WHY NEHEMIAH RESET

“And I asked them concerning the Jews who escaped, who had survived the exile, and concerning Jerusalem.  And they said to me, The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire. As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven.” – Nehemiah 1:2-4

Can’t you just see how Nehemiah reacted when he heard about the condition of Jerusalem? This is just how we reacted as we watched the condition of the Twin and the state of Minnesota. We wanted to be “Nehemiah” people, to do something to change the conditions of our state so that biblical values were upheld instead of being torn down.  Nehemiah Reset was born out of an idea on how to change the culture of the Twin Cities so that it better reflects biblical values. Our culture is rapidly turning away from the values outlined in the Bible by God. The question was what were we to do. Our vision turned to the predicament and vision God laid on the heart of Nehemiah. God gave Nehemiah the insane idea that he needed to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild its walls so that the Jewish people could “reset” its city and its culture.

Was Nehemiah a leader, a person with vast supervisory experience? No Nehemiah was a simple cupbearer. He was trusted by the king to ensure that the king was protected from his enemies but never in Nehemiah’s wildest dreams did he think that he would someday be God’s instrument to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and encourage the people to “reset” their nation.

After all, Ezra, God’s appointed priest had been in Jerusalem for 13 years before Nehemiah returned and he hadn’t rebuilt the wall. It would seem to be more logical than Ezra would have been assigned the task to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem by God. Yet little did Nehemiah realize that Ezra was playing a key role in the restoring of the wall, he was leading God’s people in the prayer of preparation. When Nehemiah showed up in Jerusalem, the hearts of the people were prepared for God’s vision for Nehemiah to follow his instructions to rebuild the wall.

Our vision was to set up Salt and Light teams in key churches around the Twin Cities. These Salt and Light teams would be responsible for monitoring selected school boards, city councils, courts, and the state legislature to identify laws, regulations, and issues that stand against biblical values. The Salt and Light team would be responsible to bring these issues to the Salt and Light team who would filter out issues that they believe should be brought to the congregation. If the issue gets approved by the pastor, the issue would be communicated to the congregation so that that the issue no longer gets passed in darkness. Another responsibility of the Salt and Light team would be to put together voter guides for school boards, city councils, and court elections. The Salt and Light team would not recommend any candidate but would only prepare voter guides that would be distributed to the congregation.

Nehemiah Reset would coordinate the monitoring of school boards, city councils, and courts so that as many of them in the Twin Cities are monitored as possible. We are asking God for local voter guides for all the major school districts and cities in the Twin Cities for this year’s elections.

Come join our vision and help form a Salt and Light team in your church.