I have come to realise that there is a very similar teaching to the material I am developing on the gates and it often comes under the heading of there being 7 mountains or kingdoms that have to be influenced and shaped.

I have not studied what is written / spoken in detail but there seems to me to be 2 differences in my approach (for those who are aware of what is taught maybe a comment could be made):

• I do not work with a separate religious / church gate. The reason for this is that the faith is to be in and through all the gates. We are salt of the earth etc., we are not competing for this gate with, for example, Islam.

My fear is that if we see it as a separate gate we will end up with the church as a separate ‘silo’ in society, and will tend to see those in other religions as our enemy. Islam has a vision for an Islamic state: I have a vision for a secular state.

• Secondly, if I understand things correctly, there is a tendency to see the seven mountains along the lines of being influenced from the top down. We gain influence (could this be control) of those mountains. I would rather see it as bottom up influence. Luke 3:1,2 – in response to the dominating powers God begins a movement in the wilderness. He works in the place of obscurity.

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One other way I am seeing things work out is that we (the body) take responsibility for the gates, and then we release through prayer, faith, works those who must sit in the gates at all levels. So there are many like Cyrus who are the anointed of the Lord for the gates. It is not about Christians occupying the positions of power, but those the Lord appoints.

I see this also with respect to, for example, financial transfer. We do not need the money to come through us, we need to be agents of the money travelling where it needs to go… from the pocket of the wealthy to the poor. It can bypass us, but to influence the gates means that we have been agents along the way.

A final random comment (or not?): watch for disestablishment to begin this year.