meet Me @ the river

Revival and Awakening for Cincinnati- It is happening again! God is beginning to stir our city with a fresh passion for prayer. Last week, a dozen churches gathered for prayer at a Monday night meeting. Urban Outreach is thrilled to be helping facilitate these new and exciting meetings. Leaders and believers are getting on board …

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Limping Along with the Lord!

In Genesis 32:26, the pre-incarnate Christ meets Jacob face to face, for Jacob says, ‘I have seen God face to face and my life is spared.’ The Creator, who was, and is and is to come, meets Jacob the ‘schemer’ at the point of greatest crisis! Jacob has left all security and what he knows. …

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GREATER THINGS

We have sung that song a lot, ‘Greater things have yet to come, greater things are still to be done in this city…’ Lately though, these words have personally taken on a whole new meaning for the leaders and volunteers of Urban Outreach NKy/Cincinnati. It is not just because we helped to establish or strengthen …

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Weight of Glory

These last few weeks at the warehouse have been unique to say the least. But at Urban Outreach NKy/Cincinnati, we’ve always been a bit different… Maybe it is because we are not an urban church, but rather a movement of churches – winning our city for Jesus in unity. We are bent on one thing: …

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DON’T GO AWAY YET!

COMPASSION We are learning that it is not just ‘what we do,’ as Christians, but ‘who He has made us.’ We are made in His image in Christ. And God is a compassionate God. Oh, to be His hands extended in healing and His feet going in faith to reach the hurting. It costs something. …

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meet Me @ the river Limping Along with the Lord! GREATER THINGS Weight of Glory DON’T GO AWAY YET!

Mar
19

meet Me @ the river

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Revival and Awakening for Cincinnati-

It is happening again! God is beginning to stir our city with a fresh passion for prayer. Last week, a dozen churches gathered for prayer at a Monday night meeting. Urban Outreach is thrilled to be helping facilitate these new and exciting meetings. Leaders and believers are getting on board with God’s vision – a city transformed by the power of united prayer! It is all about coming together to lift up the name of Jesus and invite Him to change our city as He changes our hearts.

We are hungry, thirsty and even parched for God’s presence. It doesn’t matter where Christians are serving in America today, we all feel the same hunger and stirring for the Holy Spirit’s presence. The hard times we live in have created a perfect environment in the church for revival – a dry and desperate time. God knows how to stir His church. Make no mistake believer, it is not goosebumps we are after, but the real deal…a change in our hearts and lives. This can only come from our Savior. A new passion for God and a new sacrifice for family and church!

1,000 souls saved this summer….’meet ME @ the river…’

Recently, the Lord put this on our hearts: Not a campaign, not a human effort or sitting down in a room with fellow-ministers to form ‘evangelism committees.’ What many leaders in our city feel is a move of God that will cause us to all stand in awe. We are not standing still either, but pressing into God and fasting, as we prepare in faith. This awakening that is already upon us will cause us to abandon ‘business as usual,’ in many churches, and press into the genuine. So we are planning an event this summer at Sawyer Point, on the Ohio River. It will be a time of healing, salvation, worship and outreach. For Cincinnati, I believe this event will spark a real awakening of evangelism and genuine conversion to Christ.

Considering a prophetic word-
“I am doing a new thing. Open up your heart, not to ideas, not to fresh vision, not to My gifts…open up your heart to Me. Your hardness has kept you from the possibilities. Your unforgiveness has kept Me at arm’s length. But now, soften your heart- weep and call out to Me for a fresh grace to walk in before Me. Call and I will answer and you will enter into the genuine move of My Spirit. Call upon Me and I will demonstrate My miracles through you. You won’t have to look for revival, you will be revival. I have many things to say to you and your nation. I intend to melt the hardest of hearts – government leaders and pastors…drug addicts and pornographers. I intend to have a remnant. I intend to fill stadiums with grace and glory, revealing Jesus to cities.

Do not be afraid, do not despise My message. Turn very quickly from the darkness in your soul, allow My light to penetrate. Allow My unconditional love to you to change your spirit. Even now I am moving and it is Me touching you with my grace. I have loved you with an everlasting love and with patience and kindness I have brought you before Myself. Be still. Surrender. Allow self-pity to have no place, for that is from the evil one. Call on Me, cry out to Me with all your soul and bend your heart to My will. Then you will see the glory of My Son, as I call cities to their knees through you. My hand is in all things and nothing has come your way that you cannot overcome in Me. Call upon Me. Believe in Me. I am here and I am mighty to deliver and save.”

Please be in prayer with us, as the leaders of our city pray together in 2012 and align our hearts with heaven!
Pray for ‘meet Me @ the river,’ that thousands would be touched and changed forever,

David Hill, Jr.-City Servant
Urban Outreach NKy/Cincinnati

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Jan
15

Limping Along with the Lord!

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In Genesis 32:26, the pre-incarnate Christ meets Jacob face to face, for Jacob says, ‘I have seen God face to face and my life is spared.’ The Creator, who was, and is and is to come, meets Jacob the ‘schemer’ at the point of greatest crisis! Jacob has left all security and what he knows. By God’s instruction, he left Laban his father in law. Now he is about to meet Esau, who desired to kill him earlier in Genesis! Have you been there Christian? I can’t tell you how often I have.

Having nowhere else to turn and like we often find ourselves, Jacob the schemer wrestles with God in prayer all night. So incredibly intense is this encounter, that the Angel of God (Messenger or pre-incarnate Christ) saw that he ‘did not prevail against him!’ In this lies our first lesson of prayer. God will never override our human will. This is our great struggle as disciples even to this day. Like Jacob we love God, have answered His call to live as pilgrims in this world, and are looking for a city. Like Jacob we are still engaged in a struggle of wills. But Jacob would not let go. Oh, what a lesson to learn: We must cling to Christ for His change in us!

Do I desire God? Do you wrestle with Him dear believer? Are we up all night sometimes…not anxious, but fervently praying to Him who hears? Do we engage in this eternal struggle and wrestle like Jacob? You see, we must become desperate for change, without falling into despair. Herein, there is a thin line…We are not empty, but we hunger for Him…We are not weighed down, but oh the burden of prayer!

God spoke to His child Jacob and for the first time in the Bible, we see a man come to grips with the depths of his depravity. ‘What is your name?’ God asks us the same today. Who are we really? What drives us? How do we respond on a strange journey and life crisis like Jacob? When our enemies are coming to meet us, who do we rely upon? Ourselves or Christ? In shock and deep repentance, Jacob admits, ‘My name is schemer! I have schemed all my life. I don’t want to be this way God!’

But Esau was family, and so it is today. Offenses in the body of Christ hinder His great plan. We must wrestle with God over this truth! Just like Jacob, we get through trials by our own cunning resources, sometimes even with godly motives. But even at our best, by ourselves we are completely depleted of the will to live unselfishly. Survival is our motivation: ‘You hurt me, you offended me! I won’t let that happen again.’ We take our offenses to the grave instead of wrestling with God over them. Like Jacob it is time to surrender as we wrestle in prayer!

After seeing the true state of His heart, in verses 29 and 30, Jacob expresses the depth of his divine encounter…’And Jacob asked him, and said, “Tell me, I pray thee, thy name.” And he said, “Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name?” And he blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. (Genesis 32:29, 30 KJV)’

The next day Jacob limped out of his tent. The encounter must be so deep that everything about us changes by God’s grace. Our name, our identity, our very walk changes. We limp now because He has touched us deeply. We are ready to deal with our trials and even our enemies, as Christ would. He is living in us in a new way!

A great weakness was revealed and God made Jacob or Israel (Wrestler with God) walk differently, for he had wrestled with Christ and found surrender. He rose up in God’s plan and limped as he prepared to face Esau. He did so differently than he expected. As Esau ran to meet his former enemy brother, perhaps his heart broke as he saw Jacob limping. He was now in great weakness, but forever changed. He was no longer dependent on his own strength, but walked in power from another world. When did we last wrestle in prayer? When was the last time that you felt like even your name should be different?

May God grant each of us such an encounter dear believer in Christ!

Limping and Strong,
Dhilljr
www.shakingofanation.org

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Dec
20

GREATER THINGS

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We have sung that song a lot, ‘Greater things have yet to come, greater things are still to be done in this city…’ Lately though, these words have personally taken on a whole new meaning for the leaders and volunteers of Urban Outreach NKy/Cincinnati. It is not just because we helped to establish or strengthen several new or existing churches in 2011. It is not because we know we will reach hundreds of souls for Jesus in 2012. The stirring goes beyond our excitment about a new hispanic ministry at UO (led by our new friend) a humble pastor from Cuba…

Here in Cincinnati, we are feeling a great stirring in our souls and God gets the credit. It is not just UO either, but many churches and ministries that we are in partnership with and that are feeling the same stirring – a call to united prayer! I have personally met with church leaders and influencers in our region recently, and we all hear the same thing: It is time to pray.

We are excited to announce 21 days of prayer and fasting, culminating with a city-wide ‘third watch’ prayer meeting at the warehouse (Jan 20th from 8 PM until 6 AM). Everything that God has been showing us points to these truths.

Again, it is time to pray and watch God do greater things! Here is what the Lord is saying specifically for our city…

THESE NEW MEETINGS WILL BE VERY UNIQUE AND FRESH: Unlike some of the times past with city-wide meetings, the ‘trumpet’ will make a clear sound, a sound of repentance. Tears and brokenness for God’s touch will descend in power, with cries for mercy. Meetings will spring up all over our region – lasting well into the night. Pastors and laity alike will spend hours before the throne of grace, as Christ pours a new and fresh passion on our faith. People will simply not want to leave these meetings and many will be renewed in their walk with God. There will be divine order and spiritual authority in these meetings. There will be no grasping for the mic by those craving attention!

THESE MEETINGS WILL EXPLODE AND THOUSANDS WILL COME: The only explanation for our city will be divine. There will be no other reason that will logically make sense. Prayer will begin with just a few who are desperate for God, but quickly it will catch like fire. Meetings will erupt with His divine grace and presence. Many notable healings will take place, as the name of Jesus is glorified in His church. Again, these meetings have been planned in heaven. Nothing of man’s effort or planning will be present.

A NEW DIVISION WILL COME: Many motives will be made clear, very suddenly. Christ does not simply come to bless, but to divide. A great gap is shown during revival, between those who are after His heart and those who are after themselves. It is time to cry out, for pure hearts before the Lord!

*If you live in the Cincinnati area and would like to connect with UO and dozens of churches over prayer, please visit our new FB page – ‘TRI-STATE PRAYER’ – for important information and updates!

David Hill, Jr.
City Servant

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Oct
26

Weight of Glory

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These last few weeks at the warehouse have been unique to say the least. But at Urban Outreach NKy/Cincinnati, we’ve always been a bit different…

David & Rebecca Training Teen Evangelists

Maybe it is because we are not an urban church, but rather a movement of churches – winning our city for Jesus in unity. We are bent on one thing: We will come together and spread the love of Jesus through compassion evangelism, as one body.

A CHANGE: Last Saturday morning at our warehouse was incredible. God was simply there and touched and changed hearts. The weight of His glory came into the room with all of His grace and compassion! Although God had been visiting, something deeper changed in us when Pastor Perez (from Mexico) ministered a few weeks ago. It is amazing to see the ‘wedding feast’ – a true feast of grace and mercy – coming together right before our eyes. People are finding the peace and joy of Jesus, right off the streets. We are seeing homeless stand next to ‘suburban’ Christians, that own two cars and a nice house. Equal, we all come to the feet of Jesus! Hey, maybe this is the way that the body of Christ should look? Black, white, hispanic, rich, poor, male and female…all together in worship and service to each other!

THE MISSION: Miracles are taking place and the gospel is being preached around the city. We have always wanted to keep our divine mission – as a movement of compassion, evangelism, and unity. We are not changing that, but something very deep is changing in our core values: We value His presence above all else now! The leadership team of U.O. is realizing that without the miraculous, our gospel is weak at best. I can sense the wonder of Jesus in my soul as I type this today. I know that He has amazing things in store for those of us reaching the lost in America: As we lay everything down at His cross!

“Jesus, I pray you would continue to visit us and heal the sick, save the lost and set the addict free! Only you can shake our cities in the way they need to be shaken! It’s all or nothing Lord and we are all in for You!”

dhilljr
www.urbanoutreachcincy.org

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Oct
04

DON’T GO AWAY YET!

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COMPASSION

We are learning that it is not just ‘what we do,’ as Christians, but ‘who He has made us.’ We are made in His image in Christ. And God is a compassionate God. Oh, to be His hands extended in healing and His feet going in faith to reach the hurting.

It costs something. Yes, salvation is free, the cross paid our debt in full. BUT there is a cost to discipleship. Oh yes, it costs us all that we have and all that we are, to follow Him. Compassion is not simply a trait, but a fire that consumes us. We are MOVED with compassion, like Jesus. So we run to the city and reach the broken, when everyone else is running away!

John 6:66 shares the response of a challenge of this ‘trade’ offered by Jesus. Our life for His new life…
“As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore.”

God does not enjoy when people turn back from following Christ…no, listen to Jesus brokenness in the next verse: “So Jesus said to the twelve, “You do not want to go away also, do you?” 68Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life.”

God give us compassion, make us like you… Our life for yours, we want to feel your heart!

dhilljr
Oct 2011
www.shakingofanation.org

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Sep
21

God’s Agenda!

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I took me over a decade of preaching and several failed ministries, to finally step into my divine destiny. Today, we are seeing hundreds of souls saved, healed and set free; right on the streets of urban America! From D.C. to Alaska, though outreaches and training with various churches and ministries, God has allowed Rebecca and I to touch the hurting on the streets of our cities for Christ. We’re on God’s agenda now!

I saw this agenda played out again, just a couple weeks ago in Cincinnati. We showed up at the park that night with 20 volunteers from local churches and ministered to about 200 people. Honestly, didn’t ‘feel’ like a great witness and would have rather been home watching the slumping Reds! One man, standing in line for food caught my attention. I felt like Jesus by the well in John 4, and knew that this was the person God had brought my way. James had tears in his eyes and wrote on a tablet, “Thank You.” He went to share that he was a veteran and was about to have his voice box taken out because of cancer. I found out the date and (to James’ surprize), I showed up at the VA a couple weeks later…

As we prayed together and he rededicated his all to Jesus, tears again welled up in his eyes. For the next week, I visited James often in the hospital and every time he would cry. He wrote, “I thought God left me years ago, but I was the one who left Him.” I felt the presence of God in the VA, as I share Scripture and encouraged James to get plugged into church when he was well again.

One day, as I was leaving the hospital, I had this thought, “I haven’t gotten anything done today.” Building an outreach center in Cincinnati with a former NFL star is a lot of work after all! A reply came quickly and with authority from the Lord, “Really? Haven’t gotten anything done? That is a funny thing, because I have accomplished a lot. You are on My agenda son!”

As we continue to pour into the volunteers and leaders of Urban Outreach NKy/Cincinnati, God continues to teach important lessons: It is not how many chuches we can stand in front of, how loud I can preach or how much money we can raise for the outreach center. No, God’s agenda is much more simple than that: He wants to touch individuals though our surrendered lives!

If we slow down as leaders we will find a quiet well to sit down on, next to Jesus. There we can wait for His next appointment. We are all His missionaries if we believe in Christ, let’s get on God’s Agenda!

Yours for Service in Urban America,
David & Rebecca Hill
U.S. Missionaries
dhill@shakingofanation.org

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Sep
07

Unity the Hard Way!

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Are you between a rock and a hard place?

Unity the Hard Way! …Unity and love for our brothers and sisters in the body of Christ are primary purposes of the Holy Spirit. He will take us through many trials to get us where we need to be in our Christ-like character. Hard things make us more like Jesus, if we respond with humility and willingness to God’s discipline. If we were always comfortable, there would be no motivation to change, but hard things make us examine our passion and trust in Christ and our love for His church.

A man named Paul went through many such hardships: Mockings and trials, literally fleeing from one city to another. On one occassion, this same apostle had rocks hurled at him for sharing Jesus and Lystra (in what is now Asia minor). Talk about a rock and a hard place to preach!

Today, ministry is difficult pastors and leaders! Every calling comes with trials, every divine assignment comes with hard things. But Jesus is our Rock and is giving us His character to sustain us. We don’t just act like Him in our strength, His very Spirit indwells us and imparts His compassion and trust in our hearts! When we are between a Rock and a hard place, we need to fall on the Rock of His love. We must call upon Him. We have to lift up weary hands in worship and raise our troubled voices in thanks to Him-BECAUSE, He doesn’t leave us during difficult seasons.

Whatever your trial today, know that God is working a deeper love in your for both His Christ and His body – the church. Great unity and blessing will result as it did with Paul, who wrote these words in II Corinthians 1:8 & 9 – “[In Asia] We were so crushed beyond our ability to endure that we even despaired of living. But we suffered so that we would stop trusting ourselves and learn to trust God, who brings the dead back to life.”

Paul had great love and compassion for the church because of that which he had suffered. He wrote to the Corinthians and admonished them to do all things in love. And no matter the hardships you face for the gospel today, God is working a much deeper purpose in you than these momentary troubles and light afflictions. They are working for you, a deep faith and passion – just like Paul, who was the first missionary to reach the masses of the Gentiles. If you feel crushed and beyond your ability to endure, REJOICE! A miracle working God is getting ready to raise some things from the dead for you!

Keep Reaching America with Us!
David & Rebecca Hill
U.S. Urban Missionaries

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Aug
23

Giving to Get

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“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” -Luke 6:38 NIV

There is a dark teaching that is prevalant in the body of Christ today: That you must give if you want to get. Sometimes it is called ‘seed faith.’ Basically, if you want financial well-being, you can have it. All you have to do is give an offering…ah, but there is a catch. It is always, ‘hey, give to MY ministry…’ and be blessed. Well, I am sorry to be un-theological in my terminology, but that is just plain stupid and selfish on behalf of us ministers. May we all repent for such attitudes. Christ wants us to have a higher motivation for giving to His work…

The godly motivation for giving time or resources is NEVER to get back. What pleases the Father is a heart that gives out of pure love, to bless someone and love them into the kingdom. The motivation for giving that comes from Christ is love. We love Him. He has done so much for us, we can’t help but become a blessing to those who are hurting in America.

Oh, yes, we will receive in return- it says that, ‘good measure, pressed down, shaken togther and running over…’ WOW…’will be poured into our lap.’ And why will God give back to us through people? You guessed it, so that we can give and give some more! Give to the Lord in your local church, give of your prayers and time, give to your family and to missions. Give until it hurts because you love Christ and He has done so much for you.

My prayer for you TODAY is that you would be filled with the strength, wisdom and love of Jesus…so that you can give it away TOMORROW!

Let’s reach the hurting in America,
dhilljr

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Jul
22

Winning our Nation for Christ

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Jesus gave us the great commission 2,000 years ago. It doesn’t matter who you are in Christ, you are called to win the harvest of souls in our nation. Time is short, and just like in the apostles’ day, Jesus speaks to us still, from the first chapter of Acts…

“And he said to them, It is not for you to have knowledge of the time and the order of events which the Father has kept in his control. But you will have power, when the Holy Spirit has come on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judaea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

What is our charge, what is our focus? Winning our world for Jesus. He didn’t say to go to Bible College (nothing wrong with it though). Jesus doesn’t tell us, “Hey, once you get everything figured out and feel like a strong Christian, then you can do My work.” No, we are told to wait on God in prayer and then go in His name.

At the ministry we founded in Cincinnati, Urban Outreach, that is our aim. We want to preach the gospel under the bridge and in the streets of the city to the CEO. It is all about compassion, evangelism and unity. We must get busy because we are all called to win the harvest of souls in our nation!

David Hill, Jr.
Urban Missionary

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