During a recent Sunday evening gathering of Multiply Church, as I clicked to advance the lyric slides during the bridge of Reckless Love for 487,000th time, I became overwhelmed with emotion.

I know that sounds crazy...but it happens!

Sometimes I am overcome with emotion and I know exactly why. For example, every time I listen to The Greatest Showman soundtrack. Tears guaranteed. Other times, however, I have to do a little digging, as was the case on this particular Sunday evening.

Those who regularly worship with me know that there can be waterworks. Often, as I’m singing the lyrics to a worship song and considering the implications...that a broken, selfish, headed toward destruction guy would be risen to a life of peace through the love of God...I get a little weepy.

But this time it was more than that. There was something else.

As I searched within to find it, I suddenly realized what that something else was:

Momentum

For the first time since starting this journey, I picked up my eyes from the path I was on long enough to actually look around and see how what was nothing six months ago is now something...really something.

Momentum is a mystical beast...like a unicorn, but real. You’re not always sure where it came from and it can be very elusive. You’re not always sure how to get it but, you better figure out why when you do!

One of the best books I’ve read on the subject is Craig Groeshel’s It. To quote Craig, pastor of Life.Church, “If you want your ministry to have ‘it’, more important than anything else we’ve discussed, you must have ‘it’.”

So what is “it?”

Craig has a long definition for what a leader must possess if he or she wants the ministry he or she leads to have momentum (or it). He writes,
“When it has filtered through your heart - the rare combination of passion, integrity, focus, faith, expectation, drive, hunger, and God’s anointing - God tends to infuse your ministry with ‘it’. He blesses your work. People are changed. Leaders grow. Resources flow. The ministry seems to take on a life of its own.”

Deciding that you have momentum is can be dangerous and, much like marriage or parenting, you can’t really explain it. Instead, it has to be experienced. If you have experienced momentum, then you know exactly what it is. If not, it’s hard to understand it.

Some of the language Craig uses is very churchy. For example, God’s anointing and blessings are words leaders have abused and used to manipulate people throughout church history. But, this language expresses the elusive dynamic of momentum...the part we can’t understand, nor control.

I remember meeting with a pastor several years ago who had started a new venture and his main advice was, “When you get momentum, do all you can to hang on to it, because when it’s gone, it’s really hard to get it back.” Hanging on to momentum...easier said than done!

So how would you describe momentum? Have you experienced it in your work, in your family, in a local church?

Right now we have it: People are being changed. Leaders are growing. Resources are flowing. And we’re trying not to take it for granted.

Instead, we’re grateful for it and striving to increase in our “passion, integrity, focus, faith, expectation, drive, hunger,” and believing God for that part only He can bring to the experience.