a FORCE FOR CHANGE
Conference Encourages Church Leaders to Bring Hope and Transformation to Brokenness in Communities
Imagine a church in
an American metropolitan area where the majority of church members are
committed to not only being good neighbors—but also to going into their
own worlds of home, work, and play to identify and use strategic
opportunities for demonstrating God’s agenda of reconciliation. In
response to God’s intentions and led by His Spirit, they are serious
about bringing hope and restoration to the brokenness about them.
Now imagine not just this one church with members engaged in loving service to their community. Imagine many churches—perhaps dozens of churches all across the metropolitan area—where members are exhibiting this kind of lifestyle. Such devotion to principles taught in the Bible by large numbers of people would undoubtedly be a force for change and make a meaningful and noticeable impact. That is the result that nine Phoenix, Arizona area churches are hoping to achieve as the eventual result of a two-part conference they sponsored April 21-22 and May 5-6, 2006.
The conference, titled “A Force for Change,” was conducted by the Disciple Nations Alliance (DNA), and was held for local church pastors and leaders. The conference was attended by approximately 50 pastors and leaders from 22 different churches representing over a dozen denominations.
The Disciple Nations Alliance grew out of a partnership formed in 1997 between Harvest and Food for the Hungry. The DNA partners believe God is stirring local churches to realign their worldview and respond to God’s command to be agents for intentional, loving service in their communities. He wants church members to realize they are His ambassadors to bring hope and restoration to broken lives and communities.
Through DNA “Vision Conferences” and follow-up training, local church pastors and leaders are first confronted with a need for a paradigm shift to biblical thinking. After repenting from wrong thinking a lack of obedience, they are encouraged to prepare their members to advocate for the rule of Christ and practice a lifestyle of love to others. As members proclaim and demonstrate the love of God in their communities, the Lord uses their obedience to accomplish healing and transformation where there is brokenness, to affect all areas of society, and to draw people into His Kingdom.
The Phoenix “A Force for Change Conference” content covered the following subjects:
· The transforming nature of the Bible’s Good News story
· The role of the church in society as defined in the Bible
· The effect of the typical American worldview on our communities
· Lies that enslave our communities
· Biblical principles for tapping into and using God’s resources
· Strategies and effective tools for engaging in communities for change.
Session presenters included Bob Moffitt, Harvest president; Darrow Miller, vice president of Food for the Hungry; Scott Allen, DNA operations director; John Wood, outreach pastor of Bethany Community Church, Tempe, Arizona; and Gary Edmonds, former secretary general of World Evangelical Alliance.
We have prepared an overview of the conference sessions, and organized it in three sections. We invite you to go to each of these sections (separate web pages) and obtain a summary understanding of what a DNA Vision Conference is like.
Biblical Worldview: Lies of the enemy enslave people and our society. These counterfeits of God’s truth include secularism, relativism, individualism, and materialism among others. God presents His absolute truth in the Bible, and the church needs to confront the enemy’s lies with God’s truth. As the Word declares, the truth will set people free. (See full text … )
God’s Agenda and the Church’s Role: God’s agenda is the ultimate restoration of all things through Christ Jesus. He wants to bring transformation to people, communities, and nations today, through local churches. He wants churches to model now the future reign of Christ. (See full text … )
Practicing Wholistic Ministry: Harvest has developed tools—Discipline of Love and Seed Projects—for use by church members to put Christ’s intentions into practice in their lives. These tools help Christians lovingly serve the needs of others in every dimension of life: not just spiritual needs but also physical, social, and wisdom needs. This broad-based service we call wholistic ministry. (See full text … )