| John,
Permit me to appeal to your keen sense of history rather than issues of faith.
Are you a big fan of the UN? I'm not. Why? Because it's bogged down in it's own rules. My town hall is the same way. It's more interested in following Robert's Rules of Order than getting anything really accomplished.
Guess who the President of Rhodesia has asked to help solve his nation's economic crisis? Not the UN or even the USA. He's sought the guidance of Pastor Rick Warren and the Saddleback Church of Southern California. I actually saw a program about this on the Fox News Channel. The Bible has a lot more to say about people and their attitude toward money than it does about heaven and hell.
Rev. Warren's book, The Purpose-Driven Life, sold 50 million copies worldwide. The President of Rhodesia read that book and decided to contact its author and request economic guidance for his nation. No big top-down program here that begins with the government and trickles down to the people. The church begins with the people and seeks to lift them up...first. That's economic developement that works.
In spite of all the dysfunction in my own area of the world, I am doing something similar. The reason it will be successful is because a Biblical strategy is being used - although most folks here are clueless to even realize it. But, just like gravity, you need not believe in the principle to be subject to it.
What is the principle? It's the power of the 3rd party referral. You see this principle at work when Jesus spoke to the Smaratan woman at the well. Jesus chose to tell the woman not about who he was but rather about who SHE was. If someone told you that you had been married five times and the person you were currently living with was not your spouse - and it happened to be true - that would definitely get your attention. And, you might even tell others about this unusual encounter just as the Samaritan woman did (not revealing any of the embarassing specifics). Bottom line, a whole town wanted to get to know Jesus based upon this one woman's personal testimony.
Does the 3rd party referral exercise the same impact today? Well, here's a personal testimony. Last year I invited The Foundation Center of San Francisco to come to Lake County and present a seminar on grant-seeking basics for the very first time (in 52 years). I issued press releases to the local news media and sent out more than 500 Evite invtations. Result? Almost no response. But then something amazing happened. Both local Chamber of Commerce groups had a epiphany. They figured out that this event was actually of benefit to their members and began to promote it in their newsletters. (I am not a member of either group.) They were not supporting this event as a favor to me. They were supporting it to mske themselves look good to their own constituents.
Well, I have The Foundation Center returning on April 15th. That's two months from now and already folks are RSVP'ing to the event. See for yourself at Tools To Move Middletown, CA Forward.
Biblical principles work. And, that's a fact that can be backed up by a historical event that occurred in March of 2008.
Lamar Morgan
CDMM - Synergistic Business Marketing
707-709-8605
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