(Lim uses an Americanised Z in Kingdomization, so I will do that here in that word and others to avoid flipping all the z and s appearances!)
Recently I read David Lim’s chapter, A Biblical Missiology of Kingdomization through Disciple Multiplication Movements of House Church Networks, in Motus Dei, edited by Warwick Farrah, and found myself unexpectedly invigorated by it.
Lim was a new voice to me. Yet as I read, I felt both challenged and inspired because he offered a compelling vision of what might lie beyond much of the work I have been engaged in so far around missional discipleship.
His article raises a simple but profound question:
What if the goal of the church is not merely church growth, nor even healthy churches, but the transformation of households, workplaces, communities, and societies under the reign of Christ?
Lim calls this kingdomization.
The Attraction of Kingdomization
What struck me most was not Lim’s advocacy of house churches or disciple multiplication movements – it was the scale of his vision. Many conversations about church renewal are understandably focused on survival.
In Scotland, in many places we often ask:
- How do we sustain congregations?
- How do we engage younger generations?
- How do we develop leaders?
- How do we become more missional?
These are important questions. Yet Lim presses further. His concern is not ultimately the renewal of church institutions but the spread of God’s kingdom through multiplying disciples who transform every sphere of life.
The church is not merely an end in itself. It is a means through which God’s reign is extended into homes, neighbourhoods, workplaces, and communities. I found that vision deeply attractive…and hopeful in a way that aligns much more closely with a new Heaven and New Earth vision. What we do here matters!
Yet We Are Not at Lim’s Starting Place
At the same time, reading Lim reminded me how different our contexts are. Lim writes largely from contexts where Christianity has often been marginal, minority, or institutionally weak. His challenge is how the gospel can spread without becoming trapped within inherited ecclesiastical structures.
My context is very different. Scotland is not a post-Christianization context, where an external culture has built some religious infrastructure. Indeed, if I may put it provocatively, Lim writes from contexts shaped by the legacy of colonialism. My context is as the colonialists! That changes the questions we must ask.
Lim can begin with assumptions that many Scottish churches cannot yet make:
- Ordinary believers naturally see themselves as disciple-makers.
- Homes function as centres of ministry.
- Leadership is widely distributed.
- Mission is understood as the responsibility of all Christians.
- Multiplication is expected.
In Scotland, many of these assumptions must first be recovered quickly, and that’s not impossible. The issue is not merely that we are not at Lim’s destination, it’s that we are not yet at his starting place.
The Task Before Us
This has helped me clarify something about my own recent work.
For many years I have been concerned with discipleship, not as an abstract concept but as the practical formation of Christians who can participate in God’s mission. The challenge in Scotland is often not multiplication but participation.
How do church members become disciples?
How do disciples become active participants in God’s mission?
How do passive consumers become contributors?
How do inherited congregations recover their missionary identity?
These remain pressing questions.
If Lim’s vision begins with disciple-makers, my context requires us first to cultivate disciples who can imagine themselves as participants in God’s mission.
A Larger Horizon
What excites me is that Lim provides a horizon toward which this work might move. Perhaps the relationship between our concerns is not one of contradiction but sequence.
First, disciples are formed, then disciples are mobilised. Disciples then begin making disciples then communities multiply. Then, over time, households, workplaces, neighbourhoods, and institutions are transformed.
If that is true, then kingdomization becomes not an alternative to missional discipleship but its maturest fruit. Kingdomization is not a new Christendom – it is something radically different which will need more thinking about. The challenge for Scotland is not to import movement methodologies wholesale. Nor is it to abandon the hard work of forming disciples within inherited churches of whatever stripe.
We need to ask: What would a distinctly Scottish pathway from missional discipleship to multiplication look like? That’s what I’ve been asking so far and that seems to me an important question for the years ahead.
Beyond Church Renewal
One final reflection. What I appreciate most about Lim’s work is that it refuses to allow discipleship to become self-referential. Many church renewal conversations focus on healthier Christians and healthier churches. Lim insists that the horizon is much larger. The goal is not simply church renewal, it is the reign of Christ extending through every sphere of life. The goal is kingdomization.
Whether Scotland is ready for that vision remains an open question. But I suspect we need that horizon if our work of discipleship is to remain hopeful, outward-facing, and rooted in the expansive purposes of God.
Andrew S M Clark 