The World Is Our Parish

February 6

What In The World Are We Doing? By Dr. D. James Kennedy

…‘These who have turned the world upside down have come here too.’ —Acts 17:6

Do you ever sit back and wonder about your purpose in life? Do you wish to know at the end of your life that you didn’t live in vain? Socrates said that an unexamined life is not worth living. I think it behooves us from time to time to ask, “What in the world am I doing? What is my life really amounting to?”

I believe we should “be about our Father’s business”—advancing the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. What could be more important—and more meaningful?

In the book of Acts, we read that the early Christians were “turning the world upside down.” The world had been turned upon its head in the fall and rebellion of humankind, and it desperately needed to be turned right side up. Though the early Christians faithfully pursued this goal, our world still needs to be turned right side up so that individuals might see God as He really is.

Men and women need to turn their eyes from the material mud flats beneath—even if those “flats” are breathtaking mansions on waterfront property—and lift their eyes to the stars and know that God has created humanity for eternal life with Him.

My friends, our world still needs a spiritual revolution that turns the world upside down! But I am afraid that many Christians are like Edith. Edith is described in a certain novel as a small country bounded on the north, the south, the east, and the west by Edith itself. So many of us seem like that country, self-absorbed in our little circumscribed worlds. We don’t pay attention to anything outside our spheres of concern.

Are you a world revolutionary? Have you determined in your heart to change the world, to turn it upside down for Christ? Have you hitched your life to this grand cause? Or are you meandering around in some small eddy out of the main current of human events? If you haven’t already, join in the grand plan to win as many people for Christ as you can. Determine today to touch one life with Christ’s love. This is “what in the world” we should be doing.

I look upon the world as my parish. —JOHN WESLEY



Although Dr. Kennedy witnessed many disheartening events during his lifetime, he did not live to see the rise of isis abroad or the falling away of the faithful or the abrogation of a meaningful world leadership role on the part of the country to which he ministered in love.

“Those of us who are alive and remain…” I Thessalonians 4:16 anticipate Christ’s return with fervent expectation but are aware that so did the early Church. We know His coming could be at any moment, but we also know that centuries have gone by since the promise was given to the throng that watched Him arise to Heaven.

The words of the angels, “You men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing into Heaven? This same Jesus who is taken from you shall return in like manner as you have seen Him go,” Acts 1:11, are as true today as when they were first spoken, but many in our generation care nothing for the truth that Jesus will return to redeem the faithful to Himself.

So, what should we do? How should people of faith comport themselves in this day of apostasy and indifference? It seems the only viable conclusion for us to reach is that we, like First Century believers, must be among those who “turn the world upside down,” Acts 17:6, in an effort to bring all humankind to a saving knowledge of the One whom to know is life (see John 17:3). Like John Wesley, we must see the world as our parish.