When I started ministry school, I felt certain that God was leading me to shut down my business and become a pastor. That kind of consecration brings transformation.

I was so naïve, I did not realize at the time that my wife and I had consecrated our lives to the Lord for a year (nine months of class, followed by a three month trip around the US visiting family, revival hotspots like IHOP in Bethel, and ministering to people along the way). In 2009, I reduced my working hours to a part-time basis, and took the year to go to ministry school. Paid staff positions at churches, for example. When we say “full-time ministry” what we mean is vocational ministry.

Even that term-“full-time ministry”-is inaccurate, as it is clear from Scripture that every believer is a full-time minister, a royal priest in God's Kingdom. This is a message of encouragement for those who don't feel they are called to “full-time ministry”. All three believed that in order for the church to impact the world for Jesus Christ, it would be necessary for us to influence the Seven Mountains of society. Francis Schaeffer received a similar message from the Lord at about the same time. That message was about Seven Mountains of influence. In 1975, Bright was having lunch in Colorado with Loren Cunningham (who founded Youth with a Mission).īoth men had been given a dream by God, containing a message to give to the other. The first recorded reference to the Seven Mountains that I can find originates with Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade. In that sense, the “Seven Mountains teaching” is quite biblical indeed. And not, I might add, to be influenced by the culture. However, Jesus did instruct us to be “salt” and “light”, and to go into all the world, and the New Testament is replete with admonitions that we are to influence the culture.

So in that sense, it is not in the Bible. If you're looking for it in the Bible, you won't find the “Seven Mountains”. Where did this teaching come from? Is it biblical? The idea is really quite simple: in our culture, there are Seven Mountains (think of them as “spheres” or simply “areas”) of influence, and the modern church is being called to build influence on each of those mountains. You may be wondering what this is all about.

Perhaps you've heard talk about the “Seven Mountains”, or the “Seven Mountain Mandate, or “Seven Mountain Prophecy”.

The seven story mountain