. 4 (2021): 100–114.

[5] Emanuel Prinz, What Actually Starts Movements: Partnering with God for Kingdom Multiplication (100Movements Publishing, 2025).

[6] Aila Tasse and Dave Coles, Cabbages in the Desert: How God Transformed a Devout Muslim and Catalyzed Disciple Making Movements among Unreached Peoples (Beyond, 2024), 21–23.

[7] Dave Coles and Stan Parks, “Movement Servants: Helping Movements Multiply,” in Mission Frontiers 44, no. 6 (2022): 20, https://davecoles.freemin.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Movement_Servants-Helping_Movements_Multiply.pdf.

[8] Dave Coles and Stan Parks, “Movement Servants Needed!” in Mission Frontiers 43, no. 3 (2021): 37–41; Dave Coles and Stan Parks, “Movement Servants” (2022): 20–22.

[9] Dave Coles and Stan Parks, “Movement Servants” (2022): 20–21.

[10] Such connections can be initiated through the 24:14 Coalition: https://2414now.net/get-involved.

[11] Dave Coles and Stan Parks, “Movement Servants Needed!” (2021): 40–41.

[12] Dave Coles and Stan Parks, “Movement Servants” (2022): 21.

[13] Dave Coles and Stan Parks, “Movement Servants” (2022): 21.

[14] K. Anders Ericsson, Ralf. T. Krampe, and Clemens Tesch-Roemer, “The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance,” in Psychological Review 100, no. 3 (1993): 363–404.

[15] Emanuel Prinz, Movement Catalysts: Profile of an Apostolic Leader (Independently published, 2022), 85.

[16] Daisy M. Marsh, and George Verwer, There’s a God in Heaven: Life Experiences among North Africans (Gazelle Books, 1997); Jean L. Blanc, Algérie, Tu Es à Moi!, Signé Dieu (Editions Sénevé, 2006); David Garrison, A Wind, 90–94, 130–141.

[17] Winston S. Churchill, in his speech at Harrow School on October 29, 1941, first recorded in writing in The Unrelenting Struggle (Cassel and Boston, 1942), 274–276.

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EMQ, Volume 61, Issue 3. Copyright © 2025 by Missio Nexus. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from Missio Nexus. Email: EMQ@MissioNexus.org.