Knocked for a Loop
The easiest way to get knocked for a loop is to see something you have always sort of known explicitly stated that raises the contradiction and miraculous nature of what happened. That happened on Sunday when The Internet Monk linked to a post from Alan Hirsch on the blog The Forgotten Ways.

100AD There are as little as 25 000 Christians
310AD There are as many as 20 000 000 Christians

“How did they do this?” “How did they grow from being a small movement to the most significant religious force in the Roman Empire in two centuries?” Now that’s a question to initiate a journey! And delving into this question drove me to the discovery of what I will call Apostolic Genius (the inbuilt life force and guiding mechanism of God’s people) and the living components or elements that make it up. These components I have tagged missional DNA or mDNA for short.

So let me ask you the question—how did the early Christians do it? And before you respond, here are some qualifications you must factor into your answer.

* They were an illegal religion throughout this period: At best, they were tolerated; at the very worst they were very severely persecuted.
* They didn’t have any church buildings as we know them: While archaeologists have discovered chapels dating from this period, they were definite exceptions to the rule and they tended to be very small converted houses.
* They didn’t even have the Scriptures as we know them: They were putting the canon together during this period.
* They didn’t have an institutional leadership: At times of relative calm prototypal elements of institution did appear, but from what we consider institutional these were at best pre-institutional by comparison.
* They didn’t have seeker sensitive services, youth groups, worship bands, seminaries, or commentaries, etc.
* They actually made it hard to join the church. By the late second century aspiring converts had to undergo a significant initiation period to prove they were worthy.

So, how did they do it? How DID they do it?