In “On War #325: How the Taliban Take a Village,” William S. Lind and Mark Sexton explore the current methods used by the Taliban to gain control of an area in Afghanistan. The analysis is interesting because it reflects a successful pattern similar to church-planting movement theory revolving around Luke 10 and the “person of peace.”
Lind/Sexton define three social structures within a village—administrative, religious and security. These are the “key nodes of influence.” The article goes on to explore how, with a very small number of fighters who subvert villages in a decentralized fashion, the Taliban can go on to control a large swathe of territory. With between 20 and 50 active fighters and ten fighting leaders (perhaps less) they could dominate an area with a population of several thousand.
What is the redemptive version of this? Can we learn from this model in some way to refine our own models of church planting, transformation, and resilient communities?
See also:
Discovering and Developing a Person of Peace (BGCT),
“Man of Peace” is Key to Starting New Outreach (Ethnicharvest.com),
Pioneering Church Planting Movements (Younoussa D’jao, Lausanne World Pulse),
Corps Planting 101.indd (Salvation Army)
Start a Group (Iamsecond.com)
How to start a movement using Luke 10:2b (Simplechurch.eu)
15 Steps to Plant Highly Reproductive Churches (George Patterson, in allnationstraining.com)
Church Planting Movements, How God Is Redeeming a Lost World (David Garrison)
