Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to the Chroma Charge podcast.
[00:00:04] Speaker B: Joel, Paul, Ben, come and join us. Come and join us up here. You, come on up here.
There you go.
Take a seat.
Our friend Ben here has just joined us. If you don't know him, yeah, go and give him a. Go and stand up. Give him a proper welcome. Go on.
Fantastic.
If you don't know Ben, Ben has a wonderful church in Germany.
I first came across Ben, he was hiring stadiums and going to different cities in Europe and preaching the gospel.
And that in itself was just stunning. But what was more stunning was when they gave the appeal for people to get saved.
They ran forward and seeing hundreds of people just running across this big space to give their lives to Jesus. And I'm telling you, there is no better sight. You know, we talked about the floor in heaven being sapphire, but I tell you, the reason Jesus came was that sight. Heart so hungry, so desperate for him, coming and bringing their lives to the cross.
And I want to. I think I would say to you, if I've learned anything from Ben, whatever dream you have, God has something bigger for you.
And believe, believe him, believe him for it.
So, and then Joel at the end, he was playing bass this morning, is going to be leading worship tonight. And what I wanted to talk about in this last session before we go to dinner, we entitled this conference Word and Truth.
And how do we choose what the title is? Well, often it's some of the things we're working through as a church here.
And we've seen salvation, we've seen lots of growth.
How do we teach, how do we all the wisdom that Paul has just been talking about and have the courage to speak truth?
Because there's something in our culture that threatens truth.
And there is sometimes there is a fear in the church. If I say something that I believe is true, there's going to be this terrible backlash.
And so the sense is that we play it safe.
One of the Paul referenced the Quiet Revival report. One of the interesting other comments it makes is young people are flocking to the church, but they're not flocking to the liberal ones.
They're flocking where the truth is taught. Because they're looking what is right and wrong. Will someone tell me?
Okay, so in a minute we're gonna open it up to the floor and you can ask, we want to scratch where you itch, if you like, what are some of your questions?
But first I want to ask them a few questions to get us going. Is that all right? So think your questions, because we're going to have to move quickly.
Let me start, Let me start with Ben. And Ben, I want to ask you when, when you envisioned the stadiums, the preaching the gospel? Europe is very liberal.
How did you approach the messages, what you wanted to communicate?
And how did you.
How did you approach how you were going to communicate the message that you. You have?
[00:04:36] Speaker C: Yeah, well, it's a great question. It's good to see you.
Hi. Hello.
Yeah, I. When we prepared for all the awakening Europe stadiums, you know, the preparation was bathed in prayer and fasting. And so there was a lot of sort of committing ourselves to what God would do in that moment. And I would have a lot of visions internally, seeing people come forward.
And so what I did was with the evenings, I made sure that I only invited people who knew how to preach the gospel clearly and that it would be sharp, it wouldn't be fluffy, it would be clear. People like Nick Vujicic with no arms and legs, one of the best. When he preached the gospel. Oh, it's like stunning how clear it was because, you know, he came out of such a broken place and the brokenness of sin, shame, and then he would just throw the net. And so they were really important values to me in the evening sessions when we invited the majority of non believers, that those non believers would hear a clear, sharp gospel. The second group of speakers I would always invite are people who have a focus on unity.
So for me, in my mind, I'm like, these big events have to bring the church together and then they have to bring the gospel together.
And those two are inseparable for me.
I don't know what Paul shared today, but that's one of the main reasons I would bring Paul, because Paul talks a lot about your own encounter. Own it really well. Be truthful about your own encounter. Know what God has done in you. And he also talks about, you need others, you need to work with people, and you need to learn the strength of God in them. And so, yeah, so we would always try and think, how can we bring the church more into the posture of working with one another for the sake of the harvest? And the altar calls had to be sharp for me. In fact, I even gave corrective, lovingly, but corrective feedback to some very famous speakers saying, you said, if you want God in your life, just run down the front right now. I said, that's not an altar call, because you're going to get 90% of the Christians who also want God in their life running down. And so I'd say, get sharper if you're a Backslidden Christian. If you're used to believing God, if you're living in sin or, you know there's guilt in your heart, you know, you're living a double life. And so, yeah, I think that this, as you said, truth, clarity, sharpness, that was what we sort of aim for.
[00:06:49] Speaker B: I love that. Because the sharpness and the truth often, we think will cause disunity, but actually there's a unity that comes.
And the enemy will often try and say, if you say that, you'll cause disunity. But actually, the truth always brings unity. Always.
Joel, you're of a different generation to me, and you live in a totally different generation who kind of treat truth in a bizarre fashion. Social media, how they communicate with each other. How do you approach the communication of truth to your generation, your.
Your peers?
[00:07:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I think what to me has changed is at least with a lot of young people, it's about what you feel, and feelings become a big deal. And I wouldn't say people actively are like, I don't pursue truth. I just think in society, we've prioritized what you feel, and sometimes the two don't come together.
[00:08:06] Speaker C: And.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: And what's been interesting for us, I mean, obviously me primarily in a worship space, if any of you know me, I am absolutely wired as, like, a perfectionist. Like, I like to get everything right. I like to tweak everything.
Like, you'll know if I'm releasing music. It takes me way too long because I just keep coming back and back and back and back. And as we've worked in the worship, and for us primarily, one of our biggest tools has been social media, and it's been online, and that's kind of been this forum. And the truth is, for the younger generation, it is the main forum. Like, most people don't even pick up a phone and ring anyone anymore. They just send an Instagram message or, you know, our TikTok is like, I can't tell you how many people I meet on a Sunday that are like, we've come because we saw a TikTok video. I actually don't even have a TikTok account. Daniel. Daniel. Daniel runs my TikTok and won't give me the login.
But I think on that whole journey, what's been really interesting to me is as a naturally perfectionist person, I want everything to be perfect.
And as we've gone on this worship journey and a lot of our stuff is run by people 10 years younger than me, everything we put out that is real and Raw goes really far, has a massive scope, a massive audience. Everything that we perfect tends not to really reach.
And so I think there's an interesting reality of, like, I think people are hungry for the truth, but they want it to be real and they want to feel something on the end of it. And so a lot of our communication has been about, is this real, is this raw, is this what God was doing?
And does it captivate the emotion that was in the room? And we've found that that communicates to a younger audience really effectively for us and challenging for me because I love all the kind of perfect, nitpicky moments.
[00:10:11] Speaker B: Yeah. So sharp unity, real and raw.
And then, Paul, you. You have, you were just speaking about wisdom. You have an amazing gift of cutting through the noise.
Okay, again, you're very good with grids. You know, when we see so much noise coming from the world, how do we cut through that in order to communicate clearly?
They weren't ready for these questions, but I'm just, I'm just going, how do
[00:10:55] Speaker D: you cut through the nose? Well, I think what I do is I look for patterns.
So I'm looking for patterns in what's going on. So for instance, you know, when I currently, you know, I'll just look at what's going on in the world, you know, I'm looking for patterns. So I'll take something like the polarization that, that we. We have. You all know we have it. It's like we are constantly polarized. You know, I can mention one politician and you'll, you'll, you know, some of you will put me in a box, you know, and some of you might put me in a different box. Just, you know, so I look for. I look, I'm looking for patterns so that I can then just start to understand what is actually going on. And then what I'm always trying to do is, okay, is this pointing me to him or pointing me away from him?
Like, is this pointing me away from you or pointing me towards you? Like, I'm looking, I'm looking for those kind of things because to me, we're meant to live in alignment. We're meant to live in heaven to earth alignment, relational alignment, and an alignment with the world that we're sent into, like, you know, being true to our mission. So I, I'm looking for. For patterns. Simply that. To try and understand what's going on, you know, like, I would look at, I mean, I think the truth thing. Let's. Let me just go back to that. One of the biggest things for me, with Ben, with Awakening Europe was this.
From the moment it began, it pointed to him from the moment it began. That means now I can trust what comes after that, because his first goal was to point to him. So I'll look at some of what's going on either on social media, on a world stage, and I'm thinking, who's this pointing to? What's this pointing to? And I'll use that.
And that really, for me is the key and just for those who don't know. And it was July 2015, and this man who nobody knew walked onto a stage with 26,000 people and he didn't introduce himself.
The only person he introduced was Jesus.
And that's a part, really. It's like I'm looking if I know they're pointing there, if they're not pointing to themselves, if they're not bringing division, if they're not tearing somebody down.
I'm looking for a pattern that points to him.
[00:13:32] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
Sharp and clear.
Unity, real.
The pattern that points to Jesus.
[00:13:45] Speaker A: So
[00:13:48] Speaker B: in our churches, how many of you get to teach or preach in a setting in your church?
Great. Amazing, Amazing.
So let me ask, so how in your settings do you prepare to teach the truth? So what is the how do you.
Because it's an incredible responsibility to teach people.
It's not something we just throw together.
It's how do you. How do you prepare to be what we just talked about and, and to. To bring a message who wants to go,
[00:14:41] Speaker C: wow, okay.
I think that for me, can I just use the church context?
[00:14:47] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:14:47] Speaker C: So every week, I'm always, for me, in order to stay in alignment with God, to the truth, to what the children of God, the sheep really need. Because they're not mine, you know, I'm just an under shepherd.
I have to ask God questions and I have to be bathed in the word of God. Personally. How can I teach someone to fly the plane when I don't know the manual?
What can I give to the body of Christ? If I'm not deep in the scriptures, I can't really give a lot. So I get into the Word a lot, get deep in the Word and then I ask God, like, what does the church need? Because I only have a scope of what they need. I have my preferences. But they're his sheep, so I know that they need other things that I don't have.
So he needs me. God needs me to invite speakers that aren't like me to our church who have the different dexterity of the food that the People of God need, but on a regular basis. Like, I'd be starting sermon prep probably on like, a Tuesday or Wednesday. And then I'm praying all through the week in tongues over the sermon. I'm looking for the main portions of that message. And then my entire Saturday night is given to it. I look at it like a bit like a boxing ring. Once God's given me the theme, I need to sort of cut away the fat of the theme and make sure I get to the middle of the point, the real meat of the point. And then Saturday night, I'm praying. I'm praying because I don't want.
Because I'm not the best preacher. So I'm like, God, you need to rock up. So I need help. And I know that, like, I'm not a fivefold teacher. So I'm like, I'm a preacher. So I need you to help me to make sure this really comes across cleanly and clearly and get me out of the way. I don't want my preferences to lead this message. I want your word to lead it. And the second thing that I do is I make sure that what I'm reading in Scripture is accurate in the way that I'm doing the exegetical study of it, that it's accurate. I'm not making this Bible verse fit my theme. I'm saying it as it is. Even if I feel it prophetically links to my themes. I'm more sort of speaking truthfully about what the Scripture is. A good example of that would be like Philippians. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. The beginning of that part is talking about, basically, he could be poor, he could be wealthy, he can have lack, he can have a fullness of life. And he's talking about, I can go through stuff. He's not saying, like, I can do all things, as in, I'm going to become Michael Jordan tomorrow and play for the NBA, which maybe some of you will. But he's not saying.
He's defining that there's suffering. But Jesus gives me the power to suffer and the power to prosper. So putting just a little bit of context has helped me stay honest and true to what the scripture is telling God's people instead of what I just wanted to say in the sermon.
[00:17:26] Speaker B: Brilliant. I love that.
Paul, Joe.
[00:17:30] Speaker D: I mean, a couple of simple things that I learned pretty much from Bill Johnson. Number one, if you're in the word, you've got a word.
And that for me, is absolute.
The second one is you read to learn, not to teach.
They pick up the Bible to teach first. Before you pick up the Bible to learn, you, you've got a challenge.
And then I've added to that. You know, my background is, you know, I've done been trained in doing investigations and I like to interrogate the Bible and, and so I asked the Bible questions and I like to see the pattern.
I didn't do quite as much I might have wanted to, but you know, I did teach today from pretty much Exodus to James. You know, there's, I'm looking across the whole picture of scripture that's really important to me.
I always teach from, for an outcome, preach for an outcome. I don't mind whether I'm teaching if I'm teaching the gift of administration, I'm teaching to empower you in your gift. If I'm preaching, I'm preaching for changed lives or preaching for salvation.
And I think one of the biggest cautions I would say in our stream, I would encourage everyone to make sure that you don't have a teacher dominated curriculum, but that you have an apostolic prophetic inspired curriculum which the teachers serve. If you switch it the other way around, you can end up serving a teacher and not serving the apostolic prophetic foundation of the church. So those are kind of some of the things I have in mind.
[00:19:12] Speaker B: Amazing. Thank you.
[00:19:16] Speaker C: Sorry,
[00:19:19] Speaker A: I could forget.
I probably think because I also operate a different role in our space, I'm not often deciding the themes that we're going to talk about or some of those things. So obviously if I'm given a theme, that's one thing. But a lot of the time in our environment it's like, hey, what's God doing with you and would you share that? And in an environment where there's lots of people being saved, sometimes in Christian spaces I think at least I feel like I need to go more intellectual. It needs to be, be more impressive, it needs to be deeper in a certain way. And I think what I've learned, especially from you is like, if I can't live it out, it's useless to people and if I can't translate it accurately to people, it's useless. So I'm always kind of going through a message going are people going to walk away and have understood what I said? Is there going to be anything that helps them walk with Jesus every day?
Is it going to change the way they are? And I think especially early doors, I've gone what feels to me like super simple and like maybe this is basic, but this is just what I'm walking out with God in my life. And I've been blown away by the fact that people are coming, going, that's changed my life. That's done. So many people have been touched. And I think if we're in spaces, we should always assume there's people right at the start of their journey. The prayer is people are getting saved week on week. And if you're asking God for that, you kind of need to take teach like that. So we're constantly going back, aren't we? And going, what haven't we talked about for a while that we're assuming everyone knows that they don't know. And so I think I would just keep asking yourself the questions, like, is this good? Like, am I living this out? And does this change my life? And what were the things that have really made my walk with God easier? I think it takes a lot of pressure off them because then you're just taking your walk with the Holy Spirit and inviting people into it. And that's the greatest gift you can give them, I think.
[00:21:10] Speaker B: I agree. I agree.
[00:21:13] Speaker C: Yeah. I think Paul touched on it and then Joel just did as well. But when we come to Sundays, a lot of in the room, I can see there's some older ministers you would know. Like after a few years you don't get that impressed with yourself anymore. But for younger up and coming ones, I just want to tell you something in love that you are there to serve. That that moment is not for your identity and that's not for you to sound impressive. That's to really feed true food. And Paul just mentioned it then. It's about empowering to an outcome like this. Preaching of the gospel and teaching is all about empowerment and about the spirit moving inside people. So you just said it as well, Joel. So I just think it's got to be something that people can take away where they're looking less at them, the preacher, I mean, but they're looking more. I'm going to look into God and this is what God is forming in my life.
[00:22:02] Speaker B: Yeah. I think one of the most formative things for me was Jesus was a word worker. He did what he said and he said what he did.
He was the Word. And so there is the reality. And one of the things I've always done if I'm doing a talk is so what?
So what when somebody leaves, how will it change? How will it change their life? So I always ask myself that question because sometimes I've done a great talk and I'm really it and go, actually, I have no point it was just information.
So what?
So what? What will be the steps for a transformed life? Especially, I think it was really interesting. Paul asked how many of you have a confidence in your discipleship program. You said there weren't many hands went up. I was pleased our guys did put their hand up.
I mean, that is one of the.
Jesus said, go make disciples.
And we must have confidence in that. What we are doing in our church is making disciples.
Followers of Jesus, little Christs.
Okay, Emily, have you got a microphone?
[00:23:23] Speaker D: Can I say it something? Because you said something but you, you said it in a, in.
I just want to say another way. Don't preach what you don't live.
Yeah, this is the most dangerous place on planet Earth.
That will make an actor a hypocrite if you're not careful. And I think it might be the simplest thing. And I think one of the greatest safeguards in my life is that most of the time my wife travels with me.
I'm absolutely serious.
My wife travels with me and she will tell me, paul, you just preach something, you don't live.
She hasn't said that for a while. So I think I might be doing fairly well. But you know, I'm being really serious. This is so dangerous.
And you'll all. I need to be perfectly blunt. I look at some of these men and women of God who are having moral falls and we had one two weeks ago, didn't we?
Eight year affair. And I'm like, how on earth, how
[00:24:24] Speaker B: can you do it?
[00:24:25] Speaker D: How can you stand up and preach about purity and then jump in bed with somebody that isn't your wife?
Don't preach what you don't live.
[00:24:41] Speaker B: Okay, are there some questions? Because I want to throw it out because you're, you're on, you're all on the ground. You're doing this.
Go on, emily, run.
[00:25:02] Speaker E: Yeah, this was for Paul. Really.
Thank you for what you're saying about the fear of the Lord at the beginning of the wisdom, which I certainly think is great. And I was just been thinking about the nature of fear and you're saying about it being like not breaking the covenant.
But I also kind of see other instances in the Bible where fear seems to be kind of stronger than that. And I wonder what your thoughts are about.
For example, in Acts, when Anais and Sapphira, they lie to the apostles and they die. And it says that great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about the events. And it seems to me that something stronger than, you know, what you were saying there, there is a Real fear. I think they would have been afraid at that point. Just wondered what you thought about that.
[00:26:00] Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, I'm probably amongst a whole bunch of other people in here. It's like we need to be gripped by the fear of the Lord, that kind of fear of the Lord again.
I mean, I honestly do think we need that. You know, as I look at scenarios. And so I'm probably not alone, am I, when I might have gone and said, you know, how does this work, Lord?
How have people lived their lives?
I won't name any of their names, but, you know, a dozen prominent leaders in our world that many of us listened to their messages, read their books, went to their conferences, and they have been living immoral lives and they seem to disappear or reinvent themselves. And I'm like, how does this work? I think we need to be gripped by that kind of fear of the Lord, a desire to walk in purity and passion.
And so we need it.
I don't think I'm an expert in understanding it.
I did say to sue, maybe yesterday or the day before.
I do have a feeling that God is more concerned about our hearts than he is about our actions.
And I'm not saying he's not bothered about our actions, but I think the greatest thing that any of us can do is make sure that we guard our hearts. And we don't like be pulling down judgment on these people who fall.
But at the same time, I think we do need the fear of the Lord to sweep through the church so that we become, like my phrase, we owe the groom a beautiful bride. He's not coming back for a prostitute.
[00:27:48] Speaker B: Are there small. What else?
Take it. This one straight ahead over there.
[00:28:05] Speaker F: Ben, earlier on when one of the questions was asked, you said, do you kind of mean in a church context, not a stadium one? And I guess for all of you, in terms of understanding context of a Sunday morning and what it is and what it isn't. And then looking at, obviously you mentioned stadium gatherings or life groups. Do you have kind of certain guides within your settings as to what a Sunday morning is and isn't and how you create spaces during the rest of the week to fulfill? I mean, you touched on about kind of applicable teaching, not trying to do a kind of theological deep dive in half an hour. But do you have some guidelines for what a Sunday morning is and isn't when it comes to teaching and unpacking and how you use other contexts to do those additional dynamics?
[00:28:49] Speaker C: Well, thank you for the question, but I'm only four years deep into the Sunday morning side of things. So I think that Steve could answer that a lot better than me.
So I just. Do you mind if I defer it to him?
[00:29:03] Speaker B: Sunday.
What is Sunday?
I always believe that Sunday, when the people of God gather should be an event.
It is more than few people meeting in their home.
It is more than a Bible study. It is an event when God's people join together in worship and declare to the principalities and powers that they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and they have given their lives to Him. That's why we worship. That's why we come and praise. It's something bigger.
I think it's something. Something more wonderful than we can possibly understand.
I think when we gather on a Sunday or other days of the week, but in a larger gathering, I think the angelic is around us. I think the atmosphere of cities and towns starts to change.
So the gathering around the presence is the most. Is the most important thing I believe we can do as God's people. You know, we've talked about unity. His presence brings unity. And we gather around and we worship him and we declare his goodness.
And then so as we, as we teach, we are exhorting the people of God to love him more, to walk closer with him, to grow in faith, to.
Do more for him than they could ever hope or believe.
There is a sense of we are calling, we have an opportunity to call his people to more in that gathering. And that's why.
