ACCELERATE resource·October 2026·10 min read

ACTIVATEthe Church

what we mean

Walk with one. Invite one. Reach one.

Jurie Kriel, NXT Move Global · A companion to ACCELERATE · Why & How and the working paper ACCELERATE: Breaking the Flat Line

What we mean

When NXT Move speaks of activating the church, we mean discipleship and spiritual formation in and through the local church and communities of faith everywhere, including the persecuted church, carried by every believer. Every believer takes responsibility for sharing their faith, for helping others mature in their walk with Jesus and for inviting others into the church. The Spirit that built the church was given to each believer (1 Corinthians 12:7), and the work of ministry belongs to all of us.

1:1:1

We describe that with one simple phrase: walk with one, invite one, reach one.

This resource sets out where the idea comes from, what 1:1:1 asks of a believer, and how it connects to our spiritual formation work and to ACCELERATE.

Where it happens

We are for the church

We believe the local church is the hope of the nations. Everything in this resource is for the church and happens through the church.

NXT Move does not support church deconstructionism in any form. We are about building the church, planting churches and taking part in the life of the church, whether it meets in a cathedral, a living room or a house church that gathers in secret.

What we oppose is the professionalization of ministry to the point where the priesthood of all believers is switched off. “You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession” (1 Peter 2:9) was written to every believer. Pastors, teachers and leaders are Christ’s gift to His church (Ephesians 4:11), and we honor them.

We are not against structure. We are against structure that deactivates the people.

Reactivation happens inside the church. A believer who walks away from the local church to follow Jesus on their own has not been activated. They have been disconnected.

A recovery

Why we speak of reactivation

The church started activated. What we are after is a recovery.

On the best reconstructions, the church grew by about 40% a decade for almost three centuries, before it could build in the open, with no standing in law and no imperial patron. Its critic Celsus mocked its people as wool-workers and cobblers who taught in private houses. He meant it as an insult. It was a description of how the church grew.

In 313 the Edict of Milan ended the persecution, and Constantine started paying for the church. Within about seven years ministry had become attractive enough as a career that a law of 320 barred wealthy town councilors from ordination, because clergy were now exempt from civic duties.

One people, two words

λαός · laos

the people of God

became “laity”

κλῆρος · klēros

the inheritance

became “clergy”

The New Testament used both words for the same people, everybody. Over time the church had two kinds of people.

Nobody decided this. It drifted, one reasonable decision at a time, and the pattern is older than Constantine. At Sinai the people stood at a distance and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen” (Exodus 20:18–19). They asked for a professional.

Nobody deactivated us. We volunteered.

Modeled (the early church’s growth, Stark’s reconstruction, with Ehrman’s lower estimate). Proof in the paper, Section 1.2 · Section 1.3.

What Scripture says

Four pictures of an activated church

The scattered ones

Acts 8:1, 4

When persecution broke out, “all except the apostles were scattered”, and “those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went.” The apostles stayed in Jerusalem and the unnamed believers carried the gospel out. The church at Antioch, which later sent out Paul and where believers were first called Christians, was planted by people whose names we do not know (Acts 11:19–21). The power for it was the Spirit’s, as Jesus had promised: “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8).

The comma

Ephesians 4:11–12

Christ gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers “to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.” The King James Version puts a comma after “saints”, which reads as three jobs that all belong to leaders. Most modern translations read those verses as one movement: leaders equip, and the people of God do the work of ministry. A leader’s job is to produce people who do ministry.

To each

1 Corinthians 12:7 · Ephesians 4:7

“To each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.” There are no tiers. Paul’s goal is that “we all reach unity in the faith… and become mature” (Ephesians 4:13), every believer and every leader together.

The assembly

ekklēsia

The New Testament word for church was a civic word, the assembly of citizens summoned to decide and to act. We are citizens, not spectators.

None of this puts the weight of the church on anyone’s shoulders. “So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow” (1 Corinthians 3:7).

Activation is not pressure. It is permission, and it is relief.

The irreducible minimum

The three rooms

Acts 2:46–47 shows all three rooms in two verses. Every day the believers met in the temple courts, they broke bread in their homes, and they lived in full view of their city, “enjoying the favor of all the people”, while “the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

Relational

House

We find life and build community, at the table.

In Acts 2“They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts” (2:46, with 2:42, 44–45)

In your lifeYour table and your household (Deuteronomy 6:7)

Experiential

Temple

We know God and create places where people meet Him.

In Acts 2“Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts” (2:46, with 2:42–43)

In your lifeGathering with God’s people to meet Him (Hebrews 10:25)

Missional

Market

We make a difference where we live and work, and connect people to purpose.

In Acts 2“Enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved” (2:47)

In your lifeYour week at work, school and in your street (Colossians 3:17)

We call these the irreducible minimum of church, and some of our material calls them the Ministry Table. An activated church keeps all three open, and so does an activated life.

When a church loses a room it becomes a church-shaped thing.

“If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be?” (1 Corinthians 12:17). Each imbalance has a familiar face:

Temple only

A great gathering with a weak table and no street. People are moved, and few of them multiply. This was the church Constantine built.

House only

Deep community that closes in on itself. Belonging with no front door.

Market only

Activism with no formation and no encounter. Busy hands, empty tank.

These three are the only three. Everything else is negotiable. For a tired leader that is good news, because we are not here to add to your week. We are here to tell you what you are allowed to stop.

One person, three rooms

What 1:1:1 means, and what it does not

1:1:1 is one person active in all three rooms: walk with one, invite one, reach one.

One believer in all three rooms, not three tasks

Houserelational, find life

Walk with one

Disciple one person by name, at a table

Lives in: Community

Templeexperiential, know God

Invite one

Open a door to a place where they can meet God

Lives in: Worship and Sharing your faith

Marketmissional, make a difference

Reach one

Share what Jesus has done in your existing week

Lives in: Sharing your faith and Serving

Formed first: be with Jesus, become like Him, do what He does

1:1:1 · one believer, three rooms, built on formation. “Lives in” names the seven practices where each one happens.

HouseWalk with one

Walking with one person is what we mean by discipling them: one person, by name, at a table, whom you are helping to follow Jesus. Some of our teaching says “disciple one”. It is the same thing.

TempleInvite one

Invite one person to a place where they can meet God. Opening a door is enough, and you do not need to explain everything first. Where gathering in the open is not safe, that door is a home. None of the three rooms requires a building.

MarketReach one

Share what Jesus has done in your life with one person who does not yet follow Him. Your existing week is the assignment.

Five things keep the phrase clear

One person, three rooms. Strength in one room is a good start. Jesus calls each of us into all three, and a church that builds only one room trains its people to be a third of what they are.
The same three words. Walk with, invite, reach, always in the order house, temple, market. Sending is not a fourth one. It is where 1:1:1 leads when it keeps going.
It counts faithfulness. Reaching someone means sharing what Jesus has done and leaving the outcome with God. “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow” (1 Corinthians 3:6). Success is obedience.
It is a way of life. 1:1:1 describes an ordinary believer’s life at any point in the year, which is why the questions we ask about it look back over the past month. The early church grew by about one new believer for every 29 believers a year, a patient rate. 1:1:1 asks more of each of us than that, and asks it of all of us. Modeled Section 1.2
Leaders hand it over. Moses learned from Jethro that he could not carry the people alone (Exodus 18). It is the pastor’s role to raise up people who disciple everyone. You have to trust people with people.

The fruit, not the root

Activation grows out of formation

Activation is the fruit of formation. We define spiritual formation as the lifelong, Spirit-led work of being shaped, in community and through practice, to be with Jesus, become like Him and do what He does. 1:1:1 is what the third part looks like in an ordinary week, and it rests on the first two.

The order matters. Identity comes first, then intimacy, then activity. We serve because we have been given grace, not so that we will be given grace (Titus 2:11–12). Behavior follows identity. A believer who is handed 1:1:1 before they are being formed will burn out, or will pass on a faith that looks like everyone else’s life.

The early church knew this. In some places a new believer spent up to three years in formation before baptism, walked alongside by a sponsor who vouched for how they lived. You joined by being formed. Formation was slow for each believer, and the movement was fast because almost every believer was forming someone.

The chain runs in one direction

Formed believerA young person, rooted in the seven practices.
Trusted leaderKnown in a community small enough to be known.
Activated leaderWalking with one, inviting one and reaching one.
MultiplierWhose people do the same, and the cycle repeats.

Activation that skips the middle produces leaders who cannot sustain what they start.

The seven practices and 1:1:1 belong together.

Form the personPrayer and devotion · Worship · The Word

Walk with oneCommunity

Invite oneWorship · Sharing your faith

Reach oneSharing your faith · Serving

Where our trust liesGiving

How we will know

1:1:1 and the J12

The Jesus Following Index asks three questions of young people aged 13 to 30. Do they follow Jesus? Do they participate in His mission? Does their world look different? It asks each question at four depths: exposure, response, formation and multiplication. That grid of twelve is the J12.

Each row reads left to right, toward multiplication

Exposure

Response

Formation

Multiplication

Followpersonal faithWalk with one

heard of Jesus

believes in Jesus

being shaped

helps others believe

MissionoutwardInvite one

aware of the call

convinced it is theirs

practising witness

mobilising others

Worldlived impactReach one

sees faith should matter

believes faith matters

choices reshaped

changing their spheres

The J12 · 3 questions × 4 depths, in the Index’s own words, with 1:1:1 in the multiplication column. Each one moves someone else a step along a row.

1:1:1 is what the multiplication column looks like in an ordinary believer’s week, and each “one” answers one of the three questions:

Walk with one answers do they follow Jesus? Faith that is being formed helps someone else believe and grow.
Invite one answers do they participate in His mission? Inviting someone to meet God is the first act of witness most believers take, and it is how others are mobilized.
Reach one answers does their world look different? Faith that has reshaped your choices gets shared in the spheres of your existing week.

1:1:1 also moves other people along the rows. When you reach one, someone hears of Jesus. When you invite one, someone meets God and can respond. When you walk with one, someone is being shaped. And when the person you walked with starts doing the same, they have reached multiplication.

That is how a church moves people from attending to multiplying.

The Index: jfindx.org. Proof in the paper, Section 4.2 · Section 6.5.

The bigger picture

Where this sits in ACCELERATE

Activating the church is the second of the three things ACCELERATE says will turn the flat line.

Christians were 34.5% of the world in 1900 and are 32.2% in 2026, so we have grown only as fast as the world. Twice in two thousand years the church grew faster than the world, and both times ordinary believers carried the faith. So we focus younger, we activate every believer and we collaborate.

The paper says it in one line. Retention protects the line. Multiplication bends it. Only an activated church, working from everywhere to everywhere, does both.

Formation that stays inside a church keeps what we have, and formation that reaches someone else is what bends the line.

1Focus younger

2Activate every believer

3Collaborate

The three things that turn the line. See all three

Counted (Center for the Study of Global Christianity, 2026) and Estimated (the two rises). Proof in the paper, Section 1.1 · Section 1.2 · Section 1.6.

For NXT Move this shapes how we elevate leaders, through leadership cultivation, soul care and spiritual formation, community and research. Our first step for 2027 is to equip leaders through Leadership Cultivation to carry 1:1:1 into their churches and campuses, and to count it with the Jesus Following Index and its J12. ACCELERATE proposes three questions alongside the J12 that count 1:1:1 directly:

The question, about the past month

HouseHave you met with someone to help them follow Jesus?

TempleHave you invited someone to a gathering where they could meet God?

MarketHave you shared what Jesus has done in your life with someone who does not follow Him?

Asked by age every year, these would show whether the house, the temple and the market are active as well as full. People tend to over-report sharing their faith, so the answers will be read as a ceiling until the Index can check them another way.

Where it leads. When 1:1:1 keeps going, the person reached in the market becomes the house where the next gathering begins. That is how the early church and the Methodist and Pentecostal movements planted, and it is why planting belongs inside 1:1:1.

Proposed for JFINDX, not yet in the instrument. Proof in the paper, Section 6.5 · Section 6.6.

Small and by name

Where to start

Activation starts small and by name.

For a believer

Write down three sets of initials: the one person you are walking with, the one you will invite and the one you will reach. Nobody needs to see it but you. Then take the two-minute formation check-in and choose one practice to grow in.

For a leader

Name one thing you do that someone unpaid could do if you trained them, and hand it over within ninety days.

If what you lead collapses the week you are away, it was built around you.

For a church

Rank your three rooms honestly, strongest to weakest, and build the weakest one. Seat young leaders in real decisions. Ask your 13- to 30-year-olds the three 1:1:1 questions. Find the others working toward the same generation in your city and share one calendar with them.

Paul came to Corinth “in weakness with great fear and trembling”, and his message came “with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power” (1 Corinthians 2:3–5).

May we never be so wrapped up in our own wisdom and skills that we do not give the church away, and may we trust God for His power through His people.

The proof

Go deeper

Every figure here is proven in the working paper, ACCELERATE: Breaking the Flat Line, where each is sourced and labeled Counted, Estimated, Modeled or Projected.

Statement	Label	The proof
The early church grew by about 40% a decade for almost three centuries	Modeled	1.2 Engine one
About one new believer for every 29 believers a year	Modeled	1.2 Engine one
Christians were 34.5% of the world in 1900 and are 32.2% in 2026	Counted	1.1 The line in one chart
1:1:1, the three rooms and the three questions	A proposal	6.5 Activation · 6.6 Planting

WHY

ACCELERATE · Why & How

Christianity has flatlined, and three things turn the line. The five-minute version.

Read it

PAPER

Read the research

ACCELERATE: Breaking the Flat Line. Sections 1.2, 1.9, 6.5 and 6.6 carry this resource.

Open

FORMATION

Spiritual Formation

The seven practices of a Jesus follower and the two-minute check-in.