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.
- 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.
- Strategic Prayers – At each entry point, strategic prayers are given as well as prophetic declarations that can be used as prayer points.
- 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
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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