Matt

December 4, 2019 By Matt

Giving Tuesday Update

November 25, 2019

God has been so good to us over these last several months! If you didn’t hear, Ezra began walking around 10 months old and is almost 13 months! While in Peru, over 3,000 people made decisions to follow Jesus and local churches continued to do outreach after we left. This past year we’ve seen over 70 people come to Jesus in front of the Lake County courthouse! Unfortunately, there are tens of thousands more people to reach and disciple.

Right now, God has given us new direction for TransformNation. The state of Illinois is in deep trouble. This summer our state legislators made Illinois the abortion capital of America, legalizing abortion up until just moments before a baby is born and ensuring the “right to abort” is safe if Roe v. Wade is overturned. They also raised taxes, legalized marijuana and approved more casinos to be built all over the state—including in Waukegan, near where we live. Illinois also has the worst credit in the nation and is on track to be the first state to file for bankruptcy in history.

All of these issues have a direct impact on the people I minister with on a weekly basis. On top of that, many churches are in decline and other ministries have left the state. If Christians don’t stay then who will share Jesus? In response, we are launching a new initiative called Street Chaplains.

Street Chaplains are a team of pastors and Christian leaders with counseling experiencing taking the love of Jesus to the streets by helping families and first responders. We are seeking partnerships with police departments to respond to major crisis situations where we can pray, counsel, refer helpful resources and invite people to Jesus. We also hope to do outreaches in troubled neighborhoods to help prevent and reduce crime by helping others and leading them to a relationship with Christ.

We still plan on doing international missions in the future, but Street Chaplains will be our main local ministry going forward. But to see this vision come to full fruition, we need your help.

Currently our monthly giving has been around $2,505 per month, but in order to do local ministry here in Illinois we need $6,075 per month. Would you consider partnering with us in prayer and monthly financial giving? A gift of any size truly can make a difference! Let’s team up and see God transform lives and communities together.

On mission for Jesus with you,

Matt & Shavonne Kearney

July 19, 2016 By Matt

The Other Lives That Don’t Seem To Matter

“Shhh…Nobody Cares!” That was the statement I saw on a T-shirt worn by a young Native American during my last visit to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. For Natives everywhere, they are a forgotten people. They do not have the media spotlight that Black Lives Matter with law enforcement, Hispanics with the immigration issues, and Muslims with refugees and terrorism all have. All of these matters deserve attention, but why not the Oglala Lakota? Why not Native Americans?

It’s no wonder that many Natives feel that no one cares. Pine Ridge, one of the 326 resettlement areas around America that were set aside by the government for Native Americans, and where the Lakota now call “home”. Over the last few decades, it has either been the first or second poorest county in America. They have the lowest life expectancy in America at 48 years old, which is second in North America only to Haiti. Unemployment shifts between 80 to 90 percent, and alcoholism is as high as 80 percent. One of their most secret problems though is domestic abuse,but it’s unknown how widespread it actually is. To this day, Lakota face racism and sometimes violence when leaving the reservation and come into contact with the rest of society.

Some ask, “Don’t the Lakota get any money from the government or lawsuit settlements or casinos?” Yes, but I have spoken to many Lakota people, and every one of them is angry with the corruption that runs rampant. Millions of dollars just disappear on the reservation. It is no wonder that so many lose hope. After years of living this way, to them it is not even worth surviving if nothing is going to change.

In 2015, a wave of suicides swept through Pine Ridge. Between December 2014 and October 2015, 19 young adults between 12 and 22 committed suicide. Even the New York Times mentioned in an article that appeared in May of that year that a spirit is “appearing to these kids and telling them to kill themselves.”

During my week-long trip to Pine Ridge this past June, I met with John Two Bulls, a local minister on the reservation. John was mentioned in that article as he recalled a night when a dozen teens gathered around trees with nooses that they were going to use to hang themselves. He told me that he pleaded with them not do it, sharing that Jesus loves them and that they can have hope for a better life. Over a year later, he says he still speaks with every one of those kids today!

I was on Pine Ridge from June 18-25, my second trip there in about a year. I met with many Lakota Indians, both young and old. I can affirm from my own experience and from their testimonies that unfortunately each of the above problems is true and that spiritual warfare is a way bigger issue than what is printed on the Internet. I have not yet met a Lakota that has not seen the “Tall Man spirit”, “Slender Man,” or other “shadow figures” on the reservation. This isn’t just a Lakota problem either; I know of many whites who have seen them too. They play a big role in the suicides, even sometimes appearing as family members who have passed away that tell them, “Come be with me.”

That week I met a 14-year-old girl who attempted to hang herself just months ago. She said she had no hope. I asked if she believed and had a relationship with Jesus; she said no. She was pretty resistant and protested that if God rules over everything then why would he let things get so bad on the rez. Why would he let evil spirits terrorize kids here, alcoholism and drug addiction get out of control, poverty and corruption reign over the people, and so many of her friends kill themselves?

I explained that while God is the Creator and Ruler over all, there is still a war going on. Humanity and demons both wage war by sinning against God. Jesus wants us to stop rebelling and follow Him. Before Jesus died on the cross for us, he said, “Now is the judgment of this world, now the ruler of this world will be driven out” (John 12:31). The cross was the ultimate moment in history where Satan lost, and through the work of the Church bringing the Gospel of the Kingdom, he would continue to lose ground. I told her that 1 John 5:19 says, “We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.” The reason why the rez has the problems it does is because of the evil one, “the ruler of this world.”

But, I continued to tell her that through Jesus we can bring hope and lasting change. God wants us to believe in Him for the forgiveness of everything we’ve done wrong so that we can have a powerful, loving relationship with Him in this life and the next. He wants to use us to take back territory from Satan by persuading others to believe this Good News and by doing His will.

The resistance melted away. “I believe,” she said. “I would love to give my life to Jesus.” Hope was born, and Satan had just lost another one! No wonder the Bible says the angels in heaven rejoice when someone believes.

Some Natives say though that Christianity is a “white man’s religion,” but we know that that’s so far from the truth! Yes, there is a history of hypocrisy and abuse by many Christians, but true Christianity brings hope, transformation and joy for people of every tribe, tongue and nation (Revelation 7:9). It is my prayer that the Oglala Lakota will be one of those tribes in heaven. I know they will.

So what can we do now? The first thing you can do is to remember and pray for the Native Americans. Share this post and other stories about them so that others will do the same. Pray for all their needs. Pray that they would know Jesus as the one and only God. Pray that a “discipleship-making movement” would take off like wildfire in their midst; that they would realize the most Native American thing they can do is to believe the Creator sent His son Jesus for them to be the last sacrifice for sin once and for all.

Secondly, go and listen to their stories and hear their pain. Don’t come with your own agenda; just listen first, and then give them hope and ask how you can help. They need to be encouraged to dream again, and we can serve them to help meet their goals. Thirdly, you can share Jesus and help others follow Jesus and share the Good News too.

Billy Graham declared this about the Native Americans’ future: “The greatest moments of Native history may lie ahead of us if a great spiritual renewal and awakening should take place. The Native American has been a sleeping giant. He is awakening. The original Americans could become the evangelists who will help win America for Christ! Remember these forgotten people!”

Together, we can see it happen in our lifetime.

March 25, 2016 By Matt

Ghana Way to Africa March 6-14: Equipping Others to do God’s Mission

TransformNation’s mission is to bring the life-changing message of Jesus Christ to transform communities around the world. Sometimes this means directly sharing the Gospel with those who do not know Christ yet; sometimes it means equipping others to.

This month I had the privilege to do both. I recently got back from Ghana, a country in West Africa, where I stood alongside Ghanaians, Nigerians and other Americans with On The Go Ministries as we taught at an evangelism conference during the week and shared the Gospel at a festival outreach on the weekend. Some of us even got to visit schools throughout the week to share the good news there, too.

It really was a fascinating team! We had a local pastor, Apostle Paul (we told him how much we loved his books!), lead us around to each school and introduce the rest of us Americans. Zach and Sierra Blickens of White Ribbon Day opened all our school assemblies with worship music. I’ve served with White Ribbon Day many times, and every time I’m just in awe of how they usher in God’s presence. On this trip, it was incredible to see the joy they brought to students when they sang! After worship, Rick Willison of the X-Treme would do amazing feats of strength. I’ve had the honor of working alongside Rick before, and what he can do is nothing short of beyond belief. He rips up phone books, rolls up frying pans into burritos, breaks boards with his fingers and snaps baseball bats in half. The real kicker is that Rick is able to do all this as a blind man! Everything he did was a symbolic part of the Gospel message, like the baseball bat which represented the Devil’s arm around our throats because of sin. But Jesus broke the hold of the Devil’s arm through the cross, which Rick would make with the two halves of the bat. Rounding out our team was me, the preacher and amateur photographer for the team and Mike Jackson, who was a great prayer warrior for us and the students. It was my first time working with Mike, but it was obvious from the beginning that he really was a man who exuded God’s love powerfully!

It was incredible how God would just guide us on how to present the Gospel in a way that uniquely worked for each school. Sometimes I was the one who shared the Gospel and invited students to receive Christ. Other times it was Rick and Zach, and afterwards I would give students their first steps of following Jesus as His disciples. Each team member was willing to lead or serve with humility for the glory of God, and it was amazing to see how the Spirit enabled each of us to do our part. While many of the children already had a relationship with Jesus, we still saw many students decide to either follow Jesus for the first time or recommit their lives to Him.

After we had finished going to all the schools that week, we decided as a team to show the conference attendees how we did school assemblies. We already knew God was at work there because people were so hungry to learn, and some of them had even made first time decisions to put their faith in Jesus!

Even though everyone there believed in Jesus, I think each of us felt like we were supercharged by the Holy Spirit. Zach and Sierra sang beautifully. Then we faked a power outage since that actually happens a lot when we go into schools, which means we’re without a microphone for the rest of the assembly. Next, Rick broke the “Devil’s arm” and turned it into a cross. He then turned to me. “Matt,” he whispered to me. “Take it away.”

I then grabbed that cross-shaped baseball bat and felt what seemed to be nothing other than the power of God. I preached, projecting the words of the Gospel from the bottom of my stomach all the way to the grounds outside the concrete walls and windows of the church. I didn’t preach a dissertation on theology to these Ghanaian church leaders, but within several minutes just presented the simple Gospel; that we have a wall of sin that separates us from God and the Devil wants us to be enslaved to that sin and drag us into hell. But God loves us, and so Jesus came and He lived a perfect life. He died on the cross and rose again victorious over our sin, our death and the grip of the Devil on our lives. All we have to do is believe in Him and accept what He did as a free gift to us. He did it so that we could be forgiven and have a new life with an amazing relationship with Him that will last forever.

I then asked them if they wanted Jesus and invited them all to pray and receive Him. No one I know of actually accepted Christ, unless there were some beyond the walls of the church that heard and believed, but that really wasn’t the point. God filled us with Holy Spirit to sing, to break bats, and to preach so that these Ghanaian Christians would be equipped for God’s mission when we left. Now, they may not be able to break stuff like Rick can, but man can these people sing and dance! And who knows maybe, God inspired someone to use another unusual talent like Rick’s to share the Gospel. Most of all though, they learned that this can be done as a team and that the Gospel is simple yet incredibly powerful. I am very humbled that God used me in that moment to do just that.

Eventually though, my name and the names of my teammates will be forgotten in that conference hall, but our impact will continue to echo throughout eternity. Because we followed God’s calling to go to Ghana, there are over 60 Ghanaians that are now equipped to share Jesus in their own lives and ministries, perhaps in school assemblies as we did. Regardless of how though, their communities are now being transformed by the love and power of Jesus Christ, and that’s ultimately the heart of TransformNation.

February 3, 2016 By Matt

The Heart of TransformNation

I cannot believe TransformNation is finally here! I’ve been working on this for years. The concept for it goes back to November 2008 when I accepted God’s call into full-time ministry. This really is a huge answer to prayer and I’m excited to see what God will do with this.

So why TransformNation and what is it? My passion for ministry is all about the Kingdom of God. Jesus called all of us to pray to God: “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” What did Jesus mean when He said this? In Revelation, at the very end of the Bible, we’re given a clearer image of what the Kingdom in all of its fullness looks like:

“And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying: ‘Look! The residence of God is among human beings. He will live among them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death will not exist anymore – or mourning, or crying, or pain, for the former things have ceased to exist.’” (Revelation 21:3-4 NET)

This is a beautiful picture of a loving God and King reigning over His people where death, suffering, sadness, and evil are no more because of Him. The Kingdom of God is where the presence of God is; where His will is done; where there is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control because God has changed us (Gal. 5:22-23 NET). Jesus also gives a picture of the current ministry of the Kingdom in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats:

“Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me…I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!” (Matt. 25:34b-36; 40 NLT)

This is what it looks like to be a person in the Kingdom of God. If you’re a Christian then it is in your DNA, your character, to do these kinds of things. By Jesus sacrificial death for our mess, our sin, we can become transformed people of the Kingdom. On the cross He beat death and the Devil, He paid our entrance fee into the Kingdom and He rose again victorious. We all have stories about how we have messed up in our lives, but when we accept His sacrifice for us He forgives us and He gives us His Spirit to change us, to live transformed lives.

Through this transformation at the cross we can know that we will see the Kingdom of God like we read in Revelation 21, but it does not stop there. We have become a part of the Kingdom now and Jesus wants to use each of us to introduce the Kingdom of God to others and bring about transformation like we see in Matthew 25 and to invite them into that transforming Kingdom! THIS is the heart of TransformNation!

I don’t believe that we can bring in the Kingdom of God in all of its glory by ourselves like we see in Revelation 21, Jesus will do that when He comes back. What we can do is to do the ministry of the Kingdom that Jesus talks about. When we do, people experience the presence of God, His will being done on earth as it is in Heaven. When we proclaim and demonstrate the love of God, people experience an introduction to His Kingdom and transformation of lives and whole communities can happen!

I call it “TransformNation” because I believe that name can serve as a modern day translation for the Kingdom of God. If I’m talking to someone on the street who has never heard of the Kingdom, they may give me a confused look and say, “So are you trying to take over our community through military force?” No, of course not! I think “God’s TransformNation” is a concept that both Christians and others can easily understand. (To clarify, I’m not saying we should reword the Bible, but TransformNation can be a way of introducing the concept of the Kingdom of God to those that are seeking and have questions about Christianity.)

It is my hope that TransformNation would inspire and equip a missions movement around the world. All the blog posts and media that are published here are for that purpose. It is intended to be a resource for anyone who is searching for something that can change their lives or for those who want to see transformation in the lives of others. We believe in Jesus Christ, that He died for our mess, our sin, and that He is still alive and relevant today as He was 2,000 years ago. We believe that through Him we can experience lasting transformation. Those of you reading may believe that, others of you may not, but are still searching for answers. In either case, welcome. I hope you can find answers here and that this will be a help to many of you around the world.

The needs for transformation in our world are seemingly endless: hunger, thirst, poverty, crime, slavery, human trafficking, racial injustice, violence, disease, poor education, corruption, homelessness, unemployment, divorce, abortion, natural disasters, drug addiction, and a world that desperately needs a hero. Together as the TrasnformNation of God, let’s transform the world around us and introduce them to the Hero that transformed us!