While God alone is mighty to deliver His people from their enemies, He ordinarily appoint human instruments to execute His plans.
Judges 6:16
But the LORD said to him, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat Midian as one man.”
Yet, to “defeat Midian as one man”, we must understand that we cannot operate as one individual person but a company of people working together as an organised and synergised unit, like one man.
We must also understand the concept of systems homeostasis that exists in all organisational or community cultures, including church culture.
Ecclesiastes 5:8
If you see oppression of the poor and denial of justice and righteousness in the province, do not be shocked at the sight; for one official watches over another official, and there are higher officials over them.
All systems, whether social, economic, political, or religious, have their homeostasis – a tendency to resist change to maintain collective stability. Homeostasis has layers of cultural mechanisms to resist stimuli of change, whether the stimuli are from within or without, thereby maintaining systems resilience. Homeostasis is neither good nor bad, as a good system will be able to resist perverse stimuli that seek to corrupt the good system, while a bad system will be able to resist positive influences that would result in positive transformation.
As such, one man individually can never overcome systems homeostasis like a company of one man can, and one church can never transform society like an organised company of synergised churches can.
For Gideon, he had his ten men (and two bulls) to pull down the altar of Baal and cut down the Asherah within the culture of his own people, and three hundred men to defeat Midian (c.f. Judges 6-7). He did not defeat Midian by himself.
Today, when “one official watches over another official, and there are higher officials over them”, how can one church working alone defeat a corrupt system within the seven mountains of culture, let alone one person, even if he is a Member of Parliament?
Could Martin Luther King Jr have transformed racial segregation and prejudices within both the church and nation through conference preaching without strategically mobilising a synergised and sustained people movement through alliance of churches and diverse strata of society?
Thus, for positive systems transformation to take place in any culture or society, even within the current church landscape, we need the indomitable spirits, strategic designs, passionate endeavours, and synergised people movements of “Nehemiah”, “Zerubbabel”, and “Eliashib” to overcome the “Sanballat”, “Tobiah”, and “Geshem”. Bearing the sword of the Spirit with one hand to prevail against enemies while building the house and city of the living God according to heavenly blueprints with the other, in oneness of mind and diversity of functions without breaking missional structure and organisational integrity, is the true strength and stature of the ekklesia, the body of Christ.
This is the corporate “army” that Jesus Christ is raising out of the “valley of individual dry bones” for the last days (c.f. Ezekiel 37:1-10) – a company of one in the One against whom no gates of hell can prevail (c.f. Matthew 16:18-19).
Father, let bones join to bones, sinews to sinews, and flesh to flesh; let the wind of Your Spirit come forth from the four corners of the earth, and quicken new life into the body; so that it may stand up as a mighty great army for great exploits that will testify of the glorious name of Your Son in the midst of the nations of the world in the last days; to the praise of the glory of Your grace. Amen.
Post-script
What is synergy?
Quoting Oxford Languages, synergy is “the interaction or cooperation of two or more organisations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects”. As the proverbial saying goes, “1+1=3”.
Synergy is not a gathering of two or more organisations to perform the same mission of permeating one mountain of culture, or doing conferences together, but an integration of two or more organisations to utilise unique graces of different organisations to perform strategically diverse missions for scaled up Kingdom permeation into the seven mountains of culture.
Using ancient Israel as an example, all twelve tribes had diverse callings and graces, but they operated as one organised unit in one destiny through the wilderness and for conquest of the seven nations of Canaan.
Using an armed forces as an example, one army unit, even if it is an elite commando unit or air force squadron, cannot win the war by itself. It requires an organised and synergised armed forces as a whole to strategically mobilise different army units for scaled up battle against different oppositions in different terrains. While different units may fight in the same terrain, and their executions may be different within the terrain, they are synergised as one force to win the same battle.
This is the “ekklesia” that Jesus is building, and the gates of hell cannot overcome it (c.f. Matthew 16:18-19).
We must not think that we can overcome the beast of the abyss, beast of the sea, and beast of the land (c.f. Revelation 11:7; 13:1-18) alone as an individual person – “just me and the Spirit” – without the organised and synergised setup of a highly trained and impenetrable corporate “army” unit (like a local church community), with each unit joined to other units as one “mighty great army” forces (like a unified network of local churches).
Thus, whether you are a corporate executive, business owner, public servant, social worker, teacher, homemaker, prophet, intercessor, or missionary, you are called and raised into a company of one in the One for organisational resilience, synergised power, and cultural transformation in the nations.
Starting from within the church, then between church to church, both in tandem, let us arise, join our hearts, unite our minds, synergise our hands, and build the church that is suitable to the fullness of the times! Amen.
You may wish to read Personal Calling, Corporate Destiny for additional details.
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