Area of Influence

Greetings my beloved blog readers!

Many moons have passed since my last entry in the bloggosphere. Some of you may have grown a formidable beard by now or mastered a new trade. I have personally been fine-tuning my metaphoric circus act of juggling while spinning plates. That is to say my life as I know it has become one big multitask. Included on the Kyle Hopson to-do list in no particular order is "maintain a budding career", "happy wife, happy life", "sell house", "co-lead Freedom Church", "change diapers", and "pray to God for help with all of the above". With that said though - and as I take a step back - the phrase "living the dream" has never felt more applicable. Sure, the smorgasbord of responsibilities gets a bit much at times but there is nothing on that list I don't want to be doing right now. As my wife regularly reminds me, "There is enough grace to get done what you need to today". Five years ago I would have never imagined I would be where I am now, and that's pretty cool.

I still haven't quite wrapped my head around what an honor it is to be able to preach consistently at Freedom Church. To have the opportunity to impart that which has been imparted to me is quite possibly one of the most fulfilling feelings I have ever experienced. Along with that though, a lot of my creative energy has been directed at developing messages and, in turn, not at writing blogs as often as I would like. Nonetheless, my brilliant, ravishing, and endlessly wise wife suggested "why don't you blog about your messages?"... Endlessly wise I tell you! Blog about my messages I shall!

For about the past month or so we've been doing a series on our Mission, Strategy, and Values (found here) as a church, which are:

MISSION
Training a community of transformed disciples who impact their area of influence for the Kingdom of God.


STRATEGY
Encountering God. Empowering People.


WE VALUE...

• An authentic relationship with an alive God
• Prayer and worship as central to spiritual growth and breakthrough
• Exercising spiritual gifts for the purpose of building up
• Healthy community and families with balanced life priorities

Each week we've broken down a portion of the Mission statement thus far and two weeks ago I spoke about “Area of Influence”.  If you look at the Mission statement, we could have just as easily replaced that phrase with the word “world” and it would have been just as, if not more, bold than it is but we didn't. Why? Because we just happen to know the secret to taking over changing the world.

Humor me for a moment and read through this excerpt from Malcom Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point (p. 176).

“Take a minute, for example, to make a list of all the people you know whose death would leave you truly devastated.  Chances are you will come up with around 12 names.  That, at least, is the average answer that most people give to that question.  Those names make up what psychologists call our sympathy group.  Why aren’t groups any larger?  Partly it’s a question of time.  If you look at the names on your sympathy list, they are probably the people whom you devote the most attention to – either on the telephone, in person, or thinking and worrying about.  If your list was twice as long, if it had 30 names on it, and, as a result, you spent only half as much time with everyone on it, would you still be as close to everyone?  Probably not.  To be someone’s best friend requires a minimum investment of time.  More than that, though, it takes emotional energy.  Caring about someone deeply is exhausting.  At a certain point, at somewhere between 10 and 15 people, we begin to overload, just as we begin to overload when we have to distinguish between too many tones. It’s a function of the way humans are constructed.”

When I first read that, my mind started racing. Something about that number 12 stuck out to me. Then it clicked. Jesus had 12 disciples.

Then more gears started turning. Jesus didn't change the world by establishing a local church, gradually gathering more and more people, executing a global missionary strategy, fund raising, and shaking hands on Sunday mornings… no, those things are all fine and good but they weren't the reason we read His very words today, why we bear the name of Christian, and why the church even exists in the first place. No, those things happened because of the disciples. Jesus changed the world through 12 disciples. They were Jesus’s sympathy group. His area of influence.

“I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours.” ~John 17:9

This is a passage from Jesus’s last interaction with the full group of 12 right before he is arrested at the Garden of Gethsemane. Two things stand out to me.

The first is the fact that He specifies who His prayer was for, “I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me”. He wasn't praying some broad-stroked prayer that covered every man, woman, and child on the planet. No, he intentionally narrowed His prayer target down to the 12 disciples. I think He knew the road that was ahead of them and the cross they would have to take up in order walk it and chose to pray and prayer specifically to prepare them for the task.

The second thing that stands out to me is the phrase “those whom You have given Me”. Who has God given you? Who has God put in your path and entrusted you with?

I find it humbling, and at the same time invigorating, that someone’s breakthrough might depend on my prayer. What if your prayer is the one that dispatches the angel that delivers the miracle? Think about it the other way around too. What if your breakthrough depends on someone else’s prayer? Are you willing enough to cast aside your pride and ask for help?

If you have any desire within you to see the world around you improve and the people closest to you prosper, then steward your area of influence with great care. Maybe it’s time for your 12 to change because they are negatively influencing you.  Maybe you need to bring 3 of them even closer like Jesus did with Peter, James, and John. Whatever your unique situation is, those people are being impacted by who you are one way or another so know that you hold the potential to create meaningful, lasting change.