Marti,

Wow, baggage on words is such a poweful thing.  As soon as I read your first sentance, my knee-jerk reaction was "oh, not again, it's not about where we go when we die!"  :)

Thanks for unpacking your use of the phrase, however, and I would definately agree with you.  I think it's also why we feel good when we honestly do good things for others (not for the "return" for us, or to make up for our guilt, or to earn approval, or even do what we're "supposed" to do) - there's something about the feeling of just living in the way that God has dreamed for us.  I've used the language "The Dream of God" in that very way as a substitute for "The Kingdom of Heaven" (although like every analogy it breaks down at points and in this case needs to be put in the right context).

But yeah, it is certainly "Good News" that the world (and our western culture especially) is literally starving for.  As a tattoo artist, I encounter a lot of "non-Christian", anti-institutional people.  One of the things that absolutely blew me away was the sheer number of them who are living within their peer groups in ways that the church should - helping one another, being "neighbors" to one another, etc.  Within the group of people I've encountered, I've seen what looks like the biblical church more than the current day church has sometimes looked.  They don't have it all together by any means and are obviously missing the core of the faith in an understanding of Jesus and the implications in taking what they  have even further, but at the same time, those groanings of Eden are definately visible and driving some of their actions - whether we or they acknowledge it as such.  (It's almost like it amazed me how much God does without us, since we sometimes live as though He couldn't do it if we weren't around)

Brian