Today was an exciting and different experience of visiting South Africa’s parliament building and sessions, hosted by Steve Swart. Steve has been a member of parliament since 1999, and represents one of the 4 members of Parliament of the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP). www.acdp.org.za.

As Steve shared with us some of the political battles that his party was fighting for, based on Biblical values (e.g. upholding child spanking, restrictions on abortions, etc.), it was encouraging to see how even this small number of people (4 out of 400 members of Parliament) were having a major leadership impact in the direction of South Africa. Just the image of this beachhead for God in the midst of the country’s political process was a powerful reminder of the presence of God’s church, even in small numbers (Matt 18: 19-20).

During the course of our day, we also held “visioning” sessions for many of the clients. This included time of intercessory prayer as well as seeking God’s vision for these leaders’ lives and their businesses. This was such an impressive time of just being able to witness God’s desire to direct and be involved with the details our lives. It would have been easy to come into these sessions as the consultant with a well thought out and spiffy plan to help the business. But the real impact happens when we wait on God’s input and revelation. Often it can lead in the opposite direction we would have expected (such as expanding a client’s vision vs focusing it), or even more awesome is God revealing a personal or relational insight that has far more important implications for the leader’s impact than anything related to the business.

In several cases, we had what seemed to us highly productive visioning sessions, only to experience a brief word or picture from God at the end that had an impact to the client that dwarfed all that we had discussed the hour before. This experience just profoundly reinforces a message that I heard most well put by Martin Luther, “I have so much to do today, that I need to spend the first 3 hours with the Lord.” Basically, that one clear word from God can have more impact on our lives than a whole day full of words from our own logic or abilities.