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3/1/2010
Darrow was the keynote speaker at the annual Supernatural Marketplace Conference at Vineyard Community Church in Laguna Niguel, CA, January 21-23, a conference which focuses on encouraging, equipping and engaging marketplace leaders to strategically advance God’s Kingdom through their vocations. Darrow spoke at two of the four main sessions and shared in a morning breakout session with about 20 students and alumni of the church’s small ministry school. There were 193 participants, most of them members of the church. They included church staff, students of the ministry school and a few leaders of small development and mission organizations. Attendees included a top real estate executive and business owner, a venture capital investment manager, small business owners, educators, mothers, artists, and writers. In the opening session the senior pastor interviewed several people involved in marketplace ministry. One testimony mentioned how Darrow’s recent book LifeWork: A Biblical Theology for What You Do Every Day had challenged him to integrate business and ministry in new ways. He shared about how his company was having difficulty paying workers, yet based on the principles in LifeWork the partners decided to give each worker a $2/hour raise, and also began allocating a percentage of their profits towards local church and neighborhood ministries on Chicago’s south side. Darrow then spoke for nearly two hours on the topic of Lifework. In the ministry school he shared his journey and answered questions. He also preached The Transforming Story at the two Sunday morning services.All the messages were very positively received. Many of the women were impacted by Darrow’s teaching on the role of women in building healthy cultures, and copies of Nurturing the Nations sold out. Most of the women in the ministry school are reading Nurturing the Nations and meeting weekly to discuss it. Darrow and DNA US board member Bob Evans (who attends Vineyard Community Church) also had several one-on-one meetings around meals, including a wonderful dinner with the president and board member of “Growers First” – a Christian ministry helping to empower various commodity farmers (coffee in particular) by helping them maximize their resources and make a positive impact on their communities. These leaders had been impacted by our small book, The Forest in the Seed . Over $1000 of books were sold at this event. - Submitted by DNA board member Bob Evans
Link to this individual blog entry: http://www.disciplenations.org/dna-news/stay-connect-with-the-dna/darrow-speaks-at-supernatural-marketplace-conference-in-laguna-niguel-ca#OJYxsSLh95epcHPInbXZsQ or click here
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2/2/2010
As we launch into 2010, here are a few of the things we'll be working on: In February we will officially release a newly revised Bible study titled Servanthood: The Calling of Every Christian by Darrow Miller We will complete and release a new resource titled Thirteen Transforming Truths which focuses on key elements of a biblical worldview that histically have fostered dramatic social and cultural transformation. Darrow will continue researching and writing his next book (working title: "The Great Commission") which will focus on a wholistic understanding of Christ's Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20) and the urgent need for the church to regain a correct understanding of its mission in light of the threat from militant Islam and postmodernism. The book will be published by YWAM Publishing and is tentatively set for release in 2012. Together with Vishal Mangalwadi and others, we are exploring an exciting, multi-year project to develop a college-level curriculum in Biblical nation-building to be offered through existing Christian universities online with local churches worldwide serving as extension centers. The DNA and Chrysalis Int'l are jointly developing a Bible study/resource on the role of families and parenting in discipling nations, which, Lord willing, will be completed and released before year-end. We are exploring with Churches Together a joint US-Africa church training initiative as a pre-requisite for facilitating church-to-church partnerships. We plan to facilitate Vision Conferences in Peru in March, and Monday Church/LifeWork workshops in Phoenix (April), Bogota, Colombia (June), Kampala, Uganda (June), Puerto Rico (October), and Joao Pessoa, Brazil (November). We will also faciliate a "Nurturing the Nations " workshop in Guadalajura, Mexico in May. Darrow will be a featured speaker at the Christian and Missonary Alliance pastors conference in Ecuador (June) and at the Wilberforce Academy's inagural conference in Minneapolis in September. Other speaking and teaching events are still being confirmed. We will post updates on progress on these and other activities as the year progresses.
Link to this individual blog entry: http://www.disciplenations.org/dna-news/stay-connect-with-the-dna/upcoming-events-and-priorities-for-2010#EgSxDvyD69MvGq7MBLEJPg or click here
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1/27/2010
The Disciple Nations Alliance was invited to speak at the Covenant Community Church annual missions conference, January 9-10 in Scottsdale, Arizona. The theme of the event was "Unleashing the Church to Change the World." Darrow spoke on The Power of Story and The Transforming Story , while Scott spoke on God's Remarkable Plan for the Nations and Hope for Africa . Covenant Community has approximately 300 regular attenders and has a very active local and international missions focus. The Covenant Community missions team leader, Eric Tooker, expressed a strong interest in developing an ongoing relationship with the Disciple Nations Alliance, and we are excited to see what the Lord may have in store as we walk together in the months ahead!
Link to this individual blog entry: http://www.disciplenations.org/dna-news/stay-connect-with-the-dna/darrow-and-scott-speak-at-covenant-community-church#wP1PXB2cHxec0yX9b_3pjA or click here
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12/16/2009
Merry Christmas from the Disciple Nations Alliance! We are praising God for the work He has done through us in 2009. We are excited to share with you our 2009 Year End Impact Report. Click here to download the pdf. This has been a difficult year for the DNA financially, please remember us if you have the opportunity to make a year end gift.
Link to this individual blog entry: http://www.disciplenations.org/dna-news/stay-connect-with-the-dna/year-end-impact-report#4AW3aRhTCjLBULLi4UPqig or click here
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12/16/2009
The Disciple Nations Alliance has appeared in the news recently in relationship to our friend Stephen Langa and his involvement with Uganda’s Anti Homosexuality Bill, 2009. We first heard of this bill when a reporter contacted us to gain our opinion on the bill last Friday (December 11). We have since obtained a copy of the bill and are now examining it.
We have been friends with Stephen for nearly ten years. We have tremendous respect for him, and for what we know of his work to strengthen families in Uganda. Stephen is an elder at Watoto Church in Kampala, which we consider to be a model for other churches in its care for thousands of Ugandan children orphaned by HIV AIDS. Watoto Church ministers to hundreds, if not thousands of people who are dying of AIDS and their surviving family members. It has been actively involved in AIDs education, encouraging young men and women to act in morally responsibly ways in order to avoid the ravages of sexually transmitted diseases. Seeing the profound devastation of families in Uganda, they are actively working to strengthen families.
The Disciple Nations Alliance is a network of individuals and organizations in over 60 countries who share a common vision to see the global Church rise to her full potential as God’s agent for the healing, blessing and transformation of the nations. We share a common set of core beliefs and operating principles (see www.disciplenations.org/about ). While we have affiliates around the world, there are no legal or organizational ties between them; including Family Life Ministries and Transforming Nations Alliance that Stephen helps lead. Stephen’s opinions are his own. The governance and decision making of the Ugandan organizations he leads are independent of the Disciple Nations Alliance.
We believe that people who engage in same gender sexual activities are image bearers of God possessing profound, inherent and equal dignity. They have a God-given right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. As human beings, they are to be treated with love and respect. Like all people, they are sinners and can be saved by the death of Christ on the cross.
Churches have a responsibility to love and engage with those who have chosen to live a homosexual life in the same way they would reach out and engage with any other person. The church is to call its members to personal and public purity, and to govern their lives in ways that comport with biblical standards of ethical behavior. Such internal self-government creates the framework for free nations. The church is also called to serve as the conscience of the nation by humbly, lovingly and prophetically addressing the wounds and moral failings of their society.
The state has a different, yet compatible role. It exists to defend and protect the life, liberty, and property of its citizens. Its principle role is to suppress external evil such as murder, theft, and rape. It does this largely by creating and administering just laws and maintaining an active military.
With this in mind, we do not believe that engaging in consensual homosexual acts in the privacy of one’s own home, or failure to report such acts, should be criminalized. However we are opposed to efforts to re-define marriage laws which are based on the historic and traditional understanding of marriage as the covenantal relationship of one man and one woman for life. We are likewise opposed to efforts to normalize homosexual activity through the use of books and curricula in public schools. We oppose these and other public advocacy efforts whose intent is to lead to a state sanction for something that is immoral, which will seriously undermine the family, and will eventually lead to the collapse of a society. We endorse and support the recently released Manhattan Declaration ( www.manhattandeclaration.org ), and specifically its statement on marriage.
We believe that sexual crimes such as rape, incest, child prostitution or pedophilia should be appropriately prohibited and punished under the law regardless of whether victim or perpetrator practices same gender sexual activity or is heterosexual.
As the Uganda bill currently exists, we have some concerns: specifically the criminalizing of private, consensual homosexual practice, the severity some of the penalties, and the tone of the language. We recognize that this bill is in process and will reserve further comment until a final version is submitted to the Ugandan parliament.
We recognize that sovereign nations have the right to establish their own laws; at the same time, other nations, international bodies and individual citizens have the right and responsibility to challenge laws that are unjust. We would encourage Christians, as citizens of nations, to seek to engage as free citizens in the market place and Public Square. They should contribute to the challenging of unjust laws and the creating of just laws. Christians, like any citizen are to contribute to the building of their nations.
Scott Allen, Darrow Miller and Bob Moffitt
Link to this individual blog entry: http://www.disciplenations.org/dna-news/stay-connect-with-the-dna/the-uganda-anti-homosexuality-bill-2009#1qiB_JayS5c6CpL4BTJ6dw or click here