The Good News Tour Update

Dorothee Cole shares the following review of the The Good News Tour 2007 which took place in  Portland, Oregon just last weekend.  She writes: It is for the sole purpose of encouragement to my fellow citizens in God’s kingdom on earth that I would like to review the experience of last weekend’s Good News Tour in Portland, Oregon.  It is only with God’s intervention that we were able to have this conference which turned out to be an immense success for His cause.

The Good News Tour had originally been approved by and scheduled at Warner Pacific College – a Christian college in Portland, Oregon.  However, after reviewing our “Servant to the world” painting for advertisement approval, the college leadership decided to cancel our event just two months prior to the scheduled date and just three days prior to the deadline for advertisement submission.  That gloomy afternoon, the only thing we could do was pray that God would open a door.  The very next day we were called by the Oregon Convention Center, that they were able to scramble a couple of rooms for us and the following day we submitted our ads with the new location.

To advertise our conference, we submitted large posters to be displayed in six Portland malls and the advertisement company approved them for content.  However, after the ads were up for only 48 hours, certain customer complaints prompted the advertisement company to immediately take down our posters in all of the malls. Nevertheless, the planning for the Good News Tour continued and our team as well as our Portland sponsors met the day prior to our conference to set up our video equipment.  The evening prior to the convention, we unrolled the banner and noticed to our dismay that the entire middle section of the banner was missing blue color so that Bin Laden’s beard appeared purple and George Bush’s bi-colored coat was more reminiscent of 'Two-Face' in Batman than the president of the United States. But God was with our friend, Lars Justinen, who immediately had a new banner printed overnight and driven to us by one of his employees, so that it arrived at the Convention Center just two hours prior to the start of the conference. Nothing could stop us now, not even the malfunction of one of our wireless microphones, nor a blown projector bulb.

The message about God’s humility, kindness, trustworthiness, and love was “on”. The Good News about Him was presented in its full beauty by all of the speakers. Sermons were short and succinct, not tailored toward a particular denomination, but presented sensibly for all those who call themselves “followers of Jesus Christ”. It was our goal from the beginning to attract general Christians from a variety of walks of life. The group of visitors seemed divided into those who already loved our message about God’s forgiving character, as well as a few skeptics who came to “check us out”.  However, there were those few precious souls who came to a new understanding of and love toward the God of Graciousness.  It has never been so clear to our team that the understanding of a Servant God can no longer be reserved for a particular denomination, but must go beyond it and water the souls of all Christians.  The expansion of God’s kingdom is dependent on the tremendous commitment of those who love Him, and only when we “bleed” for our God by giving all, will we spread the fire that our Leader ignited 2000 years ago.

The Portland Good News Tour presented all of the important aspects of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Although it is impossible to do so adequately, I will attempt to present the highlights of the message given during the last weekend.  The conference opened up with the presentation of the conflict of the two antagonistic principles in this world: Sword power and survival of the fittest versus self-sacrificial, Jesus-like Love. This concept was deepened by Manuel Silva’s depiction of God’s role in this conflict. Tim Jennings effectively brought to light the fact that even the Christian Church often attempts to evangelize the world by using satanic methods of force and coercion. Yet the Good News Tour clearly took the stance that true Christianity always looks like Jesus Christ.

After Tim convincingly expressed that love cannot exist without freedom, Brad Cole described the concept of intercession as a process where God draws us into close intimacy with him, rather than as the fear-provoking concept of shielding us from Him.  Herb Montgomery clarified how our God-given freedom explains the existence of continued suffering in the presence of God’s loving character.  Brad put the Christ back into Christianity and Marco Belmonte explained in clear and simple terms the meaning of the death of our God on the cross.  Other concepts important to Christian understanding were tackled in the afternoon sessions, such as the meaning of forgiveness by Herb and the implication of the fires of hell by Manuel.  Finally, Marco explained how the second coming will not happen as long as we focus sky-ward rather than Christ-ward. In conclusion, the panel discussion pulled out concepts that are often misunderstood by those who disagree with our picture of God.  It was clearly presented that we do not advocate the moral influence theory and that God’s justice is an essential part of His being when understood in the sense that it is not a human tit-for-tat, kind of justice (an eye for an eye), but none other than His eternal Righteousness which not only turns other cheek, but is willing to forfeit life on its enemy’s behalf.

The best news of all is that the recordings of this conference are alive and well and that many will soon be able to view the message about God’s never-failing love on DVD and on the internet.  The Good News Tour team desires nothing more than to ignite minds everywhere with the truth about the incredible Servant God! It is not enough that we convince people of His existence, but that everyone together is moved to sacrifice time, resources, and lives for the God of Graciousness in service to others by spreading the eternal Good News about Him.