At the end of August, Darrow will lead a two-day gathering in Singapore to discover and discuss how ideas have consequences. Hosted by Youth with a Mission, this event will include the subject of the Monday Church, helping connect our vocation with the advancement of the Kingdom of God. Join us, if you can, or pass this information to a friend!
Some 270 friends of the DNA gathered at Chaparral Suites in Scottsdale, Arizona on March 3 for a wonderful celebration of God’s work through the Disciple Nations Alliance. The annual benefit dinner was a big success and a splendid opportunity to share the vision.
The featured speaker, Dr. Marvin Olasky, Editor-in-Chief of World Magazine, spoke of his deep appreciation for the unique contribution:
“I’ve done a lot of writing over the years about how to fight poverty … but it’s a privilege for me to be among people who actually do it!”
International Secretariat president Scott Allen painted the big picture of DNA’s burden and vision to address the world’s brokenness in the name of Christ:
“From the very beginning our great God had a plan to heal, redeem and restore the broken world; at the very center of that plan is His son, Jesus.”
We were also privileged to have U.S. Congressmen Trent Franks from Arizona as a special guest.
Over $44,000 was raised for the global efforts of DNA, for which we praise God. Thank you again for all the sponsors, volunteers and participants who gave so generously of their time and treasure and made this such a memorable evening.
Please take a moment to enjoy this video showing highlights of the evening.
Darrow and Gary from the DNA International Secretariat office recently wrote a powerful blog post that speaks to two highly pertinent issues.
The post, The Moral Poverty of the West: Its Cause, Effect, and Solution, focuses on what is required to reverse the cultural decline in the West. At the same time, the piece applies equally to struggling nations everywhere.
Because it presents ideas that are so central to the DNA—the need for church-based social and cultural transformation—we wanted to share it at this page as well.
Who is not stunned by today’s news stories of violence?
Much of the Western elite, arguing from atheistic/materialistic assumptions, locate the root of these problems in poverty, lack of jobs, and poor education. … Such thinking fails to recognize that the life of a nation is rooted in the soul of a nation. …
Go here to read the rest of the post.
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Samaritan Strategy Africa, in collaboration with local churches, held a Vision Conference in Ngaba location/Kinshasa last May. The conference was facilitated by Harvest and Samaritan Strategy trainers Jeff Sikabwe, Jean N’soseme, and Byamungu Kisangani.
Sixteen churches were represented, including Ministère International pour le salut des âmes, la Croix de Golgotha, Bethesda Miracle centre, Assemblée Chrétienne Ecole des vainqueurs, Centre des gagnants, Ministère Evangélique la colonne de feu, Eglise de la résurrection, Eglise Pentecôtiste pleine Evangile Assurance de salut, Temple d’Elohim, and Ministère Evangélique la puissance de la délivrance.
Jeff Sikabwe noted that the conference “was a good opportunity for church leaders to discover new ways through which they could serve their communities to see positive change in the lives of their people.”
The 33 participants included pastors, choir leaders, deacons, ushers, Sunday school teachers, youth leaders, church elders, evangelists, and community development staff.
Participants committed themselves to demonstrate God’s concern to their surrounding communities by carrying out four Seed Actions:
Small group Bible study
In addition to these seed actions planned during the training, participants committed themselves to more acts of service in the future in order to experience positive substantial change.
Several participants expressed their appreciation for the training.
Thank you for the work done with love and sacrifice. May these teachings go farther. I have just discovered that the whole Bible is filled of God’s love and therefore, we must show it to others. Christians are really Christians if they are for God’s kingdom.
My prayer is that these teachings become a curriculum for Bible studies in our churches for strengthening believers for a good understanding of the expression of God’s love.
All these lessons converge towards only one goal: love. As God is love, and Jesus being God’s fullness, he is also love. The church being Jesus’ fullness must therefore be rooted in this love to play effectively her role in the community.
These teachings of the Strategy Samaritan are a light that helped me to criticize my worldview.
This training helped me to change my way of doing Bible studies, of understanding things and of seeing the world as God created it. Now, I understand that one of my major tasks is to invest in lives of others – that means to help the poor, the orphans, the widows; in other words, to support the weak ones
This conference has just given me a new vision on how to live according to the Gospel. That means it’s about putting in practice the Word God for the development of the church and the world around me in all aspects of life.
Pastors Jimmy Ekakola and François Matumona served as the organizing team. At the close, pastor Ekakola summed up the week:
The teachings reminded us of things we already knew, and gave us new discoveries as well. These teachings were a big blessing for us. We are convinced that they also will help us direct the church of Jesus Christ towards a new horizon. We know that the task is not easy to change our ways of doing things but as we had learned it, the development is a process that starts today with me and as the Holy Spirit guides us we will reach that point.
Vision Network Nepal (the DNA affiliate in Nepal) and Kanchanpur Christian Community (a group of churches in Kanchanpur district of western Nepal) jointly sponsored a Vision Conference in September in Mehendranager, Western Nepal. Some 45 pastors and leaders from various churches participated.
Madan Shah, Paul Rana, and Tek Rijal facilitated the sessions, which included The Transforming Story, The Church’s Role in Society, The Irreducible Minimum, Luke 2:52, The Three Relationships of Man, The ABCs of Culture, Kingdom Math, The Kingdom of God, and Seed Projects.
Vision Conference Seed Projects
Most of the participants said they never had such training. One pastor shared, in tears, that God had changed his heart through the conference and he wants to apply these principles in his ministry.
At the end of the conference, most of the participants returned home planning to implement the seed projects they had planned.
Meanwhile, a Vision Conference held in 2007 has been bearing fruit. Several conference alums in Tansen, Western Nepal began serving and counseling needy women and children in the community. In 2009, they launched the New Hope Counseling Center. Since then, they have been actively involved in the church and community, and in the local prison. They are demonstrating God’s love by providing counseling services and vocational training, visiting prisoners, and assisting those in need of health treatment.
These efforts recently bore fruit in the form of a three-day womens’ conference in Tansen, offering training in how to be a good wife and mother, and how to walk faithfully as a believer in Christ. Around sixty women participated in the training.
During these three days they shared the Love of Christ with a number of women, and several responded by praying to receive Christ and following Him in baptism.
Dental camp participants
Tansen Church, a local congregation seeking to practice biblical wholism, has implemented other seed projects, including a dental camp in Damkada, Palpa, Nepal, for blind and disabled people in the community. After a short time of songs and Bible sharing, 27 patients were treated by Dr. Kharel and Dr. Theo. Family Health Ministry, an extension of Tansen Church, provided the dental equipment and medicine. For their part, the patients prepared and served a meal to the medical team! As a result, six of the dental patients came to know the Lord and were baptized few months ago.
Ram Khilawan in his new home
Piparkoti Church is another congregation to see recent fruit from a seed project, this one involving a neeedy individual. Ram Khilawan, a Hindu from Lucknow, India, came to Nepal 40 years ago to do business. Later he decided to live in Nepal. He adopted a Tharu orphan girl and raised her as his daughter. When she married, he was once more alone. He tried to begin again in the color-selling business he had done before, but this time it did not go well. Eventually he was evicted from his small house. Too old to work, and with no one to care for him, Ram was was reduced to sleeping in the streets, often with nothing to eat.
Meanwhile, the members of Piparkoti Church had received training on biblical wholism. Someone in the church knew about Ram, and they decided God wanted them to reach out to him in love. They helped him build a small thatched-roof hut near the church. Now he is living there and cooking for himself. The local church is taking care of his needs. Touched by the love he saw, he gave his life to Christ and now attends church every week. This fruit has encouraged other members in the church to do more seed projects in their communities.
(This story was written from reports filed by Madan Shah, Paul Rana, Pastor Durga Pahari, Bishnu Regmi, and Pastor Durga Pahari.)
It started when David Roberts read LifeWork: A Biblical Theology for What You Do Every Day.
David, a missionary with Evangelical Mission Ministries based in Pharr, Texas, has distributed books in Mexico for 22 years, including some of Darrow Miller’s titles. David is also involved with a Christian school. Given that, he picked up on a name in Darrow’s book.
“I read about Elizabeth Youmans from LifeWork, a book that impacted me much,” David said. “We had been involved with our Christian school for 15 years, but felt we needed to improve the Christian philosophy behind our education.”
David contacted Elizabeth and eventually corresponded with Rick Lane, an AMO board member who is deeply involved in Christian education in Mexico. (AMO is a principle-based curriculum for children published by Chrysalis International, Inc. Go here to read more about this outstanding program.)
When Rick learned about David’s interest, he was happy to do whatever he could to accommodate David’s desire to bring training to his school. David was “well prepared to receive AMO training,” Rick said.
To David’s delight, Elizabeth and Rick modified their schedule of training sessions, moving the session scheduled for Ciudad Acuña to Aguascalientes, David’s city of over 800,000 in population in the center of Mexico.
Chrysalis sent trainers Jacqi Gough and Cristina Inchaustegui to give the course, entitled “The Rudiments of Christian Education.” Among the topics discussed were: the Biblical view of the child, educating the heart not just the mind, the AMO program, and Wellspring of Wonders.
Thirty- seven people attended, representing four Christian schools, two orphanages, a seminary, a church denomination and several individual churches.
“I believe that all were impressed with the difference between a truly Christian education and the typical government planned education,” David reports.
We are happy to forward the following announcement from our colleague, DNA Ideas Shaper, Vishal Mangalwadi.
America became the greatest nation on earth because the biblical church and family invented and promoted education that sought Truth – Veritas. On Wednesday and Thursday (Sept 21 & 22) the Christian Television Network (CTN) will broadcast two interviews with me on Herman and Sharron Show that explain how America can be transformed again.
Following the broadcast, both interviews will post at www.RevelationMovement.com. After that we will upload more videos explaining the theology of transforming a nation. We need friends who will help start a robust debate by sharing their insights and questions online.
The theology I am presenting is so practical that it will be misunderstood as a “strategy” if looked at superficially. However, once you have gone through the videos you will agree that, in fact, it is seeking to recover the Truth dimension of the Gospel that has slipped out of American evangelicalism and therefore from the academy and the nation itself.
As America loses Truth, it will inevitably lose freedom. As America collapses, Democracy and Capitalism will become dirty words, inseparable from corruption. It is easy to borrow two trillion dollars more. It will not be easy to repay. Debt, deficit, and unemployment will drive America into unjust war. The worldview that birthed the Just War Theory is already history. That is why at this very moment America is supporting Europe’s unjust war in Libya (notwithstanding the fact that Libya needed a change.) The 20th century arch-villain was the first Protestant nation in history – Germany. The arch-villain of the 21st century will be the most Protestant nation on earth – the United States of America! Unless, of course, the Lord grants us a Third Great Awakening. …
Looking forward to your prayers, continuing support, as well as proactive response at www.RevelationMovement.com
– Vishal Mangalwadi
Kuala Lumpur skyline at night
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia will be the site for the first-ever DNA Asia Regional Forum, which is scheduled for May 17-21. The event is intended to convene DNA champions, trainers, practitioners and partners throughout Asia, as well as those interested in becoming involved. An information and registration website is available here.
The event will be preceded by a two-day Vision Conference for those who would like to experience the messages that are at the core of the DNA movement. Ben Wong (China) and Raaj Mondol (India) will facilitate the Vision Conference.
The Asia Regional Forum is being hosted by the DNA Asia Regional Steering Committee. Members are Ben Wong (China), Bishnu Regmi (Nepal), Raaj Mondol (India), Rey Taniajura (Philippines), Robin Steen (Thailand). Anna Ho serves as coordinator for the Asia Region.
Two years ago the first-ever Vision Conference in this two-island nation was held on Trinidad, the larger of the two islands. Recently, Tobago joined the list of host nations when Darrow Miller and Bob Moffitt accompanied Clifton Charles to facilitate a shortened Vision Conference.
Rev. Ramlakhan Ramdial, Senior Pastor of the Full Gospel Tabernacle, Tobago, and Chair of Tobago Pastors’ & Ministers’ Fellowship, chaired the planning committee which brought the three-day training event to the island. The Lambeau Church of God hosted the event January 20-22, 2011.
Rev. Dr. Clifton Charles, Senior Pastor of the Worldwide Church of God, planned and hosted the earlier five-day vision conference and joined Bob and Darrow as a presenter at this event.
Clifton and Pearl Charles
Seventy-five participants, representing 25 local churches, attended the sessions. Pastors and church leaders were joined by several leaders from various spheres of society, including officials from Health and Social Services, TV Channel 5, and the Tobago House of Assembly.
“What was taught in the Conference was a reinforcement for my ongoing projects that I am doing in my ministry,” one pastor said by way of appreciation. “It served as a booster.”
“God gave me a vision and mission for the ministry,” said another, “and I told God that it was too big for me to even begin to fulfill and that I did not know where to start. Then there was Vision Conference 2011 to show me the way forward. Very timely, appropriate and confirmation of [the need to change] mindsets that were not Biblical but cultural.”
The success of the event was attributed in part to the thorough planning, as indicated in the work of multiple committees, one each for finance, marketing, and site and maintenance issues. Volunteers also saw to the registration and other needs.
Organizers now look forward to the opportunity to advise, help, and strengthen pastors in the projects they are already undertaking. One Seed Project includes the participation of all pastors and church members toward the development and operation of a warehouse distribution center.
– Story developed from a report filed by Agnes L. Williams, conference registrar.
We’ve recently updated the calendar on our website so that it will be automatically updated as soon as we hear of new events. It’s currently updated until November 2010. See if there’s any upcoming events in your area by clicking here!
Also available on that page is a PDF with all of the details of upcoming events, listed by region. Please feel free to download and email it to anyone you think may be interested.
Come & Listen: a chronicle of the DNA global movement 