The Vallejo Faith Organization (VFO) is an influential political force in my community. So much so, that all the candidates running for office have had to factor them into their campaign considerations. I would normally take "City of God" as a "metaphor" for the VFO's approach to governance and chalk it up to colorful language ... In other words, just ignore it.
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Screen capture from video about VFO - (YouTube access set to private on September 2, 2011.)
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But, the more I have looked into the operation of VFO, the more I realized they had a more long term goal. And, from what I can surmise this goal is to "transform" the city of Vallejo into a "City of God". Beyond the fold let me share some of what I discovered.
What is the Vallejo Faith Organization?
Pictured below is the Vallejo Faith Organization's website splash page announcing the formation of the organization in 2007 and outlining it's goals and beliefs. Click here for a large version of the screen shot below.
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Screen capture from the Vallejo Faith Organization's website
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Over the last few years the VFO has backed a number of candidates for local City Council and School Board offices. The VFO has held numerous prayer breakfasts, public prayer rallies, political forums, and voter registration drives. They have conducted legal seminars educating pastors, and initiated an adopt a school program. Their campaign to pray over city streets, businesses, and government institutions is an ongoing group activity. In 2008 VFO played a significant roll in Solano county delivering the YES vote on Prop 8.
Consider this key establishment passage from the VFO mission statement:
God wants to unify business, education, government, and the faith community - all working together in the transformation of our beautiful city.
From the VFO Website:Our Mission
To understand the significance of the above establishment statement, one must consider it literally, not metaphorically.If you only remember one thing from this diary remember to take the statements from organizations like VFO literally.
Who is behind VFO?
snip ...(name) was one of the very first in the Vallejo area to attend a seminar with Ed Silvoso and quickly brought the concept of marketplace ministry to his pastor Danny Jefferson.
From the Harvest Evangelism Website: Vallejo City of God
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Ed Silvoso and Pastor Danny Jefferson (L to R) -
Screen capture from a video by Marc Garman: Vallejo's Faith Community Gather in Prayer
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One defining aspect of transformationalism is its focus on what are called marketplace ministers. In this context, as in many Christian circles, the term 'marketplace' is used to represent business, education, and government—i.e., everything outside the church and family.
From Wikipedia, Christian Transformationalism: Marketplace Ministers
The unifying philosophy behind VFO can be found in the doctrines of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). For additional information and references on NAR see Rachel Tabachnick's Resource Directory for the New Apostolic Reformation on the Talk to Action website.
For the practical implementation of this vision of a "City of God" VFO enlisted the professional services of Harvest Evangelism, one of the leading international suppliers social transformation technology. Harvest Evangelism, owned by CEO & NAR Apostle Ed Silvoso, practices a variation on Dominionism called Christian Transformationalism.
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Screen capture from Harvest Evangelism: Vallejo City of God
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Ed Silvoso's International Transformation Network is active in over 300 cities on 6 continents. It originates, publishes, and markets a complete line of educational materials and tools for transforming communities.
Ed Silvoso's global Adopt Your Street tool is tracked by a Google Maps Application. This sophisticated collaboration tool is one of the many technologies developed by Harvest Evangelism. Below some quotes from the instructions on using this Adopt Your Street application.
"Plot the street address you wish to "adopt."* It could be your home, at your school, at your place of work – or all of them! Or it could be a street you adopt simply because you feel led to pray for it. —Involve each member of the family in the process!"
"Comment on the street address you have adopted.* Who are you praying about? What are the needs of your neighborhood, your workplace, your school? What are you asking God for? What changes are taking place?
"Communicate with each other.* "Follow" others' comments and let them "follow" yours."
California Canopy of Prayer
If you go to the Harvest Evangelism's Transform Our World Adopt Your Street website and "drill down" you can see if your street or home is being watched and prayed over.
Below is a screen capture representing the whole world from Harvest Evangelism's Transform Our World website. I had to spend a lot of time to get this screen capture. I had to "drill down" in each state in North America and each nation on each continent to get all the markers across the world.
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Adopt Your Street
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It should be noted that this Adopt Your Street program can be adapted as a powerful social organizing tool for the New Apostolic Reformation. And it would not surprise me if the tool could be used for political canvasing and voter microtargeting.
Below is a quote from the Vallejo Faith Organization website stating that one of their core values is to elect political candidates and to advance the outcome of a political issues or legislation. This is what would normally be called a political action committee (PAC).
Participation in the election process and holding Elected Officials accountable.
From the VFO Website: Our Core Values
Who are the potential followers of the movement in Vallejo?
In the "Our Members" section the doctrine of Marketplace Ministry is introduced.
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The Vallejo Faith Organization (VFO) is comprised of pastors and Marketplace Ministers (Business persons.) Members are people from many Christian Denominations, ethnicity and political party affiliations.
From the VFO Website: Our Members
The Vallejo Faith Organization is a regional meta-church organization comprised of alliances of churches from different denominational backgrounds. I would estimate there are about 14 local church involved in VFO with perhaps about 2000 members(potential voters).
What is the VFO doing in the Vallejo community?
Below is a screen shot of a video that illustrates members of VFO "praying" over Vallejo. Part of the transformation process is driving out territorial demons and generational curses.
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Screen capture from video about VFO - (YouTube access set to private on September 2, 2011.)
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Below is a screen capture of Vallejo area from the "Adopt Your Street" website.
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Screen capture from Harvest Evangelism's Transform Our World website: Adopt Your Street
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Below is a screen capture of the VFO praying over local businesses.
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Screen capture from video about VFO - (YouTube access set to private on September 2, 2011.)
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The video mentioned above has been re-posted here: Vallejo Faith Organization on the Move in our city!! (No guarantee this will stay up)
Clearly VFO is doing much more in the Vallejo community than is reported in this diary, so consider this diary an introduction. My next diary will take a close look at some of the local VFO backed candidates running for office.
Cross Posted on Blue Street Prophets: Vallejo Faith Organization - Dominionism Proxy?