Collaborative passion is the only solution if Christians want to impact the city of Dallas, Jim Denison, founder of the Denison Forum on Truth and Culture, told participants in the second Movement Day Greater Dallas.
Jim Denison, founder of the Denison Forum on Truth and Culture.More than 2,500 people attended the event, representing a diverse cultural and ethnic constituency of Christian leadership from business, education, health care, nonprofit organizations, government and churches. The goal of the gathering is to transform the city through the cooperative efforts of God’s people.
Denison began by giving participants some good news: According to the World Christian Encyclopedia, 82,000 people make professions of faith in Jesus Christ every day—the largest rate in history. The bad news: Few of those conversions take place in Europe or North America.
“We are here to celebrate what God is doing in the nations and to pray for it to happen here,” Denison said. “Because as you look at what is happening there and contrast it with what it happening here, it is easy to get discouraged.”
Rather than discouragement, Denison offered hope. The inspiration for that hope can be found in how Jesus provided a role model of service by washing the feet of his disciples, as reported in John 13.
Collaborative passion
“If I could summarize what is going on in the world today—what some are calling the Fifth Great Awakening—I would summarize it in two words, ‘collaborative passion.’ Those two words would picture Jesus and his disciples at their table in collaborative passion,” he said.
“The body of Christ has many members—hands and feet, eyes and ears. Hands don’t do the work of feet; feet don’t do the work of hands. It’s the body together; it’s collaborative passion. Jesus said the body of Christ is a vine with many branches; there are no solos in the book of Revelation. You take the coal out of the fire, and it goes out; you keep the coal connected, and it stays ignited.
“Every image of the church in the New Testament is a collective image, a collaborative image. Not collaboration for the sake of collaboration—collaboration around passion,” he said.
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Collaborative passion is easy to see in regions of the world where conversions to Christianity are coming in great numbers, Denison said.
“That’s what we are seeing in South Korea, when they started Yoido Full Gospel Church by going out to knock on doors to ask, ‘How can we pray for you?’
The church proving God’s love
“That’s what I witnessed in Cuba. More than a million Cubans have come to Christ in the last 10 years, and it’s because the church in proving God’s love in their lives. It’s because the church is coming together to meet felt needs to earn the right to meet spiritual needs.
“That’s what you’re seeing in Brazil. That’s what you’re seeing in Australia. That’s what you’re seeing in the underground church in China. That’s what you’re seeing in the Muslim world. You’re seeing the body of Christ, being the body of Christ,” he said.
That collaborative passion is the thrust behind Movement Day, Denison said.
“That’s why God birthed Movement Day to bring the body of Christ together. That’s why 450 different ministries and organizations are partnering together in just a year—not to create new programs, but to bring the body of Christ together to collaborate in a gospel movement with a collaborative passion to the glory of God.
“That’s what God is up to. As a catalyst to spiritual awakening, meeting felt need to meet spiritual need and earning the right to preach the gospel.”
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