Agents of Change: A Long Obedience in the Same Direction

— by Dan Owolabi, Executive Director at Branches Worldwide, CEO of Owolabi Leadership

This White Paper is about the transformation of your community in 30 years. It’s not a prediction. I’m not forecasting what will happen but what can happen. It’s increasingly common to hear people talk fatalistically about the future of their country or their community. For many, the next 30 years look bleak. Even Christians are regularly heard talking about the trajectory of humanity in defiantly pessimistic terms—as if the world is on an irreversible downward slide. 

While we prayerfully and sincerely seek transformation in our communities, looking for solutions to the world’s most pressing problems, we become discouraged when the change doesn’t materialize after a few years of honest effort. For many, this has tragically led to disillusionment, and it’s simply a matter of time before the negative momentum of human history finally catches up to us—and it’s all over. 

I disagree. I believe God’s Kingdom represents the best possible future for humanity, and Jesus tells us that even the gates of Hell can’t stop its forward progress. (Matthew 16:18) In fact, if we will see it, God’s Kingdom is expanding in unprecedented ways, creating pockets of shalom in communities all over the globe. I believe those of us who would be agents of change simply need to adopt a different perspective. 

A Different Perspective: The Long View

I lead Branches Worldwide, an international community of high-impact, faith-driven entrepreneurs. Our collective conviction is that God is using us to make our communities better in the next 30 years, not worse. In fact, we believe in the inevitability of Kingdom progress so firmly that we make an unusually long promise to every leader in Branches. We promise to partner with them for 30 years.

Branches Leaders are spread around the world, working for the transformation of their communities. They are building schools, leading financial institutions, constructing homes, scaling tech companies, opening clinics, expanding farms, and disrupting industries in the name of Christ. Essentially, as Branches Leaders build their businesses to bless their communities, we are right behind them … providing the support they need to run the long race God has given them. 

But to create significant change anywhere in the world, Christian leaders need more than crossed fingers, positive vibes, and hopes for change. True agents of change know that significant Kingdom impact starts with prayer and often culminates after decades of patience and persistent work—a long obedience in the same direction.

Less Intensity, More Consistency

About 10 years ago, a friend taught me the power of patience and persistance. He was an experienced kayaker, and he invited me on a two-day trip down the Muskingum River in Eastern Ohio. I’d never been kayaking before, and I was thrilled by the prospect of being on the river for a few days. But, by nature, I’m a sprinter. I tend to do things with the maximum amount of speed and intensity possible. So I was slightly concerned about how I would manage to complete nine long hours of paddling each day. 

This was clearly a marathon kayaking trip. Of the qualities needed to complete the trip, speed and intensity were very low on the list. But I was up for the challenge!

The first 3 to 4 hours were great. I had plenty of food, water, and stamina. My default strategy was to paddle as hard as I could in short intervals, frantically pushing for a few minutes, resting for a few minutes, then paddling hard for a few minutes. Initially, I easily outpaced my friend, waiting for him at each bend in the river. 

However, by the fifth hour, it was a different story. I started to realize my strategy was a bad one. Fatigue began to set in. My neck was sore. My arms were burning. I was running out of food. And by the last hour of the first day, the tables were turned. My friend was waiting for me at each bend. I was sore, exhausted, hot, and humbled.

That night, as we pitched our tent and got ready for bed, my friend leaned over and said, “Hey Dan, have you considered a different strategy? Maybe tomorrow you’ll use a little less intensity and a little more consistency?”  

Less intensity, more consistency. It sounds like a basic concept now, but lying in my tent with my arms on fire, it sounded like a revolutionary idea.

On the second day, I watched him closely, and it was remarkable! He personified his philosophy. He was patient; he paced himself. He didn’t alternate between floating and furious paddling as I did. He navigated the river in strong, clean, consistent strokes—and never stopped. For 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, he just kept going. He was focused, not frantic. Deliberate, not dramatic. Best of all, he made a great time. 

God taught me a lesson that day. There’s great power in consistency—prayerfully planning a course, taking the long view, and patiently maintaining a sustainable rhythm until the end. 

It’s a great principle for kayaking and an even better principle for leadership. 

The 30-Year Commitment

The Branches Worldwide community believes in the value of a long-term, sustainable approach to transforming communities and building leaders. We work with just 30 high-impact, faith-driven entrepreneurs at a time. Each comes from one of 30 different countries. Each leader is building a redemptive business, and our global community supports them with capital, coaching, consulting, and camaraderie. Most importantly, we promise to work with them for 30 years, essentially the duration of their career. That’s an unusually long time to partner with someone, and we know it. But we believe significant, sustainable change takes time. For us, that belief finds expression in a 30-year commitment. 

I believe incredible things can happen when you make long term commitments. As a thought experiment, imagine you could roll back the clock three decades. It’s 1992, the internet isn’t commercialized, cell phones aren’t widely accessible, and you're a much younger (and dare I say better looking) version of you.

Now imagine, in 1992, God gives you 30 years to focus on making a profound impact on His Kingdom. Three decades to commit and find solutions to one problem. Where would you focus? What pace would you take? What foundation would you build? When you set far-reaching goals and give more time to develop durable solutions, it’s amazing what can be accomplished.

For example, since 1992, the world has seen incredible improvements in many key areas. Over the last 30 years, significantly more young girls go to school (90% of school-age girls have attended), many more people have access to electricity (85% of the world), more people have access to clean water (88% of the world), more infants are immunized (88% of the world’s children), more adults have essential literacy skills (86% of adults in the world), and more children survive cancer diagnoses (80% of the world).

Additionally, in the last 30 years, we have observed a sharp decline in many of the challenges that plague humanity. For example, fewer people are malnourished (just 11%), and fewer children die before their 5th birthday (only 4%). There have also been far fewer oil spills, fewer people dying in armed conflict, fewer plane crashes, and far fewer nuclear warheads since 1992. (Rosling, Rosling Rönnlund and Rosling, 2019)

Most notably, since 1992, the share of the world's population living in extreme poverty has decreased by half. That statistic alone is astounding. Those examples (and much more unmentioned), added to the acceleration of Bible translation around the world and the explosion of church growth in the global south, point to something deeply profound. Unbeknownst to many, God has done incredible work on our planet in the last 30 years. 

There’s nothing particularly special about the last 30 years. I use 1992 to sample a 30-year snapshot. If Christians expected any of those advances to happen in just 5, 10, or even 15 years, we would have been sorely disappointed. Only after multiple decades of work are many of the most important problems solved. 

We should reclaim the value of a patient, measured commitment to finding solutions. We should plan for and expect that transformation could take a generation to materialize. We should avoid being in a hurry to make things happen. 

In Eugene Peterson’s book A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, he reiterated the need for patience and pacing in our work.

He said, “Our work goes wrong when we lose touch with the God who works ‘his salvation in the midst of the earth.’ It goes wrong both when we work anxiously and when we don’t work at all, when we become frantic and compulsive in our work and when we become indolent and lethargic in our work.”

Peterson hit the nail on the head. Too often, we overestimate what can be done in three years but underestimate what can be done in 30 years. Too often, we waffle between frantic inspiration and fatalistic resignation. Too often, we try to fix everything at once, or we fold our arms and do nothing at all. Either we float down the river, or we paddle at a frantic, unsustainable pace.

Our God has a long history of moving at a different pace. God works outside our timeline, often making promises that are only fulfilled far in the future. He is patient and has proven that He’s not in a hurry.

Patience, Pacing, & Power

Patience is a critical ingredient for witnessing God’s power. In Exodus 3, when Moses takes his flock to the far side of the desert at Mt. Sinai, he sees a bush burning. I’ve often wondered about that moment because a burning bush is notable but not remarkable. We’ve all seen things burn before. However, what makes the “Burning Bush” incredible is that it burned but didn’t burn up. 

By implication, Moses had to carefully watch that bush burn for a very long time before he realized something unusual was happening. The bush was on fire but not consumed by it. In other words, the first quality he needed in order to witness God at work was patience. To see God’s power, Moses needed staying power. I believe that truth is there for us as well. We need staying power.

Patience on the front end also tends to create durable results on the back end. For example, in Israel, Turkey, and Syria, it’s common for olive trees to bear fruit only after eight years. Planting, watering, and watching the tree grow for a few years is only part of the process. Farmers must wait nearly a decade for a return on their investment. That may be far too long for many… but consider the upside. Because of an initial investment over 2000 years ago, there are some olive trees that still bear fruit today. Patience and pacing can produce fruit that lasts for millennia.  

Jesus identifes patience and pacing as primary charactristics of His Kingdom. In Matthew 13:33, Jesus used yeast to describe His Kingdom. He said, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like the yeast a woman used in making bread. Even though she put only a little yeast in three measures of flour (sixty pounds), it permeated every part of the dough.” Yeast is the quintessential agent of change. But it’s not flashy or frantic. It’s persistent, and its effect is only seen over time. 

Those of us who would be yeast in the world and act as agents of change should ask three critical questions: 

1. What am I doing today that will only bear fruit in 30 years? 

2. What am I doing today that is hard, deeply challenging, personally taxing, but potentially world-changing? 

3. What am I doing today that will outlive me and bear fruit for generations to come?

When we make long-term commitments to people and communities, many other commitments change as well. Decisions become easier because short-term solutions are no longer an option. Relationships are started and nurtured to last decades. As relationships run deeper, true character is revealed over time, and trust becomes less and less of an issue. The paralyzing fear of making mistakes is minimized because, considering the decades of work ahead, any mistake becomes a learning opportunity.

Branches Worldwide believes in the power of making 30-year commitments. We make a 30-year commitment to our entrepreneurs, and we ask them to make a 30-year commitment to their communities. We challenge them to stay when others leave. We ask them to invest when other people exploit. We insist they address fundamental problems when others may be tempted to look for quick solutions. We invite them to grow deep roots in their communities, planting sequoias not sunflowers. 

And we encourage them to follow a God who is in the business of making long-term promises and asking His followers to develop patience, maintain the proper pace, and commit to a long obedience in the same direction. 

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Article originally hosted and shared with permission by The Christian Economic Forum, a global network of leaders who join together to collaborate and introduce strategic ideas for the spread of God’s economic principles and the goodness of Jesus Christ. This article was from a collection of White Papers compiled for attendees of the CEF’s Global Event.

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