About Dwayna
& Lighting The Way Worldwide

But may it never be that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.–Galatians 6:14

An Unmerited Missionary
The Life of Dwayna Litz
(President and founder of Lighting the Way Worldwide)

Born to a Christian family, Dwayna started praying and singing hymns before she could talk plainly. She was saved at the age of five and then baptized in First Baptist Church of Morristown, Tennessee. Dwayna grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and she traveled all over the world in crusade teams as a soloist in revival meetings affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention from age ten to fifteen.

Dwayna moved to Orlando, FL, as a teenager and was a member of First Baptist Orlando. She sang the old hymns as a soloist in evangelistic crusades in India, Haiti, and Korea from age thirteen to fifteen. She was awarded “Best in Show” in musical theater for the state of Florida in high school. She was also chosen to represent her high school, based on an essay that she wrote, as an intern for Congressman Lawton Chiles in Washington, D.C., when she was sixteen years old.

At the age of seventeen, she moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue a career in country music as a singer and songwriter and had several production deals with producers affiliated with Arista and Warner Brothers, as well as publishing contracts. She lived in NYC from 1996 to 1997 and sang three nights a week around town with a song list of over one hundred songs from the forties and fifties. She found, however, that her love for Jesus and desire to obey the Bible didn’t help her succeed in the theater business. “He must increase, and I must decrease” didn’t go over very well when it came to scripts she was offered. She was not comfortable with all the profanity and didn’t feel right about promoting immorality in so many of the show themes. The theater was a very lonely place back then for her as a Christian. It was limiting, to say the least, having the desire to either succeed as an artist and entertainer in a way that was glorifying to God, or not succeed at all.

In hindsight, it was all part of a beautiful, pruning process in her adult life that words hardly can describe. Oswald Chambers loved the art world and said that God would have to take him “kicking and screaming” out of it. He went up on a mountain and prayed all night and felt impressed the next day that God had said, “I don’t need you, but I could use you.” He turned down the scholarship offered to him to study art and went to seminary. Such a story became similar to what Dwayna experienced as a Christian in her early years.

Dwayna loved art and singing so much that it was her life’s passion in her late teen years and twenties. It was devastating for her to think of life apart from being an entertainer. Her number one fear was who and what she would be without the accolade of fame. One night, at the age of twenty- four, sad because nothing seemed to be working out, she was praying about it all to God, and the Holy Spirit clearly spoke to her heart saying, “Let me be everything to you.” She answered weeping, “I don’t know how.”

After that first year in NYC, she was offered another publishing deal to return to Nashville to work as a singer and songwriter. As the years passed, the music industry in Nashville waned less and less alluring until she grew to abhor the country music business altogether. She turned to Scripture memorization through those long, sad days. The days were so difficult that she actually carried 3×5 cards around with Bible verses on them to memorize to just help her get through the hours of boring, unfulfilling jobs to make ends meet. Ostracized by “casting couch” managers and producers in Nashville for not playing their game, she grew to have disdain for the country music industry. God was putting her eyes more and more on living for Jesus and getting all of her sense of belonging in Him. She realized afresh that the true meaning of success is based on God’s approval and not man’s.

Dwayna started to experience what it meant for Jesus to be everything to her. She would walk out of a movie if it was not something He wanted to see, knowing that He was right there with her, too. Her first love became knowing Jesus through Bible study, reading biographies of missionaries, listening to sermons and sharing the gospel with others in gentleness and love. When she first heard Walter Martin, founder of the Christian Research Institute, she called CRI and announced enthusiastically, “I want all of his CDs!” She had made the exciting discovery of apologetics. In 1999, Dwayna became a member of the Grace to You tape library and began listening to sermons by John MacArthur on a daily basis. Strange as it may seem, she spent countless Friday and Saturday nights taking notes on sermons! Studying became the thrill of her life, as she realized how little she knew and had an insatiable desire for learning more.

She entered a Mormon bookstore once in Nashville, by accident, and when she found out it was a Mormon bookstore, she said to the owner, “Wait just one minute. I’ll be right back,” and went to her car and got her notes by Walter Martin on witnessing to people in cults. The bookstore owner was stumped by her questions and asked, “Who are you, and why are you here?” Dwayna got back in her car after the exhilarating experience of witnessing to that woman, and driving home all the way with a smile on her face, touched to the point of tears, she prayed to the Lord, “It doesn’t get any better for me than this!” She was experiencing the joy of knowing the Bible and making a stand for it through logical conversations with love to people, a joy like no other.

Her favorite quote became:

“It is a very ill omen to hear a wicked world clap its hands and shout well done to the Christian man.”- Charles Spurgeon.

She moved to Los Angeles in 2001 for the sole purpose of becoming a member of Grace Community Church and sitting under the expository teaching of John MacArthur. She joined the church the very first Sunday she was there and became a very active member. She roomed with two girls from the church for the first six months and then moved to Santa Monica, where she was working in an architectural firm. The job was paying a great salary, and she was able to afford a studio apartment right on the ocean.

How LTW Came to Be

In February of 2002, she was walking along the beach collecting shells listening to a sermon on Revelation by John MacArthur on her walkman. She needed a bag for her shells, so she looked to her left and saw some shops and commotion. She headed in that direction to happen upon the infamous Ocean Front Walk at Venice. It was devastating. The experience was surreal while listening to a sermon from the book of Revelation in the Bible. She walked the whole boardwalk aghast at the depravity.

She walked up to a few of the psychics to talk to them about Jesus, but they were not interested in even making conversation about Him. She asked a policeman if it would be all right for someone to put a Christian table there amidst all of the other religions and tables of psychic readings, and he said with somewhat of a shocked look on his face, “Sure, as long as you don’t cause any trouble.” She walked to the ocean to be alone with the Lord and pray for the people. Thinking of herself as a missionary, she prayed, “Lord, show me how I can reach them.” She stood there by herself, looking out over the vast ocean, and wept for them.

The following day at church, she asked the elder in charge of evangelism what he thought about the idea of her buying a table and chairs and being available to talk to people at Venice Beach about Jesus. She had a similar format in mind to that of the psychics in that she would let any passerby come to her and not approach them. Anyone stopping could sit down with her, but instead of giving a palm reading like her psychic neighbors, she would read them the Bible and tell them what God has to say about their future and offer them materials for free about how to be saved through Jesus. The pastor of evangelism thought it was a great idea, so she started volunteering her time every Saturday, and it became a church-wide ministry of evangelism at Grace Community Church.

Dwayna started praying that somehow, some way, she could spend more time with the people at Venice than just once a week. Without asking anyone for financial support, someone called and offered to pay her basic living expenses for the ministry to go full time. It became a full time ministry with non-profit status in 2003 and is now supported monthly by Christians, churches, and Christian businesses. To this date, no contributions have been solicited, and no one has been asked to give. Yet, the Lord continues to grow the ministry through His people, and all of the financial needs continue to be met

Lighting The Way works with churches in Southern CA in evangelizing the area through feeding the neighborhood weekly, donating clothing to the homeless, bringing Bible studies to them, writing tracts for the New Age environment, taking people to church and to church events, and providing Biblical answers to their objections to Christianity in love and gentleness. From there, Lighting the Way expanded to West Hollywood and Long Beach, CA.  Dwayna then moved in 2006 to expand the work of Lighting the Way Worldwide to Pearl Street in Boulder, CO.  In 2007 God allowed her to expand the mission work of table outreaches to NYC; then to England; then to partnerships in Israel for table outreaches in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv; then to a student campus outreach in the Philippines; a new table outreach in the Rio Grande Valley; Atlanta, GA (Little Five Points); Gatlinburg, TN; the University of TN campus, GA Tech campus; Guadalajara, MX; Pakistan; and Louisiana State Penitentiary at the Angola fall and spring rodeos. All locations have continued since they began in a way only God could sustain them, and this amalgam of table outreach evangelism based on logic and reason is still growing all over the world.

No one is good enough for Jesus to save them. The Bible says we are all saved by grace, and there is nothing we can do to earn God’s favor. And, no one is worthy of His magnificent love. But God demonstrated His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Dwayna Litz is a Christian, no better than the next, but serious about her walk with God through obedience to His Word—such obedience now defines her life.

I have heard it said that of all the gifts heaven can bestow upon men, fellowship with Christ in His sufferings is the most weighty trust and the highest honor.”

“Do tell, my brother, Faithful, which of us do you suppose will spill his lifeblood on this field of battle?”

“I could certainly hope for such an honor,” said Faithful sincerely, “But I suppose that it shall be you, for you are more able to bear it than I.”

“Truly,” said Christian hopefully, “I would covet such a glorious fate as that. But sometimes ‘tis easier to die than fight on. Only God knows which path will bring the most honor to His name.”

Pilgrim’s Progress
Amplified Version
pp. 196, 203

A New Chapter with Music

When God was ready, He began giving Dwayna more opportunities to sing, better than she ever imagined. When she was not even looking or expecting to sing music again on a large scale, He gave her the opportunity to record with a full orchestra and sing in concert halls. All of it just goes to show that God never says “No” to anything we give up to live for Him. As we trust Him in obedience and take our prayer requests to Him, He either says, “Yes” or “I’ve got something better.” He is faithful to those who love Him, exceedingly and abundantly beyond all we can imagine. We lose nothing by living for Him. Currently, Dwayna Litz lives in NYC and actively growing Lighting the Way, overseeing all the outreach locations and leading a team in Manhattan. She also sings in concert halls, hotels, restaurants and festivals with a pianist, a trio or full orchestra. A song she wrote, released in 2012, “America Come Home” is being considered for the 2012 Presidential election and for movies and television specials.