THE MODEL IN MOTION
(c) Morris E. Ruddick
"For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay upon you
no greater burden than these necessary things." Acts 15:28
The world's system is being shaken. Tenets of leadership, once accepted
as the standard, are in question. The response of God's chosen to this
shaking; the response needed to impact nations requires more than
what can be done in the natural. It demands a community-level response
and a higher level of leadership.
The response needed is to foundationally restore God's order. The response
will flow from the ancient model of God-centered entrepreneurial
community being fully set in motion by a people mobilized in God.
Within Christendom today are remarkable models to mobilize churches.
Likewise, the last generation has seen incredible models that have
mobilized missionaries. Now, we have entered the time of mobilizing
the marketplace. All this has been good.
However, in each of these cases there's been a serious blind-spot. That
blind-spot is created from the premise that if you are successful in one area,
then success will follow in other areas. The blind-spot has also held that
if you just employ a successful Western church model, then by doing it
enough it will transform society. Not so.
Church growth should be the by-product rather than the goal. Mobilizing
missionaries should be the by-product rather than the goal. Spiritual
success first pivots on changing the spiritual climate to the level that it
impacts a culture. It is a process. It is a process that emanates from
God's order. At its crux is the restoration of the biblical model that fully
embraces the interactive dynamic of the spiritual, the economic and
community, all operating in concert.
Getting the Model Right
The greatest heroes of faith were catalysts for change; they countered
worldly standards with God's wisdom to bring strategic-level change. In
each case, they heard from God, and harnessed strategies from the
Spirit of the Lord that shifted the spiritual climate and impacted the
culture. In the cases of Joseph and Daniel, against all odds, this shift
was done from within the world's system.
In the cases of Moses and David, the standard of God's order was
elevated and the shift began as the community was mobilized to
respond. In all of these cases, the catalyst was a unique brand of
leadership; leadership by anointing.
Getting the Priorities Right
Let's tell it like it is. The marketplace movement is attracting many
who operate on the unspoken premise that if you just throw enough
money at something, then the result will have God's blessing and bring
the needed restoration. Some assert that if we just plant Western
churchianity around the world, it will solve all the problems.
Yet, despite all the mobilization of recent years, both the West and
the world seem to have more problems now than ever. America's
leadership is divided and the nation is teetering economically.
Haiti has had a lot of money thrown at it; ten times more in aid than
it has had investment. Still it remains for the most part under the
bondage of corruption. Nigeria, considered one of the most evangelized
nations in the world remains one of the most lawless and impoverished.
Churches there are escape-hatches from the moral degradation that
reigns around them. There indeed needs to be something more that
brings genuine change.
Discerning God's Big-Picture
As a whole, worldly success and power has blinded us to the urgent
need for God's ancient model. It is a spiritual shortsightedness that
tends to result in our majoring in minors and getting the priorities wrong.
Jesus told the Pharisees that they strained gnats and swallowed camels.
In all their religious priorities, they missed the forest for the trees.
Jesus warned that in the latter days, indeed the days we have entered,
that we should be wary of false prophets and false messiahs who misguide.
We should beware of modern-day Pharisees with myopic mind-sets, whose
leadership causes us to miss the big-picture and the model drawn from
the ancient paths.
There is a need to restore and a need to revive things spiritually. It involves
more than mobilizing people and organizations; it involves the release of a
people who, as a community, will demonstrate the reality of God. That's at
the foundation of revival, when it is the Spirit of the Lord truly orchestrating
things, rather than man.
It goes back to the opening scripture and the words of the Apostle James
as he set in order the priority of the "necessary things" for the early church.
Over the centuries, God's ways through His people has had a pattern. It's
been the simple things that have confounded the wise, as the Lord has
used ordinary people to do extraordinary things to break the mold; the mold
of the bondage of corruption. That takes God being at the helm of decisions.
That means leaders and a community who truly hear His voice.
The Model in Motion
Something very significant happens when a community begins operating
in the way that God intended. King David's leadership exemplified this.
When Israel and Judah came together it brought about the dynamic of
dominion. That is God's original mandate. The rest of the world stood in
awe, because it was recognized that God was with them. That wasn't all.
With dominion established, it led them into a time of great peace and
prosperity reflective of God's order restored.
Historically, when Jews have been a part of another culture, the dynamic
of community has proven to make them stand out and shine as
disproportionate achievers and contributors. Only one other ethnic
group prospers so well when operating as a culture within a culture
and that is the Chinese.
Yet, the strategy is not just community, but business-based community.
When God is at the helm, it flourishes even more. In a handful of Asian
nations, the Chinese also represent the foundation of Christians. Their
employment of Christian community far excels anything even approached
by Christians in the West.
Years ago in the West, an attempt was made to replicate community
parameters in corporate settings. A book was written about it in the 1
950s titled "The Organization Man." It fell short as a culture driven by
conformity and blind-obedience.
God's Strategy of Community
However, God's dynamic of community is very different. It is one of service
and cooperation. It is one of nurturing and fostering opportunity for others.
It is a safe-place with God at the center with His people sharing a common
purpose as they apply their diversity of gifts for the common good. It is a
light shining in the darkness because God is there. It is God's people
operating beyond that place of human effort turning the ordinary into the
extraordinary; an assembly of those known by His name operating in the
exponential in making a difference by enabling others. It is the group
setting through which God's Kingdom rule is established.
God's strategy of community pivots on being a trust society; with influence
extended to those around them. It ignites a God-centered middle class
bearing the potential for growth and increase. Since God has had a people,
in civilizations without a middle class, God has sent the Jewish people in
to serve this function as merchants and bankers and people of business.
In these roles, they have become a people of influence and change, as
they have served as advisors to kings, rulers and leaders in governments
and businesses with the wisdom of God's standards.
When God's people begin truly operating in community; when the model
is set in motion, it is then that God's full strategies begin to be released.
This has quite often been in conjunction with the pressures of operating
against impossible odds. Yet, under pressure, this has been how God's
strategy operates at its best: Light against darkness. Again and again,
the pressures have galvanized and melded the role of community and the
role of community leaders.
The model that began with Abraham, of God-centered, entrepreneurial
community works. It works against the odds.
Alignment for the Strategy
When priorities became confused in the first century church, the
Apostle James decreed the need to give focus to the "necessary things."
So it is today, that many with good intentions have been majoring in
minor things. Priorities have been approached in reverse. There is a
need for the alignment of God's strategy.
We've entered a time when the roots to the faith that were expunged by
Constantine in the fourth century are being restored and released, with
great impact. It's through the simple things that God is confounding the
"wise." The results are breaking the mold; and building a path into the
restoration of God's order and the fulfillment of His purposes for His creation.
Biblical community is the necessary ingredient to embrace the strategies
needed for the times we have entered: to prepare and to be prepared as
the world hits the disconnects of its paradigms.
Disruptive Strategies and Anointings
That means preparing for change that will challenge the old order of things.
It is change that pivots not on heightened religious activity that marked the
Pharisees, but rather on God's order for a society, with the foundational
truths outlined in the Torah. It is change that disrupts the counterfeits
and establishes God's Kingdom dynamic.
Within business terms, a disruptive technology or innovation creates a
new market or value structure. It eventually goes on to disrupt an existing
market or value structure, often displacing what may have been a technology
standard. It typically happens unexpectedly, first by innovations designed
for a different set of consumers in a new market and later by lowering
prices in an existing market.
Not unlike the way that personal computers established a whole new order
of how business is conducted, God's people historically have employed
disruptive strategies in the process of restoring God's order. Leadership-wise,
the heroes of faith operated with disruptive anointings. They were change
artists establishing a new standard and order of things; God's order.
God's disruptive strategies and anointings are explosive. There are three
age-old, big-picture targets for God's disruptive strategies within the
marketplace today: economic, cultural and power. These are the
"necessary things."
Economic. Economically, God has had the original economy. It is based
on the Lord, both individually and community-wise being the Senior Partner
and leading the way.
Cultural. Culturally, we have the examples of both Joseph and Daniel, who
despite the extreme adversity and culture of sorcery, changed the spiritual
climate of pagan nations and established God's order to harness their
resources for God's purposes.
Power. Power-wise, Jesus spent His earthly ministry raising the bar and
endowing a small group of followers with the keys to employ righteous
power in a corrupt world.
We've entered a new season. It is a time to be prepared. It is a time to
prepare and be poised to put the model in motion.
It is a time for leaders to see beyond the blind-spots and counterfeits;
and get God's big-picture perspective right. It is a time to reach beyond
our false illusions and start applying this age-old, three-fold model of the
spiritual, community and the economic working together.
It is a time to be alert for where believers, communities large enough to
be a culture within a culture, control the resources with the model in motion.
It is a time to be alert for alliances with modern-day pharaohs who seek
the prophetic wisdom and model that modern-day Josephs can apply to
their resources. Of the top 100 world economies, 53 are corporations.
There's a world whose hopeless condition is looking for the REALITY of
God operating, within a people, who can truly demonstrate it.
Before us is the change, the paradigm shift of all ages. The need is
for those who will hear God's voice and obey; mobilized communities
who will apply their disruptive anointings and set the model in motion.
The need is for prophetic stewards, who like Joseph, are blessed to
be a blessing; who wield the authority of the anointing to lead the
displacement of the bondages economically, culturally and power-wise;
and with a focus on the necessary things, to restore God's order.
"And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us, and establish
the work of our hands for us; yes, establish the work of our hands."
Psalm 90:17
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Morris Ruddick has been a forerunner and spokesman for the call of
God in the marketplace since the mid-90s. As founder of Global Initiatives
Foundation and designer of the God's Economy Entrepreneurial Equippers
Program, Mr. Ruddick imparts hope and equips economic community
builders where God's light is dim in both the Western and non-Western world.
He is author of "The Joseph-Daniel Calling;" "Gods Economy, Israel
and the Nations;" "The Heart of a King;" "Something More;" and
"Righteous Power in a Corrupt World," which address the mobilization
of business and governmental leaders called to impact their communities
with God's blessings. They are available in print and e-versions from
Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and other popular outlets.
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remnant of faithful friends and contributors whose vision aligns with
God's heart to mobilize the persecuted church to be the head and not
the tail.
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Since 1996, the Strategic Intercession Global Network (SIGN) has mobilized
prophetic intercessors and leaders committed to targeting strategic-level
issues impacting the Body on a global basis. For previous posts or more
Morris Ruddick
Global Initiatives Foundation
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