What is God's campaign about?
Saving the world from itself by connecting, healing, and blessing people
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Connect = connect everyone into the story of the world the way God is writing it with Jesus at the center
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Heal = fix everything that is wrong with the world and heal the damage people have suffered at all levels--personal, family, tribe, class, nation, planet
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Bless = supply whatever is missing for authentic life, flourishing and fulfilled
Those three things would save the world if they happened, but they will not happen by themselves, and they are not happening very well through hundreds or thousands of separate campaigns for a better world. To get the world truly united, healed and blessed will take a super-campaign, a massive, brilliant, coordinated effort. That's God's campaign that Jesus is leading.
This is not a political, military, or advertising campaign. It is a public awareness campaign. That is how Jesus approached it and that's what he keeps directing us to do in his name--spread some news of events powerful enough to change all of humanity.
These events are game-changers, milestones in God's campaign, which is unfolding according to plan and on schedule. If people welcome that news, they quit doing things that divide, injure, or impoverish people and join the campaign to repair damage already done.
This campaign is not a religious campaign in the ordinary sense of the word. It is not focused on telling people to be more religious and to think more about where they will go when they die. For Jesus those things were side issues.
The main point he hammered all the time was the proclamation that heaven's power was arriving on earth. A new era was dawning. God was taking his ancient Abraham-based campaign to a new level by sending the Messiah (his appointed director for the campaign) to earth in person.
Almost everything Jesus did while on earth was done with and for the campaign team. He led it to a new identity, a new level of understanding its special assignment, and a new power to carry out the connect-heal-bless campaign.
Why would I join this campaign?
Because it is ancient, non-violent, and good for you and the world.
You are not joining a campaign of this web site or of any particular church or organization. You are joining (or discovering you already belong to) God's ancient campaign that started almost 4000 years ago through Abraham.
About halfway between Abraham and today, God the Father sent Jesus (God the Son) from heaven to spearhead the campaign and take it into a whole new level. That's why Jesus kept saying, "Follow me"--he was building his campaign team. That's why he was killed--the power-holders of his day feared his campaign and tried to stop it. And that's why his resurrection matters so much--it means his campaign isn't over.
And that's why all the materials on this site are free. We don't own or manage the campaign, and Jesus the Director has not told us to collect any fees on his behalf.
We've already seen what the world gets from this campaign--connection, healing,and blessing. What's in it for you? You get to be part of the team that is bringing these things to the world. Join this campaign and your purpose for life is set. You will never feel lost, aimless, or worthless again. And you will never be told to do anything violent or deceptive for this campaign.
This is a counter-intuitive campaign. It's full of surprises.
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It allows for human freedom and significance, which means human evil has real impact, as well as human good.
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It uses the most unlikely people in the most unlikely ways, even those who oppose it.
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It includes pain during the campaign process, even for those who are doing exactly what God tells them.
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It allows people to fight it, even to arrest and execute the spearhead of the campaign, Jesus the Messiah!
No one can tell you exactly what it will mean or how much it will cost you to be on the campaign team. God himself will help you discover all that as you open up to him. You join because you trust him not to double-cross you or let you down even when you let him assign to you whatever campaign duties he chooses for you.
How is SYNC related to God's campaign?
SYNC is one of many on-ramps to God's campaign. Never imagine that SYNC invented the campaign, owns it, runs it, or acts as gatekeeper for it. We are only trying to describe it in fresh ways so people can get into it and move with it. That means they move in step or in SYNC with the directions given to them by the person God assigned as the one to hold the whole thing together, Jesus Christ.
To "See Yourself iN Christ," or to "SYNC," means that you see yourself as held by him. He recognizes you as a member of his Connect-Heal-Bless campaign team. Through his Spirit, Jesus connects you to other team members, gives you your personal assignments in the campaign, and helps you get them done. So there are two sides to this coin: you "See Yourself iN Christ" and you "see Christ inside you."
Where is the idea of "campaign" in the Bible? Never heard of it.
The word "campaign" is not used in most Bible translations but the concept is everywhere. It most often is called God's will or his plan, and it overlaps with the term kingdom (the most misleading term in the English Bible, but we won't go into that here).
Jesus was killed for organizing a campaign, building a following that did not answer to any authorities but him. The authorities got more and more nervous as his campaign grew, fearing that when it got large enough, he would turn his peaceful following violent in a moment by announcing, "I am the new king and this is revolution day! We take power now!" They killed him so he would never have that chance.
The campaign goal is to bring God's peace to the whole world. The prophets all agreed that this would happen someday through one particular leader, specially appointed, sent, and installed by God. They called him the Messiah in Hebrew and the Christ in Greek, which means "anointed" (appointed and officially inaugurated to reign). We may call him the "campaign director," but we always have to remember that he is also the king, the regal, rightful ruler of the universe.
The whole Bible is actually the story of God's campaign. These are the sections of the story.
What would it be like to be part of this campaign team?
You start living as a member of Jesus's campaign team, carrying out his plan to connect, heal, and bless the world. He guides you, using the Bible and his Spirit who gets way inside your head and your self.
At conscious and sub-conscious levels, you get a better sense of the campaign's goals and methods. You also get familiar with the big story of the campaign, which is really the story of the whole world from start to finish.
Jesus sends his Spirit (his inner Self and his power) into all the members of his campaign team to change us in four ways so we are CLUED in to the campaign:
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CLeans us up so we are fit for the purpose he has in mind for us, the way we would clean out a container before we used it to carry drinking water
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Unites us with other campaign team members
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Empowers us with whatever it will take to do our assignments, which may be impossible without him
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Directs us by giving us our personal assignments for the campaign day by day and week by week
This obviously isn't a one-time thing. It's a gradual discovery process. (See the Resources and Activities tabs for lots of ways of getting into the process, such as Just Do It groups, Jubilee Cards, and a daily Bible reading plan.)
How would I join God's campaign?
It's all about listening. You "sign up" with Jesus by telling him you have heard his call to follow him (join his campaign team), and now you are going to start listening to him.
Jesus is still alive (though not physically on earth), still directing the campaign, and still actively recruiting. If you ever honestly say any words to him that amount to, "OK, SYNC me," he will hear you and put his Spirit (his living "Self") into you to make you fit for his team.
Your words might be as short and personal as, "OK, Jesus, I'm in. Sign me up. Where do I start?" It is simply you putting yourself at the disposal of Jesus for his campaign. Your job then is to listen to his Spirit inside you, who will keep you in SYNC with him and his agenda.
Some other things you may want to say as you sign up:
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Get me off to a good start. This seems overwhelming.
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Please connect me to some other team members I can learn with.
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Please give me a makeover so I am fit to participate in your campaign.
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Change my attitudes and get my focus onto connecting, healing, and blessing.
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Whatever I used to do that went against the campaign, I renounce now. I'm sorry I ever did it. Keep me from ever going back there again.
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Develop my skills so I contribute positively to the campaign.
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I don't have what it takes to do this on my own. Give me strength!
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Keep me from letting the team down or bringing any shame on you as the team leader.
Campaign team members may be totally clueless about the campaign to start with, but they like its goals (connect, heal, bless) and they learn to trust its leader (Jesus the Messiah). The whole Bible is basically the story of God's campaign, and campaign team members soak up that story. The Spirit of Jesus lives in each team member and among us as a group, so we keep listening for the guidance that the Spirit puts into our heads and our hearts.
Maybe you didn't hear the recruitment call of Jesus before or you didn't pay attention, but now you are signing up, getting serious, listening to whatever he tells you and working as hard as he directs on any campaign tasks. You are done building your personal kingdom. His kingdom, his campaign, is the one that counts from now on.
Why hasn't God finished the campaign yet?
In our minds the quick, logical way for God to achieve his campaign goals (connect, heal, bless) would be for him to send his angels or just say the word and zap everything. Problem solved.
Why would God spend 4000 years on a campaign he could have completed in a year or a milli-second? Because his timing is counter-intuitive, just like his entire campaign strategy.
His campaign strategy was not to use a SWAT team of angels to instantly kill all the agents of death and magically fill the world with God's life. His strategy was to use a team of human beings that would keep developing and working over the centuries and the millennia. In fact, the whole Bible is basically the story of this team and its part in God's campaign to connect, heal, and bless the world.
At the cross, the most counter-intuitive move in the whole story of his campaign, God brilliantly, patiently used human rejection of Jesus to serve the campaign's purposes. By raising Jesus from the grave, God transformed the cross into the greatest force in history for connecting, healing, and blessing people.
Nobody except Jesus himself saw that coming. Under God's inspiration, some of the prophets had actually revealed hundreds of years before that the Messiah would suffer and die, but it was so counter-intuitive that even after Jesus repeatedly told his inner circle of followers what was coming, they didn't get it. After Jesus suffered the ordeal, returned from death to life, and connected all the prophetic dots for them, they finally got their minds around it.
That's one reason that followers of Jesus are so fixated on the cross to this day. It tips us off that this whole campaign is not what we would have drawn up. God is full of surprises, and if we are on this campaign team, our motto needs to be, "Watch and learn."