Website Backstory
After being born, growing up, facing reality, and then being born again and growing up all over (see Author Biography), I “graduated into retirement“ in July 2018 from His Branches, the organization that I had been involved in founding 40 years before as a solo inner-city private practice. Over the years it has grown into a vital Federally Qualified Health Center with two offices and several healthcare providers, as well as outreach programs for women in crisis and to the broader surrounding community, and is now able to stand on its own without any regular encouragement from me.
As I stepped into my new post-retirement life I knew that I was, in fact, graduating not retiring. Rather than retreating into a collection of long-imagined recreational pursuits, Susan and I felt strongly that I was being called to take what I had learned through study and experience in my 45 year medical career and Christian life and begin to apply it to new and broader challenges that faced our community.
Within a matter of weeks I was contacted by Steve Noblett, the head of Christian Community Health Fellowship (CCHF), and asked to share by video link with his staff in Memphis in preparation for the organization’s upcoming annual conference in March 2019. I was also asked to consider offering some workshop teaching during the conference about how to share spiritual life with patients who were seeking care for their afflictions in one of the many Christian clinics around the country served by CCHF. This would include looking for opportunities to share the good news of Christ wherever appropriate. Steve’s invitations stimulated my already active interest in pursuing my faith more deeply. The primary question that arose in my mind was, “Exactly what is the Good News that Jesus talked about and others have proclaimed ever since?”
I began an intensive study of the Gospel, first by reading the four gospel accounts in the New Testament and discovering that the most clear description of the gospel was, of course, given by Christ himself when he proclaimed the good news of the Kingdom of God addressed especially to the poor. Mark records that the first thing that Jesus did after being tempted by Satan in the wilderness was, to preach, saying, ‘Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.’ In Luke’s account He started His ministry by reading in a synagogue from the scroll of Isaiah in the section which begins in what we call Chapter 61.
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
My studies led me into an analysis of the various verses about the Gospel of the Kingdom of God/Heaven to glean from the Word of God more precisely what the phrase actually means. As I read and expanded my studies I began to discover that it is a remarkable story, almost infinitely adjustable to every human concern, about the very good news that our God exercises an all-encompassing, omnipresent, loving, and eternal rule and reign over the entire universe that He created universe as well as over everything that preceded, followed, and goes beyond the created universe in time and space into everlasting eternity. Whew! He is more than sufficient for all our needs!
The idea then began dawning on me about the possibility of gathering all I’ve been experiencing and learning into a coherent whole and writing a book of some kind. I began gathering references and articles, reading more and more books, and collecting piles of papers in my research while looking for a way that I could organize what I was comprehending so that I could shape it it into the beginnings of a manuscript.
Over the years I’ve worked on developing and maintaining several websites for personal matters and for the ministries of His Branches so I decided that perhaps opening a website would be a place where I could gather, collect, and sort out my ideas. This was the seed of the idea of the website which “germinated and broke ground” in early December 2018 in the form of HisKingdom.Us. Since then my studies have been proceeding and I’ve been being adding content material to the website week by week and sometimes day by day, as time permits, in the midst of my involvement in other activities.
I invite input from any of you who have discovered this website and look forward to lively discussions about the material and what could or should be included in the future. Much of the work on the first sections, including the “Alpha” section, has been done, but more work remains on the crucial middle “Kingdom” section and final “Omega” and “About” sections.
Thank you for your interest, encouragement, and support. May His Kingdom come and His will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven!
