Category: Transforming Culture

Original Intent for American Education

August 18, 2019

The majority of Americans who refer to education in this nation, think only of public schools as we know them today, but that’s not how education started in America, and a quick look at history reveals two educational systems. The first educational system was the original intent of our founding fathers. Known as the Father of Public Education, Horace Mann is responsible for implementing the second public school system, the major system we have in the United States today. This is the system that is predominant in our country today.

From the standpoint of the founding fathers, the original intent was for schools to be founded and funded by local communities. The first laws on education were passed in the 1640s in the Massachusetts Bay Colony where the Pilgrims lived. The laws required that parents saw to it that their children knew how to read the Bible and to be able to understand the laws of the land. It was clear that parents were to be the ones who oversaw the education of their children.

The primary system consists of the secular public schools we have today funded by taxpayer money and steeped in socialism and social issues. The original system is what our forefathers intended at the inception of this nation. To pray effectively for America’s education, we must look at the history behind how we got to our present the failed state of education and pray for the restoration of the original system.

We have an early glimpse as to the value early colonists placed on education by the laws the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony passed in 1643-1643. These laws required parents to educate their children and other children , The Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony passed of the first laws regarding education. In 1643, they passed a law that required parents to teach any child under their care to read and to work with numbers. If parents failed to educate their children, the government could remove them and place them in a home where they could receive a good education.

Most schools Early settlers used a Bible-based education, held high moral standards for the students, and stressed hard work and academics.

The Bible Although Massachusetts stressed education, the same was not necessarily true for the other colonies. Schools, if they existed at all, were organized by town councils, local churches, urban charitable societies, or put together with a rotation of the town’s citizens as teachers. More often than not, the Bible was the only textbook available in a classroom. Mandatory attendance was not required, which resulted in a high rate of absenteeism. The demands of children to sustain the family’s subsistence by helping with household chores, working in the fields, and assisting with a family business often took precedence over schooling.

The original system intended by our forefathers barely holds a glimmer of hope but can be revived.

Conclusion for Original Intent for Education of Children in the Colonies: The original intent of education from the standpoint of the Founding Fathers was for children to be taught the Bible in such a way that their lives were to be lived by God-given principles, knowing God as their creator, and ultimately knowing Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
Westward Expansion Spreads Secular Education (1812-1860)
From 1812-1860, education took a drastic turn in America away from its original intent. The diversion occurred as a result of two people: Horace Mann and Catharine Beecher.

Horace Mann served in the Massachusetts Legislature from 1827-1837, at which time he resigned to take the position of the newly created Massachusetts office of Secretary of Education. Horace Mann was raised in a Christian family but rejected Christianity and became a secular humanist and attended a Unitarian church. While running for office in the state legislature, Mann made a campaign promise to the Unitarians that he would start secular public schools funded by taxpayer money, which he did during his time as Secretary of Education. He is known as the Father of Public Education. Mann hated Calvinism with a passion and fought the churches who opposed his new school proposal. The Calvinists of the day feared the long-range effects of secular education and stated, “We do not need this central, all-absorbing power; it is anti-republican in all its bearings, well-adapted perhaps, to Prussia, and other European despotism, but not wanted here.” (The Christian Witness 1844)

Opposition to public schools was so prevalent that Horace Mann and his supporters secretly organized the placement of people in communities for the sole purpose to lobby in such a way to sway public opinion toward government schools.

Catharine Beecher’s father, Lyman Beecher, pastored a Presbyterian church in Ohio. As a pastor, he opposed the spread of Unitarianism, preached predestination, preached a conversion experience, advocated for the gradual elimination of slavery, and fought against the forming of secular public schools. All of her life, his daughter, Catharine expressed great opposition to the idea of conversion and a personal relationship with God. She instead embraced logic and reasoning as redemptive qualities. She refused to convert and embraced the belief that public works could serve society as well as a private faith.

In 1803, America under President Thomas Jefferson completed the Louisiana Purchase, which gave America 828,000 square miles of land for expansion. The humanistic concept of Manifest Destiny fed into the ideas of the two secular educators, Horace Mann, and Catharine Beecher, who seized the opportunity to secularize the settlers and their children in the newly acquired territory. They Europeanized the heathen and uncouth inhabitants of the new land, thereby creating a new secular society, devoid of Christianity in the new territory.

Horace Mann and Catharine Beecher joined forces to promote a new teaching profession for women. Beecher and Mann saw women as the best way to expand their new religion of secularism throughout the country and particularly felt that teaching was a great profession for unmarried women. They coined the term “missionary teachers” to entice women whose mission would be to educate “ignorant and neglected children” of the frontier. The ideal school fashioned after Prussian schools that Mann admired, were based on the teaching of humanistic philosophy.

Mann particularly liked to hire women teachers because women willingly suffered the hardships of frontier life and worked at a small fraction of the cost of a male teacher. He often bragged at how much money he saved by hiring women. As people moved west, frontier schools sprang up like wildfire through the new territory.

Conclusion for the Original Intent of Public Schools Funded with Taxpayer Money: With the formation of public schools, education was taken from the church and local communities and put under the direction of the government. Those who attended church held to a high standard of morals that Mann and Beecher wanted to be taught, without any teaching on religion and certainly not a salvation experience.

If any two people can claim credit for changing American social, academic, and ultimately political direction from libertarian to one governed by the state, the credit must go to Horace Mann and Catharine Beecher. They redefined public education as America’s new, more gentle church and female teachers as the ministers of American morality.
They were able to overcome the Church’s objections and teach a secular, watered down religion that attempted to retain moral content without referring to Jesus or conversion. They were on a passionate mission, well-financed with taxpayer money, and had the social backing of the Harvard Unitarian elite.

Note: On April 26, 2017, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to begin the process of returning school control to state and local officials. If carried through, President Trump’s order is a major step in returning schools to the original intent of our founding fathers.

Prayer for the Mountain of Education During the Month of Av

September 13, 2018

Linked to the Tribe of Simeon, the month of Av (July 13- August 11, 2018) is associated with the time the twelve spies explored the promise land. Ten spies brought back a discouraging “evil” report, “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is the fruit. But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there….” Two spies, Caleb and Joshua, brought back a good report, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.”

Av is the month:
• to believe the good report.
• for the divine will of the Father to be executed!
• to advance through partnerships.
• for a new level of discernment

Mountain of Education decrees for the month of Av:
• Although there are giants in the land we say with Joshua and Caleb, “Our God is mighty and although there are giants who have strongholds in the land by our God we are well able to overcome!” We decree that we are well able to bring education under the jurisdiction of the God and creator of the Universe!

• We decree that this month of Av is the time to turn the tide of unbelief – we no longer look at the Mountain of Education as unmoveable. This mountain will be transformed by the power of God!

• We decree that strongholds of humanism are broken over Americas Schools.

• We decree that Mountain Moving Faith will rise in believers across America to change education.

• We decree that as we start a new school year, this is the year for the divine will of the Father to be executed in the cultural Mountain of Education!

• We decree that divine partnerships are established this month that will advance Godly education and expose ungodly, corrupt, practices in American education.

• We decree that the Godly decision makers will rise to a new level of discernment that will penetrate and destroy the culture of death in our schools.

Why the Future is Better than We Think

September 12, 2018

It’s often difficult to see beyond the immediate problems of our planet to where we could be if God were to give us new innovations, new solutions and new horizons. We look at what the world is telling us and believe, like Chicken Little, “The sky is falling.” But if we believe that God is bringing solutions to every day problems we face, then we know there is no a problem that He can not solve and, frankly, our world is in very good hands.

Recently, at the recommendation of a friend, I purchased the book, Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think. (Yes, another book!) Opening the book, I thought, “Yeah, I bet. Everyone knows the future is dismal and we are all in a grind. True to human nature, sometimes we all need a different perspective on life and although the book isn’t a religious book, it gave me a new perspective on what new possibilities lie before us, especially in regard to technology and how God is giving people on His earth the wisdom to solve problems of water shortages, infant mortality, poverty, famine, food shortages and a host of other issues our world faces. What if, God was looking for problem solvers who will advance His Kingdom on this earth?

One example was in Columbia South America. From 1999 to 2008, Columbia was ruled by FARC (Revolutionary Armed Force of Columbia) a Marxist-Leninist insurgency group that dealt in drugs, kidnappings, arms dealing, and terrorism. They were a force to be reckoned with, and anyone who spoke against them ended up dead.

A young man had the idea to One young man had an idea to set up a FaceBook Page and called it “A Million Voices Against FARC.” He had four simple pleas: NO MORE KIDNAPPING, NO MORE LIES, NO MORE DEATH, NO MORE FARC. He published the FB page one night and the next morning he had 1500 likes. Within a week, he had 100,000 likes. One month later he had 400,000 volunteers and was able to muster over 12 million people in 200 cities across the world who were willing to take to the streets. In Bogota there were 1.2 million to protest. News of the demonstrations penetrated the jungles and FARC, fearing for their lives, disbanded. There was NO MORE FARC. The lessons learned from Columbia.
We need each other.
We need a plan.
We need technology.
We need unity.
We need someone with the “juice” of the Holy Spirit to lead the cause.

All of the elements came together in one example from the country of Columbia.

We’ve all seen those pictures of busy little robots in a factory. They each do the work of one hundred employees and they don’t require health insurance, vacation pay or sick leave. They are just worker bees – toiling away and taking meaningful jobs from good honest people. While they may take those jobs, the people they replace are now able to take more meaningful jobs.

It’s easy to imagine that technology takes away jobs and sometimes difficult to see the next generation of jobs on the horizon.

If one believes in a good then the future is definitely better than we think!

Prayer for Tulsa Public Schools

August 29, 2018

Prayer for Tulsa Public Schools

August 16, 2018, TCI sponsored a call to prayer for Tulsa Public Schools. Thirty-six people from almost every spectrum of Tulsa’s education came. The keynote “pray-er” was Dr. Madeline Manning Mims, an Olympic Gold Metal winner. I very grateful to Chloe Allen and Sherrill Cressman. Chloe is an outstanding woman of God who brought Spirit led and Spirit directed people of prayer to the event!! Sherrill is a TCI board member, former teacher, and a great friend.

Special Guest Speaker
Dr. Madeline Manning Mims
Dr. Mims is an Olympic Gold Metal winner and a motivational speaker for the youth of our nation.

School Board Members came to pray.

Principals prayed.

Students Prayed

School supplies for teachers give-away.

Don’t Back Down – Your Prayers Change History

August 28, 2018
Standing for LIFE in front of the Supreme Court

Lately, I’ve been reminded of the first time I took fifteen intercessors to Washington, DC to pray. Early in the planning process I contacted Sandy Grady, who had worked for years as a key intercessor for David Barton of Wall Builders. As I shared with Sandy my desire to pray at educational sites in DC, she said, “Nancy, everyone who comes to DC goes to the same places. They go to the White House, the Capitol building, the Washington Monument, and other famous landmarks. But I’ve never known a group to go to the National Department of Education. Please go there and pray. Our schools need our prayers and intercessors don’t think to include education in their prayer trips to DC. What you want to do will be hard, but don’t back down.”

That was in 2001 and Sandy’s words never left me. That first time to pray at the Department of Education was every bit as difficult as she’d prophesied it would be. Over and over, I heard her words ring in my spirit, “Don’t back down. Don’t back down. Don’t back down.”

In order to go inside the Department of Education building one must have an invitation from someone employed there. Somewhere I’d been given the name of a man from Oklahoma—Jim—who worked in the Department of Education, so I called him a couple of weeks before my group was to be in DC. We had a nice chat. He agreed to host our group, give us a tour of the building, and allow us to have a brief moment in the building’s small auditorium to pray. I hung up thinking everything was all set.

I called Jim early on the day of our visit. He didn’t answer of return my calls. With our appointment “iffy.” I gave those in the group an option to stay behind if they wanted to not take a chance on whether or not the appointment would actually happen. Eight people decided to stay behind. To be honest, I was the most frightened of any one in the group, but I felt the need to go as Sandy’s words repeated over and over in my mind. “Don’t back down. Don’t back down.”

We entered the National Department of Education building, went through security, and asked to speak to Jim. Instead of Jim, two burley security guards came to greet us. They demanded to know why we were there and what our relationship was with Jim. I told them we had come to pray for America’s educational system and gave them the name of the man from Oklahoma. One man left and a few minutes later came back and told us that Jim was busy and couldn’t meet with us.

Scared, I then asked if there were a room we could use to pray. The security men ushered us to a small auditorium where we placed chairs in a circle and began to pray for America’s schools. They eventually realized we were harmless and disappeared. Twenty minutes later, “Mr. Oklahoma” showed up and confessed he had been afraid and had backed out (without telling me). He redeemed the time as he showed us around the building and introduced us to the head of the Department of Education as well as key people in the building. We ended up praying in every office, even the office of the head of the department. It was a victory that would not have happened without one seasoned intercessor telling me, “Don’t back down. Don’t back down.”

No matter what circumstance you find yourself in as an intercessor for you, your family or for the children of America, don’t back down! It’s not an easy task and certainly not for the faint of heart, but persistence and tenacity are paramount when taking on a spiritual giant.

Should We Do Away with the Department of Education?

August 27, 2018

The US Department of Education employees approximately 5000 people and has an approximate annual budget of $69 billion. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics there are 57 million elementary and secondary school age children in the United States, of which 8 million are either enrolled in private schools or homeschooled. That leaves 49 million children educated by America’s network of public schools and for whom the Department of Education serves. Does the Department of Education produce $69 billion dollars worth of results for the public school children in America? It produces no curriculum, teacher training, or personalized educational training. So what does it do?

According to the Dept of Ed web site, they have four areas of concentration:
1. Establish policies and administer financial aid,
2. Collect data and oversee research on America’s schools,
3. Identify major issues and problems in education and bring national attention to them,
4. Enforce anti-discrimination in public education.

Since the US constitution does not mention education, but the constitution does state that all powers not mentioned in the constitution are delivered to the individual states. Which is the reason why many Americans believe that the US Department of Education has no constitutional standing and must be dismantled. I believe that it is imperative that we pray on a regular basis for the Department of Education—it will remain only if it serves the best interest of our children and improves the educational quality of our schools.

The Tipping Point in Education

June 21, 2018

There are approximately 4 million teachers in the American public school system and many of whom are believers. The tipping point, or critical mass, for change would be 200 teachers. That’s not a huge number, but the secret is that this number has to be in complete unity. If 200 teachers all prayed in their classrooms, in one day, the results could be astounding. But teachers are trained to remain secular in their classrooms. They walk a daily tightrope to be politically correct and free of offense to any religion.
In the teaching profession, every teacher suffers his or her share of attacks as a usual routine of events. They assign too much homework and parents complain. They don’t stay after school to tutor those who were having trouble learning algebra. (Never mind that they may offer their services at noon for free tutoring every day.) They get in trouble for expecting projects and homework to be turned in on time because, after all, what has a deadline got to do with learning a subject? If the student did the work, why shouldn’t they get credit, even if it was late? The list goes on and on and every teacher who has ever tried to do his or her best has come under attack. These skirmishes erode the soul of teachers leaving them little energy to fight the big battles that change the system.
Teachers live in fear of being fired for praying over a student or even for putting up Christmas decorations in a classroom. They have no strength for losing a job over something as simple as ministering to a child. Getting a teacher to see the big battle when he or she is fighting multiple little battles every day is difficult. That is why we haven’t seen the critical mass we need to see for the change. A unified core mass is what we need and we need it now.
If Christian teachers unified to such an extent that they could define small actions that would change the system, the tipping point could happen. Malcolm Gladwell in his book The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference shares his research into what will make changes in society.53 Gladwell proposes that it is the little things that make a big difference.
Liberal educators make claims that our schools are in such a state of decline because we don’t have enough money for education or because our students are economically impoverished. They say that if we just had more money for new curriculum or if we would just make sure that everyone has money, either through welfare or through giving someone a job, that would be the best way to create better schools. But there is another factor involved that Gladwell calls “The Power of Context,” which states that it’s really the little things that matter.
For instance, the crime turnaround in New York City occurred, not because of a huge war on crime, but because of what has become known as the “Broken Windows Theory.” This theory was the brainchild of two criminologists—James Q. Wilson and George Kelling. Wilson and Kelling argued that crime is a result of disorder. If a broken window in a house in a crime-ridden part of town is not repaired, the result is that more criminal elements will be attracted to that neighborhood and the crime rate will rise substantially. There will be more houses with broken windows. Drug dealers will move into the neighborhood and there is a general feeling that the neighborhood is bad and the crime rate skyrockets. Fix the broken windows, Wilson and Kelling said, and the bad elements will abandon the neighborhood. They believed that crime was contagious.
New York City tipped when the police began to issue citations for broken windows, giving owners twenty-four hours to make repairs. Graffiti also was cleaned up within twenty-four hours of when the artful designers had completed their work of art.
What if educational administrators and teachers began to do little things like pray with students, openly display scriptures in their classrooms, or refuse to call Christmas holidays by the secular name winter holidays? The educational system can tip in the direction of being restored back to a Godly system if enough administrators and teachers would aggressively live out their Christian faith.

Where is the Moral Outcry?

June 20, 2018

Convinced of the importance of religion in the lives of America’s new settlers, our forefathers refused to entertain any suggestion that the people who lived in this nation would be better off without Christianity. In 1794, humanists Thomas Paine, penned an anti-Christian book, The Age of Reason, there was a moral outcry among the citizens and leadership of colonies. Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, as well as prominent Christians of the day refused to recognize Paine or his writings. While people may have read the book, because those of influence rejected the content, the book was not well accepted. When Paine passed away, no cemetery would give him burial space. He was buried in a cow pasture. The moral outcry of the people at all levels of education day refused Thomas Paine’s anti-god book. As a result the book had little effect on the beliefs of the people.
Almost 200 years later during President Reagan’s first term in office, a poll revealed that 85% of Americans were in favor of prayer being a part of a child’s school day. President Reagan, thinking he had grassroots support, secured a majority of votes in the House and the Senate to get the measure permitting prayer in school passed. He was stopped when the courts ruled against his efforts. Justice Antonin Scalia spoke out against the decision to not allow school prayer. Justice Scalia felt striking prayer out of school would please a few to the detriment of the majority. Justice Scalia also spoke out against abortion. He is credited with making the remark to a group of friends, “Where is the moral outcry against abortion?” Justice Scalia was asking: Where are the Christians who will do more than give a nod against evil?
A look at America’s Educational system today reveals how different our schools are from 200 years ago. Educators have led us down a path that has almost destroyed our culture, our religion, our families and ultimately our future. Yet, there is little moral outcry among those who hold to strong Christian beliefs.
I pray God gives each of us insight on how to participate in the moral outcry that is necessary to change this nation – in particular the Mountain of Education. No matter where we are or what station we hold in life, we can begin to take a stand against the tide of evil that has flooded our schools. Let every one of us participate in the outcry against the ungodly agenda in the American Mountain of Education!

The School Alarm is Sounding!

June 11, 2018

In school, I never remember an emergency that triggered a school alarm. Today school is a different place. School shootings, fights, fires and lock downs are commonplace. The school alarm is going off in the natural, but there’s also a school alarm going off in the Spirit as well. The question is: will the intercessors heed the sound?

On April 20 1999, Eric Haris and Dylan Klebold went on a shooting spree at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. When it was over, the two boys had killed 24 students, one teacher and wounded numerous others. One month later, the community hosted a grief meeting that gave students, teachers, parents and local pastors a platform to express their feelings.

A friend of mine and I drove to Colorado to attend that meeting. As each person came to the microphone to speak, the underlying theme—almost without exception– was that each one had felt something was about to happen. No one had any clue what it was, but felt God told them there was some impending catastrophe on the horizon. One pastor related how he had se
en the boys dressed in their Gothic attire and knew God was telling him that the boys were planning some horrible deed.

Even though many people knew that danger was coming, not a one mentioned intercession as a means to avert a disaster. The deaths were laid at God’s feet but He was not given credit for possibly giving a way out by prompting those who knew Him to heed the alarm that was going off inside of them and pray that the calamity would not happen. We not only need prayer that will deal with education’s past and present, but we need preemptive prayer that will disengage the enemy in future events.

From that Columbine meeting, there were three ways God had given warning:

1. An inward alarm went off while in the presence of the perpetrators.
Many saw Haris and Klebold and sensed the evil. Both boys were avid fans of death centered video games and heavy metal music with lyrics of death and destruction. The boys carried the evil with them and those astute in the Spirit could sense danger.

2. An inward alarm sounded as they entered the school building. They “knew” danger was near.
Some of the speakers, on walking into the school building, knew that something was going to happen.

3. Alarming dreams were given—of being in a dangerous situation at school.
The signs were there but ignored. I don’t think the praying people in Columbine were oblivious to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, but rather, they simply didn’t know how to intercede. Intercession is quickly becoming a lost art as not many are taught how to pray in situations where, without God’s intervention, disaster will happen. It’s time for the church to take up the mantle of Elijah and pray for our schools to not only avert danger, but change the entire structure of the Mountain of Education. We can see things change—if we pray. (Read more on this at takingthemountainofeducation.com)

Give it 10 minutes
I suggestion that you give the alarm you are sensing ten minutes of focused prayer as quickly as possible. See what the Holy Spirit speaks to you during that time. The burden may lift and that’s all that’s needed, but perhaps you’ll get direction on how and what to pray at a later time.

Often if we think something will require hours on hours of intense prayer, it will never get done. The task will look too overwhelming. It’s better to be instant in prayer. Hearing God’s voice takes time and practice and it is best not to let the task look too big in the beginning.

Intercession is an absolute act of faith – Faith in the ability of God to change the future is the driving force behind intercession. If anyone ever tells you that that kind of faith that changes circumstances, nations and hardened hearts is easy, they would be lying. It’s like a muscle that isn’t used very much and at first it’s extremely difficult but with continual use, it does get easier. That’s why it’s called “exercising your faith.”

“But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit.” Jude 20

When You Pray – Remember David and Goliath

May 16, 2018

Abraham Lincoln said, “The philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.” That has certainly been true in America as we see socialism and secularization of our educational system now as it is played out in our government and courts. To reform our schools by addressing the roots of our misdirection in prayer will also create a reformation of our nation.
Those of us who desire to restore God’s place in our education system are the Davids and the school system is the Goliath. The statement David made to Goliath in the valley of Elah applies to us in a very real way.
“You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the Name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defiled. This day the LORD will hand you over to me, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves; for the battle is the LORD’S and he will give all of you into our hands.” 1 Samuel 17:45–47
The anti-God forces in our educational system are overconfident, over secure, and under effective, making the timing of a spiritual battle of utmost importance. Just as Goliath, they dare people to try to change the system. Yet, everyone from the office of the President of the United States to the classroom teacher knows that our education is a dismal failure when 25 percent of our public school graduates are illiterate. It is time to seize the opportunity. Intercessors can take back education from the domination of Baal and consequently the children of our nation from his influence.
Actually, our chances of felling Goliath, even in the natural, get better the larger Goliath grows. Best-selling author and military historian Max Boot in his classic book, Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present, gives small insurgent groups a more than fighting chance of bringing down huge military operations. The smaller groups cost less money than larger armies to maintain. They can travel to a location undetected and make a strike, and quickly retreat.
A larger army relies on its reputation, technology, past victories, and often outdated styles to engage the enemy. Over the last one hundred years American education has promoted man-made doctrines and taunted Christians by daring them to attack their policies. With our band of prayer warriors, we can win, if we fight with nonconventional weapons, keep our ranks tightly knit around a common purpose, and engage the enemy on a level in which they are not accustomed.
The American educational system is huge with a budget of $591 billion annually. Its strength lies in the size of the institution. It cannot move quickly and is the epitome of the works of the flesh just as Goliath was. Daily the system promotes propaganda that is anti-God, anti-American, anti-Christian, and anti-moral. But it has been ineffective. Too long they have taunted those who believe in God. It is time we took our place with full knowledge of who our God is and what He can do.
Os Hillman, a well-known author and speaker on faith at work, states in his book Change Agent, “It takes less than 3–5 percent of those operating at the tops of a cultural mountain to actually shift the values represented on that mountain.”
This small percentage is the sum total of the true decision makers in education. That means that we as believers let the top 5 percent of the over 3 million people involved in education in this country make all the decisions. The rest of us watch on the sidelines as decisions are made that take our country down a path of socialism and ultimately destruction to the way of life our forefathers intended.
The church has lost its vision for stewarding the territory God given us. We has have allowed the voice of God to be muffled as Goliath taunted us day after day. Christian teachers in the classroom have their hands tied because of the lack of prayer by apostolic prayer teams who know how to release the power of God in worship, intercession, authority of the Name of Jesus, and strategic warfare.
We have a purpose: to manifest God’s Kingdom on the earth today. In the past we have lost ground, but we can regain it if we fight. In her book, Don’t Let the Kids Drink the Kool-Aid, Mary Beth Hicks wrote:
“In 2007, while still a member of the United States Senate, Barack Obama said, ‘I am absolutely convinced that culture wars are just so ‘90s. Their days are growing dark.’ Obama was right. The culture wars are over: We lost. We are no longer fighting to uphold traditional social values. Now we’re fighting a battle over the very definition of what it means to be an American, and what America means to the world. A losing battle.”
I would say that Hicks is right—except that God is calling His people to come together to pray in a strategic way as never before in the history of the world. Kingdom-minded people are being called into place. We must follow the instructions the prophet Joel gave his warriors, “Do not break ranks.” (Joel 2:8.)
Until we are called by someone with an apostolic jurisdiction we do not know how to stand together and not break ranks. The apostle puts prayer warriors in position and gives the orders and teaches them how to stand together without breaking ranks. With such a dynamic prayer team, we can take back our educational system as well as the other cultural influences in our nation.