This incredible testimony from Verity Conference 2024 will transform how you think about everyday evangelism. Leila shares her powerful story from Muslim family to Christian ministry, and reveals the four practical ways we can all carry God’s Kingdom into our daily lives.
Four Ways to Carry the Kingdom:
– Pursue Kingdom Priorities – Aligning your agenda with heaven’s agenda
– Possess Kingdom Mysteries – Bringing “kingdom souvenirs” to others
– Assume Kingdom Posture – Childlike faith and dependence on God
– Release Kingdom Power – Holy Spirit power through everyday conversations
The Dentist Story: How a simple conversation during a dental appointment led to a complete life transformation – from curious patient to worship team member in under a year.
Key Scripture: Acts 17:6-7 – “These men who have turned the world upside down”
About This Session: From Verity Conference 2024 featuring Leila, who traveled from Australia to Northern Michigan. She represents the diversity we seek – different backgrounds, marital status, and cultural perspectives that show how the Gospel applies across all walks of life.
Verity Conference 2025: October 3-4 (Online) Register: https://verityconference.com
Related Sessions: Previous episode: “Speak Your Story”: https://youtu.be/2eBvqREYK7k Coming up: More Verity 2024 sessions! EWAT resources: https://phyliciamasonheimer.com/bestsellers/
Discussion Questions: What Kingdom priorities need to align in your life? How can you start “kingdom conversations” naturally? Who in your world is waiting for the Gospel? This session proves that carrying God’s Kingdom isn’t about big platforms – it’s about faithful conversations in dentist chairs, neighborhoods, and everyday encounters.
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Transcription
Layla:
I am so thankful for the people of God who carried the kingdom of God into my home because it changed my life forever.
Phylicia Masonheimer:
Hello, friends. Phylicia here. I’m so excited to introduce you to this particular episode once again. This is a Verity conference session from 2024. And in this particular session you’re going to meet a speaker who I was thrilled we got to host in 2024. She came all the way from Australia to join us in Northern Michigan for that event. Now we are hosting a Verity Conference 2025, but it is all online and so if you’d like to join us, it’s October 3rd through 4th. It’s a simulcast, so you can watch it from anywhere in the world and you can grab individual streaming tickets@verityconference.com don’t want you to miss this because we have some amazing sessions coming this year on the Trinity, Christ in the Old Testament, Theology of the Multi Ethnic Church, and my own session on Theology of Denominations and there’s more, so check that at verityconference.com and for this particular session, I can’t wait for you to hear Layla’s testimony.
Phylicia Masonheimer:
I had actually never heard it until I was sitting in the audience watching her session. I just knew that I loved to hear her teach and I love her heart and I especially love how faithful she has been as a single woman to steward her singleness in such a powerful way. And one of the things that we try to do at Every Woman A Theologian is when we invite speakers, when we platform people, we try to invite a wide range of different backgrounds. So when we talk about diversity, we often think of only ethnic diversity. And that certainly is important. But we live in an area of the country that is 95% white. Northern Michigan is 95% white, and then the other 5% is Native American. And so we have a wide variety of ethnic diversity in our area.
Phylicia Masonheimer:
So of course we seek that out when we’re building our conference to serve this area. But we also seek to be diverse in other ways. So that includes the age of our speakers, the marital status of our speakers, you know, coming from different cultural backgrounds, these things help them speak to the gospel in unique ways and show us how the gospel applies in these different either seasons of life, walks of life, life, ethnic backgrounds, etc, and so I was really excited because at the time when we asked Leila and also Lisa Fields, who you’ll get to hear soon. Lisa and Leila are both single women. And I know that so many of our readers and our listeners who are single have often said, it’s like every single Christian female speaker I listen to is married. And sometimes I feel completely left out in the church. Well, exciting for you because Verity Conference 2024 had two very powerful speakers, and they’re single women. And of course, that’s not the sum of who they are.
Phylicia Masonheimer:
But I think that it’s encouraging to hear their perspective and to see how they live their lives and what they’ve built for the Kingdom of God as women who are not married or not yet married. And so I hope you enjoyed this session with Laila and are encouraged by what she has to say.
Layla Nahavandi:
Oh, wow. Good morning, Verity Conference. It’s such an honor to be with you guys here today. I’m so excited to be sharing in your conference and so honored to be here. I love Phylicia Masonheimer and her team, and I’ve been blessed by her ministry. And it’s such an honor to be a part of the conference and to be sharing in this session. This morning, I want to share with you a message that is entitled Carrying the Kingdom. And I want to share this morning about preaching the gospel and carrying the Kingdom of God in our everyday lives.
Layla Nahavandi:
We’re going to have a look at the theology of the Kingdom and how we practically carry the Kingdom of God in our everyday lives. But before we dive into that, I want to share with you my story of how a lady in my neighborhood carried the kingdom of God into my life and completely changed my life. So I’m 35 years old. I know that often when I go to conferences to speak, people think I’m about 12. But I’m 35, and I was actually born into a Muslim. So my dad is Iranian. My mom is Irish. I was born in England, raised in New Zealand, lived most of my life in Australia, and now I live in Germany.
Layla Nahavandi:
So I am the United Nations before you. But I was born into this Muslim family. And when I was five years old, we were living in New Zealand. My mom and dad had two other kids. My mom had converted to Islam to marry my dad. And we were living just a normal life. And everything was normal and fine until one day it wasn’t. My auntie from Iran came to live with us in New Zealand.
Layla Nahavandi:
And we didn’t actually know at the time, but my auntie was schizophrenic. And for anyone who’s ever dealt with mental health issues in your home or with your friendships or different things like that, you know how difficult these things can be. And so our home life started to get very, very hectic, very, very chaotic. I remember as a five year old girl just standing in the living room of our house and watching my auntie pull a knife on my dad and tell him that she was going to kill him. And I just remember everything just turning to chaos. My mom was at home looking after the three of us kids, all under the age of five, which is a feat of its own. But when you’ve got someone with mental health issues living with you as well, it can become just so crazy. And my dad is a professor of robotic engineering and so he just lost himself in his work.
Layla Nahavandi:
He was always out at university and mum was always home with us kids and this, this sort of crazy woman that she didn’t know what to do with. One day my mom had a breakdown and she said to my dad, hey, if you don’t get rid of your sister, if you don’t kick her out of the house, then I’m going to take the kids and we’re leaving. And my dad was like, I don’t know what I can do, I can’t just sort of kick her out on the street. I don’t know what you expect me to do. And so my mum said, that’s it, I’m getting out of here. Us and the kids were leaving. And so my mum took my brother and my sister and I to live in a women’s and children’s shelter in a small town called Armiston, north in New Zealand. And while we were living in this women’s and children’s shelter, I was still going to my kindergarten and different things like that.
Layla Nahavandi:
And so my friends from school, they would ask me to go and play at their house. And so the parents tried to get our details, they tried to find out where we lived and tried to get our numbers and they realized that they couldn’t get our details. And so these parents, they were like, there’s something wrong with this kid’s family, there’s something going on with this girl. And thank God they were Christians. And so in their life group on a Wednesday night, they started to pray for me and they started to pray for my family. How many believe in the power of prayer to absolutely change and transform lives? And so they started to pray for us. And another lady who was from this very same church, she lived down the road from us and she reached out to my mom and she shared the gospel with my mom and she said, hey, I know that your life looks like it’s in an absolute mess right now, but I believe if you would surrender your heart and your life to Jesus. If you would take your life out of your own hands and you would put it in God’s hands, I believe Jesus can make something beautiful out of this mess.
Layla Nahavandi:
I believe that he is the reason why you were created. And so there was something inside my mom when this lady shared the gospel and when she carried the kingdom of God into our lives. There was something in my mom’s heart that said, yes, what she’s saying is true, what she’s saying is real. And so my mom decided to give her life to Jesus and to become a Christian in this lady’s lounge room. And this lady and her husband, they knew my mum had converted to Islam. So they were like, okay, we got to get right on her. Let’s get her baptized. They baptized her in their bathtub in their home.
Layla Nahavandi:
It’s very unconventional, I do not recommend it. But mum got baptized and then they started taking my mom and us kids along to church with her. And so I got to come to church, I got to experience this whole new way of life of Christianity, of Jesus. And I watched my mom go from darkness to light. I watched her go from depression to joy. I watched her go from hopelessness to hope. And Jesus started to change and transform her whole world over the course of time. My mum felt that she needed to move back in with my dad.
Layla Nahavandi:
And so my dad was able to get another house for my auntie to look after my auntie. And so we moved in back in with my dad. And my dad said to my mum, don’t tell me anything about Jesus. I don’t want to know about Jesus. I don’t care about Jesus. I will be the last Muslim on earth, right? My dad had big hopes, right? He was going to be the last Muslim on earth. And my mom was so desperate for my dad to know Jesus, so desperate for him to find this love, this hope, this truth, this way that she had found that she just kept sharing the love of Jesus and the gospel of Jesus with my dad. He was not having any of it.
Layla Nahavandi:
He didn’t want anything to do with it. And so I remember one day when she was a brand new Christian, she says, she opened her Bible and she said, I believe if I just point to a scripture, it will be a scripture directly from God to you. And so my mom was hoping as she opened her Bible that it wouldn’t say something like, then Judas went and hanged himself or something like that, you know, but she just had that childlike faith. She opened her Bible and she pointed to this scripture and it was a passage of scripture in the book of John where it said, you believe in God, believe also in me. And it was Jesus speaking. And so my mom, this new believer, she was like, what is this? This is crazy. She starts weeping, she’s like, look, God is speaking to you. And my dad didn’t want to have anything to do with it.
Layla Nahavandi:
He was like, no, I don’t want to have anything to do with Jesus. I don’t believe in it. It’s all made up. I don’t want to have anything to do with it. I’m a Muslim. And so my dad wasn’t interested in Christianity, but he thought we were being brainwashed, his kids were being brainwashed at church. And so he decided he was going to come along to church with us to see how we were being brainwashed. And so my dad was sort of sitting in the back row, we’re all in the back row of this Pentecostal church in Palmerston, North, New Zealand.
Layla Nahavandi:
A very small church, a very small town, but a sort of sizable church, maybe five or 600 people. And we’re sitting down at the back. And how many know the back row of a Pentecostal church is a dangerous place for a Muslim to be? Because if, if the Holy Spirit doesn’t get you, some 85 year old woman who is an intercessor in the church, she is to come after you, she is going to deliver you of whatever you’ve got going on and you will be a Christian by the time you leave that morning. And so we’re sitting in church and they’re sharing about the Gospel and my dad was hearing about these different Bible characters that he’d heard about. And he’d heard about Moses and he’d heard about Abraham, but he’d never heard about the Holy Spirit. And so as they started to talk about the Holy Spirit and people were testifying that their lives had been changed and transformed and they were talking about the power of the Holy Spirit. My Muslim scientist dad was like, what is this Holy Spirit that they’re talking about? And he was so curious that he decided to do a science experiment on the Holy Spirit as you do. And so he was lying in bed one night and he just prayed this prayer and he said, holy Spirit, if you’re real, then show me how many know that is a dangerous prayer for a Muslim to pray.
Layla Nahavandi:
And he prayed that prayer. And all of a sudden he had never read Acts chapter two, he had never read the Bible where it talks about the Holy Spirit coming like wind, but he Felt the wind of God just blowing all over his body, from the tip of his head to the soles of his feet. And my dad obviously is a scientist, so he thought, what a coincidence, like that’s not possible, like that can’t be real. And so he got up and he checked all the variables in the room. He checked the windows, he checked the curtains. Nothing was open. And he went back to bed. And as he was lying in bed one more time, he felt the wind of God blowing all over his body.
Layla Nahavandi:
Then he felt it a third time and he felt the Holy Spirit speak to him, say, I want to show you that Jesus is real. I want to show you that Jesus is the way. And so from that moment on, my Muslim dad was convinced. He’s like, yes, I believe in this Jesus. I’m going to get baptized. So I remember as a five year old girl sitting on the side of the baptismal tank at church this time and watching my dad give his whole life to Jesus, get baptized. And so from that moment on, I got the privilege of growing up in the church, growing up knowing Jesus, growing up in the house of God, thankful for the people of God who carried the kingdom of God into our neighborhood, into my school, and into my home, because it changed my life forever. And I want to look this morning at how we can be those kind of people who carry the kingdom of God into the places and spaces that God has called us to occupy.
Layla Nahavandi:
I believe that there are little girls in your world, just like me, who are waiting, who are hungry, who are desperate to receive Jesus. There are families who are waiting to be transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. And it depends on us being those ones who would carry the kingdom of God into their worlds. So I want to begin with the theology of the kingdom of God. And we’re going to read a few verses that will show us Jesus speaking about the kingdom of God in the New Testament. In Matth. Chapter 3 and verse 1 to 3 it says, in those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Layla Nahavandi:
For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, when he said, the voice of the one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Matthew 4:12, 17 it says now when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee. And leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be Fulfilled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea beyond the Jordan, Galilee, and of the Gentiles. The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light. And for those dwelling in the region, and the shadow of death on them, a light has dawned. For that time Jesus began to preach, saying, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Mark 1:14, 15. It says, now, after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God and saying, the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand.
Layla Nahavandi:
Repent and believe in the gospel. Luke 4:43 it says, but he said to them, I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well, for I was sent for this purpose. John 3:3. It says, Jesus answered him, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. So Jesus talked about the kingdom when he preached. More than anything else. If Jesus talked about the kingdom, we should know what the kingdom is. What is the kingdom of God.
Layla Nahavandi:
A kingdom is the state of being under the rule of the king. We might think of the kingdom of God as heaven, or think of it as a place, a final destination in Christianity. But actually the kingdom of God is not just a place, but it is an activity. The kingdom of God is the rule and the reign of Jesus the king. So why is the kingdom of God important? Genesis chapter 1, verse 26 to 28. It says, Then God said, let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God. He created them, male and female.
Layla Nahavandi:
He created them. God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and increase in number. Fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds in the sky, and over every living creature that moves on the ground. So humans are the way that God intends to rule the world. The image of God is something that humans are and something that humans do. They embody an image. God’s rule and reign over the world.
Layla Nahavandi:
God’s plan was to share his world with human beings and to have his will, his rule and his reign brought about through human beings. When Eve took off the fruit in the Garden of Eden, she was rejecting the rule and reign of the king and bringing about her own rule and reign through the devilish advice. No pun intended of the serpent. So God’s original intention was to rule and reign through humans. This rule and reign was distorted and tainted through the fall. And so the arrival of Jesus in the New Testament is the announcement of the good news that the king has come and his kingdom is coming. The arrival of Jesus is the arrival of God’s reign to take back his world. The disciples and the New Testament authors, they recognize the importance of this theme of the kingdom we know.
Layla Nahavandi:
In Matthew chapter 6 and verse 10, we see Jesus talking about how to pray, and he’s teaching the disciples how to pray. He says, you should pray like this. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. In Acts chapter 17, we see that the disciples were known as those who heralded a different kingdom. Kingdom. In Acts 17:1:7, it says now, when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul went in as was his custom. And on three Sabbath days, he reasoned with them from the scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, this Jesus, whom I proclaim to you is the Christ.
Layla Nahavandi:
And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women. But the Jews were jealous and taking some wicked men of the rabble, they formed a mob, set the city in an uproar and attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring them out to the crowd. And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, these men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has received them. And they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king Jesus. We are sent into the world to declare that there is another king, and his name is Jesus. The kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven completely turns the world upside down. So how do we carry the kingdom of God into our world? I believe that carrying the kingdom of God is not just an activity that we do here and there, but it’s a lifestyle that we live as the people of God. So what does this lifestyle look like? Firstly, kingdom carriers pursue kingdom priorities.
Layla Nahavandi:
Kingdom carriers pursue kingdom priorities. I love the story of Zacchaeus. In Luke 19:1 10 it says he entered Jericho and was passing through. And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich, and he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed, climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. And when Jesus came to that place, he looked up and said to him, Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today. So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully.
Layla Nahavandi:
And when they saw it, they all grumbled, he is gone to be with the guest of a man who is a sinner. And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold. And Jesus said to him, today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham, for the Son of man came to seek and save that which is lost. I love the way that Zacchaeus encounters the kingdom of God. When his life encounters and collides with the kingdom of God, we see that he is totally transformed. The name Zacchaeus actually means pure and innocent. And if you know anything about the story of Zacchaeus, you know that the life that he was living was anything but pure and innocent.
Layla Nahavandi:
He was defrauding people, he was cheating people, he was a traitor to his own people. But when his life collides with the kingdom of God, he is restored to factory settings. He is restored to his original intention, the original intention that God had for him. And he was able to live out the calling that God had for him. All of a sudden, he starts to sync his life with kingdom priorities rather than his own priorities and his own agenda. He lays aside his own agenda and prioritizes the priorities of the kingdom. I believe if we want to be people who carry the kingdom of God in our world, we need to be women of God, men of God, who know what it is to prioritize the priorities of the kingdom, the priorities of heaven. It can be difficult to surrender our own agenda in our daily lives and pick up heaven’s agenda on a daily basis, because we all know that control is comforting.
Layla Nahavandi:
Although control is comforting, the Bible teaches us that surrender is satisfying, and this is the only way that we are called to live. John chapter 4 and verse 34, Jesus, he says, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. When we are prioritizing the priorities of the kingdom, we find this deep satisfaction in being who God has called us to be. Matthew 6:33 says, but seek first The Kingdom of God and his righteousness. And all these things shall be added to you. The second thing that Kingdom carriers do is Kingdom carriers possess Kingdom mysteries. Many of you would be familiar with C.S. Lewis and the Chronicles of Narnia.
Layla Nahavandi:
I love the picture that C.S. Lewis paints for us the Kingdom of God and the way that it interacts with the world as we know it. If we’ve read the books or we’ve seen the movies, we know that there are these children who discover the Kingdom, what’s supposed to be the Kingdom of God, this land called Narnia. And they are the connection point between the world that they live in and this kingdom that is to come that is being outworked in the same way, we are the connection point in our world between the kingdom of Heaven and the kingdom of this world. We are those who are called to bring about the rule and reign of God to the world around us. Matthew, chapter 13 and verse 11, it says, because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, but to them it has not been given. So our eyes have been open to see these Kingdom mysteries, to experience the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven. And we are people who are called to bring the things of the Kingdom to the world around us.
Layla Nahavandi:
When we go to different lands and we travel to different places, we have these things called souvenirs. And souvenirs are the way that we take back a little piece of that place to the home that we came from and to the people from our own land. We bring back these souvenirs that carry something of the nature of the place that we have been that those people haven’t been able to travel to. And in the same way as Kingdom carriers, as the people of God, we have these Kingdom mysteries. We are called to bring these kingdom souvenirs into the world that we live in. As we share the gospel, as we share our testimonies, as we share the things that God has done in our lives, we are bringing Kingdom souvenirs to the world around us. The third thing that Kingdom carriers do is Kingdom carriers assume a kingdom posture. Mark chapter 10 and verse 14 to 15, it says, but when Jesus saw it, he was greatly displeased.
Layla Nahavandi:
And he said to them, let the little children come to me and do not forbid them, for of such is the kingdom of God. Assuredly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter. So the posture of the kingdom, the posture that we should live with as kingdom carriers, is childlike faith. Maturity in the world is about getting older, becoming more independent, and living a life that gains respect. But maturity in the kingdom is about growing younger, becoming more dependent on God, and having a willingness to look foolish in the world’s eyes. I don’t know if you’ve ever watched the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, but in this movie we see that this man was born with a condition that when he was born as a little baby, he was born as an old man. And as he gets older and older, he grows younger and younger in his physical body. And I believe it’s a great picture of us as we are living in the kingdom of heaven, as we are living in the kingdom of God.
Layla Nahavandi:
How God God has called us to grow. He has called us to grow younger and younger, more and more dependent on our heavenly Father. More and more we’re supposed to shed the things of this world, the mindsets, the mentalities of the world around us, and we are meant to be transformed by the renewing of our mind, seeking our Father with this childlike faith, this posture of childlike faith. The fourth and final thing that kingdom carriers possess is that kingdom carriers release kingdom power. Acts chapter 1 and verse 8 it says, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. Luke chapter 4. 43 It says Jesus said to them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also, because for this purpose I have been sent. Matthew 24:14 it says, and this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.
Layla Nahavandi:
Matthew 9:35 says, Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. Luke chapter 9 and verse 2 it says, he sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. Luke, chapter 10, 9 it says, and heal the sick there and say to them, the kingdom of God has come near to you. 1 Corinthians chapter 4 and verse 20 it says, for the kingdom of God is not in words, word, but in power. When we share the gospel with people, we have been given the power of the Holy Spirit to bring the present reality of Jesus into people’s worlds. When we preach, when we pray, when we proclaim, the Lord releases kingdom power through us to save and redeem the lost. So how finally does the kingdom of God break into my world? I want to return to Acts 17:2.
Layla Nahavandi:
It says, as was his custom, Paul went into the synagogue and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures. That word reasoned with them literally just means he had a dialogue with them. Them, he had a conversation with them. How do we allow the kingdom of God to break into the world around us? All we need to do is start a conversation. I remember last year I was going to my dentist in Geelong and I had never met this dentist because I had moved from a different city. And so I arrived at the dentist that morning and to be honest, I wasn’t thinking about sharing the gospel with him. I was just thinking about getting to the dentist and leaving. And so I go and I’m lying down in the chair and the dentist starts asking me about my life.
Layla Nahavandi:
He starts asking me different questions about what I’m doing. And we got on to talking about my PhD and so I was telling him how I was doing a PhD in theology. And I’m trying to explain what my PhD is about to someone who doesn’t know God and someone who doesn’t know theology. So I’m like, yeah, it’s a bit about best practice in the church and church history, and I’m looking at the early church fathers and how that engages with practice today and different things like that. And so I’m trying to explain that to him. And he’s talking to me and he’s saying, so you go to church? And he’s got his fingers in my mouth like, yeah, I go to church, I preach the gospel, and I’m trying to share with him as best as I can through that conversation of what Jesus has done in my life. And he’s asking me about church. And so all of a sudden he says, oh, what church do you go to? And I said, oh, I go to this church.
Layla Nahavandi:
It’s a bit weird. It’s like an hour away from where we are right now. And because I actually live an hour away from where my church is in Australia. And I said, I live about an hour away and I go to this church, it’s called NUMA Church in Melbourne. And he looks at me and he’s like, no way. I’m like, oh, no, what’s he heard about the church? What am I going to have to explain to him? I have no idea where this conversation is going to go. Go. And he’s like, no way.
Layla Nahavandi:
I live in the suburb over from that church. And on Sunday, my friend and I we were going to get Vietnamese Rolls from one of the stores on that street. We walked past that church, we were looking through the doors and we were wondering what was going on in there. And he said, do you think that was a coincidence? And I said, no way. I don’t think that was a coincidence at all. And before I could even say another word, he said, do you think I could, like, come and check out your church sometime? And I was like, let me think about that. Yes, yes, sure, you can absolutely come. Like, we would love to have you.
Layla Nahavandi:
And I was flying out to America that Sunday, so I wasn’t going to be in church in Melbourne that Sunday. But I said to him, here’s my number. If you can text me when you get to the church. I’ll make sure all my friends, they get around you, they welcome you, you, and any questions you have, you can ask them. So I left the dentist. I thought he was just being nice. I didn’t know if he would actually go. I get a text message on Sunday for the evening service, and he said, layla, I’m here at your church.
Layla Nahavandi:
Can you tell me if your friends are here? And so I got my friends to connect with him. He was at the church that day. They shared the gospel with him. He ended up giving his life to Jesus, completely surrendered his heart to Jesus. And that was August last year. Today he’s on the worship team at my church. He’s at prayer meetings. He’s right writing songs about Jesus.
Layla Nahavandi:
And every time I’m in worship and I see him up on the stage, I’m like, Jesus, that’s my dentist. Like, that’s the guy who I shared the gospel with with the hands in my mouth. But it just starts with a conversation. It’s simple. All the Lord wants us to do is open these conversations that the Holy Spirit can come and invade so the kingdom of heaven can come near to those around and about. Ladies, can we. And men. I know there’s a few men in the room as well.
Layla Nahavandi:
Could we just bow our heads and pray as we close today? Oh, Lord, we just thank you for this opportunity to come before you and your word at Verity Conference. Thank you that you have brought us from all over the place. And for those who are watching online as well, thank you, Lord, that it’s no coincidence that we have come here today to talk about what it means to carry the kingdom of God, to share the gospel, to bring the kingdom of heaven near to those who are in the world around and about us. We just pray for every single person who has been part of this session today. We pray, Lord God, that you would teach us to be those who truly carry the kingdom of God everywhere that we go. We pray, Lord Jesus, that lives would be changed and transformed by the power of the gospel. That the kingdom of God would truly come and be established in the lives of those around and about. That the ways of the world would be turned upside down in their hearts and lives, and the kingdom of God would be established.
Layla Nahavandi:
Your rule and your reign over those we know, we love and we’re reaching in our communities. We give you all the praise and we give you all the glory for what you will do in and through us. Lord Jesus, In Jesus mighty name, everybody said, Amen. Amen. Thank you so much. Sat.