We must be carriers of Jesus’ presence to a dark, broken world

Recently, we partnered with local leaders and organizations by opening the first Dream Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., a free medical clinic for women who are underinsured or uninsured. 

The small clinic space was given to us and sits right across from the WIC (Women, Infants and Children) office, where the poorest families in our city go to apply for food stamps. This is the first of many ministries we plan to open. Soon, we want to have a home for single parents who are afraid to come out of the shadows of homelessness for fear of losing their children to the foster system. We also plan to open homes for kids who are too old for the foster system and have no families.

We are not doing this out of guilt or to be trendy or popular. We are certainly not out to prove to the world that we really are nice people despite the caricatures of Christians. 

Instead, we are making an announcement—much like a signpost does when you are driving west from the flat farmlands of Kansas to the front range of the Rocky Mountains of southern Colorado. There is a long and dismal stretch of Interstate 70, where nothing but farms and power lines dot the horizon for hundreds of miles. Then, you see the first mileage sign that announces the distance to Denver. Finally, home is near. 

The Dream Centers will be like those Kansas signposts, announcing a coming kingdom that will make all things right, heal all diseases and redeem all that was lost because of injustice. The kingdom of heaven is coming to earth every time we adopt an orphan, drill a well in a parched village, open a home for single parents or give blankets to the homeless. 

My good friend Glenn Packiam talks about this beautifully in his new book, Lucky. He calls us a “people from the future” who are witnesses of a kingdom that is to come, but is already coming. We are living now in the present, but our spiritual eyes are open to the signposts all around us. Home is the new heaven and new earth. But here right now, the old earth is being redeemed as a foretelling of things still to come.

One of the first patients to visit our new Dream Center was a young lady who was out of work, sick and really needing a miracle. A woman from our fellowship told her mom about the medical clinic, and she went there for help. She said afterward, “I have hope. They really cared about me. They made me feel special. I had no idea there was such a place. The people were wonderful.”

Later, a young, Spanish-speaking lady showed up at the clinic and told us that she had never ever been to a doctor. She had been sexually assaulted last year, but never went to a doctor for treatment. We were able to help her with blood work, annual exams and treatment for severe acid reflux. 

Each story is a testimony of what Jesus will do when we become carriers of His presence in a dark and broken world. We are salt mixed with light in a realm crippled by fear and hurt, but the kingdom is breaking in all around us and through us. May we all be signposts pointing the way to truth and life. Let our words be marinated with grace and our hearts saturated in worship. May we follow the ways of Jesus and love one another sincerely, serving deliberately and blessing others at every opportunity. May we be signposts pointing ahead to home.

Brady Boyd is the pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., and the author of Fear No Evil: A Test of Faith, a Courageous Church, and an Unfailing God. Follow him on

Twitter @pastorbrady.

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