Christian Leadership Alliance

Dealing with Difficult People

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Church Reformation—City Transformation

Over five years ago Dr. Ed Delph a world-renowned author on the subjects of faith and community stated, "The most effective influence is from the top down, not the bottom up. So, don't just build a church, build a community. We serve God by serving the community. People used to ask me, "How big is your church?" I would say, "About 4 million people." That's the population of Phoenix, where I live. My congregation was 750, but my church was 4 million. I treated the whole city like it was my church. The community likes that" (Delph, 2005).

While Delph's focus has been to bring a paradigm shift in the way the church relates to its community, his work on the "7-spheres of influence of society" is reminiscent of what is being embraced today by the 98% of the Body of Christ called to something other than pulpit ministry. Whether referred to as the Saints Movement, Marketplace Ministry Movement, Faith and Work Movement, or the God at Work Movement it all points to the same core focus. The church as we know it is changing.

The Body of Christ is the church and as such we are taking it to the streets. This town, city, state, nation, and eventually world transformation is going to happen through the "church" or through the people of God. It doesn't matter what the denomination the "Body," is the church of today.

So, while Delph is challenging the traditional mindsets of the church and its relation to the neighboring community, and calling for a paradigm shift in the way the church relates to the community, others are referring to the 7 arenas of influence, 7 spheres that impact society, and the 7 mountains impacting culture. Again, the core theme is that in order to bring restoration and transformation we have to understand these spheres/mountains/arenas and embrace our part in it.

To Delph the 7 spheres of influence are business, government, education, entertainment, religion, family, and media or the arenas or spheres that we have influence over. As the church—the Body of Christ—instead of disengaging from secular activities we have to raise a new standard in those arenas of influence bringing transformation through these 7 spheres.

To explain this further Delph gives the following analogy:

You go into a restaurant. As you walk in you notice the premises are messy, the tables are full of dirty dishes and no one is there to seat you. After you are finally seated, you look at the menu and are shocked by the prices. Reluctantly, you order the overpriced food, which takes forever to arrive at your table. The food is terrible.

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