![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/Come_Help.jpg?resize=100%2C100&ssl=1\" "\\"Come_Help\\"")
The founding father of Campus Crusade for Christ (of which Agap\u00e8 is the Dutch branch), Bill Bright, wrote a number of books during his lifetime. One thing that he was very good at was choosing the title: Revolution Now! is my favourite, but I also like the one that heads this post. It came to my mind last weekend, while discussing the future of our movement with some colleagues from different countries.<\/p>\n
Among many other things, we talked about the question what we are actually here for. As most of you know, Agap\u00e8 exists to help people find Jesus, grow in their faith and help them to reach out to others as well. But that is only one way to put it. Another way is to say that we’re here to ‘help fulfill the Great Commission<\/a> in our generation’. Now, this might come closer but probably still has not the same appeal as Bill Bright’s motto ‘Come, help change the world’. I believe this is what Bright had in mind, and nothing less. And I believe he was right in that: we’re not here just to save individual souls, but to change this world. (Note that by now, I’m not just talking about Agap\u00e8 but about every follower of Jesus!)<\/p>\n This started me thinking. What does it mean to change the world? Is this just a matter of evangelising every person in the country? Or should we work the other way around: infiltrate the United Nations and work from there? My answers and thoughts are far from complete, but there are a few things I am convinced of. First of all: it all starts with the individual. ‘Integrity is not in systems’, as I once heard a professor say. Making this world a better place implies changing people’s attitudes, values, behavior. And secondly: it implies changing things ‘between’ people that cannot be dealt with on an individual level. I’m talking about relationships, culture, systems – that sort of things. An example: <\/em>I have experienced that even when changing the people in a certain setting, the ruling culture remained. It is even more obvious for political, economical and judicial systems<\/em>. They don’t change by itself when the people change.<\/p>\n I tried to visualize this in the picture below: Starting with the individual, we want to see his or her values changed \u2013 repentance. This impacts relationships with the effect of reconciliation. When we see a community impacted by the gospel, it can influence the structures in a local society; cities start to change. When this happens, the systems of justice, politics, economics in a country are touched and in the end the entire country will see reformation.You could even extend this thinking a few levels more, with ultimately Creation <\/em>being changed through redemption (<\/em>Romans 8).<\/p>\n Let me know your thoughts…<\/p>\n The founding father of Campus Crusade for Christ (of which Agap\u00e8 is the Dutch branch), Bill Bright, wrote a number of books during his lifetime. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,53],"tags":[426,74,430,7],"class_list":["post-964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agape","category-blog","tag-agape","tag-ccc","tag-leadership","tag-thoughts"],"aioseo_notices":[],"author_meta":{"display_name":"Mark","author_link":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/author\/admin\/"},"featured_img":null,"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"post-thumbnail":false,"bravada-featured":false,"bravada-featured-lp":false,"bravada-featured-half":false,"bravada-featured-third":false,"bravada-lpbox-1":false,"bravada-lpbox-2":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Mark","author_link":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/author\/admin\/"},"uagb_comment_info":2,"uagb_excerpt":"The founding father of Campus Crusade for Christ (of which Agap\u00e8 is the Dutch branch), Bill Bright, wrote a number of books during his lifetime. …","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Agap\u00e8<\/a>","Blog<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Agap\u00e8<\/span>","Blog<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["Agap\u00e8<\/a>","ccc<\/a>","Leadership<\/a>","thoughts<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Agap\u00e8<\/span>","ccc<\/span>","Leadership<\/span>","thoughts<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"2","relative_dates":{"created":"Geplaatst 16 jaar geleden","modified":"Bijgewerkt 11 jaar geleden"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Geplaatst op 24 februari 2010","modified":"Bijgewerkt op 23 december 2014"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Geplaatst op 24 februari 2010 22:04","modified":"Bijgewerkt op 23 december 2014 21:56"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p63Qy-fy","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":200,"url":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/2004\/11\/24\/personal-growth\/","url_meta":{"origin":964,"position":0},"title":"Personal growth","author":"Mark","date":"24 november 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"I have not been blogging a lot about personal stuff lately. I should, if this blog reflects my life as it is. As I said before, we had a great time in Spain end of October. During that week, a process of spiritual growth has started in a way that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "algemeen"","block_context":{"text":"algemeen","link":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/c\/algemeen\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":309,"url":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/2006\/02\/14\/quality-time-at-the-agape-staff-meeting\/","url_meta":{"origin":964,"position":1},"title":"Quality time at the Agap\u00e8 staff meeting","author":"Mark","date":"14 februari 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"We had our bimonthly all-staff meeting today in Doorn. Being Valentine's day, it was no surprise that 'love' was the main theme today, although we also covered some other topics. In the afternoon for example, we did a 'quality game': in groups of eight, each one pulls a random card\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "algemeen"","block_context":{"text":"algemeen","link":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/c\/algemeen\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":360,"url":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/2006\/09\/27\/masses-and-leaders\/","url_meta":{"origin":964,"position":2},"title":"Masses and leaders","author":"Mark","date":"27 september 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I am only now becoming more and more aware of what great people we have in our movement. During the summer conference we saw and heard several Agape\/Campus Crusade leaders from around the world, with some great stories. One of those was Layo Leiva, the Campus Crusade for Christ Director\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Agap\u00e8"","block_context":{"text":"Agap\u00e8","link":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/c\/agape\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":683,"url":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/2008\/12\/17\/money-money-money\/","url_meta":{"origin":964,"position":3},"title":"Money, money, money","author":"Mark","date":"17 december 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"My life has been circling around the topic of money for the last couple of months. In Agap\u00e8 we are still running the campaign of 'Funding the Family Business', dealing with the changes in our structure of staff finances. Not only will staff be employed in the near future, for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Agap\u00e8"","block_context":{"text":"Agap\u00e8","link":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/c\/agape\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":388,"url":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/2007\/01\/22\/new-week-new-chances\/","url_meta":{"origin":964,"position":4},"title":"New week, new chances","author":"Mark","date":"22 januari 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"It's monday morning again... a new week ahead, with many things to work on. This week we hope to finalize the Strategic Plan and Budget 2007. It is the first time in a number of years that we have one integrated strategic plan and a budget handed in on time\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Agap\u00e8"","block_context":{"text":"Agap\u00e8","link":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/c\/agape\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":818,"url":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/2009\/04\/28\/report-from-mexico-city\/","url_meta":{"origin":964,"position":5},"title":"Report from Mexico-City","author":"Mark","date":"28 april 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"If you're interested in first hand reports on the swine flu, read Joram's blog. Joram is from our church, joined Agap\u00e8 in January and is now working as a STINT (Short Term INTernational) for Agap\u00e8\/Campus Crusade for Christ in Mexico-City. I guess he had expected a lot from his time\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Agap\u00e8"","block_context":{"text":"Agap\u00e8","link":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/c\/agape\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/bergtorjoram.files.wordpress.com\/2009\/04\/sdc10519.jpg?w=350&h=200&crop=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/change-the-world1.jpg?resize=500%2C244&ssl=1\" "\\"change-the-world\\"")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"