So often we think that if we just had a lot of people who would pray, then we could have revival, healings, nations turned around, or whatever else we are believing for. And no doubt, this country needs a cultural overhaul. The past fifty years have marked a sharp decline in the moral consciousness of our nation which is frightening.

Our decline is manifested in the prolific amount of immoral content Hollywood manufactures, On the opposite side of the country in Washington, D.C., we watch our lawmakers and leaders exhibit the same moral fabric of that of filmmakers. When we look at the natural, there is very little to give us faith for change. Our task seems overwhelming and even downright impossible. How can our nation change? After all, there seems to be few of us who truly believe in the Word of God and the principles of Jesus and so many of those who do not. Do we run and hide because we know that moral decline does to a nation? I mean, judgment has to be on us. No doubt we are in a precarious situation and we know it.

We think that there has to hundreds of thousands of us to create a change in the social society, but maybe, just maybe that’s not true.

So, how many people will it take to turn the United States around? Not as many as one might think. Critical mass is determined by taking the square root of 1 percent of the population. According to the 2010 census, the population of the United States was 313,914,040 people. One percent of that number is 3,139,140. Taking the square root of that number, the result is 1,772. According to this, it would take 1,772 people dedicated to a certain outcome in order to obtain the desired result.

Imagine, less than 2,000 people dedicated to prayer for America’s educational system could change America’s schools. The last prayer Jesus prayed for all believers in the Garden of Gethsemane was for unity. He knew how important it was for believers to agree in prayer about one specific goal.

Several years ago, a prominent Word of Faith teacher, Charles Capps, said, “One day science is going to prove that prayer works.” With the discovery of Quantum Physics, came the knowledge of what is known as “critical mass,” science may finally be catching up to what we as Christians have known all along.

 

 

 

 

The Seven Mountain theory was first proposed around 1975 by four prominent ministers: Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade; Loren Cunningham, founder of Youth With A Mission; Francis Schaeffer, founder of L’Abri; and Pat Robertson, founder of Christian Broadcasting Network. These ministers concluded that if Christians wanted to disciple a nation they would first have to affect the seven areas or mountains of influence that make up that nation. While other ministers also had a similar understanding of how to change culture, the Seven Mountain discovery became known as the brainchild of Bright and Cunningham. The seven mountains of influence are: Business, Arts, Religion, Family, Media, Education and Government. Each mountain is comprised of all the people who make up that cultural force and while each mountain is significant, the mountain that has always held my attention is the Mountain of Education.

So when I received an invitation to attend a weekend seminar by C. Peter Wagner on “How to Spiritually Map Your Profession,” I was excited. My first assignment was to read the history of the educational system of America and look for historical events where significant turns occurred that changed education from Christian to Humanism. I read with new eyes and with a fierce determination to develop a prayer strategy for my profession: education. That was the beginning of the book I just published: Taking the Mountain of Education: A Strategic Prayer Guide for American Education.

In my research, I found, that throughout history there have been those who held great distain for the powerful Christian concepts taught in our schools. Because of their humanistic belief that man was god, they embarked on a mission to replace Christian education with humanistic teaching. Most of the changes they implemented were imposed on our schools through our legal system. Sad to say, it appears that the humanists have succeeded and today we have a failed educational system.

Currently nineteen percent of our high school students graduate from high school unable to read.[i] Public schools run a continual ticker tape of incidences of classroom violence. The crimes that make the headlines are usually gun/death related, and the thousands upon thousands of assaults on teachers, assaults by teachers, thefts, incidents of vandalism, rapes by teachers, rapes of teachers, rapes of students by students, and so on are never revealed to the general public.

We already know that the situation is dire, but we secretly hope that it isn’t as bad as we think. It would be over simplistic to attribute plummeting test scores, and all the instances of violence to bad teachers, guns, ADHD, emotional disturbances, overworked teachers, crowded classrooms, drugs or the many other issues our public schools face. To deal only with these issues is to deal with symptoms. As an intercessor, I wanted to dig deeper into what is happening and deal with the spiritual darkness that is the root cause of chaos in our schools.

At the memorial service for a 45-year-old mathematics teacher killed by a middle school student in Sparks, Nevada, Julia Rubin, a community leader from Reno’s Temple Sinai said, “We pray after we have mourned and comforted each other we can take steps to address the root cause of violence and gun use by children throughout our country.”[ii] Yes, Rubin has the correct prayer—that we address the root cause of violence and gun use by children.

How do we as believers address those root causes and redeem our educational system? We know we have authority over the spiritual darkness that has encompassed the Mountain of Education, so why do we not see more results? Perhaps it is because we have not had a comprehensive prayer strategy to deal with the spiritual forces that influence the entire Mountain of Education.

In the past, the bulk of our prayer efforts have focused on local schools. The rest of the mountain is virtually left uncovered in prayer, yet the decision makers for education reside within the top 3 to 5 percent of those who are in leadership positions in educational institutions across our country. A new prayer strategy is needed and Taking the Mountain of Education is that strategy.

In Taking the Mountain of Education three strategies are outlined that will help anyone who is interested in transforming prayer for schools.

1. Ten Historical Entry Points – Ten historical entry points are defined along with their significance that led American education in a downward spiral toward the implementation of a national humanistic religion.
2. Strategic Prayers – At each entry point, strategic prayers are given as well as prophetic declarations that can be used as prayer points.
3. Identification and Prayers to Bind the Spiritual Forces that Reside over Education – “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12).

This is a book of war—war in the realm of the spirit for those who choose to intercede on behalf of our nation and our children. Strategic prayer will enable us to push back the forces of darkness, reveal the roots that have held us in bondage, and allow the institution of education to be set free. The results will be that our children will be educated not only in knowledge but in Godly spiritual principles.

 

Nancy Huff

Teach the Children International

TeachTheChildrenInternational.com

To Sign up to Pray for Education go to: TeachTheChildrenInternational.com/signup

Paperback and Kindle copies are available through Amazon.com

To contact Nancy: ContactTCI@aol.com

 

 

 

[i] Information was taken from the Statistic Brain web site, from research done by US Department of Education, National Institute of Literacy, research date April 28, 2013, available from http://www.statisticbrain.com/number –of-american-adults-who-cant-read.

 

[ii] Quote taken from an article by Scott Sonner (AP), Las Vergas Sun, “Nevada school shooting probe looks at bullying video,” available from http://www.lasvegassun.com/news;2013/oct/24/nevada-school-shooting-probe-looks-bullying-video.

 

Posted on web site September 1, 2015