Multitude Of Counsellors Project

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INVITATION: Weekly meetings - in person + Zoom

Proverbs 15:22  Without counsel purposes (plans) are disappointed:
but in the multitude of counsellors they are established (plans succeed). 
Matthew 18:19  Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth
as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father
which is in heaven. 20  For where two or three are gathered together in my name,
there am I in the midst of them. 

Government needs more wisdom - YOUR wisdom

Meeting weekly with a state lawmaker will benefit you, the lawmaker, and your state. If you have written to, emailed, or called a lawmaker with your opinion about an issue, the lawmaker may ask you to meet with others who care that much, so that participants may learn from each other, test their theories, reason with other with the goal of separating facts from guesses, resulting in sounder advice for the lawmaker with wider public support than individuals can achieve who are not interacting with each other.

The benefit to the lawmaker:

• The lawmaker can explain hard decisions to the group and benefit from a team of advisors that will think about, discuss, and study them together.

• When the need to establish critical facts is explained to many people, some of them are likely to have the needed special knowledge, or know who to approach, and how to approach, those with the needed knowledge.

• Political decisions must be not only about what is right, but about what the public will understand and support. Group discussions can establish both better than a single lawmaker can. Group members can further ask friends or family their view of issues, and those asked will be more inclined to trouble themselves to think about it without being offended that someone is talking to them about "politics", when they know a lawmaker actually needs, respects, and will try to accommodate their view, and the survey is not just a cover for asking for a donation.

• When the support of other lawmakers is needed, or their positions need to be established, a group can multiply a lawmaker's own ability to make contacts and win them over. A group can also multiply a lawmaker's ability to reason and interact with lobbyists, activists, and other community leaders.

• Laws often have unintended consequences because their details are too complicated for average voters, or even average lawmakers, to fully process. If the most perfect details are opposed by the selfish and not understood by the selfless, the wisest lawmaker is helpless to enact them. Therefore a group willing to study those details and drive "the devil" out of them, becoming better informed than is possible from news articles geared to average readers, and a group willing to support wise details, makes it possible for a lawmaker to understand and fight hard for those wise details without fearing not only failing to enact them but failing to win the next election for doing the right thing.

• The better a lawmaker can "get on the same page" (develop consensus) with a group, the better and more informed word-of-mouth endorsements of the lawmaker will naturally proceed from group members throughout the community. The influence of those endorsements is multiplied when endorsers not only agree with the "bullet points" on a candidate's scanty literature, but understand and can persuasively defend complicated and controversial positions of the candidate.

• The support of informed, influential, persuasive team members makes it possible for candidates to be more honest with all voters about all of their positions without losing the next election. Without that foundation, the goal of political consultants is to find out which voters support what, so that for example a voter who wants to carry a gun and also wants to get an abortion will receive a mailing about the candidate's support for gun rights, but NOT a mailing about the candidate's opposition to abortion rights. This strategy requires spending thou$ands on surveys to identify who supports what, with more thou$ands on carefully targeted literature mailings which must be (1) glossy and colorful, and (2) brief, with no more information than can be consumed in about 10 seconds. The strategy is based on the experience of opponents having no interest in learning arguments against what they think they want, while even supporters of their candidate's positions are too apathetic to read more than a few paragraphs - "bullet points". Perhaps not all candidates WANT politics to become any more intelligent, but many do, and informed teams of counsellors will definitely help.

The benefit to group members:

• Members become better informed than is possible from news geared to average readers. This makes people more influential, their advice more valued and respected.

• Members become able to do far more good than is possible from merely attending rallies, donating money and time, answering surveys, contacting lawmakers, etc. Doorknocking, making phone calls, etc is still valuable and members may continue doing that too (and may have more enthusiasm for doing that they better they know their candidate).

• Members experience reasoning with each other even when they disagree in a setting of patience and love - a rare opportunity - which develops relationship skills valuable at home, at work, in defending our freedoms, and defending our faith.

• Members fulfill the mandate of 1 Timothy 2:1-2 to not only pray for our leaders [so that we may lead an honest, godly life without going to jail], but to "petition" our representatives to base our laws upon the principles of Heaven instead of Hell, to intercede for those harmed by our public policies, and to thank lawmakers who serve us well. Following the lesson of James 2:14-17, members will do these things to the extent they can, rather than expect God to do what they can do so they can do nothing.]

Simple Rules

1. The group must agree on its own rules. They may draw from Robert's Rules of Order. They may draw from the Bible. Topics should be established by vote. Meetings should be decent and orderly, 1 Corinthians 14:40.

2. All should have freedom of speech to inspire by the highest principles they know, subject to rules evenly applied. 1 Corinthians 14:31.

3.Topics should especially focus on actions the group will consider taking together; results, not talk that goes nowhere. "Good works." Matthew 5:16.

4. Discussion should be respectful, peaceful, gentle, merciful, wise. James 3:17

5. Participation should be open to people of all faiths and political persuasions who are willing to reason with each other respectfully, reasonably, and intelligently. We can have zero tolerance for nonsense, yet still have infinite love. 1 Corinthians 14:24.

For more ideas from Scripture see: Bible_Guidelines_for_Relationships