The Greatest Disruption Ever!
The year 2020 is not one to be forgotten in a hurry. The entire globe experienced major disruptions to every area of life caused by the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. In a matter of months, schools closed, businesses shut down…
I read a copied message just a few days ago in a Whatsapp group I belong to about how “YouTube killed DVD. Bluetooth killed Infrared and now Xender has killed Bluetooth. Android killed Windows phone. SMS killed letter writing. The Computer killed the Typewriter. The Internet killed the Library. Google killed the Dictionary.” And on and on goes the list of disruptive technologies. Whether or not you agree with who killed what, it is undebatable that we are living in an age of massive and rapid changes in virtually every area of life. You go to sleep expecting a predictable day ahead only to wake up to find that not only have the rules of the game been changed but the game itself has been replaced with a new game entirely! Welcome to the world of unpredictable disruption.
The year 2020 is not one to be forgotten in a hurry (and the year is still not over). The entire globe experienced (and is still experiencing) major disruptions to every area of life caused by the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. In a matter of months, schools closed, businesses shut down, millions of jobs lost, industries collapsed, families distressed and nations under unprecedented pressure. Major global events were either postponed or cancelled. Yearly projections and budgets had to be thrown out of the window and carefully crafted plans torn to shreds. What happened? A global disruption. Because change is inevitable and must be embraced as part of our collective journey through time, man has always learned to cope and adjust to disruptive times. There have been major disruptions in the past and there certainly will be more in time to come.
The greatest disruption in human history occurred 2000 years ago: God stepped into humanity and changed the rules of engagement permanently! What exactly did Jesus come to do? In a straight forward answer – He came to reestablish the Kingdom of God, the divine rule in the hearts of people. This may sound too simple until you consider the fact that before Jesus arrived, the whole system whereby humanity related with Divinity was based on outward, external regulations and religious rites and codes. Jesus shows up and shifts everything into an internal environment based on spiritual revelation. Before He came, people practiced self-government. He showed up to introduce a new government: “God’s kingdom was his theme–that beginning right now they were under God’s government, a good government! He also healed people of their diseases and of the bad effects of their bad lives.” Matthew 4:23 Msg
Everything Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) was altogether disruptive. I consider it the most revolutionary speech ever uttered on the planet. Multiple times, He said “You have heard that it was said…But I say…”. What?! The entire culture of a nation had been regulated around certain laws for almost two millennia … “now, you say…” ?? Just like that? The disruption was too extreme, His detractors felt that He had to be silenced. But it did not stop the spiritual revolution that had already been ignited. It was too late. He had spoken the words. Hearts that had long been caught up in cold legalistic religious formalities had now been kindled by the fire of His utterances. A new race and specie of humanity began to emerge who were willing to give everything – including their very lives, and they did – to be part of this kingdom, a disruptive kingdom.
Disruptions don’t come easy. They don’t seek any permission to invade and pull down existing structures. They simply show up and expect compliance. When a disruption happens, you either adapt and learn the rules of the new game or you become obsolete, irrelevant and face the consequences of non-compliance.
You see, Jesus did not come to fit in to our cozy little arrangements, make our own dreams come true, our pet plans succeed or to refurbish our lives with a few touches of improvement here and there. He came to shatter everything that was not in alignment with the kingdom of God and then rebuild a new civilization, a new humanity and order in which God alone would be sovereign King. To ensure the continuity and spread of the DNA of this new civilization, He recruited a small band of followers and taught them the ways and culture of this kingdom. After three years of modeling ideal life and training, they could not fit back into the old mold which they had known all their lives. They became a threat to the establishment. They either had to be destroyed or they would disrupt the existing system.
In subsequent posts, we shall be examining the disruptive teachings of Jesus and the impact it made on His early followers as well as the implications and applications for those of us who claim to be His followers in this terminal generation. Just as political, economic, social and technological disruptions are taking place all around us, a new kind of spiritual disruption is brewing from the threshold of heaven. The torrential wave of this spiritual move will align everything back to its original divine design – and we are called to carry this next move of God. Radical change is inevitable. The only question is will you be God’s disruptive agent or will you hold on to what is becoming obsolete and in the process, be disrupted?
Mark Kolo serves as International Team Leader for Global Activation, a mission organization committed to mobilizing Kingdom change agents and catalyzing Disciple Making Movements.
