Year of The Spirit

“And we all…are being transformed into his image with every increasing glory, which comes from the LORD, who is the Spirit.” 2 Corinthians 3:18

Our movement-wide theme for 2022 is The Year of the Spirit. In keeping a focus on the Spirit, my vision is to focus our attention on Acts 16:9-10 and the amazing response the brothers had to Paul’s vision of the lost in Macedonia crying out to be saved! At some point, each of us was the Macedonian man – crying out for God to put someone in our life. As disciples who have been found, we must imitate these heroic brothers and always be “Ready at Once” to make plans, change plans, do anything needed, and sacrifice everything to help those who are still crying out find a relationship with Jesus! That said, the theme of the 2022 Washington DC International Christian Church (DCICC) Winter Workshop is “Transformed by the Spirit!” 

Before we venture into 2022, let us take a moment to gratefully recount some of the miracles and highlights of 2021! 

Unquestionably, through the generosity of our movement, the Lord brought 19 SoldOut Disciples from all over the country to boost the work here in the DMV. God inspired the entire movement with our zeal and growth! Highlights of the year included: Our “Set my People Free” Sunday – where in one day – we saw 5 precious brothers and sisters restored to the fellowship, two joyfully Place Membership, and two make Jesus Lord in Baptism! Then we saw the planting of four campus ministries! The Campus ministries have grown from 12 Campus students and 4 paid workers to 19 students and 10 paid workers! Upon arriving the number of ICCM Students had dropped to 5 and we now stand at 16 ICCM Students, training for the Ministry: 8 Men and 8 women! We established weekly Staff Meetings, began weekly bulletin articles that inform the congregation on where we stand as a church, and re-structured Regions into House Churches that have Full Time Ministry Staff, Interns, “Un-terns” (Unpaid Interns). We then laid the foundation for saturating the DMV with the teachings of Jesus through the establishment of geographically based Bible Talks that contain members from each local community! Very special to the heart of our parents was the formal establishment of our new Teen Ministry! The restructuring of our Cyber and AV Ministries has given our House Churches the ability to meet independently and providing highly professional Virtual Services that ministered to every disciple, while protecting them from the COVID-19 Pandemic. We served our communities through the MERCY Blood Drive with the “Sleeves Up” Campaign and gave over 200 toys to our MERCY Toy Drive – all exceeding our goals! As a Church, we increased our weekly pledge from an average of $6,850 to $10,250 and sacrificially gave $65,000 extra to support the increased size of the ministry staff and the Transition of the LA “10,” who moved to LA with the Martinez transition. For me personally, the highlights of the year were our Christmas Show with the DC Choir, the planting of the Delaware Mission Team, and the DC Church winning the Coveted “Best Church in the DMV” Award from the WHUR Radio Station – thanks to the nomination of Rachel Goldson! These “noble deeds” of 2021 have been attained through the prayers, hard work, and sacrifice of our incredible Disciples! DC started the year with 131, dropped to 118 when the supplemental Team arrived and has grown to 158 SoldOut Disciples, spread from Columbia Maryland, through the DMV, and down to Charlotte, North Carolina! The Lord has graciously added to our number 90 souls: 34 baptisms, 14 restorations, and 42 place memberships. With those who walked away, moved away, and went onto glory, we start 2022 with 158 Members – for a net growth of nearly 21%!!

As we close our thoughts on 2021, the Congregational Shepherding Couples (Ken & Cheryl Chin, Damon & Vicki James), the Interns (Ronel & Danielle Dorvil, Nelson & Sydney Brown, Myles Swartz, Marvin Alcantara, and Dara Teamer), and the ICCM Students want to commend the DC Church for the sacrifice of your time money, and giving your hearts to the work of the Lord! 

With this year’s theme – The Year Of The Spirit, the DC Church Leadership has set before the Lord the following Prayer Goals for 2022:

“One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When He finished, one of His disciples said to Him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.’” Luke 11:1 – With the daunting challenge to reach all nations in this generation, comes the realization that we will only be able to accomplish this “seemingly impossible feat” if we too learn to pray as Jesus’ disciples learned from Him. After all, it’s been 2,000 years since the world was last evangelized in a generation – and this was only accomplished by the Spirit working through the Apostles’ prayers! Therefore, our first goal is to call every disciple to refocus on their personal relationship with God, to “Walk with the Spirit,” and to pray prayers like Jesus and the Apostles prayed!

“Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest field.’” Matthew 9:37-38 – With the influx of 34 “baby Christians,” the devastation of the pandemic, the impact of Zoom & Virtual Services that have isolated our members and stolen maturity from many disciples, we have a tremendous opportunity to bring everyone to maturity in Christ, which includes being “fruitful.” (Luke 8:14-15) We will continue to work on the retention of these precious new disciples through the accountability of Follow-up Studies, New Christian Orientations, D-groups at Midweek Services, as well as the raising-up at least one Shepherding Couple and one Deacon Couple in each of our House Churches by the end of 2022. We “Ask the Lord of the Harvest” to send out EVERY Disciple as a worker to accomplish our most daunting goal; that every member of the Church personally meet and baptize one other person by the end of 2022!

“I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe you have received it, and it will be yours.” Mark 11:23-24 – For many young or newly restored disciples, being consistent with their weekly pledge as well as “coming through” with their Missions Contribution can pose a “mountain of problems.” Yet Jesus promises that if we believe – in fact if we pray as if we’ve already received what we need for God’s purposes – God will give it to us! Our financial goals this year are to increase our pledges to $12,000/week and to give $245,000 Missions Contribution by May 15th” 

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but he beat his breast and said, ‘God, have MERCY on me, a sinner.’” Luke 18:13 – As the benevolent arm of the SoldOut Movement, the impact of MERCYworldwide now extends to all six populated continents of the world! This year, the DC Church will participate in our movement’s global events of the Day of MERCY in June and the MERCY Christmas Toy Drive in December! Our movement has over a decade of partnering with the Red Cross for blood drives. We have a goal to find similar local partners for MERCYWorldwide for Life Skills and to serve some nursing homes here in DC! 

We recognize that most of our mission teams and servant roles throughout our churches are filled with fully committed Singles who lay their lives down. The week-to-week events within our congregations have not met the needs of our Singles or the Teens. Our next goal is to meet the needs of these precious Disciples in 2022! 

“Paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly there for three months, arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God. But some of them became obstinate; they refused to believe and publicly maligned the Way. So Paul left them. He took the disciples with him and had discussions daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. This went on for two years, so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of [the DMV] heard the word of the Lord” Acts 19:8-10 – In the early days of our movement, we had a vision to “radicalize” all of our churches through the vision of establishing a seminary that would have satellite campuses in each city where we have a church. This vision became a reality in 2013 with the founding of the International College of Christian Ministry (ICCM). We currently have 16 ICCM Students. 

Our prayer is to register 8 new students! “Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church… forever and ever! Amen!” Ephesians 3:20-21 Our last challenge is for every member to have at least one personal prayer goal that is “immeasurably more than [anything] we imagine.” This may include being on a mission team, being selected for the ICCM, becoming a Bible Talk Leader, being selected as a Shepherding or Deacon Couple, or even the conversion or restoration of someone close to you. 

In all cultures, the beginning of a new year brings hope and resolutions. Yet the world lacks the Spirit’s power to transform. So many “new year’s resolutions” quickly fade. When Disciples fall to their knees in prayer, crying out to the Father in Heaven, He is moved to unleash The Spirit and His angels “move mountains!” Let us all embrace The Year Of The Spirit! 

Ron Harding

Lead Evangelist