SABBATH

God's Gift to Us

Commentary: Dissatisfaction

Change Agents Use Dissatisfaction
#1020c

Given 20-Nov-10; 11 minutes

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description: Satan has also used a sense of dissatisfaction to bring about a wholesale change in the world's religions. According to Berit Kjos, sinister change agents have attempted to apply traditional Christian terminology to politically correct referents, distorting and defiling the original meaning, with the view of duping naïve congregants into accepting a new world order, accepting the feel-good compromising with morality. The liberal change agents exaggerate the sense of present dissatisfaction, priming them for a foolish change, destroying the hated "old ways," offering a here and now promise of a 'better future.' These change agents desire to force people into a new world order.


transcript:

One of the major reasons that people in the U.S.—in this nation—voted for undefined "change" was because the change agents knew that in order to bring about change, they first had to stir up dissatisfaction with the old ways, even though the old ways were more free, more profitable, more moral, more peaceful, less expensive and less intrusive in the lives of families.

But what has gone mostly unnoticed is that this promotion of dissatisfaction has also been used by Satan to force changes in mainstream Christianity. These changes are intended to help bring about a one world religion. They're using the same methods in religion that were used to make the changes in politics and in government. These change agents have also been working within the true church of God community to promote dissatisfaction with the old ways. I'm not going to speak specifically about anything, but this is a generality that I'm speaking from, and I think you'll find what is happening interesting.

Keep in mind the largest of the churches of God that we know is having such turmoil and the changes that are being made in that. In fact, the statement was made, "We want to modernize it." "We want to modernize" is the term that was used by that organization. I'm not speaking specifically about that organization, but all the churches of God, and these are some things that we should be very concerned about, and that is being tempted to dissatisfaction.

I have an article in front of me here that I'm going to spend most of my time with for the remainder of the time that I have. The title is, "Re-inventing the Church," and it is by Berit Kjos. She's a researcher into religious subjects and that type of thing. She's very thorough in the things that she researches. We will begin with the article here:

A strange distortion of truth has spread like a grass fire on a windy day through churches around the world. It calls God's people not just to understand our changing times from the world's perspective, but to actually blow with the wind and help fuel the transformation. This Church Growth Movement (CGM) uses familiar old words to persuade the people, but it conforms God's Word as well as human thinking to politically correct views of unity, community, service and change [Some key words that they use there: “unity, community, service and change”].

Behavioral laboratories, schools, UNESCO and liberal churches all helped light that fire during the 20th century. Hidden from sight, their subversive efforts seared America's Biblical foundations and prepared the masses to believe a lie.

Now, at the dawn of the new millennium, "conservative" and "evangelical" churches are following suit. Worldwide "Christian" networks provide trained leadership and management consultants to guide God's people along this alluring superhighway to a new world order. Forget the old narrow way that leads to life. Today's "change agents" hope to popularize Christianity so effectively that whole nations will join their crusade.

Forget solid Bible teaching . . . . To win the masses "for Christ", the church must be re-cloaked in a more permissive and appealing image. It must be marketed to the world as "a safe place," purged of the moral standards that stirred conviction of sin and a longing to separate from the world's immorality. So they re-imagined a feel-good church stripped of offense - one the world could love and claim as its own.

Their march to a "better world" is well under way. In this new church, group thinking, compromise, conflict resolution, the dialectic process and facilitated consensus are in. Uncompromising conviction and resistance to group consensus are out. For God's way seems far too intolerant to fit the managed systems of the new millennium.

Hard to believe? Then listen to the leadership team chosen by George Barna, founder and president of Barna Research Group, to write his revolutionary 1995 book, Leaders on Leadership. I call it revolutionary because it is. It actually invites a revolution in the Church and shows a new brand of leaders how to manage it.

Doug Murren, former senior pastor of Eastside Foursquare Church, wrote a chapter titled, "The Leader as Change Agent." In it, he explains the first step in the psycho-social process of "managed change." Notice that he takes his cues from an experienced "change agent" at Stanford University which—like MIT, Harvard and Teacher's College at Columbia—is a major research institution in the area of social change, persuasive propaganda and psycho-social manipulation:

"Arnold Mitchell, a social psychologist from Stanford, has spent years studying the attitudes and behaviors of Americans. He contends that three ingredients are necessary for change to occur. First, Mitchell notes that change comes from dissatisfaction.... Effective change agents assess the chances for change by evaluating the level of dissatisfaction within the group. If dissatisfaction is strong, the potential for change exist....

"To be effective, a leader must also deliberately develop dissatisfaction."

"Preparing people for change sometimes takes what seems like forever.... I shared startling or even embarrassing statistics about where we were as a church body and where we needed to be, seeking to create the right level of dissatisfaction." [This is a religious leader trying to actually cause dissatisfaction among the people in his congregation, or the subjects that he was handling.]

"Positive change rarely intimates 'returning to the way it used to be.' Most positive change I have witnessed has been about creating a better future rather than returning to a cherished past."

The Stanford psychologist's second and third ingredients are "a terrific amount of emotional and physical energy" and "insight" evidenced by "a well-conceived strategy for making things better." [What he is saying there is you keep the people busy, you keep the people working toward that change, and then you keep the people away from the real issues. You keep them inspired through the dissatisfaction with what they had to continue with that change.]

Notice that Pastor Murren's "three ingredients" for changing people have nothing to do with God's guidelines or standards. They have everything to do with deceptive human visions of how elite "change agents" can control the masses. Their manipulative methods have become so familiar that their subjects barely notice what is happening. Lest you forget, take another look at the initial steps:

1. Assess (survey) the attitudes, values and wants of the people. Your personal assessment will be the benchmark for measuring planned change in the months and years ahead.

2. Stir dissatisfaction with the old ways so that the seeds of revolution can grow without regrets. Actually, the survey itself initiates the "dissatisfaction", since a "good" church survey would contain anxiety-producing questions that suggest internal problems and prompt public dialogue and complaint.

This tactic was explained in a 1951 manual on "group development" written by such infamous psycho-social change agents as Kurt Lewin. Titled Human Relations in Curriculum Change, it includes a chapter on "Utilization of Dissatisfaction,” which states:

"Dissatisfaction with existing conditions seems to be a prerequisite for intentional change....This group can be counted on a nucleus for hasting the process of change [meaning, the people you get to become initially dissatisfied—they become agents themselves for changes within a church organization]....”

"... dissatisfaction should not be regarded merely as a factor operating to furnish initial motivation. It should be utilized at all stages of the process to keep crystallization from setting in. Groups should be encouraged to make use of valuable solutions to problems only so long as they serve a useful purpose."

3. Offer an inspiring vision of "a better future." That better future must be a here-and-now future—one that man can create with his imagination. It's the opposite of the glorious future God offers us for all eternity. In this context of worldly change, heaven serves no earthly purpose. Only visions that motivate collective efforts and drive transformation can advance the revolutionary plan.

I'm going to stop there because we are probably very close to taking the roll. But what they are saying is that first you cause dissatisfaction, and then you're able to take care of any change that you so desire. That desire of these change agents is to bring about a one world religion. They are doing it by stealth. They are going in and making people dissatisfied. I do not know that that is happening in all of the churches of God in the community, but it's certainly happening in some of them.

MGC/aws/dcg