In this blog series, we’re pulling back the curtain on the heart behind Movement-Ready Church, now available for pre-order. You’ll get exclusive author insights, behind-the-scenes stories, and a sneak peek at the content before the book releases. Plus, we’re offering a FREE resource for you.
Before God ever moved in powerful ways through our church, he had to do a deeper work in me. I didn’t need better systems or sharper strategy. I needed a renewed heart.
If you and your church are ever to see a disciple-making movement, it will start with spiritual renewal. And it will be sustained by spiritual renewal. More important than the strategy of your church is the spiritual condition of your leaders. To be a movement-ready church, you must cultivate a desperation for more of God in your hearts.
While every individual and every church will have its own unique story of spiritual renewal, we’ve identified five shifts that will be consistent for you and your church regardless of your context. They won’t ensure a disciple-making movement. In fact, you mustn’t pursue them like that, as a means to spark change, but rather to seek after God yourself. Seeking him is your goal. By doing this, you will experience a one-man or one-woman personal revival in your life, which will have a ripple effect in the lives of those around you.
I remember them with the acronym R.E.N.E.W. The first three (Reliance, Expectancy, and Necessity) reshaped how I related to God long before anything changed outwardly.
The Reliance Shift
Moving from dependence on self to dependence on the Spirit
The reliance shift, is ultimately about where you believe your power and ability to do ministry comes from. Like every leader, you’d be quick to point to God as the source who brings life change to people. But if you evaluated how you live your life, how you lead in your church, how you prepare your sermons, lead your meetings, spend your time, and communicate with others, it might tell a different story. If someone followed you around every minute of every day for a month, what would they say you most depend on for effectiveness in ministry?
Again, we all know what the answer should be. But if we’re being honest, how often do we depend on something else for our success—on preaching, on personality, on planning, but not on prayer?
Most leaders treat prayer as a duty of their ministry, not the foundation for their ministry—quite the opposite of what we see in Jesus’s ministry. The Bible shows him in communion with God before every significant ministry moment of his earthly life. Pastor and author Keeney Dickerson says it this way, “We tend to pray in the context of ministry, but Jesus ministered in the context of prayer.”
For years I’d been playing church, and my people had been straying. A prayerless church is a powerless church, which can be traced back to a prayerless pastor. I needed to rely on God, not on myself, as the power source I needed.
The Expectancy Shift
Moving from more of the same to more of God
When ministry doesn’t fit our expectations, we lose our expectancy. Excitement for ministry becomes replaced with apathy. Anticipation with hopelessness. Innovation with complacency. Hopefulness with cynicism.
The expectancy shift is about moving from more of the same to more of God, returning to a time in your life when you expected God to move. Because when we lose a sense of expectancy, we stop anticipating God to move supernaturally in our midst. We accept that this week will be more like last week. Every pastor hits these ruts where we stop looking for God to show up. The expectancy shift moves you to believe again. It brings you back to the faith you had at the beginning of your ministry calling, where nothing was impossible with God. That he can still move—that he will move—as we meet with him in prayer.
Remember what Jesus said to his disciples about their praying in Mark 11:22-24. Three times in these three verses, Jesus talks about the words we speak in prayer: what we say, what we ask for, what we pray for. The words we profess in prayer possess great power—not just because we say and ask and pray them but because of the one we say and ask and pray them to. Doubt, however, is what sabotages our confession, which is why Jesus warned his disciples so deliberately to drive doubt from their hearts.
God almost always gives a vision for the future that feels impossible in the moment, impossible enough to require great faith to attempt it, impossible enough that once it’s accomplished, you’ll know he alone gets the credit.
The Necessity Shift
Moving from working for God to spending time with God
The necessity shift is about positioning our habits and calendar so that our ministry comes from the overflow of our relationship with him, not from our leftovers. Only then are our hearts ready to participate in a movement from God. While the necessity and benefit of a daily time with God seems elementary, most pastors drift from it. A recent study revealed that 72% of pastors surveyed stated they only studied the Bible when preparing for sermons and lessons.
The Lord develops us through daily disciplines. That’s what Paul explained to his disciple Timothy. His goal for Timothy’s life was not success in ministry. It wasn’t pastoring a big church with endless resources. It wasn’t a platform for preaching the gospel throughout the Roman Empire. His leading desire for him was the kind of godliness that comes through daily training. Consider 1 Timothy 4:7-8.
Dailiness creates an environment to hear from God. “Even though our outer person is being destroyed, our inner person is being renewed”—how?—“day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16). The regularity of it, the priority of it, the indispensability of it—which we’ve all discounted at one time or another, even as pastors and leaders in the church—is what we need. We need it. We need him. Time with him. Daily time with him. Our readiness for a disciple-making movement in our midst is directly tied to our devotion for spending time with our Father. Let me ask you, When was the last time you had an unhurried quiet time with God?
Before strategies shift, leaders must shift.
Reliance anchors us in the Spirit.
Expectancy restores our faith.
Necessity roots us in daily intimacy.
Movements don’t begin with activity. They begin with renewal.
Start the Journey Early
What I’ve shared here is only a glimpse of what’s woven throughout Movement-Ready Church. This book carries years of real stories, real churches, and real transformation God has allowed me to witness.
My hope is that it helps you build more than better programs. I pray it brings clarity to your vision, shapes a healthier culture, and helps you lead a movement that’s truly Spirit-led.
I can’t wait for you to read it.
The book releases in March 2026—but you don’t have to wait to begin strengthening your disciple-making culture.
When you pre-order, you’ll receive early-access resources to help you start now:
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A personal video series where Vick and I walk through the heart behind the book
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Practical tools and assessments to shape your church’s disciple-making future
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Exclusive content designed to help your team prepare for lasting movement
