Reaching the Summit of the 7 Mountains

In Johnny Enlow’s insightful book, The Seven Mountain Prophecy, he defines for us the 7 mountains of cultural influence. The 7 mountains are: Media, Government, Education, Economy, Religion, Celebration and Family. God is inviting the Church to stand upon each of these summits in order to bring about cultural transformation. These are mountains that exist outside the walled programs of a local church. They are mountains only summited by people with apostolic vision who will invite others to begin the climb to a higher reality and calling.

This morning, as I was reviewing this powerful concept, I heard the Lord say, “Before each summit is reached a valley must first be traveled.” There are things in our personal valleys that must be processed in order to reduce the weight and restrictions of disbelief that would prohibit our ascent.

I am grateful for the insight regarding these 7 mountains of influence. Yet, I realize we don’t start out on a mountaintop.  Our journey to the mountaintop begins in the valley. Around each of these mountains exists a circular valley we can continue to walk in if we do not deal with the mindsets and traditions that have kept us walking in circles at a lower altitude. The discovery of what inhibits our ascent is as important as the ascent itself. Unless we are willing to have the challenging conversations that will renew our thinking we can end our days looking up, but never climbing up.

If I were to plant another church, I would first gather a team with apostolic vision who understood the 7-mountain concept and who carried a passion to reach the summit. We would create a vision and mission strategy for each mountain. We would then prepare and outfit teams for the ascent.  Once on the summit, these apostolic teams would not remain there. We would hike back down the mountain to basecamp and share our testimony of what the view from a summit life looks like. Then we would transition our roles and become spiritual sherpas helping others reach the summit of their individual calling. This would change everything.