[Darris McNeely] Welcome back to Inside United Podcasts. I’m Darris McNeely, I’ll be hosting today’s program. And in the studio with me today is my fellow co-host on Beyond Today, Steve Myers.

[Steve Myers] Good to be here.

[Darris] Good to have you, Steve. We wanted to talk a little bit about the Beyond Today personal appearance campaigns that kicked off last fall when we made our tour down to Texas and have now restarted. We were in Nashville, Tennessee, about a month ago, and we’re going to – this weekend, as we’re talking here right now, we’re heading out to Indianapolis, and then Columbus and a number of other sites. So, a lot of people have been asking and looking at these on the web. We’ve had people sign up for them, we’ve had a great deal of interest, members and subscribers to Beyond Today Magazine. Maybe you could give a little bit of a background as to why we’re doing this, and the goals and the purposes of these personal appearance campaigns from your perspective.

[Steve] There’s really a lot to it, I think, in a number of ways. When you think about being on the program – you know, you talk to a camera. You’re not talking to people. And so, one of the wonderful opportunities with the personal appearance campaign is you get to see people face-to-face. We talk to our viewers, we talk to the people that we write to with Beyond Today Magazine, and so you have a real interaction with people that are listening to the program, that are reading the articles. And so that’s something that I think brings it to another level, when you can see each other and talk about it. And then you talk about the importance of what the message is about. And I think that is so critical. You know, why do we do these things? Well, in one way, we’re like the apostle Paul – woe to us if we don’t preach this gospel.

[Darris] Yeah.

[Steve] Because it is an amazing message of God and it is about, you know, changed lives and what God’s purpose is all about, and how do you face the difficulties in this world? I mean, part of the program deals with that – that we live in a world that is in a mess, and if you don’t have an understanding of what God is doing, what is His purpose, on the world scale as well as an individual scale – yeah, how do you face things? You know, what is the purpose? And so to deal with those, you know, huge issues of why do I exist and what is God’s plan, it does give a hope and certainly a purpose for people’s lives right now. And I think that is something that is exciting to see, especially face-to-face and person-to-person, that you can’t really get unless you’re right there with each other. And so it’s a neat opportunity.

[Darris] You know, several months ago, when we were beginning to draw a concept of this personal appearance campaign, we wanted to go out and take the message and Beyond Today to these places. We wanted to get something that was attention-grabbing, and spoke really to issues of the day, which is why we chose “America: The Time Is Now!”.  “The Time Is Now” really is a call to repentance. It’s a call to understanding your purpose in your life. It’s a call to change. I think we all know that America has gone through a number of years of cultural, political, and social changes and turmoil, and we’re in the midst of an election cycle right now which has generated a great deal of interest and even in some cases fear for people, and America’s role is changing in the world. And we constantly deal with these topics on our programming and in the magazine, and so we wanted to take this down to the personal level, but beyond just a message about prophecy. It’s a message about what’s the purpose of your life and what you need to do to help yourself to understand why the world is the way that it is.

[Steve] Mm-hm. Beyond Today Live – I really believe that it does focus that message on our overall purpose as individuals, our relationship with God. It focuses on how do you handle the difficulties in this world – I mean, like you said, the political season that we’re in right now, you don’t think we have problems? Just turn on the news. Just watch the candidates. Listen to the rhetoric. We are in trouble. You know, America is in trouble, and the time is now, you know, to really think about what is this all about? And there’s so many confusing messages out there today that the message of the Bible, the message that we’re bringing to people through the word of God is one that gives, you know, help for today, hope for tomorrow – you know, it’s our tagline.

[Darris] Yes.

[Steve] But it’s a reality.

[Darris] It is.

[Steve] It’s a reality of what it’s about. And God has so much more in mind than this mess of a world that’s out there. So when you look at your life that oftentimes may look like a mess, this world looks like a mess, it’s almost overwhelming. But yet with the word that we’re bringing from the truth of God, you know – sets a whole different tone and a whole different purpose for each and every one of us.

[Darris] Yeah, we deliberately chose a positive approach. “America: The Time Is Now!” is attention-getting, but the message that people hear and what we provide for them really gets down to, here’s what you can do in your life, and here’s how you can have hope that there is a God, that He’s in charge of history, He is bringing this world to the fruition of His purpose and plan for mankind. Here’s your role, here’s what you can do, here’s what you should do.

[Steve] Yeah, I think that’s one of the really neat things about the message that we bring. And it’s not our message, it’s God’s message. But the fact that – yeah, look at the big picture – we can frame the big picture by the word of God. We can also frame our individual lives by the word of God. And so it’s not just an ethereal kind of thing like, wouldn’t this be nice, but that we really bring a message that really gets down to the practical things for your life and what do you need to do in order to have a part of this whole thing. And so it’s exciting, it’s fun, it’s one of those things that, it really is a game-changer if you really take this message to heart. I think that’s the amazing thing, is to see lives can change and they do change because of this very message.

[Darris] Well, these personal appearance campaigns, “America: The Time is Now!”, Beyond Today Live, are scheduled for a number of cities here in the Midwest in the coming months. We’re going this weekend to Indianapolis, and next month we’ll be in Columbus, Ohio. And then this summer, we will be in Chicago, Milwaukee, Dayton, Ohio, Cleveland, Ohio, and then in the fall, I know we’re lined up to go down to hit three cities in North Carolina – Raleigh, Greensboro, and Charlotte, North Carolina. We have other cities on the block that we want to go to as well, so we’re planning to roll these out and continue on into the future, and we hope to see many of you with us, and we hope that you’ll come out and meet Gary and Steve and I and others of our Beyond Today production staff, as well as other people who actually do read, understand, and are acting upon the message of Beyond Today that they either read or see on television or the web. So Steve, appreciate you being here, coming in and talking about it for a few minutes and bringing the folks that listen to the podcast here up-to-date on that. So thanks very much. This is Inside United, thanks for listening, and be sure and tune in for the next edition.