The Age of Sonship – There is a tangible Kingdom shift that tweaks leadership style. The identity of servants and sheep who trust and obey is moving to sons, kings, and priests who volunteer because they have seen Father’s heart or business (Jn 15:15). There is a significant implication. Parents, mentors, and coaches are now teaching sons how to learn, not just telling them what to do and how to perform. Sons and daughters in the Kingdom are learning how to connect with the purpose Father wrote in their hearts. They are integral, creative, fun, and intentional about Kingdom purpose. These sons and daughters are instrumental in Reformation – of people, businesses, cities, and nations. Their performance flows from Kingdom purpose. If you don’t know the why or their why, you’re not their leader.
What and How – Giving advice is one of the great temptations in parenting, relationships, or coaching. When we tell people what to do and how to do it, we effectively manage their life or company. That’s no longer what businesspeople want. Guides are left wondering why business owners don’t take their excellent advice. Coaches miss the point that they are dealing with peripheral issues of business mechanics that don’t address underlying issues of the heart and purpose! Knowing what to do and doing it are two different things. Kingdom purpose is now part of the motivational equation.
Questions – Another philosophic coaching avenue with merit is asking questions (The Coach Model). There are times when businesspeople don’t know what question to ask. Helping to formulate the right questions has value. However, too many questions feel like psychotherapy instead of progress if it doesn’t lead to answers. Entrepreneurs are people comfortable with risks who want to make their dream come true. They want someone who can help them make a difference. Yet they are not servants and sheep willing to surrender leadership of their vision, nor should they. Father wrote this verse in their heart.
1 John 2:27 – As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit…
What Clients Want – We are not teaching people 1) to surrender their business to our advice, 2) to become obedient servants faithful to our recipe, and 3) we’re not even suggesting the oxymoron of servant leadership! Entrepreneurship is an essential ingredient in sonship. Sons usually track new territory, take calculated risks, and have an allegiance to what is in their heart that many construe as stubborn independence instead of faithfulness. Sons are not looking for recipes, babysitters, coaches, and accountability. Purpose motivates them.
At the deepest level, we are helping business owners relate to the Father of their dream and learn from Him for themselves! We can solve every problem for them, but every day new issues walk through the door, and we start over with perpetual coaching. Sons and entrepreneurs don’t want that! They want to be found, not fixed; heard, not hounded. The inheritance of sonship begins with learning to navigate these three areas:
Deception – Spiritual warfare is tangible. In the food industry, 200 facilities around the nation were lost to mysterious fires. Warfare can make us feel small. However, sons have this promise to defeat the enemy, find a way around obstructions, or find protection from Father during storms. Sons can be bulletproof in spiritual warfare – it’s a revelation with weapons in the Courts of Heaven. We can learn how to recognize schemes and position ourselves to stand strong in turmoil. It’s not that hard!
Delusion – We all have head trash. The question is, Who can change our minds? Our hearts aren’t motivated by mindsets, money, or mentors; only by encounters with Kingdom realities that make a difference. Your heart already has a belief system built on a mountain of past experiences. We can’t mentally change our hearts or subconscious without a good reason, a new experience. Obedience, surrender, and submission are never good reasons for sons. Father’s Kingdom purpose is the only thing that can and should change a son’s mind. When we are clear on what Father is doing, we are clear on our direction and decisions.
Direction – Knowing what we should do and doing it are two different things! Father’s direction comes complete with an anointing to do it. Businesspeople don’t need a long lists of shoulda’s from Job’s counselors. They have plenty of their own.
Sons love co-laboring with their Father. It’s a breath of fresh air in business! It’s life for sons! Substituting Father’s direction with recipes, advice, and assignments can be piling on shoulda’s, woulda’s, and coulda’s that leave us more tired than inspired. Sons are wired to be present in Father’s Council and set their course toward co-laboring with Father via their seer gift and ability to hear and converse with the Seven Spirits in Business. Exploits are exciting! Motivation is not an issue for sons with purpose.
Sons are Learning to Learn, learning to hear for themselves. When that happens, they are naturally willing to partner, team, hire, and delegate what’s missing. When sons see their Kingdom purpose, it’s a key that opens the door to seeing Father’s purpose in other people and the Father’s purpose in business, cities, and our nation. It’s where Awakening to Reformation starts – in the Council.
The business mountain is the centerpiece of Father’s initiative in the Reformation of Nations. Sons are implementing Heaven’s strategy on Earth. Coaching connects sons with purpose so they can make decisions and defeat their enemies. Nothing less will do! When we skip past what Father wrote in a businessperson’s heart, they skip past our guidance. When we skip the Council, people skip our counsel.
People don’t care how much you know,
They care how much you care.
How much do you connect with them and Father?
Is your guidance alive? Does it resonate prophetically?
Performance coaching has roots in obedience counseling that tends to pull people out of their hearts and away from their purpose. Fathering people into their Kingdom purpose releases the lion it takes to make the desires Father wrote in their hearts come true. Purpose is the only real path to get performance from the heart. Sons volunteer to be a man or woman after God’s heart because it’s my purpose, identity, and inheritance. We use a Purpose Profile as a venue to clarify Prophetic Kingdom Purpose for people and businesses. We also wrote Ascending to the Council Made Simple so sons and daughters of the King can get the mid-course corrections themselves.
Once you’ve seen this Reformation in the Council, you can’t unsee it!
Cutting Room floor
Addressing the heart – I had a recent zoom with a businessman who was stuck. It was a hard goods business with employees and ongoing sales for decades. He was very capable. We heard his story, offered to pray with him, and ended up in the Courts and Council. The coaching wake-up call for me was the possibility that this encounter was all he needed. We were reinforcing his sonship and purpose, and that was precisely what he needed, not my precious “how to” package!
Apostolic Fathers – Coaching sons is a prophetic emphasis for all of us right now. Fathering sons in Reformation is a mandate. The point of this blog is that there are levels in guidance.
- Young people want guidance on how to do things, and when you show them, they are happy, and the results speak for themselves.
- Others who are often more mature can get stuck in deception and delusion and don’t have a clear direction. Guiding them on the mechanics of their business misses the root issue and they won’t take your practical suggestions; they don’t even take their own suggestions.
We’ve all been in both camps. Only God can breathe life into a person or business that is stuck. That’s when the real skill of fathering or coaching is helping people hear from God for themselves. The bread that feeds #1, doesn’t work for #2. The accountability that is helpful for #1, feels like legalism to #2. Starting with the purpose of heaven is the only thing that ignites both hearts. That’s the foundation for everything else.
Matt 4:4 – Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.
Roots – Business coaching has some roots in Christian counseling that are performance-based and not totally healthy or helpful in this Kingdom era.
I think the Lord is confronting something in me that gives advice before I hear hearts. I asked “Lord, why I do it?”
- “John, you miss your own heart”
- There is a liberty in connecting with your own heart that conveys grace and truth to other hearts
- Connection with my heart’s purpose is the beginning of seeing other hearts.
- Disconnected hearts lecture and preach;
- Connected hearts listen, ask questions, learn, and share Father’s heart.
- It feels like being loved into your real identity, which has an assignment, a purpose.
- Its fruit is passion from the heart.
Seven Spirits
- Jesus and Holy Spirit (Grace and Truth; Mercy and Judgment)
- Wisdom and Understanding (strategy and tactics)
- Counsel and Might (my Role and authority/anointing)
- Knowledge and Fear of the Lord (Honor Father’s Revelation & People)
