September 19, 2024
ATHENS, Ga. — Around 5,600 women gathered in Athens from churches across the United States for Going Beyond Live at the largest live event Lifeway has hosted since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
The event and simulcast on Saturday, Aug. 24, 2024, featuring Bible teacher Priscilla Shirer with music led by Anthony Evans, drew 206 churches, 149 small groups, and 1,003 individuals with an estimated 50,000 joining live or registered for the simulcast. Participants from 49 states and eight countries represented a broad range of evangelical denominations.
In the first and the third sessions on Saturday, Shirer focused attendees on Jesus’ journey to the cross and the six specific trials He encountered. Diving deeper into John 18 and other passages, she encouraged them to use the text to put themselves on trial as well.
“Each trial is an opportunity for us to put our own selves on trial today, to allow the Holy Spirit to ask us some hard questions about how we relate to Jesus, whether or not we take Jesus seriously in our own lives, or whether or not we have become casual or indifferent in our relationship with Him,” she challenged.
Shirer asked the audience, “If you were brought up on charges for being a Christian is there enough evidence to convict you?”
The first trial Jesus walked through begins in John 18. Annas, the high priest, questioned Jesus about His disciples and His teaching. In response to Annas, Jesus said He hadn’t spoken anything in secret. Shirer noted that if Annas didn’t know what Jesus had taught, that was by his own choice. She put Jesus’ words into her own: “If you don’t know, you don’t want to know.”
Shirer said this passage leads the reader to hear the Holy Spirit ask, “Why don’t you know what Jesus has said?”
Shirer continued, “It’s not because He hasn’t said it openly. It’s because we haven’t inclined our ears to hear it.” She encouraged attendees to examine where they’ve become “lazy in our listening,” and “lethargic in our learning.”
During the second trial, taken from Matthew 26, Jesus was taken across the court to Caiaphas. During that time, Peter, a beloved disciple, denied Jesus for the third time. As attendees studied the passage, Shirer encouraged them to look inward and ask themselves, “Are you ashamed to say boldly and unapologetic that you know who Jesus is?”
“Has Jesus given you opportunity to say His name and you have not?” Shirer asked attendees. “Are you willing to speak the truth and stand firm?”
Shirer added, “…here, while on trial, Jesus refused to deny who He was. Now the question is, will we?”
The third trial takes the listener back to John 18. Here, the religious leaders of the time were more concerned about the appearance of righteousness than the actual righteousness Jesus offers. Shirer encouraged believers to ask themselves, “Are you trying to accomplish for yourself what only Christ can give?”
She challenged attendees to push back against the legalism these religious leaders fell prey to.
Referring to legalism, Shirer asked, “Sis, aren’t you tired?” Shirer continued. “It’s an exhausting way to live … the enemy knows it’s an exhausting way to live. If he cannot keep you in bondage through sin and addiction and rebellion of every kind, he will try to enslave you with perfectionism.”
She poised, “Are you attempting to earn what Jesus freely gives?”
The fourth trial homed in on Jesus’ trial before Pilate in John 18. Pilate, instead of looking to the truth Christ shared, looked to the crowd as he delivered the sentence. Shirer encouraged attendees to ask themselves, “Have you fixed your eyes on Jesus, or have you turned them to people?
“Pilate asked the question about what truth was while staring into the face of Truth,” she lamented.
Just as Pilate looked to the crowd for answers instead of Christ, believers have the tendency to do the same. As Christ stood on trial before Pilate, Shirer encouraged her listeners to put themselves on trial. “We’ve got to fix our eyes on Jesus,” she exhorted.
Jesus’ fifth trial is found in Luke 23. Herod had heard about Jesus. He was excited to meet Him. Herod was enamored with Jesus, “not because he was a follower, but because he was a fan. He had no intention of surrendering to Jesus or honoring Him as King. He just wanted to be entertained by Him.”
“Trial number five asks you, ‘Do you just want to be entertained by Jesus?’” Shirer said.
“Are you enamored with Jesus, or do you really want to be a surrendered follower of Jesus Christ,” she asked the audience.
When Jesus was sent back to Pilate, his sixth trial began. In Matthew 27, Pilate must make a decision about Jesus. Shirer said attendees must make a decision, too. “Have you been trying to wash your hands of making the decision about who Jesus is?” she asked.
“The reason why you are in this room today is because you cannot escape having to make a decision. He’s going to keep knocking at the door of your heart,” she said.
In the second session, Shirer zoomed in on the first trial, asking attendees to consider “how we can come to know what Jesus has said and take seriously our relationship with the Word of God.”
She encouraged them to dive into God’s Word themselves.
Shirer shared the five Ps of hearing God through Scripture:
She prayed over the women present and online, asking God to help them, “know You more fully and completely through Your love letter to them.”
During the conference, attendees also joined for a time of prayer centered on different categories: freedom, marriage, lost loved ones, and local churches and communities. Each participant was encouraged to take a prayer request written by an attendee and pray over it for the next seven days.
Shirer’s generosity push during the event raised funds for the Tim Tebow Foundation’s Empower Hope project dedicated to saving discarded babies in South Africa. At the time of publishing, around $208,000 was raised of the $400,000 goal.
The next Going Beyond event will be held Oct. 12, at Northern Kentucky University near Cincinnati, Ohio. For more information, visit Lifeway.com/GoingBeyondLive.
