The Seven Mountains is a Lance Wallnau thing. Since he brought all this up on The Lance Wallnau Show on RAV, I’ll offer some random thoughts on his commentary.
If I understood Lance correctly, he was saying the return of Christ has more to do with the Church (or the Body of Christ) than what this government or that media outlet or some technology does. Moreover he emphasized how important it is for Christians to spread out and take territory on each of these mountains. In part he issued a caveat about depending leaders in the Church or in politics to be the tip of the spear.
The example of Church leadership was one I found fascinating as I nodded my head in agreement. He spoke of pastors of small and large churches whose whole focus was on growing their church rather than preparing parishioners to spread out into the world.
Now I don’t see this in every church, in fact, one church my wife and I were involved in, “The Vineyard”, was taking steps to take more territory. The focus of this particular group was Ukraine and, more specifically Ukrainian orphans. This was nearly 20 years ago, long before Ukraine was in the daily world headlines. While I had and have some problems with their efforts, I participated and supported them. It’s not that they were “wrong” but my question was about the outreach in our own community, or the lack of thereof.
Overall, I think it would be worthwhile to study those churches that have grown rather than shrunk to see what we can learn about them. Then one can determine what efforts are worth attempting to duplicate. To me, the key to growth would logically be tied to outreach. And that brings us right back to the gist of what Lance was saying.
Much of what Wallnau was saying dovetails into some of my recent posts. Okay, so you might have to actually think about all this a bit. What have I been saying? Grow where you are planted. I guarantee you, wherever you are in life, you are on one of those seven mountains. Grow how? Grow as a Christian and grow as a professional. Better yet, grow as a Christian professional. I don’t care if you are management in a Fortune 500 company or waiting tables – you are there for a reason. What you make of it is up to you.
Where I struggle with Lance’s ideas is where he seemed to say what God does will be dependent on what the Church does. To me this suggests the Church, not God is in control – or at least we have have the wheel. There is some precedence for this line of thinking for example:
It is often stated by some scholars that if Jews had accepted Christ as their Messiah the earthly kingdom would have been established then. If this had indeed happened, then what of this current age? It seems it would be skipped. So, along with this same line of thought, could the return of Christ Jesus be tied to what the Church does? Lance seems to think so. I’m not so sure.
Lance himself quoted Jesus who stated before his return the gospel must be published to all nations. This suggests to me at least one specific criteria. Jesus also said only our Heavenly Father knows the exact day and time when he, Jesus, will return. This makes me think that God does indeed has a punch list of specific criteria and He’s keeping most of it to Himself. Who am I to argue? Should this be true then the idea of an open-ended period of time for everything that must happen to come about is unlikely. In short, I do not think God Almighty is going to wait on us to make things happen. However there is another aspect to all this that seems to support my contention that the time and date for Jesus’ return is set and thus a “done deal”. What is that?
God already has people on all seven mountains. The Church has never operated in a vacuum. Sure, there have always been certain Christians or groups that keep mostly to themselves, but most of us, wards and all, live and work in the real world. By all means, each of us should do our best to live God’s Will to the fullest but I do believe we all fulfill His purpose even when we fail. If my life is any example, I can point to it and say for certain: we can do better. I know I surely can. The good news is I am doing better, most every day. What about you?
I cannot say because I have no idea who you are or what your place is in this world. Maybe your reading this on your break before heading back to finish mopping that floor. Or maybe your preparing to enter the boardroom and take your place at the head of the table. Chances are, you are somewhere between those two extremes. None of that matters. What does matter is what you choose to do in the next minute and every next minute after. No doubt whatever you do will have some effect on the world. Don’t count yourself out by thinking that clean floor won’t make any impact. For all you know, it could create a far greater ripple than that multi-billion dollar decision of the executive that just stepped around the wet spot. We won’t know until we’ve “leveled up”.
Meanwhile, well, let me ask you… what can The Church do in today’s world? Yes, it is a loaded question. It hints that “The Church” is a unified entity that can act in concert. Putting it that way, the fallacy is glaringly easy to see. The Church is the body of Christ.
1 Corinthians 12:12 For as the body is one, and has many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ.
13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free; and were all given to drink into one Spirit.
14 For the body is not one member, but many.
This last verse is the wrench in the works of the “unified entity” concept. Surely if each of us perfectly served Christ, well, that would be something, but as members, we are all flawed – each and every one of us. The good news is, God knows all this. He’s got a handle on it so we need not worry about what anyone else is doing. Each of us only needs to focus on our walk. That doesn’t mean we cannot or should not lose sight of The Church, The Body of Christ, as a whole. Scripture says a lot about edifying, building up, the body. We have each other for a reason. The danger is for us to look to one individual, other than Jesus himself, to lead. The Catholic Church has their Pope. No matter what one might think of the current Pope, I think we can all agree he is vastly different than those who preceded him. My understanding is Catholics are taught not to question the Pope. I’d have a hard time reconciling the doctrine of Pope Francis with say, Pope John Paul II. Both served in my lifetime. From my non-Catholic perspective their doctrinal views counter each other significantly. Since in Popes are never supposed to be in error, how can one reconcile the two? This difference in the Catholic Church seems to have a parallel in some of our nation’s SCOTUS decisions. The current court says previous courts had certain things all wrong. This is not the first period in history where SCOTUS has overruled previous Supreme Court rulings. So what does all this have to do with The Church and the end times?
Just this: as believers in Christ, members of the Body of Christ, The Church, we should expect to hold our brethren in Christ accountable when circumstances arise. But our primary focus should be our own walk. We need to live our lives, keep those beams out of our own eyes, rather than watching to see whom we can accuse. The adversary is the accuser. We are not.
Now maybe you are a modern day Apostle Paul, such is not for me to say. You are what you are and you belong where God has placed you. I’ve no doubt Paul never once thought his letters to the churches would one day be canonized and published for billions of believers to live by. He humbled himself to serve as best he could as a man who once persecuted the Church. Certainly he knew he was a man of great influence, how could he not? But I suspect he lived each day with a heart and mind of how he could best serve his Lord Jesus and his Heavenly Father.
If there was ever an example we could learn from, a model to follow after, this would top the list. Paul’s example was simple. Walk in love. Walk in the spirit. Put on the whole armor of God. Having done all… stand.