The Domino Effect: Colossians
By J.D. Walt
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About this ebook
When people mention “the domino effect,” they are typically talking about setting up dominos end over end and arranging them into some kind of design in order to tip the first one and begin the chain reaction. But there’s another type of domino effect in which a two-inch tall domino can topple a larger domino, which can topple an even larger domino, and eventually topple the Empire State Building.
And so it is with Colossians, a treasure trove of proverbial dominos, each holding enormous capacity to topple things far exceeding its size. And when arranged together, they hold the ever-present possibility to tip fresh movements of awakening. That’s exactly what happened from the moment Jesus began calling disciples to follow him. One life tipped into another life which tipped into a family, which tipped into a village and a town and a countryside and a region.
The dominoes tipped from the Upper Room with 120 people to the day of Pentecost with three thousand and all the way to the present day and some two billion Christians around the world. In domino effect terms we’ve been to the moon and back a thousand times and the dominoes are still falling. Impossible things keep happening. And great awakenings are still on the horizon.
J.D. Walt
Renowned Bible teacher and prolific author, John David (J. D.) Walt is the former Dean of Chapel of Asbury Theological Seminary and the founder and sower in chief of Seedbed. Seedbed exists to gather, connect, and resource the people of God to sow for a great awakening. He serves as pastor of the Gillett Methodist Church in Gillett, Arkansas.
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The Domino Effect - J.D. Walt
Introduction
The Domino Effect: Finding the Tipping Points of Faith In Christ
Have you ever played with dominoes? No, I didn’t ask if you have ever played dominoes. I want to know if you have ever stacked dominoes end over end and arranged them into some kind of circle or design in order to tip the first one and, hopefully, begin the chain reaction of the next one falling and the next and the next.
I decided to google the practice. As of this writing, the Guinness world record for domino tipping is 15,524 dominoes. But I kept googling, only to find another Guinness record-setting feat of the largest number of dominoes to tip in a spiral arrangement. It came to 250,000. It took days to set the whole thing up and only minutes for them to tip and fall. It is quite an effect to see such a spectacle, but honestly, in no time it gets rather boring. It’s predictable and leaves one ready to move on to googling Tannerite explosions and other online time sucks.
For too many of us and for too long, the Bible has been like a boneyard of flat dominoes. We have done our best to play around with them, but they have never come into alignment with the powerful effects of the Holy Spirit. Nor have our lives come into the alignment Jesus intends for the supernatural entity he referred to as my church
(Matt. 16:18). I fear that the present-day church, which is a reflection of present-day Christians, has become something of an exercise in domino tipping. Enormous amounts of time are spent arranging our programs, classes, and events—just as we did them last year—and the dominoes tip and fall predictably and in order, like clockwork. We expect them to impress us and others, and they do for a little while, but if we are honest, we must admit to being a little bored with it all. Surely this is not what Jesus envisioned when he spoke of building his church on the rock and the gates of hell not prevailing against it (Matt. 16:18).
There are domino-tipping exercises that exhibit what is commonly referred to as the domino effect,
and then there’s something altogether different that I consider to be the real domino effect. I’m talking about the way a two-inch-tall domino can tip into and topple over a four-and-a-half-inch-tall domino and the way a four-and-a-half-inch-tall domino can topple a domino just over a foot tall, and that one can fell a domino two-and-a-half-feet tall. Here’s the power of the domino effect: when you get to the twenty-third domino in this progression, you’ve just toppled the Eiffel Tower. When you come to the thirty-first domino, you’ve just knocked over something three thousand feet higher than Mount Everest. Sit down for this next one. At domino number fifty-seven, you are approaching the moon! (I am indebted to Gary Keller, who first pointed me to the domino effect in his book The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results.)
Some years ago, I became fixated on Colossians 2:2–3:
My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
It’s not every day that we see one of the authors of Scripture make reference to my goal.
It caused me to lean forward and take note. Paul knew that if he could band people together in communities of love and encouragement, the gospel message would tip from information to transformation. He knew it would tip from being a message to revealing a mystery to becoming a movement.
The epiphany hit me like a box of dominoes. For me, Colossians 2:2 would henceforth and forever be known as Domino #2|2, and I was off to the store to purchase a box set. I actually bought a lot of sets, and from each one I carefully searched for and removed the 2|2 domino. I wanted one for each member of our team.
As I worked my way through Paul’s letter to the Colossians, the subject of this book, the domino epiphany hit me again. I began to see dominoes all over the place. There’s Domino #1|2, the In Christ,
in Colossae
Domino (1:2). Then there’s Domino #1|9, which says, For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives
(1:9). Then there’s Domino #1|13, The 9-1-1 Domino. After that comes Domino #1|27, The Secret. Those three little words Paul referred to as the secret
(1:27 NLT), which are Christ in you
(1:27 ESV), just may be the most powerful tipping point of them all.
Each of these dominoes holds enormous capacity to topple things far exceeding their size, and when arranged together, they hold the ever-present potential to tip fresh movements of awakening. We all know and remember when the dominoes started tipping in our own lives and faith. Imagine that unleashed in the world. That’s exactly what happened from the moment Jesus began calling disciples to follow him. One life tipped into another life, which tipped into a family, which tipped into a village and a town and a countryside and a