Have you ever noticed that Jesus spent most of His time talking to religious people? There were a few notable exceptions, but for the most part He spent His time addressing those folks who claimed to know God – fellow Jews, the religious rulers, the Pharisees, His followers, etc. And it was in this context that He spoke of His kingdom.
The kingdom of heaven is like…. The Kingdom of God is upon you…. Seek first the Kingdom of God…. Jesus spends a lot of time talking about the Kingdom. In fact, it is one of the things He talked about the most. No doubt, you’ve read over those passages many times in your annual quest to read the Bible in a year. But have you ever really stopped to ponder the Kingdom. What is it? What is Jesus talking about? What implications does it have for me now? And why did He talk about it so much?
Could it be that the Kingdom of Heaven is relevant to my daily life? Could it be that we’ve spent so much time understanding that the Gospel saves people’s eternities that we have forgotten that it also saves our present?
Being a follower of Christ means we are a part of His Kingdom. As such, His Kingdom should reign over every aspect of our lives. Too easily do we separate our spiritual life from our secular life. We lack a holistic view of life that the kingdom demands. But His Kingdom, His rule, should extend to and influence every area of our lives - our relationships, fields of study, leisure activities, the arts, and so on, thus restoring the order, beauty, harmony, and purpose of creation. When we think of the gospel as something that has to do with just going to heaven, we fail to understand the gospel’s power to transform our actual lives, to “transfer them from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of His beloved son” ... now.
And being a part of His Kingdom now, we pray. We offer a dependent and expectant cry to God for His kingdom to come, for His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. We want to acknowledge that our world is broken and that our best hope is for God to have His way with us. Kingdom Come.
Jesus spoke a lot about His Kingdom. It’s time for us to listen and understand. And we have some folks who are going to help us in this journey.
This year’s DWC will be different than year’s past. Gary Purdy, Pastor of Northshore Fellowship Church, Chattanooga, Tennessee, will be speaking during the main meetings each evening.
Instead of traditional morning meetings well are implementing some new ideas. We will be offering ten workshops during three different time slots (all ten repeated three times). We have invited some of our favorite speakers to come back to facilitate these times during which students will discover truths about Kingdom Living. Some of the facilitators will be: Cheryl Fletcher, Randy Newman, Will Walker, and several others.
We also will be putting feet to our desire to expand the Kingdom of God to those around us in the Dallas area. We will be having two days of Outreach. On January 4th and 5th we will be distributed around the area and sharing the transformational message of the gospel in many different ways. Please pray for Cody Phipps and Charlie Brent as they head up a team of staff to make this day happen.
Here’s how we begin praying:
~Pray for Gary Purdy as he prepares for the conference. Pray that the Lord would work in his life as he pours into our students.
~Pray for all of our workshop facilitators and that students would be excited to participate.
~We as staff and students would leave DWC more surrendered to our calling as messengers of the gospel.
~900+ Students will attend the conference
~Pray for partnerships with local churches for Day of Outreach and that many will hear the gospel in Dallas as a result.
~Pray that DWC will be a great motivating place for students to go on Summer Project.
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