This is the transcript of Restitutio episode 562: Kingdom Seminar 1: Why Should You Care with Sean Finnegan

This transcript was auto-generated and only approximates the contents of this episode.

Transcript

00:08
Hey there, I'm Sean Finnegan. And you are listening to Restitutio podcast that seeks to recover authentic Christianity and live it out today.

00:24
Last December, my first ever published book came out called Kingdom Journey.

00:29
Recently I recorded a seminar on the Kingdom at a church in South Carolina. Based on the book that I will be playing out here over the next 5 weeks. In this seminar, I highlight some of the key points in my book and also add in some new content. Today we're going to start by asking the question why should I care about the Kingdom?

00:49
God in what follows, I make the case that we should care because Jesus said to prioritize the Kingdom and because he preached it as gospel. Whether you've long believed in God's Kingdom coming to earth at Christ's return, or you're new to it, I hope this message will encourage and inspire you to share what you know.

01:09
With others here now is Episode 562 Kingdom Seminar part one. Why should you?

01:16
Care.

01:24
My message is entitled the Kingdom of God. Why you should care.

01:30
Why should you care about the Kingdom of God? Why is this important? I'd like to begin by quoting Jesus to answer this question, not to leave you in too much suspense. And that is in Matthew 633. If I could get that up, it says, but seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

01:51
Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness. So the reason why you should care.

01:59
About the Kingdom of God is because Jesus said you should seek it first.

02:03
Amen. Alright, I'm going to go sit down. No, I'm just kidding. But that's really the main point. You know, if Jesus says to seek it second, I would say you should still care. But he said seek it first, which is an even stronger statement. And so I think we should care about the Kingdom of God because Jesus says to care about it.

02:24
And I realize that I'm going to be speaking with you. Those of you who are able to make it tonight and later this week, a number of times. So I thought it might be good just to sort of introduce myself. I don't know everyone here and tell my story a little bit. Today my parents were in an organization called the Way International.

02:45
And in that Biblical Unitarian ministry, they taught that dead people.

02:53
Are not alive. That was kind of one of their slogans. The dead are not alive. It sounds kind of like an obvious statement, which I think is why they went with it. But yeah, so they believed that dead people were awaiting the resurrection. And I don't know if this was their official doctrine or if this is just how I learned it as a little kid, but.

03:14
What we believed is that Jesus was coming back to resurrect the dead and bring us to heaven. That's how I grew up. It's kind of a strange hybrid belief and I don't know of any other groups that teach that.

03:29
But I was raised believing that heaven was my ultimate destination. If things went well for me, that that's where I would be.

03:42
And then something interesting happened to my parents. My dad was a lead pastor, founding pastor, and a number of our churches that were kind of a network throughout the state of New York, all left the way international in the 1980s. At the same time, and.

04:03
I won't go into the details. I was just a little kid. What did I know? Anyhow? All I know is that things for us were basically still the.

04:09
Same we still.

04:11
Fellowship with the same people saw them at big events and we had mostly house churches in those days in the 1980s. But for me it was just sort of like, OK, whatever. Nothing really changed, but.

04:22
The big exciting shift is that, having left the denomination.

04:29
We were free to practice the Berean exercise. You know, the Berean exercise in Act 1711. The Bereans were so noble because they compared what they heard to Scripture. They searched the scriptures daily to see if it was true or not. And so we started doing this as a community. And so many churches.

04:49
Especially Protestant churches, we have this slogan. Sola scriptura. Have you heard that?

04:57
Some of you may have heard of it. It's kind of a snobby term, I guess, or intellectual term. It's a Latin phrase. It means scripture alone, and it's the idea that the Bible is our authority for what we believe, which all Protestants more or less say they agree to, that as a as an idea for Catholics, it's a little more complicated.

05:18
We're not going to get into that, but this idea of sola scriptura, so many churches would say yes, I believe in sola scriptura. I believe that Scripture alone is my authority for.

05:26
Truth. But in practice, if you really go to these churches, what you'll find is that there's a statement of faith that was passed down from year to year, tradition to tradition, century after century, and usually the first thing on that statement of faith is what.

05:45
Isn't that something? So here we have many of these different churches from different denominations and they say, oh, no scripture alone is my God. And yet the first thing on their statement of faith is the doctrine of the Trinity, which, you know, you can't find in Scripture.

05:59
Not just the word, but even the idea. It's just not explained anywhere, so you have to bring that to the scripture. It's not present within it anyhow. So we started really asking questions. We were pretty sure.

06:13
That the way was wrong about some things we just didn't know which things were wrong and which things were right.

06:21
So a number of the different ministers in our area, different pastors, they started searching the scriptures daily and they started asking well, is this thing that we believe this doctrine or this practice, is this found in the Bible or is this just some sort of tradition we've inherited from the denomination that we're no longer?

06:39
A part of.

06:40
So what an exciting time, right? And they started changing their beliefs. And one of our pastors came across a very cleverly titled book.

06:49
Our fathers who aren't in heaven.

06:52
And see, we already believed that anyhow. So we were on board with our fathers not being in heaven. Of course. You know the Lord's prayer. Our father who art in heaven. This is our fathers who aren't in heaven. Very clever by Anthony Buzzard. And he started reading that book. This is a a pastor out in Syracuse, NY, about 2 1/2 hours West of.

07:11
Where I live.

07:13
And he was just like, you know, I think this guy's right. This Kingdom of God idea.

07:18
I think it's really what the Bible is talking about and not heaven. And so he spoke to my father and the number of the other pass and they all agreed, just unbelievable. They all agreed a network of five or six different communities throughout the state of New York all agreed. You know what? We're going to stop believing in heaven and we're going to start believing in the Kingdom of God.

07:39
Coming on Earth instead, and this all happened when I was fairly young, I mean, I wasn't. I didn't play any significant role in it. I was just sort of along for the ride like kids are. And it was really, really interesting.

07:53
One of the things I mentioned in the book is how shocked I was when they actually unveiled this new belief to us. I was a teenager and I was just like, no, you can't. You can't change that. We have too many songs about going to heaven.

08:11
What are we?

08:11
Gonna just, like, stop singing half of our, like, think about it. There's just a lot of heaven songs.

08:16
Out there.

08:17
And I was thinking about the lyrics to some of our songs we had. We had a song. What if it were today, talked about going to heaven and heaven, glory if I'm not wrong, there was another one. This world is not my home. I'm just a passing through. My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue. Heaven beckons me from or.

08:37
Angels beckon me from heaven's Golden Shore and I can't feel at home in this world anymore. Have you heard that song?

08:45
No, probably not. Well, we loved it. We sang it. It had kind of a country beat to it. So it was like a little upbeat of a song and then it was this idea that this world is not our home. That heavens, our home. So I was scandalized as a teenager, young teenager, learning this. I was just like, wow, this is just really weird. But but I I couldn't find.

09:05
A good verse in the Bible to teach that we were going to heaven.

09:11
And so I I just like eventually.

09:13
Really.

09:14
Went along with it and said OK, well, this is probably right and the most incredible thing it did for us. Well, there were lots of incredible things. But one of the most incredible things it did for us is it gave us the Old Testament.

09:28
We didn't really read the Old Testament.

09:31
Because it was about the Jews and about the land.

09:35
What do we care about that? We're going to heaven.

09:37
And we're not Jewish. So like what?

09:40
We we didn't really read the Old Testament. We didn't really get into the prophets, you know, they were interesting, I suppose. But once we learned about the Kingdom of God, we started to read the Old Testament. We started to say to ourselves, wait, I've been grafted in to this olive tree of faith. These promises apply to me as well. And to Christians today as well. It's not just about.

10:01
Israel it's also about those who, through Christ, have become part of the Israel of God.

10:09
Reading the Old Testament was suddenly like exciting and our our group started reading the Old Testament like wow, look at all this stuff in here. Like we we just kind of focused on the Epistles of Paul before that. That was part of our tradition. And we got so much more out of the Bible. So when I turned 19, I was really taking my faith seriously. And I.

10:25
Was in school.

10:26
And I started to to have this idea that, you know, really what I want to do.

10:30
Is I want to learn more about the Bible. I want to learn about these things, but I didn't know where to go or what to do. I hadn't heard of the Atlanta Bible College yet, so it took it a little bit and I and I don't want to go into too much depth of my whole entire story. Every little nitty gritty detail, but I'll say this that.

10:48
At 23 years old, my wife and I were already married. We already had our bachelors degrees. We went to the Atlanta Bible College to study, and I studied under. Certainly Anthony Buzzard was there. But also Joe Martin and Tim Jones. I saw somewhere around here he was. He was the president and Dustin Smith was a fellow student.

11:08
At the time.

11:09
You know, it was just so exciting, Alva.

11:11
Offer was one of my teachers. He came in and did the systematic theology class and clapped and danced and had all that Huffer energy that those of you who knew him would would know what I'm talking about. It was a great experience because I learned so much about the Kingdom of God and and what it's going to be like. And I really dug into the.

11:31
Bible and ended up after that going back home to be an assistant pastor to my dad.

11:38
And I worked at the church back home for about four years, and then I really felt God calling me to go into a master's program, and I applied to a number of different places and ended up at Boston University, where I just really focused on.

11:58
Church history.

11:59
Boston University is a very liberal school. It's hard to study Bible there because they're really more interested in slicing and dicing it and fussing about authorship and dating subjects that I'm not terribly interested in. And so instead of focusing on Bible, which I I feel like I had really gotten my foundation at the Atlanta Bible College.

12:19
Focused on church history, which I didn't know that much about, and I was really interested in and what I got to do at Boston University my last semester was to write a thesis on the question of what happened to the Kingdom.

12:35
Of.

12:35
God and initially.

12:38
I was asking the question well. It seems like everybody I know believes in heaven outside of our little group or the Church of God. Maybe a couple of other groups, but like most Christians believe in heaven, why is it like this? That was my question. Why is it like this? Why does everybody talk about going to heaven at a funeral?

12:58
Instead of being asleep until the resurrection to enter the Kingdom.

13:03
And I got to research that under the.

13:08
Mentorship of a professor there, and I really asked the question what were the early Christians reasons?

13:16
To reject the Kingdom of God like, why didn't they like it? Because we know it was there, like all the New Testament scholars would tell you that it's like totally non controversial in the Academy that the Kingdom is the goal that Jesus preached and the apostles. So what happened? So that's what I worked on. And of course the book chronicles.

13:35
And my journey, my Kingdom, journey of learning all of this, and I won't go into all the details. And if you actually make it to chapter 8, where I talk about the philosophy stuff, God bless you. You should. You should get like a Gold Star or something. But the the fact of the matter is that.

13:52
The Kingdom of God is the original teaching of the Bible. It's the original teaching of the Bible and.

14:02
It matters because Jesus says it matters.

14:06
And what I was able to do in my research on the subject and through my life experience with it, was to see, you know, this really helps me as a Christian in so many different ways that I look forward to sharing with you tonight and throughout the week. But if we could go to the next slide, I, I'd like to look at another couple of verses on the question, why should.

14:25
You care about the Kingdom of God.

14:28
One of those is Matthew 2414, in which Jesus says this gospel of the Kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. That particular phrase, gospel of the Kingdom, is something that I think is really interesting and important.

14:47
Gospel is not just a genre of Christian.

14:50
Music.

14:51
Although it is a genre of Christian music gospel, a lot of times gets translated. Good news, which in my opinion and kind of waters it down because you know, hearing your favorite football team won is also good news, but it's not going to save your soul, right? It's not going to give you eternal life. Although some people act like that. The gospel that Jesus preached and that Jesus said.

15:13
Would continue to go and that the end of the world would not happen until this gospel of the Kingdom would be preached as a testimony to.

15:21
All nations, he called the gospel message, the Gospel of the Kingdom, which tells me that the Kingdom message is part of our evangelism. The is the Evangel, the Evangelion, the, the, the message that we preach to others. The message that we need to believe ourselves. And Jesus says it's relevant.

15:42
Until the end, because until everyone hears this message about the Kingdom of God.

15:48
The end will not come.

15:50
Or how did he say then the end will come? He said it in a positive sense. Let's look at another verse here Acts 812, which is a really, really helpful verse for this subject, it says. But when they believed Philip, who was proclaiming the gospel about the Kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized.

16:10
Both men and women. So this is another important verse about the Kingdom of God being gospel. Now during the Ministry of Christ, he preached the Kingdom, preached the Kingdom, preached the Kingdom.

16:22
After he died and was raised from the dead and ascended into heaven, the apostles went forth with a message and their message was.

16:29
Bigger than the message Jesus preached because it wasn't just about the Kingdom of God, it was also about the name of Jesus Christ. It was both the gospel about the Kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ. So there these are two aspects of the gospel message that they preached from town to town.

16:50
And we see here that as Philip is preaching to the Samaritans, which is just wildly exciting to see that Christians were the 1st.

16:57
The ones who were breaking across racial boundaries and being inclusive and loving people that nobody else loved. You know what a legacy we have going all the way back to the 1st century of doing this, something to be proud of. But as Philip is preaching to those Samaritans, they're hearing about the Kingdom of God. They're hearing about Jesus Christ.

17:17
And by the name of Jesus Christ, I take that to mean not just that this is like a magical name like abracadabra, but that Jesus Christ is the one who died for our sins.

17:29
The one God raised from the dead and the one who's coming back to establish the Kingdom. You know all of that within the name of Jesus Christ. And so the Kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ. They're preaching this and people are getting baptized. Both men and women. So these are my just a couple of my reasons. I have more reasons, but I don't want to overbear you and Andy.

17:51
That I only had two hours, so I have to just do what I can in this short message here, which is to say, look the Kingdom you should care about the Kingdom. Because first of all, Jesus said.

18:02
Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and secondly because his gospel, the Kingdom, is gospel, which means that when you, as a faithful Christian, as a disciple of Christ, share your faith with others.

18:16
That you tell about the Kingdom of God as part of that evangelism. As part of that gospel presentation.

18:24
Now, as I said before, I believe Christianity has been corrupted and I think the best way to illustrate this is to show you a picture of a cuckoo bird. If you heard of a cuckoo bird, I've got a a little picture of it up on the slide here. Yeah, there it is. That's the European common cuckoo. And so the common cuckoo practices what's called.

18:44
Crude parasitism.

18:47
And I just want to describe this to you because I think it's really relevant. Do we have any like bird watchers in the room, people that know about birds and are interested? No. Well, this would be very educational for you.

18:58
Then.

19:01
I'm not much of a bird guy myself, but I think this is just so fascinating and tragic. Honestly, it breaks my heart. It really does.

19:08
And I'm not really like a touchy feely animal guy, but even me, even my cold, hard New York heart is broken by the cuckoo birds practice. So the female cuckoo observes potential host nests.

19:23
Often those of smaller birds like Reed warblers or dunnocks.

19:28
Can you imagine that? So you're think about this cuckoo bird and and it's a female and she wants to lay an egg and she wants to have kids. And instead of building her own nest and worrying about getting everything ready, she starts looking at other birds nests, especially smaller birds that she could probably beat up in a street fight. If birds had a tree.

19:47
To fight so she looks for these nests that are being actively built and contained freshly laid eggs, the cuckoo times, her egg laying to match the host birds laying schedule. She typically waits until the host bird is temporarily away from the nest, and then she swoops in and then just a couple of seconds.

20:07
Lays an egg and then kicks out one of the eggs is already there so that the host bird won't realize a new egg has been put into the nest. That's diabolical, right?

20:24
The cuckoo removes one or more of the host eggs to reduce the chances of the host noticing the foreign egg. The host bird incubates the cuckoo egg along with its own.

20:35
Cuckoo eggs often have a shorter incubation period, so the cuckoo chick hatches first.

20:42
The newly hatched cuckoo chick pushes the hosts eggs or chicks out of the nest, ensuring it receives all the food and care from the unsuspecting host parents.

20:56
The host bird continues to feed and care for the cuckoo chick, often not aware that it is not their own offspring. We've got another picture here, so that's a a Reed warbler feeding a baby cuckoo chick, which is so ridiculously massive that it fills the entire nest.

21:17
And doesn't look anything like the parents that's feeding, like working herself to death to feed this beast of a child that she thinks she has. This mutant child, which is not even of her.

21:32
It's from a foreign invader.

21:35
This is that just break your heart and just just just to see this, this this like, really, really sneaky way of not having to invest in your young.

21:48
The cuckoos can reproduce without investing in raising their young, placing the burden entirely on the host species. Why am I talking about birds and cuckoos?

21:59
I'm a clock salesman. No, I'm not a clock salesman. Uh, it's because I'm convinced that the philosopher Plato has laid an egg in the Christian nest.

22:12
And instead of spotting that foreign egg and saying this weird heaven idea doesn't look like the other eggs in the nest, what did we do as Christians? Ohh. We protected it, and we cared for it, and we incubated it. And then finally, when it hatched it, it gobbled up all the resources and kicked out the other eggs and the other chicks.

22:33
The other people who believed in the old fashioned biblical Kingdom of God, Yep, got kicked out of Christianity, and that foreign invader grew and became.

22:45
Game.

22:46
Our identity as Christians so that most Christians today, if you say, well, why do you believe in this heaven business? They would say to you how dare you question our faith, our tradition, our hallowed belief in this heaven idea.

23:03
Instead of spotting the fraud, we nurtured it and protected it and allowed it to grow strong and destroy the competition, and I'm here to say enough.

23:12
That's enough for that.

23:15
And if you want to, if you want to know the story of of how Plato's Middle Platonism mutated into Neoplatonism and then infiltrated Christianity via Philo and origin through the work of Augustine and Jerome, read the book.

23:32
OK, but let's put it this way. It is a clearly documentable thing that this foreign idea came in and has invaded Christianity.

23:42
And and the the most tragic thing, as I said before, is this poor little bird that's feeding this big fat bird and running herself ragged trying to defend this idea, which is us as Christians today, I believe.

23:57
There's still so much work to be done. I I hope you can come to our meeting tonight. 7:00 tonight and throughout the week. I want to equip you to know the biblical case for the Kingdom. I want to share with you the key verses you can use to strengthen your own faith, but then also share it with others. And I want to talk to you about how the Kingdom.

24:17
Should affect your life now.

24:19
And I want to recruit you as Kingdom ambassadors to carry the torch of the Kingdom in this generation.

24:28
The fact is that the situation is dire. Pew Research surveyed 6485 Americans in 2021 about the afterlife. I just love facts.

24:40
I just love statistics and facts. My first degree was science, so maybe that's why, but I want to show you this the the first question they asked is, is there an afterlife?

24:51
And the options they gave were heaven, hell, heaven and hell neither. But I believe in an afterlife.

25:01
Neither, and I don't believe in an afterlife. And last of all, I don't have an answer. So what do US adults believe in? 61% believe heaven and hell. Not surprising there, 17% say neither. I don't believe in an afterlife. This is as of 2021, so it's fairly recent.

25:19
Survey 13% believe in heaven only. These are like the idealist friends you have that just think everybody's good and and you know everyone's gonna go to. There is no hell. It's just oh, it's just cotton candy and blue skies.

25:33
Lovely people, lovely people. 7% believe neither. But I believe in an afterlife, 1% said I don't have an answer and 1% said hell, only so I I think that I'm with the 7%.

25:47
There when I did the survey, it said you agree with 7% of US adults. So that's to say that 93% of Americans in 2021.

26:00
Disagree with what we believe.

26:03
93% that's pretty. That's a pretty staggering thought, right. And then we drill down.

26:09
To that, let's look at the next slide.

26:12
They asked of those who believe in the afterlife but not heaven or hell, they said the afterlife is where, 21% said the spirit lives on. 17% said you will be reincarnated.

26:26
11% say you experience no suffering.

26:30
That sounds good. That's compatible with the Kingdom idea. So you don't believe in heaven and hell, but you do believe in an afterlife and it's where you have no more suffering. I mean, that's not exactly what we're trying to say, but it's it's compatible. And then 8% you rejoin the universe. I what does that even mean? I have no idea.

26:50
And then 4% you are given a chance to learn and grow.

26:54
That's pretty good. I'll take that. It's not quite the Kingdom of God, but it's compatible with it. So if we add up the 4% and the what was it 11%? The people that say no suffering and the people that say you can continue to learn and grow, you get 15% of 7%.

27:11
Which is another way to say 1% hashtag math and if that's the case, if that's the case?

27:20
Than 99% of people in the United States do not believe in the Kingdom of God.

27:26
I I don't know for sure because this survey is not really set up to ask the kind of question that I'm asking.

27:32
But whatever it is, it's incredibly low.

27:35
And I know that many of you have believed in this your entire lives, and because of that, you say to yourself, ohh well, it's obvious it's not obvious.

27:46
Go to a funeral for somebody in a different church.

27:52
It's not obvious.

27:55
And so I think this is something that is really important and I know I keep giving you bad news. I just want to make it a little worse first before concluding, OK, it's even worse than that. It's not just America. And it's not just Christians that are that, that get this thing wrong. Think about ancient belief systems like the Norse myths.

28:17
Or Zoroastrianism, or even just like Islam or modern Judaism, or Daoists, or Buddhists or Hindus. You know what they all believe.

28:29
They all believe that when you die, you don't really die. You really go living on in some other way.

28:34
Everybody believes that not just the Greek philosophers like Plato.

28:39
Everybody seems to believe that and yet.

28:43
I'm with Jesus.

28:45
Jesus said blessed are the meek, they shall what?

28:49
Inherit the earth, Jesus said blessed are the meek. They shall inherit the earth. That's what he said. I'm with Jesus. Jesus said your Kingdom come. Your will be done. On what earth as it is in heaven. That's what he said.

29:06
Jesus, he heard the news about Lazarus, his friend who had died and said Lazarus is asleep and I go to work.

29:12
With him.

29:13
That's what Jesus said. Jesus said he is asleep. We know he was dead. Jesus said he was asleep and I go to wake him. That's what Jesus said. I'm with Jesus. I'm gonna stick with Jesus on this. I know all the different religions are saying. Ohh no, Sean, don't be naive in order to accommodate the afterlife, you have to have an immortal soul. OK, I know that's what you believe, but I'm with Jesus.

29:34
On this.

29:35
I'm with Jesus.

29:37
Who? When he went to raise Lazarus from the dead.

29:42
And he said, Lazarus, come forth. You remember this, he said, Lazarus come forth and Lazarus came out.

29:48
Just imagine for a moment that heaven is really where people go when they die.

29:55
If that were the case, Lazarus comes out and he says to Jesus.

30:00
You know, I was having a really good time in heaven.

30:04
How dare you?

30:06
How dare you bring me back to this messed up world with all these problems?

30:12
Resurrection is not even the good news.

30:15
If heaven is what happens when we die?

30:20
Jesus said an hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear the son of man's voice.

30:27
He does not say all whose bodies are in their graves.

30:32
Jesus said once again, this is John 528 and hours coming when all who are in their graves will hear the son of man's voice.

30:41
That's what Jesus said. I'm with Jesus. I think you should be with Jesus. And I know it's not a popular idea in Christianity Today, but So what? Popularity is no guarantee for truth. Just look at the mullet in the 1980s.

30:59
Just because it was popular and I know like some people are rocking it again. And if you are, I'm not condemning you, OK?

31:06
You gotta you gotta be courageous. And and I get it. But the majority of us have looked back on the mullet of the 1980s and said, you know, it was popular, but it, you know, probably was just a bad idea.

31:20
I only say that because I don't see a lot.

31:21
In the.

31:22
Room right now, if you have like all the guys were sitting here in mullets, I wouldn't have said that.

31:29
I want to believe something because it's true, not because it not. It's nice. If it's popular too, but I want to believe it because it's true and I believe the Kingdom of God is true and because that is the.

31:38
Case.

31:40
I believe you should care.

31:41
It.

31:49
Well, that brings Part 1 to a close for today. Why should you care about the Kingdom of God? I hope you agree that it is something of great importance and would love to hear your thoughts and feedback, comments and questions on restitutio.org find Episode 562 Kingdom seminar one why should you care?

32:09
And leave your feedback there on our previous episode, 561 United Kingdom UCA conference review with Daisy Jones and Mark Cain, Daisy wrote in on YouTube saying I forgot to say one weird thing did happen during Doctor Smith's presentation. A guy stood outside the main hall.

32:28
Manically making the sign of the cross multiple times in succession.

32:33
I was about to call security until I realized we didn't have any. I was also in charge of the clicker for Doctor Smith's slides, which I was more concerned about, so I didn't have the opportunity to do anything either. I could only pray in my head for him to be peaceful or leave.

32:52
I didn't see him after that, so he must have left the building in a hurry.

32:57
Well, Daisy, honestly, I too have felt the overwhelming compulsion to start crossing myself multiple times in succession when listening to Doctor Smiths presentation. No, I'm just kidding. It's hysterical. What was that guy thinking? I have no idea what was going on there, but thanks for sharing that little story. I mean, there are always.

33:18
Strange people that can infiltrate and disrupt meetings, and it is really helpful to have people posted in the back of the room to deal with disruptors and those who would.

33:32
Court the good work that we're doing for the Lord in our time, so thanks for sharing that story. Always fascinating to hear from you, Daisy. Also Suzanne wrote in on the rest of studio website saying loved hearing Daisy and Mark talking about the conference. It was certainly a terrific conference and the result of the tremendous.

33:52
Effort of Daisy and Josh and many others to put it on their dedication to the faith, to Unitarianism, and to the global brother Sisterhood, shines a bright light.

34:03
I was so inspired by the event and the lively fellowshipping among so many of varying backgrounds and even beliefs.

34:11
There was a strong spirit of love and warmth, and especially love for God. I will do all I can to attend and help with the next conference, even if I have to swim across the Atlantic to get there. Just kidding. I'll continue praying. God grows this effort and next years we'll see the fruit from this year's conference.

34:32
I would encourage Unitarians from the US to go if they can support the European movement and reach across the pond in friendship and unity. Well, thanks for that glowing endorsement, Suzanne, who also attended the event. Obviously, I have certain knowledge that I'm not sure if I'm allowed to share or not, but.

34:52
So so I will just leave this with you as a unconfirmed possibility.

34:58
That there is going to be another converge. I don't know if any of you had heard of converge or attended it. There's only ever been one before this. It was in 2019 and we had hundreds of people come to it from so many different backgrounds and that was actually the launching point for the UCLA.

35:18
I do remember going up and announcing that on stage.

35:21
Age and people are like, well, that it I I don't know what that is. And now of course the UCA has grown to thousands of people all around the world in dozens of countries. And if you want to take a look at the incredible spread of the UCA, take a look at Unitarian Christian alliance.org on your computer or on your phone. Whatever.

35:43
And take a look at the map and all the different people who have put themselves on that map to basically just raise their hand and say.

35:51
I agree. I am also a Unitarian Christian. I also would like to be contacted and emailed by others in my area who are interested in Bible study and encouragement in coming to my church or starting a church. So that's exciting. But yes, five years later.

36:10
I have heard from Jerry Warwell that he is organizing another converge for about a year from now. I think next.

36:21
So I can't say much more about it and I don't know how much trouble I'm going to get in for hinting at this even in this episode, but who even listens to the very end of these? So I feel like a little more freedom than the material at the beginning of the episode, which I carefully curate to make sure it sounds good. And it's not raw stream of content.

36:40
Business. But if you are outside the US?

36:45
This would be a major opportunity to sort of reverse the reverse. What just happened at this UK conference and bring a lot of brothers and sisters over to the US to attend this event probably will be in Eastern Ohio like it was last time, probably at the same place, which is in the Cleveland area.

37:06
Of Ohio not in Cleveland itself, but just outside of.

37:08
City and just a massive event.

37:12
It brings together a lot of different groups from the Unitarian Christian world for more of a worship kind of experience. We have a lot of music it converge, sermons from different leaders in different organizations, and lots of free time for people to get to know each other and and a full kids.

37:32
Program, so stay tuned for that. That'll be next August, I believe, unless something changes on that.

37:40
As for this year, I can't wait to see you all at Kingdom Fest in New York. That's our big event of the year in September and September 13th to the 15th at my home Church living Hope Community Church. And we've got a guest speaker David Sowers, coming in from.

38:00
Pennsylvania. And he and his wife, dawn, are.

38:03
Are.

38:04
Excellent evangelists who have much, much experience and they're going to be sharing or at least David is, I don't know if Don is going to share as well, but the sours are coming and.

38:14
They're going to to.

38:15
Be be and you're going to be able to meet them if you attend Kingdom Fest and you can learn about their ministry and what they're doing. And of course I'm going to be speaking.

38:24
As well as a number of others, our theme is radiate, so we're looking at how God is light and how.

38:29
Christ embodied God's light as the light of the world and how we are called to do the same in anticipation of the coming day, when the Kingdom of light comes to this earth. So if you're interested in that, why not come over to New York or up or down, depending on if you're a Canadian or you live in the South or in the West?

38:51
Or wherever it is you live, you can find out more information at ldim.org and we have registration up there. The event is totally free. If you want the meal package, I think it's like 60 bucks, which covers I think, lunch and dinner meals during the weekend, so.

39:07
So come if you can. If not, then I would love to see you at Little Rock AR for the UCLA conference happening October 17th to the 20th. And I have some really good news there. I have heard back from the Blind Review Committee of the UCLA. I submitted a paper.

39:27
And they have accepted it. So I'm definitely going to be presenting at the conference the Unitarian Christian Lions Conference 2024. And my topic is Isaiah 96 explained.

39:41
And this was just such a cool opportunity to do exegesis on an Old Testament text, getting into the Hebrew and really delving deeply into the scholarship right from the 1800s up to today on Isaiah 9/6.

39:59
From a number of different sources.

40:02
So I'll be posting that paper on restitutio.org at some point and then I'll be presenting on it at the Unitarian Christian Alliance Conference. And I hope I hope to see some of you there. And then in November, I'm heading over to the Philippines and.

40:22
Going.

40:22
Would be spending some time with some brothers and sisters there and Manila and Quezon City and also in Davao City in in Mindanao. So that would be awesome. And then heading right from there to the UCA conference in New Zealand for for their historic.

40:42
Inaugural events. Looking forward to seeing all the Saints there as well, so.

40:47
So I hope to see you somewhere. If you can make it to one of these events, it would be awesome to meet you and to.

40:54
To and to conspire together. How we can expand this movement that we're a part of and to spread it far and wide throughout the world. Well, thanks everyone for tuning in. If you'd like to support this ministry, you can do that at restitutio.org. We've got a little donate button there. Thanks to those of you who are donating.

41:14
It really does help, especially with travel expenses and expenses for purchasing resources as well as just like monthly reoccurring costs of having a podcast and a website and so forth. So thanks everybody. I'll catch you next week and remember the truth has nothing to fear.