Interview with Loren Cunningham
Founder, Youth With a Mission (YWAM)
“7 Spheres” with Os Hillman and Kelle Hughes in Atlanta
November 19, 2007
It was August, 1975. My family and I were up in a little cabin in Colorado. And the Lord had given me that day a list of things I had never thought about before. He said “This is the way to reach America and nations for God. And {He said}, “You have to see them like classrooms or like places that were already there, and go into them with those who are already working in those areas.” And I call them “mind-molders” or “spheres”. I got the word “spheres” from II Corinthians 10 where Paul speaks in the New American Standard about the “spheres” he had been called into. And with these spheres there were seven of them, and I’ll get to those in a moment. But it was a little later that day, the ranger came up, and he said, “There is a phone call for you back at the ranger’s station.” So I went back down, about 7 miles, and took the call. It was a mutual friend who said, “Bill Bright and Vonnette are in Colorado at the same time as you are. Would you and Darlene come over and meet with them? They would love to meet with you.” So we flew over to Boulder on a private plane of a friend of ours. And as we came in and greeted each other, {we were friends for quite a while}, and I was reaching for my yellow paper that I had written on the day before. And he said, “Loren, I want to show you what God has shown me!” And it was virtually the same list that God had given me the day before. Three weeks later, my wife Darlene had seen Dr. Francis Shaffer on TV and he had the same list! And so I realized that this was for the body of Christ.
I gave it for the first time in Hamburg, Germany at the big cathedral there to a group of hundreds of young people that had gathered at that time. And I said, “These are the areas that you can go into as missionaries. Here they are: First, it’s the institution set up by God first, the family. After the family was church, or the people of God. The third was the area of school, or education. The fourth was media, public communication, in all forms, printed and electronic. The fifth was what I call “celebration”, the arts, entertainment, and sports, where you celebrate within a culture. The sixth would be the whole area of the economy, which starts with innovations in science and technology, productivity, sales, and service. The whole area we often call it business but we leave out sometimes the scientific part, which actually raises the wealth of the world. Anything new, like making sand into chips for a microchip, that increases wealth in the world. And then of course prediction sales and service helps to spread the wealth. And so the last was the area of government. Now government, the Bible shows in Isaiah 33 verse 22 that there are three branches of government, so it’s all of the three branches: judicial, legislative, and executive. And then there are subgroups under all of those seven groups. And there are literally thousands upon thousands of sub-groups. But those seven can be considered like Caleb: “Give me this mountain,” and they can be a “mountain” to achieve for God. Or they can be a classroom that you’re going to disciple a nation in. Because Jesus said, “Go and disciple all nations.” And it also can affect us because in those areas we can be changed, transformed by the Holy Spirit to be effective missionaries into the area that God has called us into, and we will see it as not just a job to get money to stay alive, but “as the Father sent Me, so send I you,” Jesus said. Therefore, we can be missionaries, where the word “missionary” means “one sent”, and one sent of Jesus, if you’re a lawyer in a legal office, you are sent of God. You’re sent to be his missionary, or if you’re in Hollywood, or you’re working as a dentist, or you’re working as a doctor, everything you can do for the glory of God. You may be in the area of foodservices. The Bible says in Zach 14:20 that even the cooking pots will be called “holy” to the Lord. That’s foodservices. Or transportation. Everything from a bus driver to an airplane pilot or to a car dealer or whatever it is, it says even the veils of horses will be called holy to the Lord.
So we make whatever we do, if we do it as unto the Lord, a sanctified, or a holy work, it is Holy unto the Lord. It’s not just the pulpit on Sunday, that’s one of the spheres. It’s also all the other spheres together, and that’s how we achieve advancing the kingdom of God.
Founder, Youth With a Mission (YWAM)
“7 Spheres” with Os Hillman and Kelle Hughes in Atlanta
November 19, 2007
It was August, 1975. My family and I were up in a little cabin in Colorado. And the Lord had given me that day a list of things I had never thought about before. He said “This is the way to reach America and nations for God. And {He said}, “You have to see them like classrooms or like places that were already there, and go into them with those who are already working in those areas.” And I call them “mind-molders” or “spheres”. I got the word “spheres” from II Corinthians 10 where Paul speaks in the New American Standard about the “spheres” he had been called into. And with these spheres there were seven of them, and I’ll get to those in a moment. But it was a little later that day, the ranger came up, and he said, “There is a phone call for you back at the ranger’s station.” So I went back down, about 7 miles, and took the call. It was a mutual friend who said, “Bill Bright and Vonnette are in Colorado at the same time as you are. Would you and Darlene come over and meet with them? They would love to meet with you.” So we flew over to Boulder on a private plane of a friend of ours. And as we came in and greeted each other, {we were friends for quite a while}, and I was reaching for my yellow paper that I had written on the day before. And he said, “Loren, I want to show you what God has shown me!” And it was virtually the same list that God had given me the day before. Three weeks later, my wife Darlene had seen Dr. Francis Shaffer on TV and he had the same list! And so I realized that this was for the body of Christ.
I gave it for the first time in Hamburg, Germany at the big cathedral there to a group of hundreds of young people that had gathered at that time. And I said, “These are the areas that you can go into as missionaries. Here they are: First, it’s the institution set up by God first, the family. After the family was church, or the people of God. The third was the area of school, or education. The fourth was media, public communication, in all forms, printed and electronic. The fifth was what I call “celebration”, the arts, entertainment, and sports, where you celebrate within a culture. The sixth would be the whole area of the economy, which starts with innovations in science and technology, productivity, sales, and service. The whole area we often call it business but we leave out sometimes the scientific part, which actually raises the wealth of the world. Anything new, like making sand into chips for a microchip, that increases wealth in the world. And then of course prediction sales and service helps to spread the wealth. And so the last was the area of government. Now government, the Bible shows in Isaiah 33 verse 22 that there are three branches of government, so it’s all of the three branches: judicial, legislative, and executive. And then there are subgroups under all of those seven groups. And there are literally thousands upon thousands of sub-groups. But those seven can be considered like Caleb: “Give me this mountain,” and they can be a “mountain” to achieve for God. Or they can be a classroom that you’re going to disciple a nation in. Because Jesus said, “Go and disciple all nations.” And it also can affect us because in those areas we can be changed, transformed by the Holy Spirit to be effective missionaries into the area that God has called us into, and we will see it as not just a job to get money to stay alive, but “as the Father sent Me, so send I you,” Jesus said. Therefore, we can be missionaries, where the word “missionary” means “one sent”, and one sent of Jesus, if you’re a lawyer in a legal office, you are sent of God. You’re sent to be his missionary, or if you’re in Hollywood, or you’re working as a dentist, or you’re working as a doctor, everything you can do for the glory of God. You may be in the area of foodservices. The Bible says in Zach 14:20 that even the cooking pots will be called “holy” to the Lord. That’s foodservices. Or transportation. Everything from a bus driver to an airplane pilot or to a car dealer or whatever it is, it says even the veils of horses will be called holy to the Lord.
So we make whatever we do, if we do it as unto the Lord, a sanctified, or a holy work, it is Holy unto the Lord. It’s not just the pulpit on Sunday, that’s one of the spheres. It’s also all the other spheres together, and that’s how we achieve advancing the kingdom of God.
To be continued........
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