By Dale Shumaker
This is how things progress when we move into mission. As laid out in Living Your Magnificent Mission, it starts small, with just one person choosing to live directed by God's Spirit, growing in Spirit personally, then joining with another. It continues to expand as these small cells of Spirit connect with others. And it grows to become a Magnificent Mission.
When the mission is established and a Spiritual base is established and maintained on a daily basis, greater advances in what you are about begin. As the network, of the initial two or three becomes a bond in Spirit, other networks doing the same start connecting. They form a web that continually grows in strength and size. The size is not one big group but many small networks networking with other small networks. It's a Spiritual network. They communicate and work together in their mission... enhancing each other's mission. The dynamic of Living Your Magnificent Mission becomes more evident. Here's how the last two elements come together that boosts the mission.
Our bodies have electrical currents. When two people touch hands, sometimes there is a spark of static electricity. Some credit this electromagnetic current in our body to what we call vibes... we get a good or bad feel when with certain people. When people gather of the same mind, we say sometimes there was an electricity there.
God's Love is much like electricity. When a small group, 2, 3, 4, is in harmony (bonded by God's Love), it is much like an electrical power grid. A power grid stores very much energy.
In God's Spirit this power is love. When love combines through each other, with a mission focus, a Spiritual power grid is formed. This connection in love and harmony has great Spiritual Power.
So cells connected with other cells of God's Spirit greatly increases its potential power. The power multiplies (in multiples, e.g., 3 X 3 X 3....). This is the secret to great Power in the Spirit... cells in harmony in Spirit connecting like a network to other cells of the same Spirit. Greatness comes out of great love for others working together. This is an unconquerable power.
Our Giftings come to us in three ways. One way is we are born with certain gifts that stay with us all our lives. Others come to us through education and experience. We learn something and do it well. Then there are Gifts of the Spirit.
When living our mission, many Gifts are sent by the Spirit to get done what needs to be done, and show up when needed in a timely way. Some are a one-time thing, others stay with us. When we form bonds in the Spirit with others, more of the Spiritual Gifts surface. Two or three in agreement compounds Spiritual Giftings...there's more of them and they are of great power.
As we live in faith God provides, Supernaturally, the abilities or character as needed for the completion of His Mission through us. Spiritual Gifts surface we can't explain. The most exciting way to live is living in His mission.
It remains my contention that the power in the Body of Christ will be small cells of people, likely unknown pockets of two or three (i.e., a small group) but tightly-knit together in Spirit, who connect with or network with other similar small cells.
The strongest will be the smallest, but very close in relationship who know each other well. They have strong bonds of love, powerful in Spirit (an analogy would be a Spiritual version of the Navy Seals on a combat mission).
These small cells networking-in-Spirit will be the big thing. Most will be unknown or not recognized generally speaking, but precise and potent in the mission they set out to do. This is the power in the Body of Christ equipped in Gifts of the Spirit and with Love abounding among them and toward others.
So what does this look like... see "Scripting the Movie" section (the very last section) of
Because of their love, it created a unity, a bonding as if they were One. Jesus last prayer was about us being One as He and the Father are One. Love creates close will-die-for relationships. When being One in Spirit magnifies and intensifies, the mission advances Supernaturally and expands magnificently. Whatever we set out to do, with one, two or three, as One, our mission has a Magnificent Power. We live magnificently our Magnificent Mission.
One final thought. Vocation and mission are many times two separate things but with a mission being fulfilled through a person's vocation, or lifestyle. Sometimes vocation and mission are one in the same, although in the marketplace the vocation is many times the vehicle through which the mission is expressed. God uses us where we are, in a Magnificent way.
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