Whenever a plan is hatched, which relies heavily upon influencing people with new ideas, it must be realized that such an endeavor takes TIME. One of the problems with the modern CR movement is lack of patience. CR (Christian Reconstruction)  is not a quick fix. 

Long term planning is essential. Successes and failures need to be experienced. It may take years to gain respect and trust. Convincing the citizenry of your integrity and your willingness to be a part of the community, and a positive force in its well being, is a long term endeavor. Superficial involvement will accomplish nothing. You cannot simply enter into a community and dictate how you think it should be structured. If you go into CR with a big head of steam you will be shut out and no one will ever listen to you no matter how great your ideas are. Remember CR is about people. Care for people and they will care about what you have to say.

Read “Singleness of Purpose”
Maintenance & Monitoring

Once a strategy is agreed upon, and the plan is enacted, it must be maintained and monitored. Commitment to the long term is essential. Well meaning people begin all kinds of ministries but very few bring it to efficacious fruition. It is very easy to begin a thing, it is much more difficult to maintain it over time. Only after a certain amount of time has elapsed can a determination be made whether that plan is accomplishing what it was set out to do. That means concrete goals and measuring points must be first established before executing any CR effort. If you cannot measure a strategy, you cannot know if it is working. Sometimes results are evident immediately while at other times results are slow to come. Every result has its own time clock. Proper analysis, therefore, takes time. A projects means absolutely nothing unless it can be maintained and groomed into something effective. This is a long term effort.

How to Measure Positioning Success

Depending on your goal, success is measured differently. If the goal is community positioning and cultural influence, success is measured in a number of ways.

Ask first: “What does influence look like in the community?”

●Do people seek your advice or opinion? 
●Are they interested in your political analysis on current issues? 
●Do they call on you when there is a decision to be made on certain community issues? 
●Does the local store owner or postal clerk confide in you asking for some response to their situation or a community issue? 
●Can you comfortably call upon any local or state wide government officials for a sit down?
Do they call upon you for a sit down? 
●How often do government official ask you to join them for lunch? 
●Are you able to address your community leaders by name? 
●When in a crowd do community leaders, or state reps go out of their way to greet you or are you invisible until the next fundraising event? And do they greet you by name? 
●Will the local newspaper editor print your letters without editing?

●Are you asked to speak, or pray, at local political rallies, events or meetings? 

●Does the dispatch at the local sheriff’s office, the staffs personal, the sheriff and his deputies know who you are; by name?

These are some of the ways you can know if you hold any clout in your local community. Visibility is the part of the success of community positioning. Positioning is getting into a community or a culture and visibly integrating yourself within that community or culture so that you are trusted. Only when people know you, and trust you, will they listen to you.

Nothing of Godly change can happen unless this happens first. I cannot stress this enough.
Get to know the people in your community. 

Here are some things you can do to position yourself in your community.

1.      Observe city, town, and county meetings. Rub shoulders with the officials. Ask questions. At first do not offer advice or opinion. Not yet anyway. Make yourself visible. Build trust.
2.      Join the Chamber of Commerce if you have a business or just observe their meetings.
3.      Apply with the county office to get onto a county committee. Serve in a community endeavor. Get to know the players.
4.      Go to school board meetings. This will assist in analyzing their policies and keep an eye on their budget.
5.      Many communities have art shows, festivals and various events all of which have a steering committee. Volunteer your time. Get to know the people. Gather intel. Be personable. Build a reputation of integrity.
6.      Introduce yourself to the local sheriff, postmaster and clerks. Visit the treasurer’s office. Learn his or her name and be able to recognize them in the marketplace so you can greet them by name. The treasure holds a critical position in the community.

The list of possibilities is exhaustive. Be creative. Get out from under the social media tyranny and away from the Face Book keyboard and get into your community and show yourself. Otherwise you are simply involved in a teapot tempest preaching to the choir. Nothing of importance will ever be accomplished.

Be; and then you can Do

Only when you have shown yourself trustworthy, as a knowledgeable individual with character integrity can you do anything of value.

You must first BE, so that you can DO.