Hearing God Speak and Speaking What You Hear : Pete Greig

Jason Daye | ,

Hearing God Speak and Speaking What You Hear - Pete Greig - 02 FrontStage BackStage with Jason Daye

How can we experience the work of the Spirit fully in our lives and hear God’s voice? In this week’s conversation on FrontStage BackStage, host Jason Daye is joined by Pete Greig, founder of the 24/7 Prayer movement, as they discuss what it means to hear God and share what He is speaking with others. Looking to dig more deeply into this topic and conversation? Every week we go the extra mile and create a free toolkit so you and your ministry team can dive deeper into the topic that is discussed. Find your Weekly Toolkit below… Love well, Live well, Lead well!

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Additional Resource Links

How to Hear God by Pete Greig – Pete’s latest book is an in-depth and practical guide to learning to hear God’s voice today

How to Pray by Pete Greig – In this book, Pete offers honest encouragement and real-life methods to refresh your spirit and help you practice life-giving and life-changing prayer

The Prayer Course – Free video curriculum from 24-7 Prayer provides an eight-week journey through the Lord’s Prayer. Each session includes a video, a guide for small group discussion and practical ideas for prayer. The Prayer Course is based on Pete Greig’s book How to Pray

24-7 Prayer Movement – Founded by Pete Greig, 24-7 Prayer is an international, interdenominational movement of prayer, mission and justice; a non-stop prayer meeting that has continued for every minute of this century so far, in over half the countries on Earth

Lectio 365 App – a free daily devotional resource that helps you pray the Bible every day

Connect with 24-7 Prayer on Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

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Ministry Leaders Growth Guide

Key Insights and Concepts

  • Our job as pastors is not to quell the Spirit speaking to and through our people, it is to help them to steward that
  • In John 10.27 Jesus says “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” The word listen here is akoúo, from which we get acoustics. To be a disciple –a follower of Jesus– is to be attuned to the acoustics, the nuance, the tone of God. As ministry leaders, if we are going to raise disciples, then we are responsible for helping them become people who really know how to hear God.
  • The issue is not whether or not God speaks to us today. The answer is yes. The issue is: how do we receive and process what God says to us?
  • Hearing God speak is not about one tradition against the other. It’s about how we embrace and live out the Bible together, across Christian traditions, in a loving way?
  • In 1 Corinthians 14, the apostle Paul, unashamedly, not only teaches on the importance of prophecy in the church, but he actually urges us to earnestly desire the gifts of the Spirit, and especially prophecy. Paul defines prophecy in terms of edification and encouragement, for the building up of the saints.
  • We need to be consistent with the metric we apply to all the ways God speaks to us, whether through a preached sermon, a passage we read in the Bible, or a word of prophesy He provides. We do not expect every instance to be some sort of overwhelming angelic visitation, and if it does not knock us over, we dismiss it as not from God. God often speaks in still, small ways.
  • When you sense God is speaking to you something that is for someone else, think about ABC. Is it affirming? Is it biblical? Is it Christlike?
  • False prophecy is not a new problem. We see false prophecy throughout scripture, but nowhere do we read that God decides that prophecy or prophets should no longer exist. The solution to false prophecy is not the rejection of prophecy altogether. Rather, we weigh how we understand God is speaking through prophecy just as we do with God speaking through a sermon, or through a Bible passage, or through any of the other ways God speaks.
  • Often, it’s not that God is silent, it’s that we’re too noisy

Questions for Reflection

  • Personally, how am I seeking to be attuned to God’s voice? Is this a consistent part of my journey with Jesus? If not, what steps will I take to develop this area of my spiritual life?
  • As one who is called to make disciples, how am I helping those I am discipling become people who really know how to hear God’s voice?
  • As a church, how are we helping people hear God’s voice? Is this a priority for our ministry?
  • What are some of the different ways that God speaks to His people? Am I more comfortable or less comfortable with some of these ways? Why?
  • What are my thoughts about prophecy as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians? Where do I see edification and encouragement through prophecy showing up in my life and ministry? Where is it showing up in our church?
  • Am I willing to make hearing from God on behalf of others a part of my developing spiritual practices?
  • What are your thoughts on the ABC approach that Pete shares? How does this relate to following Jesus and creating space for God to speak?
  • Is our approach to church “too noisy” for us to hear from God?

Full-Text Transcript

How can we experience the work of the Spirit fully in our lives and hear God’s voice?

Jason Daye
This week I’m joined by Pete Greig, founder of the 24/7 prayer movement, as we discussed what it means to hear God in share what he’s speaking with others. Are you ready? Let’s go.

Jason Daye
Hello, friends, and welcome to front stage backstage. I’m your host, Jason Daye in here, we’re all about encouraging and equipping pastors just like you to embrace healthy, well balanced, sustainable leadership for both life and ministry. We’re blessed to be a part of the pastor servant network. And you can find all of our shows all of our episodes, and the free downloadable weekly toolkit for every single episode, so you and your team can dig more deeply into today’s conversation. You can find that at Pastor surf.org/network. Now, if you’re joining us on YouTube, we’d appreciate if you give us a like and feel free to comment below throughout today’s conversation. If you’re joining us on a podcast, we encourage you to subscribe so you don’t miss out on any of these conversations that we bring to you each and every single week. And I’m super excited about today’s conversation because I am joined by Pete Greig, who is the founder of the 24/7 prayer network, pastor at Emmaus Road Church in England, and best selling author, including his latest how to hear God, a simple guide for normal people. And so, Pete, welcome to our podcast.

Pete Greig
Jason, it’s great to be with you. Thanks for having me. Great to be with all of you.

Jason Daye
Excellent brother. I know you’re joining us from across the pond, as we say right, and thank you for making the time to be with us and to share with our pastors and ministry leaders. Now, as pastors, as ministry leaders, we live with a sense that the Spirit is guiding us is directing us right that that God is speaking to us, through His Word, speaking to us through circumstances and experiences, speaking to us through reason, and through the tradition of the church. And so Pete as you’re referring to this idea of of hearing God, right. Is this what you’re talking about? Is there more to it than that?

Pete Greig
Yeah, hearing God is that’s a pretty good summary right there. Jason, so absolutely. But in the book, I break down God’s Word and God’s whisper, God’s vox externa, and God’s vox interna. And and I really try and create the big hug of learning from all the different Christian editions, because what I find is that different types of churches say we know how to hear God, but it’s a particular track, right? So is for evangelicals, just profound insights into how we hear God in the scriptures. Hallelujah. The charismatic Pentecostals, yeah, how do we hear God in the prophetic in dreams and visions in the supernatural… hallelujah. And for the more contemplative and sacramental tradition and how we got in the still small voice, and in the ordinary, and again, hallelujah. And I’m kind of sick and tired of being told, I can only order from one bit of the menu. I just, I just want all of it now. This this thing is hard enough, as it is, I want to learn to hear God in all those different ways. So I try, I try and draw from the riches of all those different traditions in the book. And it probably means that everyone will shoot me you know that there are some people who are so thrilled with the emphasis on the Bible, but they’re really uncomfortable about the prophetic stuff. And then there are others who are like least you’ve mentioned, the prophetic but what’s always contemplative stuff? Isn’t that just new a, you know, so, but I believe the Bible teachers asked Jesus models and church tradition tells us that God speaks in all these different ways. So I try and I try and draw all of that together in the book and and focus on the riches of what we can learn from each other.

Jason Daye
Yeah, I love that. I love that kind of broad view. Because, as you said, the church is incredibly diverse. But we all have our own experiences, right? We all have, you know, those things that we’re kind of born into, and that we grew up around that helped shape who we are and how we approach God. I love this idea of, of God’s Word and God’s whisper Can you dig in a little bit more about kind of how those two areas or two methods of God speak into our lives? What do those look like? Especially as we’re thinking of the role of a pastor?

Pete Greig
Yeah. Well, the first thing to say, you know, I’ve been a pastor for 25 years or something, planted a few churches. And as I got into this, but what I realized is, this is the single most important thing that I can ever teach any of my congregation to do. And I think I’ve maybe vaguely thought that in theory before, but as I got into, I realize this really is the case, John 1027, right? You know, my sheep will listen to My voice and the word Listen, there’s akoúo from which we get acoustics. So my sheep used to be a disciple is to be attuned to the acoustics, the nuance, the tone of God, so that we’re, if we’re going to raise disciples, they will be people who really know how to hear God. So God’s Word in his whisper, God’s word is most obviously. Well, it’s so nice to be talking to pastors actually. Because we have, we can go a little bit deeper. God’s word isn’t most obviously the Bible, God’s word is most obviously Jesus Christ. Right? Right. This is John chapter one, the Lagace God as the word. And so we interpret the Word of God the Bible, through our encounter with Christ Jesus. And we all know that people get in all sorts of trouble when they try and just apply the Bible without a living encounter with Christ. And we see this in the Emmaus road story, which is the backbone of this book. Jesus, we were told, draws near anonymously, like, he doesn’t show off. He doesn’t just cover, you know, do his Elvis moment, Hey, it’s me. I’m risen from the dead. And then he takes someone on laborious two and a half hour Bible study, starting with Moses and the prophets. But he reframes the scriptures to show how they’re all pointing to himself. So on one level, we’re very comfortable with this. This is Oh, yeah, the Bible is our authority. Even after the resurrection, the miracle of the resurrection isn’t enough, Jesus still contextualizing his own death and resurrection against scripture appealing to its authority. So we feel very comfortable with that. The bit that might make us a little more uncomfortable as that that he actually says, how, beginning with Moses and the prophets, he explained what was said in the Scriptures concerning himself. Now we go, yeah, of course, he was Jesus. But imagine how radical that was. He was saying the the Scriptures about me. And so there’s something of the Christological hermeneutic care, right? We, we read the Pauline epistles, we read the Old Testament in the light of Christ, and that’s what we have modeled here. So we’ve got Jesus, the Word, the logos, you’ve got word of God in the Bible. Now these are the external words of God. This is a matter not have this amount matter of theology. Right? This just Genesis one and John one God speaks. And Jesus is the word I fairly uncontroversial. Although I’m amazed by how many people have a fact probably the strongest response I’ve had so far the book has been people saying thank you for talking about the authority of the Bible, and how we actually hear God and that’s really surprised me I thought that was just like doing due diligence. But it turns out that’s quite controversial. I think in America right now, you know, George Gallup said that the Bible is the best selling least read book in America. Right? But but then the Whisper bet now this is interesting, because this is really where we moved from theology to psychology. The issue isn’t, does God speak? Answer is yes. The issue is how do we receive and process what God says to us? And we talked right at the start there about how our Christian traditions will shape that right. If you’re a Quaker, you’re going to be very strong on the inward voice but a little weak on the prophetic, for example. But this is also a matter of psychology. He and you know, some of us are naturally kinesthetic, we learn through doing

Pete Greig
some of us are naturally very auditory. Might we choose to listen to this rather than watch this because you find the pictures distracting. You’ll probably do really well listen to sermons on a Sunday. And some of us are highly visual I mean really need to see. And, and so, school teachers know this is basic educational psychology. And I tell a really fun story in the book. I researched this, this is not just like a preacher’s bit of rhetoric I actually check through okay. And, and some people never heard what I’m about to say some have, but I’m back to some actually true story. It’s not a preacher’s urban myth that there was a school, a little Elementary School in the outback of Australia Catholic Primary School. And their motto was we here we see we do, which was I guess I’m trying to talk about, you know, it’s a broad cross curricular experiential education. And so the little kid had this on their T shirts. It was on the school website, it was a law we, we hear we see we do, but one head, he came in and wanted a bit more gravitas, maybe harking back to the Catholic roots decided to translate that slogan into Latin. And, and as a result, the motto became audio video, disco. Wow. That’s awesome video, this guy that is the latter. So some of us we hear God audio. Some of us we hear God video we’re see is pictorial some of us is disco. It’s as we do as we engage. It’s, it’s, it’s on that pastoral visit that we somehow experienced God and in the encounter, or it’s as we’re, as we’re out running. Other things. I’ve been leading a prayer movement for 22 years, so little of the literature about how to pray, and therefore how to hear God is written by external processes or extroverts. And so it’s written mostly by introverts, so it’s all about silence shutting down the world. And I didn’t know that it was okay. That sometimes I can get a Bible verse, stick it in my head, and go for a run, and reflect on it more effectively than sitting in a seat doing it. I didn’t know that was okay, because the books don’t. But what if, when Jesus was climbing mountains, to pray, it wasn’t just that he liked the view. He was actually engaging in physical exercise, to release certain hormones into his own into the blood of Christ, so that he could encounter God and hear from the Father more eloquently. So long answer but but yeah, the external Word of God in Scripture and in the encounter with Christ. And then the internal word that is often more to that psychology, hearing God’s whisper of dreams and visions and conscience, in the culture at large and small. Yeah, that’s super

Jason Daye
helpful. paetynn. And I know that you’ve shared in the book and elsewhere that this is something that can be developed over time, this idea of how do we sit before God? How do we engage with God and hear from God. And in fact, Pete, you and I were together in Orlando, just a handful weeks ago, we were about 2000 other people. So you didn’t know we were together. But we were in the same room at the exponential conference. And you spoke on this topic, but you didn’t just speak on the topic. Because as you’re kind of coming to the close of your time, you invited all of us to engage right in this whole idea of, of hearing from God. And I remember, I mean, I turned to a gentleman next to me that I’ve never met before in my life. And we introduced ourselves to one another. We, you know, talked, we sought God on behalf of one another, you know, I mean, and prayed over one another, shared, shared a word with one another. And I’ve got to tell you, it was a little, little odd initially, right? Because it was like, okay, you know, we’re gonna, but hey, there are a couple of 1000 other people doing it, too. So, you know, we’re able to dive in. And it was encouraging. But I’ve got to tell you that I I don’t feel I didn’t sense from from this other guy’s reaction, that I somehow dropped the missing puzzle piece into his life. And there was a massive revelation. Right? And he was encouraged. And so talk to us a little bit Pete about as we are seeking to hear from God, both for ourselves and on behalf of others. How do we how do we best kind of manage expectations of kind of what God is doing in that moment? Where we are because I for me personally going through that experience, which I’m very much appreciate and reading through your book. This is one of those those questions that I know for me personally and others. It’s something We’re trying to wrap our mind and our hearts around.

Pete Greig
Yeah, I mean, that was an interesting time because Dave Ferguson who organizes the exponential Conference, which is helping many, many churches to multiply in America is a wonderful thing. has been invited me for a while to come and recode everything I couldn’t. He said, we need more of the Holy Spirit. Without the gifts of the Spirit. What do we multiply? You know, we’re gonna need more of this. This is not about you know, this is this is about Presbyterians being fully Presbyterian. This is about Catholics being fully Catholic. This is not about one tradition against the other. It’s just how do we do the Bible together in a loving way? And I think what I would probably say is, we need to be more consistent, because the metric you just used aren’t you didn’t use the word prophesied that I noticed. But one Corinthians 14, the apostle Paul, unashamedly, he not only teaches on the importance of prophecy in the church, he actually urges us to earnestly desire the gifts of the Spirit, and especially prophecy, right? So I shouldn’t be coy about this if we’re serious about the Bible. Now, he defines prophecy as in terms of edification and encouragement for the building up of the saints. And I noticed that you said that what you shared with this other guy, what he shared with you was encouraging, didn’t sort of, you know, no lights went on and changed the world. Well, I would go well, that’s good, right? I mean, isn’t that amazing? And I would say, we need to be more consistent, because I don’t think you apply the same metric when you talk about hearing a sermon. Like every time the lights have got to go on, it’s gotta check you’d like now there was some good points, man, it’s good, encouraging. And we don’t expect a preacher to knock it out of the park, every minute of every moment that he’s preaching. And, and yet the moment comes to the prophecy where like, unless it’s sort of angelic visitations. It’s not real. And what is that? Like? What’s going on there? I don’t I don’t understand that inconsistency. And so in the book, one of the real simple tools that I offered to Christians around this is, and I think I talked about it in Orlando that Jason is the ABC, is it? Ask yourself, when you’re sensing something for someone, it could be a scripture you want to share with them? It could be a picture of vision, it could be anything. ABC, is it affirming? Is it biblical? And is it Christ like so the affirming one we’ve talked about? Is this going to build them up, encourage them, grow their faith, strengthen them, comfort them? That’s essential. And I know some people will come back and say, Well, what about the Prophet? Jeremiah? That was very encouraging. I’m like, Yeah, but look, if you’re at that stage, God bless you. But I know you’re not at the prophet Jeremiah state. I’m going to be the apostle Paul, one Corinthians 14 stage, let’s just start out with the easy stuff. And if it’s not, it might still be God, but goes through some due process before you go and rebuke someone or tell them you think they’re having an affair because you had a weird dream last night, go through some news, engage, you’re, you know, the main gift God wants to give to many Christians is common sense. So just like if it’s affirming what you got to lose. And then B, is it biblical? By which I don’t mean, can you find, like a verse in Leviticus to back this up? But is it in line with the broad sweep of Scripture? And then see, is it Christ like, this is the most important one, we touched on this earlier? Does it sound like feel like smell like tastes like Jesus? You know, it’s got that sense, because some things can be encouraging and vaguely biblical, but you just like that. Here’s an example. You know, you know, to go and say to someone who’s single, you know, I believe you’re going to be married within a year, you might say, was it firming? Yeah, that’s kind of encouraging. If they want to get married, is it biblical? Yeah, God believes in marriage. I can give you some Bible verses. Is it Christ like, Well, I’m not sure that doesn’t really feel very like Jesus to me. Right? Not as he wasn’t married. So. So, so I think, I would say to people that when you’re starting out in this stuff,

Pete Greig
that’s just, you know, if it’s firming biblical and Christ, like you probably got nothing to lose. And let’s give space for people to get it wrong as well. Because, yeah, that’s how our kids learn, right? They, you know, if we say, the moment someone’s trying to speak prophetically, that they’ve got to get 100% Right. You killed for prophecy right there, you’ve absolutely no one’s ever going to grow. And if you don’t have a few mistakes along the way, and we’re not stupid, we know the Bible, you know, God’s not insecure, he’s not going to suddenly shout heresy from heaven, if, you know, just just let’s let people grow in this, and I guarantee with that experience you had in Orlando, do it another 10 times, and then sit down, go, okay, which out of those 10 were more than just mildly encouraging, was actually something very substantial that I don’t think I could explain humanly, you know, I used an example, for example, that was very relevant to them, or whatever. And then say, Okay, what was I here? What was my process at that time, so you could begin to grow and get better at hearing the voice of God and communicating the voice of God in that way. So yeah, so in other words, be consistent with with other ways we know God’s speaks, we don’t expect the Bible to like, knock us off our feet. Every time we read it. We don’t expect every sermon to knock us off our feet. Prophecy is meant to be encouraging and building, ABC affirming biblical Christ, like you can’t go far wrong.

Jason Daye
Yeah, yeah. I love that. Pete, that’s a great kind of framework. And it gives us a freedom that I know for me, you know, that experience in Orlando, and then in the ABCs, going through that, and just the the freedom that you’re not going to get it right every time. Well, but if you’re trying to honor God, in the midst of it, you know, I mean, that’s, that’s part of the journey. And that’s the beauty of, of our relationship with with Christ. Right. So. But Pete, let me ask you this, do you see a difference? Between hearing God speak and speaking for God?

Pete Greig
Right? Well, yes, multiple levels. First of all, sometimes God will speak to you. And it’s not one else’s business. It’s just in you and God. So just because he speaks to you doesn’t mean that he’s trying to speak through you. By the way, important point for all. Because all too often, anytime you say anything to us, we’re immediately writing down to share in our next sermon. And and sometimes there’s very little space for God just to confide in us anymore, because we hold the microphone too often. So as an aside, but if you don’t have any holy secrets, in your relationship with God, it’s a bit like a marriage where everything that happens in the bedroom is shared publicly, just not healthy or appropriate. So. So that’s thinking number one. Distinction number two is, you know, if we look at the means of communication, for example, one of my great discoveries in this book was how I knew that dreams were obviously a big thing in the Bible. Just how big in the New Testament as well as the Old Testament, in the birth of Christ, dream after dream after group, direct, Apostle Paul, you know, the whole his whole evangelistic apostolic strategy rooted by dream. So I was very challenged, that perhaps since Freud, and Jung and the rise of psychoanalysis, that explains all dreams is just the fruit of the subconscious. I wonder if we in the West have, have completely sort of walked away from that. Stories from the developing world and Muslims, we like that, but we don’t really expect it in our own congregations or our own lives. A dream isn’t, you know, we’re maybe for me, and not someone else? Or maybe someone not. And I think that’s another mistake. We sometimes make the moment say, I had a dream. I probably need to say, Lord, is this for me? Or is this someone else? And if it’s for someone else? Is it so that I can pray for them about that? Or is it for me to share with them? And then if it’s to share with them, is it the right time to share with them? Because we often get timing wrong? Is it something I need to sit on for a while and marinade? Or do I need to use it in a different way? Do I need to go and talk to a third party saying I think God might be saying this to me about that person. So the whole way we steward what God says to us, if it’s for other people, requires as much pastoral eq as most of the other activities that we engage in.

Jason Daye
Yeah, that’s, that’s super helpful. And as you said, there are some some traditions that are much more comfortable with a word from the Lord, or a prophetic word, others that are less comfortable, and as we’re trying to really lean into how God is at work in our lives and through our lives and open yourself up as as fully as possible, because I think that as pastors and ministry leaders, that’s, that’s kind of the reality. I think, in many instances, we kind of, out of fear, I think more than anything, kind of pull back. And I think the spirit is always I mean, throughout Scripture, the spirit is always open, you know, inviting us to open up and to lean in to more fullness of experience with God. So I think if we practice some of these things, Pete that you’ve shared, I think it gives us an opportunity to see and experience new things in our own personal lives, but also in the life of the church, that God has called us to lead, right? One, one thing that I think, is a challenge, and I’ve heard this multiple times, is this. This fear of danger that comes with a prophetic word, let’s say, are speaking on behalf of God. Like there’s a great responsibility with that, but there’s, you know, can it be dangerous, and I’ll just give you, you know, one example from here recently in the US with the last presidential election, you know, some very prominent pastors spoke out and makes made some bold declarations on behalf of God. That didn’t come to pass. And some of them came back and in really apologized, and instead that they they got it wrong. Others others did not they stuck to that, and, you know, continued to kind of kind of push it. And so that’s an extreme instance, but but episodes like that, I think, cause people to pause a bit, you know, about about this idea of, you know, putting something out there. And speaking prophetic words. So, just a little bit about kind of that that danger, and how do we, you know, how do we live fully into what God invites us to live into. But at the same time to kind of this idea of this, there’s this danger, there might be a better word for it. But you know, back there in the midst of all of this?

Pete Greig
Well, the first thing is, it’s not a new problem. This false prophecy throughout the Scripture, and scripture goes, Oh, well, we won’t have prophecy, we won’t have prophets. That’s just gonna you need to summon. So the solution to false prophecy is not the rejection of prophecy, that in itself will lead to a form of false prophecy. Right? So that it’s not a new problem. There’s a scripture I can’t bring the verse, chapter and verse, but it’s in Leviticus, I find it so refreshing that actually says, the fruit of your nose summons a true prophecy if that prophecy has come to pass. And I’ve always thought that’s so beautifully pragmatic. We can look back on that presidential election and go, you know, they all should have apologized. And by the way, I think it was outrageous, because, you know, they had a 5050 chance. Right? So if, if, let’s be candid, if Trump had got in, they may be claiming that they’ve heard the voice of God, and they haven’t, right. So there’s a whole different conversation, we could have some time around how we posture ourselves as leaders, and engage and encourage people to engage politically without trying to manipulate people around partisan agendas, and recognize that God does not belong to a single political entity. Because he’s the Lord of all. primary allegiance is to the kingdom of heaven. So I’m sure I’m preaching to the converted here, but I do. I do. I didn’t just find it troubling how people prophesied. I find it very troubling how pastors stood up and told their congregations how God wanted them to vote. I felt that was personally inappropriate. I know people will disagree with me. I have strong political convictions, but I I set out the principles I seek to address, you know, the policies but I do not tell people how to vote. Now, they’ll come back to your point. It’s not it’s not a new problem, false prophecy, but neither is it unique and let me explain. People evangelicals are was very quick to say, Oh, I heard this terrible prophecy. This is clearly wrong. So but they never talked about the way that the Bible is abused. The preaching of the Bible, outrageous, often how the scriptures are used to justify those sorts of things. And we’ve all got examples of that. The abuse of God’s word is not just a problem for the charismatic, prophetic Pentecostal stream. It’s a problem for the evangelical stream. It It’s also problem for the contemplative stream, which can cause all kinds of Gnosticism and very unhealthy, hyper experiential, hyper individualistic spaces. So we don’t get the luxury of stepping back going, well, you know, I’m just not going to prophesize ao that I can, I can only have the real word of God, wrong. All of us are having to wrestle with the complexities of what is God saying? How do we make sense of the living Jesus Christ? The written word of God, the ways God speaks supernaturally, how do we make sense of that in a complex, fast moving cultural context. And in many ways, that is the work of a pastor. That’s why one of the the least appreciated but most important gifts, the spirit is the discernment of spirits. And sort of final final thing on this is, the apostle Paul says, we prophesy in part. So anyone who says, well, that bit of your prophecy was wrong. Therefore, you’re a false prophet is out of line with the way the Apostle Paul saw it. He’s like, you know, some of what we share, preferably, it’s just not going to be right. And some of its going to be from God Himself. And don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. And so I think a mature approach says, yeah, that bit know, this bit. Yes. And then this bit may be I’m going to put it on the back burner and see if it comes to pass. And I think that’s a pretty healthy approach. But please, our job as pastors is not to quell the Spirit, speaking to and through our people, it is to help them to steward that.

Jason Daye
Yeah, that’s good. That’s beautiful, beautiful Pete, let me ask you this, for the pastor watching today are listening in, and they they have a hunger for this, like you said to consistently kind of practice this. They have a hunger to lean into this more. What advice do you have to give that pastor?

Pete Greig
One, ask for it. You know, I said earlier with the Apostle Paul does say you should earnestly desire the gifts of the Spirit and prophecy. And so if you’re in that place, hallelujah, that in serve to work with the spirit within you that desire, that zeal, to prophesy and to and to hear God more intimately. And, secondly, create safe contexts to practice. And to get it wrong. Sometimes, if we’re called to public life, the danger is that we think the forum for everything is, you know, Sunday morning. But actually, I would hope that everyone watching this and listening to this has a small group of real friends with whom they feel really safe. I hope we’re way out of that era when it was taught in certain circles that, you know, ministers and pastors shouldn’t have any friends in the church. That’s absolute nonsense. And so those within we feel safe to be human. I’ve always liked what Frederick Buechner said, about Jesus’s relationship with Lazarus. Frederick Buechner, says, Lazarus was the only disciple with whom Jesus didn’t feel he had to be the Son of God. Isn’t that great. Lazarus, that he wasn’t one of the 12. And we all need people that we don’t feel we have to be the super pastor, we can be learners. So begin to explore. Well, I think by this stuff, what you mean is prophecy in some of those contexts. And I think, also recognize you’re really prophesying more than you realize, I mean, isn’t those those moments where you open the Scriptures and you share, and this is an anointing that there’s, you know, someone says, it was just for me? It spoke right into my life. Right, right. Or you feel the fire of God, that’s that’s the prophetic Spirit working no less than, you know, any of the other ways. So you prophesy more. And I think the the final thing is, start to think about your own psychology, which I touched on earlier. Yeah, think about psychology. Think about, how are you wired? You know, are you a dreamer? Are you more someone who is like to hear God through journaling? For example, I just did a 330 mile solitary pilgrimage. It was life changing to be on my with God, that long. It took me about three days to realize the cat don’t care what I look like. There’s no point in pretending. And I said to God, okay, it’s just you and me. What happens now? There’s no no one’s in for it. asked. And you know, what happened next was God began to speak to me in all sorts of ways, yes through the Scriptures, but also just through reflections that I’ve walked at, particularly for me through journaling. And often if you had sat me down at the end of the day, is that what it goes say to you today, Pete? I’d have said nothing, I just walked a lot in the rain. But then if you sat me down an hour and a half, later, after I’ve been journaling, and reflections on it, I’d realize, Oh, my goodness, God was speaking to me. And that scripture linked with that lyric that struck me on that podcast that linked with that reflection on that stone wall I passed, and it all fitted, God was speaking. And I think often, it’s not that God is silent, it’s that we’re too noisy, you know. So, for me, I realized, ah, journaling is the key that is unlocking my ability to receive what God is already saying. So find, find out learn to hear God the way he’s made you. And it may not be the same as your mentor, your mentor might be a, you know, a much more of a mystic or they might be much more academic is you know, they move into deep worship reading Aquinas, and find out how you hear God the best.

Jason Daye
Yeah, that’s awesome, brother. Appreciate that. Pete, it’s been so good to have you spending time with us and helping us kind of process and think through this. If people want to connect with you pete, or your ministry, or learn more about your book, How toHear God, how can they do that?

Pete Greig
Well, if you go to 24-7prayer.com, 24-7prayer.com, you can get all this stuff, we do a daily devotional called Lectio365 that has hundreds of 1000s of daily users, that’s free, you can get that there. And one thing I must say, Jason, because I know, I know the psychosis we all have as pastors, the new book, How to Hear God, in this fall, I’m filming a five part series, which will be free online for congregations to help congregations grow in these different ways of hearing God. And so we did the previous book was called How to Pray: A Simple Guide for Normal People. We’ve had 3 million people have used the course, the prayer course, that we did on that. And so I’m hopeful this will be a great resource for churches to grow in their prayer life and their sensitivity to what the Spirit is saying. So all that will go up on prayercourse.org. And so 24-7prayer.com and prayercourse.org and there’s all resources that help you in your ministry. And thank you all, for the way you serve Jesus.

Jason Daye
Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that. And we’ll have links to all those in the description below here on YouTube. Or you can find all of the information including our weekly toolkits, you can dig more deeply into our conversation, PastorServe.org/network. Pete, I certainly appreciate you. Appreciate all that you’re doing. Thank you for taking the time to be with us today. God bless you, my friend.

Pete Greig
Thank you, Jason, God bless you to

Jason Daye
Now, before you go, I want to remind you of an incredible free resource that our team puts together every single week to help you and your team dig more deeply and maximize the conversation that we just had. This is the weekly toolkit that we provide. And we understand that it’s one thing to listen or watch an episode, but it’s something entirely different to actually take what you’ve heard, what you’ve watched, what you’ve seen, and apply it to your life and to your ministry. You see, FrontStage BackStage is more than just a podcast or YouTube show about ministry leadership, we are a complete resource to help train you and your entire ministry team as you seek to grow and develop in life in ministry. Every single week, we provide a weekly toolkit which has all types of tools in it to help you do just that. Now you can find this at PastorServe.org/network. That’s PastorServe.org/network. And there you will find all of our shows all of our episodes and all of our weekly toolkits. Now inside the toolkit are several tools including video links and audio links for you to share with your team. There are resource links about different resources and tools that were mentioned in the conversation, several other tools, but the greatest thing is the ministry leaders growth guide. Our team pulls key insights and concepts from every conversation with our amazing guests. And then we also create engaging questions for you and your team to consider and process providing space for you to reflect on how that episode’s topic relates to your unique context, at your local church, in your ministry and in your life. Now you can use these questions in your regular staff meetings to guide your conversation as you invest in the growth of your ministry leaders. You can find the weekly toolkit at PastorServe.org/network We encourage you to check out that free resource. Until next time, I’m Jason Daye encouraging you to love well, live well, and lead well. God bless.

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