How Kingdom Movements Are Multiplying across the Unreached World

This book was waiting for me in a friend’s guesthouse I visited recently. They know me more as a church planter than as a book reviewer, but I suppose it doesn’t take me long to squeeze my love for books into any given conversation, so it turns out, they chose the right kind of gift!

About the Book and CPMs

Forests in the Seed is a book heavy on the topic of Church Planting Movements (CPMs), which the authors call “Kingdom Movements” (16). While I had studied briefly about CPMs in seminary (particularly through the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement course), these movements are not my lived experience and are definitely not of my own missional ilk. In fact, folks in my circles generally reference CPMs negatively, and for a while there, I had to just sit back and hold loose opinions based upon hearsay.

But then I met a missionary friend overseas who’d had years of experience inside CPM-focused ministries, and he was eventually jaded to their lack of long-term usefulness. His influence and my own common sense makes me further wary of CPMs, and I hope this short book review can explain why.

Acknowledging The Heart: Some Positive Aspects of the Book

Clearly, the desire of CPMs is noble: Preach Jesus, and let resultant churches spread throughout unreached people groups and regions as quickly as possible. The Gospel must be preached! The more churches the merrier!

Of course, digging just a little bit deeper, it’s impossible to miss that this CPM system is one designed for rapidity with minimal emphasis on doctrine or spiritual maturity. I’ll discuss more about the rapidity in a minute, but from the outset I have to note: the speedy belief and immediate reproduction of CPMs evokes in my mind the image of the “rocky soil” in Jesus’ parable of the four soils—quick yet rootless and bound to die in the heat as quickly as as it had sprung up.

Still, despite my aversion to their methods, I must acknowledge that the authors do make a number of valid points. First was the sobering statistic that suggests that only 18.3% of the world’s non-Christians personally know a Christian. The authors then ask how the rest will ever hear, unless someone (a stranger) tells them? (13)

Second, I really appreciated the emphasis on getting the nationals involved in reaching their own people, rather than depending on foreign missionaries forever and ever. They write:

Our mission is to bring the Good News of Jesus to these diverse groups, because God’s family is not yet complete. We are to play a part in igniting a spiritual fire within every community. We are to awaken a nucleus of fervent disciples, who, in turn, light up their communities, and spread the light of the Gospel far and wide… Only an outmoded view thinks we can send outsiders to reach everyone in these groups. The only way everyone can hear the Gospel is for disciples within each group to multiply. (14, 19)

Third, I got a whole lot out of Chapter 5, “New DNA Needed,” and the perspective shifts we need as Christians. These include shifts: from doubt to hope (”it can’t happen here”); from my efforts to God’s ability; from fruitfulness to faithfulness; from ministry partners to spiritual family members; from our teachings and culture to Scripture; from Sunday church to daily life; and from knowledge to obedience.

This last point on obedience was particularly striking to me:

In truth, many churches throughout the centuries have wrongly emphasized knowledge over obedience. Those with the most knowledge are deemed the most qualified leaders. In movements, the most obedient people are considered the most qualified to lead. This is how God raises up leaders in movements…. Kingdom Movements emphasize teaching people to obey all that Jesus commanded (Matt. 28:20). We need to shift from ”teaching all the commands” (where success consists of knowing the commands) to focus on ”teaching to obey all of Jesus’ commands” (where success consists of a lifestyle of obeying God and whatever He reveals to us). (49-50, 85)

Finally, I liked this term they used, “united intercession” (45), which is one I need to get used to again. I’ll admit, I have never loved prayer groups and prayer meetings. They often feel stiff, fake, and repetitious—when in reality, they ought to be power-filled and joyous (or at least emotional). Considering the reality of united intercession might be the key I need to change my thinking about such meetings.

Noting the Flaws: Some Negative Aspects of CPMs

I took more notes while reading this book than I have in a long while, which made it well worth my time. Often the notes were about general mission philosophies with which I’ve been grappling in ministry, but occasionally those overlapped with what irks me about CPMs.

The four topmost flaws I see in these movements deal with “power,” rapidity, village conversions, and leadership. I’ll discuss each in turn here.

Flaw #1: The Issue of Power

First is the philosophy that lies behind the following statement from the authors that garnered my own margin-note of “Yikes!”

Encountering God is far more important than the methodology. Sometimes that encounter starts with truth (a testimony or a spiritual bridge), but in movements, the majority start with power (a healing, exorcism, or other miracle) that then leads to sharing the truth of the Gospel. (39)

This “encounter with God” is regularly repeated throughout the book, often in testimony form. Warm feelings, joy, a power or presence—these are the descriptions people in anecdotes use when they talk about hearing people pray or seeing a Christian visitor (see p. 147). I’m sorry, but “warmth” is not at all how the Bible describes the Holy Spirit’s drawing men to Himself, and that can’t possibly be one’s true encounter with God.

What ever happened to guilt? Fear? Awe? Humility? Self-loathing? When we read Scripture and people truly encounter God, they cower in abject fear (think the Israelites at Mt. Sinai). And when the Spirit draws people to Himself, it’s in recognition of their sin and His holiness. Warm, fuzzy feelings do not seem a normal part of that initial encounter.

Add to this the common thread of healings, miracles, and people being raised from the dead as the draw for people to consider the Gospel—something I have heard regularly in India and the Himalayas. Again, I have to look at Scripture. Even if I were a firm believer that sign gifts were normative today (and I’m not), I’d have to acknowledge that sign gifts were given as signs to prove salvation not to draw people to Jesus.

The ministry of Jesus aside (a completely different set of circumstances—He had yet to pay the penalty for sin and rise from the dead or send the Comforter), even the Apostles weren’t able to heal and raise the dead whenever they wanted. It simply wasn’t their normal means of sharing the Gospel. These miracles certainly happened, and they were occasionally directed towards unbelievers, but it was never their standard practice to heal a person and then share Jesus. They were always Jesus-first, and if the Spirit chose to perform a miracle as well, so be it.

I do not believe that even the Apostles had the power to heal at will. If they could have done so on a whim, they would have; instead, Paul had to tell Timothy to ”take a little wine for your stomach’s sake,” rather than just telling him, “Be healed.” Paul couldn’t remove his own thorn in the flesh. Many of the Apostles also died from acute decapitation—and there’s no resurrection from that.

In Nepal, I heard a woman’s testimony that “I had a disease in my foot, and my neighbor told me to pray to Jesus and I would be healed. I did and I was, so now I’m a Christian.” Mercy, there’s no mention of sin or the cross! No thought of condemnation, propitiation, repentance, and forgiveness! It’s so-called “Christianity” yet without the Truth. How is that not also a damnable heresy?

It’s flawed teachings like this that seem to be coming out of CPMs, and such doctrines make people think they’ve been redeemed when they really haven’t. I shudder to think of the damage its caused to countless souls throughout the Third World.

Power instead of Truth. “Yikes!”

Flaw #2: The Issue of Rapidity

The second flawed philosophy stemming from the Kingdom Movements is the idea that speed equals health, or that lack of speed suggests a lack of the Holy Spirit’s involvement. Rapidity in reproduction is a hallmark of CMPs, yet I’m flabbergasted that its proponents don’t recognize this as an obvious danger point.

Common sense suggests you don’t send out new believers to plant churches, much like you would not send a kindergartener to start a company. Common sense also suggests you never send out unbelievers to plant churches—yet such things are literally happening in CPMs, according to this book (211)!

Comments like the following ought to make us all wary of rapidity in church planting movements:

“…They sent out teams of two people each to areas with no existing ministry. Within a year, these teams had all seen several generations of reproducing churches started.” (209)

Within a year, several generations! That implies a maximum of four months of training for pastors, teachers, and other elders in the church, people who are either illiterate or minimally educated. How in the world is this acceptable? Or later on that same page:

“In one situation, they used this [wave] approach to gain entry into a very closed island and saw over 200 churches established in the first year.” (209)

While the wave approach seems valid (sending prayers, evangelists, missionaries, and then planters into an area), I still have to ask: where are the roots for these churches? Where is the foundation? Where is the Word? And from what I know of a supposed CPM in China that saw 4,000 churches planted in about 4 years but has perhaps 100 remaining today, where is the lasting fruit?

One might ask, “But haven’t many churches been planted in India, Nepal, Uganda, Kenya, etc. through Kingdom Movements?” Sure. But these are churches planted by baby Christians at best, or unbelievers at worst—churches with no concept of doctrine, and sometimes no Word from which to learn it. They’re churches that lack foundation and often lack the very Gospel they supposedly sing about. They’re churches fueled by healings and feelings, churches open to every wind of doctrine that Satan will blow their way.

Will any survive? Possibly, if by some miracle someone inside actually puts his faith in the saving work of Jesus and repents!

Flaw #3: The Issue of Village-wide Faith

Third, the authors write often of movements that begin when the village leader first believes, followed then by the whole village. Clearly they’re ripping strategy from Acts 10 and the account of Cornelius’s household, but Acts’ descriptions ought never be taken as prescriptions. Two points to remember:

• Cornelius was not a pagan man from some false religion needing the truth from start to finish, but was instead a God-fearing Gentile who needed an update from Jerusalem about the risen Christ.
• When he believed, he believed in a fulfillment of the faith he’d already been following; and his household agreed.

The stories coming out of these pagan nations are completely different. In these cases, a village leader (or group of leaders) determine for everyone that this Jesus is a better god than the ones they’ve served, and they make a determination via authority that everyone should believe, and so they do. These followers, then, have put their trust in their human leader, not in Jesus; and they have accepted the word of a man, not of God.

Whole villages may very well turn to Jesus en masse, but it has to be because the Spirit drew them, not because they were forced to comply via some cultural rule regarding the village religion. This strategy of reaching the leaders contains some wisdom, but it also contains some very dangerous pitfalls.

Flaw #4: The Issue of Leadership

Finally, the authors seem to view church leadership lightly. This lightness stems from their emphasis on rapidity, that ten days of training is enough to prep a church planter, evangelist, missionary, or pastor for the work God has called them. Clearly, they emphasize the power of the Spirit to enable anyone to serve Him, and while I applaud the dream, I live in reality.

God certainly does gift His children to lead, yet He also warns against novices being elders and against elders being too quick to lay hands on (what we might call “ordain”) leaders. How can the authors ignore such warnings and promote the idea that baby believers (if they’re even that) should be sent out into the fields untrained, inexperienced, unequipped, and as total novices?

Conclusion

I’ve tried to gather my wandering thoughts together in this post, but in re-reading it, I can see that my emotion sometimes gets the better of me. This is serious business, reaching the nations with the Gospel and planting healthy churches with qualified leaders. Kingdom Movements and CPMs have the right desire, but they also have a seriously dangerous methodology. It’s an ends-justifies-the-means philosophy masquerading as “faith in the Holy Spirit.”

I can’t imagine the Holy Spirit is concerned about the number of churches in a movement, if those very churches are planted by babies, ignorant of the Gospel, ignoring the Word, filled with unbelievers, and dead within a few years. He’s impressed by neither speed nor statistics—and this book sadly seems to be ignorant of this fact.

©2025 E.T.