Latest / Rethink Revive with David Leake / Are We Living Hungry for God? Or Have We Gotten Full?

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Are We Living Hungry for God? Or Have We Gotten Full? · Rethink Revive with David Leake

• 0:00
  Dave Leake: In today's episode, we're going to talk about the Holy Spirit, and specifically, are we missing the mark when it comes to our relationship with the Holy Spirit. We discuss what the book of Acts in the early church looked like, what Jesus wanted the church to be, and how we can be a little bit closer to maximizing our life with the Holy Spirit. So if you'd like to hear more, tune in. Hey everybody. Welcome to the Allison Park leadership podcast, where we have culture creating conversations as always. I'm one of your hosts. My name is
• 0:26
  Jeff Leake: Dave, and my name is Jeff, and of course, we're father and son. We're both pastors on staff at Allison Park church, and we're glad you joined us today, and we are in a brand new set. Come on now, right? So this is, uh, upgrade number three or four, yeah, four times the charm, yeah. And so, big shout out to our producer, Matt Smith, for getting us a new, new setup. We're really close together now, Dave, we're not leaning leaning back on the couch. So I don't know what this will mean for our conversations, but maybe
• 0:53
  Dave Leake: Yeah, yeah. And also, we just want to give a big shout out to those who are listening today. Thank you for joining us. Yep, um, if you are first time with us. Hey, welcome to the to the podcast, family, glad that you're here. No new gratitudes today. For those who left five star views if you've already done it, thank you so much. If you haven't yet done it, we actually would love to give you a personal shout out.
• 1:12
  Dave Leake: So if you want to go leave a five star view in whatever platform you're listening on, if it's on Apple podcast, we can see your name. We'd love to give you a shout out. So anyway, regardless as to how long you've been with us, first time or a long time, thank you for being here. Excited to
• 1:24
  Jeff Leake: get into it. One more thing we across the number of 50,000 downloads for come on the Allison Park leadership podcast. So man, everybody, thank you so much for joining in with us and giving us feedback from time to time. We just really appreciate it. So,
• 1:40
  Unknown: Dave,
• 1:41
  Jeff Leake: what are we talking about today?
• 1:43
  Dave Leake: So we've been having conversations. This is actually like our third try for this podcast. We gave that couple days later, but we've been having conversations recently because I think that's been really on my heart. I've just been been reading a number of biographies and testimonials on some of the influential charismatic leaders of the last century or so, I finished one on Smith Wigglesworth, phenomenal book. He was a, you know, started out as a plumber in Sussex, maybe in England, somewhere that might be the right place. But anyway, he, when he was 48 you know, sort of got called into full time ministry and had this incredible, like move of the Spirit wherever he went, like and I think I was just so impressed by, you know, not just all the miracles, like raising the dead, which happened a number of times, deliverances, healings, all the salvations.
• 2:38
  Dave Leake: Obviously impressed by the fruit of his ministry, by the way. So
• 2:41
  Jeff Leake: he ministered from 48 to 88 which is a really good way to look at the world, based on our last podcast, which was on life aging, yeah, and life death and aging. And we talked about me becoming 60. So if Smith wilkersworth's most fruitful years of life were the last 40 until he was 88 that's not bad. You're only 12 years in. Come on. And charismatic leaders, let's define that so you know, we are a part of a tribe, a movement, I guess you'd say that started in the early 1900s which goes by the terms Pentecostal charismatic. And the word charismatic comes from the words in the Greek words in First Corinthians 12 that talk about the gifts of the Spirit.
• 3:24
  Jeff Leake: And it's the word charisma. So it's charismatic as the people of the gifts, basically. And so Smith wiggles were stepped into the gifts of the of the Holy Spirit. And this is actually what you're what you're really pondering and maybe challenged over right now, which is, yeah, well, so
• 3:42
  Dave Leake: what I was gonna say is, the fruit of his life challenges me. But just like his hunger for God challenged me so much, like, um, he, he, you know, I think it was John Wesley who was coined for saying he was a man of one book, meaning, you know, he was John Wesley. Was very, very well read, but he found the Bible to be so much better of a work of art than any other books he had read that he declared himself a man of one book. But Smith Wigglesworth didn't actually start to read until he was later in his life.
• 4:13
  Dave Leake: And so he was like, I've wasted too many, too many years not reading. I just should focus all my time in this one book. So they he, there were these stories about, like, anytime people would begin to do anything, like, if they would, if they would talk about sports, or if they would, you know, begin to, you know, if they were, they would read the newspaper or read a fiction book, he would like, quietly, excuse himself, you know, politely and go just find a place to pray. Like, all this guy did was like, pray and read the Bible and like, the grace, isn't there
• 4:44
  Jeff Leake: a story about him? I think he was on a train, and he had just come out of a season of prayer, and there was a guy who walked up to him. He was staring at him for the longest time. He walked up to him and he said, Sir, you convict me of sin. Uh, and he led him to Christ like there was such an anointing on his life that everybody in the room around him seemed to be affected by, well, you
• 5:10
  Dave Leake: know, what else he did to this? That was crazy.
• 5:13
  Dave Leake: There's a there's a testimony from this. This person, he read, I forget which chapter it might have been like Romans 12, or Romans six, one of the two, and after the service, she said, like, the way you read Romans convicted me, like it wasn't this because he preached a sermon, yeah, but it was actually just in his reading of reading scripture. So,
• 5:33
  Jeff Leake: anyway, so, so intense hunger, incredible miracles, yeah. Okay, so what makes the podcast work? Davis, when something's, something's bothering you, and you start to to ponder on it. So what's bothering you about like this all sounds like good stuff.
• 5:49
  Jeff Leake: Like, okay,
• 5:51
  Dave Leake: what's what's bothering me is this, I we just did, we did an episode. I forget what the title of it was, but on the Holy Spirit, you know, a couple of episodes ago, and we were talking about our reasons for belief in the Holy Spirit and the activity of the Holy Spirit, even continuing today, with the gifts that are still in operation. And it was a little bit of a defense of the charismatic theology in a modern context. Anyway, I think what I feel bothered by is I'm just wondering, like after reading, not just about Smith Wigglesworth, but other sort of modern leaders who are experiencing moves of God. I'm just like man, like we're a Pentecostal charismatic church, you know, we believe, obviously heavily in the Word, you know, studying the Bible and being grounded in theology. But we come from the Assemblies of God denomination, and we do believe in all of this stuff, but just in reading these biographies and stuff, I'm just, I think I just feel burdened, like, are we going after it? Like, if, are we really, if we're charismatic, we're Pentecostal charismatic people and a charismatic Pentecostal church, are we really living up to the potential of, like, the hunger we could or should have, or seeing the gifts and operation we could or should have? I'm not asking the question like, Why is every day or every Sunday not the same as a missions trippers church camp? I get that. You know, I think when I first went on my first SOS trip in 2007 or 2008 whatever it was, and I saw all these miracles and salvations. That was my big question. Like, why isn't this all the time? And I get like, sometimes there are focused periods where it's like, the power of God is there, and everybody's doing the same thing, and you're eating and sleeping and breathing missions.
• 7:36
  Dave Leake: I get why that's not there all the time, but in just sort of reading about the ordinary lives of some of these men and women of God. Women of God, it just makes me feel like, are we missing something? Yeah,
• 7:47
  Jeff Leake: I think you put it to me when we were talking ahead of time, are we living too far below the level of the model that we have in the book of Acts, of what the church is supposed to be like? Yeah. Have we settled for? A way of doing ministry, or way of doing life that is way below the level of the potential of the way that we should be living. Yeah, what is Smith Wigglesworth supposed to be normal for all of us, and we are all like, falling way short?
• 8:16
  Jeff Leake: Or is he exceptional? Or where does that fit in? Like, what should normal church life look like in comparison to the book of Acts?
• 8:26
  Dave Leake: Or should there be Smith wigglesworth's in our midst? Like, should there be Paul's? You know, maybe not.
• 8:33
  Dave Leake: Like writing scripture, yeah.
• 8:33
  Dave Leake: But like, should there? You know, my initial idea for this, which is where we were the last time we were trying to start this was sort of comparing our modern church to the book of Acts, church to the things that they were marked by, you know, because they were sort of the beginning right after Jesus left the earth and the Holy Spirit came. Let's
• 8:52
  Jeff Leake: start there. Let's start there. I think, I think that's a very good point to begin with, and that is that we want to set our model for what church and life should be like based upon the early church in the book of Acts. Yeah, not everybody does that, by the way, right, right? One of the, one of the places that it became apparent to me that I think differently about this than maybe some other people who would be in the in the broader Christian world, is when I've when I've gone to Israel, and I remember a particular day of going to the city, the town called called Capernaum, yeah, which is right on the Sea of Galilee, which is where Jesus did most of his supernatural miracles. Like more miracles recorded in Capernaum than any any other place. And I found myself walking around imagining the moments of Jesus ministry and other people were visiting the churches that had been built over the centuries because they wanted to see the Catholic churches of the architecture or the places that people had worshiped in, sure, in the years after Jesus. And I was thinking.
• 10:00
  Jeff Leake: Myself. Well, I don't really care what happened after, like, right? I want to go back to the roots and what happened at the very beginning. And I think there are some Christians that would fall into certain camps within Christian the Christian world, that would go back to the 1500s and the Reformation. And they would look for they would look at the, kind of church we want to be is the kind of church that John Calvin imagined, sure, or that Martin Luther imagined, and they would not necessarily go all the way back to the year 33 ad, which is when we would go back to they would go back to the Reformation period. So for Pentecostal charismatics, for us, the book of Acts is the high watermark of the Christian faith, and it should become the standard at which we go back to and we say, just like it was the book of Acts, this is how we should function today, and where we fall short of the book of Acts. We need to figure out what that is and try to use that as our model for the future. Yeah?
• 10:56
  Jeff Leake: So I think that's one thing we would acknowledge. The Book of Acts as our model. Yeah, it's the normal. Yeah. Okay, so are we falling short of the of the normal? Scott Wilson, who's great friend of mine, used to Pastor, I guess he's still a pastor, overseer of the Oaks church in Dallas, Texas. He wrote a book years ago called act normal, which was all about how the book of Acts is supposed to be designed as a normal experience. So are we falling short? Let's guess that's Can we start there?
• 11:27
  Dave Leake: Yeah. Well, I mean, where
• 11:28
  Jeff Leake: are we falling short? Well,
• 11:29
  Dave Leake: the weird thing, too, about about this conversation is that at the time in the book of Acts, there was no church, right? And when it started, and then after they're
• 11:40
  Jeff Leake: inventing it basically as the Holy Spirit's leading them, right? Yeah,
• 11:43
  Dave Leake: after Acts two, there's the expansion of the church, and then it really expands after Acts Eight, after persecution happens. And so there aren't a bunch of denominations. There's like, there's different leaders. You know, as a
• 11:56
  Jeff Leake: partisan, there was only a church in Jerusalem, sure, sure. Who knows how long?
• 11:58
  Jeff Leake: Yeah, couple years, at least.
• 12:02
  Jeff Leake: Yeah, yep. So if you're a Christian, you didn't decide to wake up one morning and decide which church to go to, because there was only one choice, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 12:11
  Jeff Leake: And that particular church was a church that was exploding with all these things. They were meeting in small groups. They were taking care of the poor.
• 12:17
  Jeff Leake: The Bible says there was no needy persons among them. Every day there was miracles being done. There were signs and wonders. They were constantly filled with all there were people being added to their number every day that they were being saved, they were being persecuted, and yet they were living this adventure every day, but they still held down jobs, and they raised families and they birthed kids, and it wasn't like life stopped, and they all went on a perpetual missions trip. But there was a raw, revolutionary kind of feeling about it well, and that's,
• 12:47
  Dave Leake: that's what makes me feel encouraged. It's, it was normal life like they had. It wasn't just a missions trip. I mean, this, this was the entire lifespan of a lot of these guys, you know was, was the birth of the church, especially as you go into the persecuted church that comes in the century after you know the 12 Apostles, you know died, after Paul passed away, then you have the persecuted church where they were going to their deaths because of how intensely they believed and were a part of the church at that time. So but anyway, all this to say it was a normal part of their lives, and even for us, like, here's what I remember. I remember as a kid. I guess I wasn't would have been really that young, but 2006 would have been my sophomore year. So right around then is when I remember first meeting Johannes, something like that. Maybe I met him before then. Johannes Amritsar, founder of mission SOS and you had gone on a trip with him to Harar Ethiopia, right?
• 13:43
  Dave Leake: Was that at the with the with an APC team, and you encountered heavy persecution, but saw all kinds of people come to Jesus and crazy miracles. And there was this period of, I don't know, four or five years where I had only ever seen maybe one healing, you know, at our church and at her testimonies of other healings, but they were kind of when I was super young and didn't know the people to all of a sudden, there was this outpouring of all kinds of, at least healing ministry. And it was mind blowing to me, you know, I began to hear God differently. I pursued him differently. I began to pray in my prayer language all the time.
• 14:17
  Dave Leake: And somehow, let me just talk about me personally, not just as a church, okay, somehow between then, so between then and now, I went to Bible college at Central Bible college, really dug into to understand the word, you know, and graduated from there, and there was a, I think anytime you're in education, there's a degree of like, well, let's make sure that what we're doing is rooted, which is good. But there were some students that I was around that really questioned the Holy Spirit
• 14:47
  Jeff Leake: skepticism, which is not necessarily bad, cynicism is bad, which is where it gets negative. Skepticism is just questioning things, right? I
• 14:56
  Dave Leake: actually think skepticism, my opinion is I think skepticism. That is a skewed version of discernment. I actually think skepticism is bad, because when you but I was, it
• 15:07
  Jeff Leake: was my, as you said, honest questioning. Yes, right.
• 15:10
  Jeff Leake: Could Become skepticism, and then when it gets really nasty, yeah, for sure. Okay, so you, and then you emotionally distance yourself from your experiences because you're trying to objectively evaluate your reality and yes, well, and then more people logically, and people are pushing against you and you're arguing, which is all part of growing? Yeah, yeah. So it's a part of growing, especially as you're in ministry training. So that's not necessarily unhealthy. It can become unhealthy, right? Okay, so they went through college, and then what? And
• 15:39
  Dave Leake: then, then I had this period where I studied enough to know, okay, this is generally what I believe. But there are questions people would ask me that I didn't have a super confident answer for. And so I never would say I was fully in the camp of, like, closet, charismatic. I was always open about it, but maybe just a little hesitant, yeah, like, almost like, shy or not embarrassed, but just like, well, because,
• 16:03
  Jeff Leake: okay, let's just face it. And you this was part of our conversation that we had earlier, I think, and that is sometimes when people are functioning in the gifts, where the Holy Spirit starts to move and things begin to happen, he begins to move upon people's life. They get emotional. And so sometimes there's emotionalism that comes with Pentecostal charismatic experience. I've been in those circles. It's odd.
• 16:25
  Jeff Leake: Sometimes people who are used and you say, I remember you asked me this question, some people who are profoundly used in the in the way that the Holy Spirit's working are also somewhat eccentric. Yeah, to use another word, maybe a bit weird.
• 16:43
  Jeff Leake: Honestly, the the there's a lady that was an amazing, you know, woman of God, healing evangelist that functioned in Pittsburgh, Catherine Coleman, I think we've mentioned her before, and she saw unbelievable miracles. My dad used to go down to First Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh and watch on Fridays, or participate in the services on Fridays, because they would have healing services. And he said he saw, you know, people getting out of wheelchairs and blind eyes open. And right here in our city, just every week, there was something supernatural. But she was really unusual. She wore a long, flowing white dress, and she would kind of float across the platform, and she had sort of a spooky voice. She would come out, and she would say, I remember watching her on TV as a little kid, and she totally freaked me out. She would say, we've been waiting for you. And that was the way she opened up.
• 17:30
  Jeff Leake: And I was like, I would say, Dad, who is she? Oh, she's amazing. She's doing God's using her powerfully. And I was like, I don't know, like, so a lot of times, those who are bold enough to break past their fears and intimidation and maybe the scrutiny of others, and are willing to step into this realm of incredibly bold faith oftentimes have a odd edge to them. And so I think you asked me, Do you have to be weird to be in this category. But let me before we Okay, before we go any further, let me just bring you often do this, Dave, this. Go ahead. Go okay. I think maybe for some of our listeners, they would be in the category of the way you described yourself before you saw your first few miracles. Yeah, and they're hearing you say, Are we living way below this Smith Wigglesworth level, where you know he's I remember hearing one story about him, this person that had this huge, gory goiter grown out of their neck, that he felt prompted to slap it. And so in Jesus name be a BAM, and he slapped the goiter, and it disappeared as he hit it. Okay, so you're saying we should all be living at this Smith wonders level of faith, and some people like pro I'm trying to read my Bible. I'm just trying to get to church every week. I'm just really trying to break some bad habits here, like I'm, I'm trying to keep my marriage together. I'm trying to raise my family. And, you know, I come to church and, man, it, it's so life giving to me. But you're, you're talking about a standard of life that just feels like, what do you want from me? Can almost be the feeling. And so what would you say to that person in that place,
• 19:12
  Dave Leake: just thinking about this, maybe someone with that name Smith? Because that's what Matt Smith, our producer, did last year with that lady who couldn't walk us up with the cane, okay, out of her hand, and she got healed, right? He's over here, right? She could see his face right now, but no, I mean, Matt Smith, Wigglesworth. We got a nickname. Do that a little bit of a longer nickname.
• 19:39
  Jeff Leake: So what about, what about, you know, I'm a new Christian, or I'm like, Man, I'm just, I'm just learning. I just read some of these stories, and now you're, you're like, lifting the standards so high, I feel like I never climbed that ladder. Well,
• 19:51
  Dave Leake: Paul says, I think it's in First Corinthians 12. He says, eagerly desire the spiritual gifts. Okay, I think that
• 19:57
  Jeff Leake: so when you look, but when you talk about. About, are we living at the standard we need to live at? You're probably not aiming that question at the everyday believer who's coming just beginning to walk with God, or just starting to get into some kind of a Bible reading plan or a life group. You're probably talking to church leaders. Aren't you like aren't you talking to people like me and other people who lead churches? And you're saying to to the Jeff leaks and the Dave leaks of the world, the people that are leading a campus or a church or in charge of a ministry, are we making enough room for the people who attend our church to experience the power of the Holy Spirit and the way that we function so that someone who is new can have the experiences that you had when you were like, 1718, Oh, yeah.
• 20:42
  Jeff Leake: Isn't that really the question you're asking? Yeah, yeah. Eisen is more aimed toward the church leader than it is toward the
• 20:48
  Dave Leake: Well, I think the question is probably more towards the church leader, but I think the experience is aimed towards everybody.
• 20:55
  Jeff Leake: Okay, okay, so, but that takes a little bit of the pressure off, sure, because what I'm a little bit afraid of with this particular conversation is people are going to leave like, thinking, you know, you guys got your head in the clouds. I don't even know what you're talking about. So I think that the the believer person, is longing for the Holy Spirit to work in their life. Don't you think people show up at a church service?
• 21:16
  Jeff Leake: Don't you think they're like, I would love to see an answer to prayer, a healing miracle. I would love to be like when we come back from trips and we started to tell testimonies, most of the people like, Oh man, I would love to go on one of those trips and see some of the things you're talking about.
• 21:30
  Jeff Leake: Like, you know, and sometimes then the question is, why aren't we seeing more of that here? And or if there is a happening someplace, people start to say, Do you think there's a revival coming? So I don't think that there's a lack of hunger on the part of everyday believers to experience the presence of the Holy Spirit. Now maybe they don't know the price that it takes to get into that place to experience it. Maybe we expect it all to be done for us. Maybe don't. We don't know what it is to eagerly desire the gifts of the Holy Spirit. But let's, let's talk to the church leader, because I know a lot of people who listen to this podcast are pastors and leaders, and maybe you're you. You follow Dave on his spiritual journey. You you know had moments where you've experienced the presence and power of God, and you went through some theological training where you objectively evaluated it all. And maybe you're in that place where you like really would like God to move, but you don't want it to be weird, because you don't want to be freaking people out and and yet, you're hearing Dave's hunger stir. Like, man, don't we? Shouldn't we be believing for more? Maybe we should talk about that. Let's, let's
• 22:32
  Dave Leake: let me like, let me like, quickly address generally, then first before we just talk to the church leaders. Because I think, like, I think, I do think that the question, are we living below where we could be is probably more for leadership.
• 22:46
  Dave Leake: But I think to con to I don't know what the right word is, to give it an opposite side of that. I don't know that I was aware of what was even available to me. Okay, so it's like, well, eagerly desire something well, like, what do I even what does it even mean for me? Yeah, yeah.
• 23:03
  Dave Leake: Because, like, I think I used to think, like, maybe someday there could be something like this for me, but that feels like so far out of reach, like for the pastors and for the Johannes of the world, or the Smith swift Smith Wigglesworth, like, sure, but like, I don't know what I'd have to do to even get close to that level. But it's really for every believer. Yeah, like every believer, new believers, people that just got saved.
• 23:30
  Jeff Leake: So why do you start?
• 23:30
  Jeff Leake: Why do you think that? Why did you think this is feels
• 23:34
  Dave Leake: like an elite level of something? Yeah, and you know what, in some ways, it is.
• 23:39
  Jeff Leake: So here's how it was, here's how it got wired into my mind. Yeah, I grew up in a little bit of a different era than you, and I went to the same Bible College as you did, Dave.
• 23:49
  Jeff Leake: And what was always talked about when I was going through Bible College was we need revival. The church is in need of revival. We need a fresh revival, a fresh move of God like they had in the past. We need to have that today. And then they would say, the problem with the church today, and that we don't have revival, is that we aren't serious enough. We're not committed enough that if you were more committed, if you were willing to go at 100% then you would experience revival. And then the challenge was, come to the altar and make a commitment.
• 24:21
  Jeff Leake: Like, go say, God, I'm committed to you. And so I answered that altar call, I don't know, hundreds of times, longing for revival, but it felt like something I would never be committed enough to attain to like, it felt like, like I just, I, what I don't think I understood is that the Holy Spirit is more available to us, yeah, than what we realize and that he doesn't show up in our life because we're more committed. He actually shows up in our life because we want to partner with him right now, to see him work in the world around us. And it really isn't US manufacturing something by our commitment. It really is us learning. Know that there's a very real person who's available to us, who wants to work in and through us, if we will, just take steps of faith and obedience. No doubt, no one taught me that. No one taught me who the Holy Spirit was or how he operated. I knew the Holy Spirit like I got generally the doctrine of the Trinity and Father Son and Holy Spirit, and I knew the Holy Spirit was poured out, and I knew the Holy Spirit was responsible for miracles. But no one ever told me. He's your friend, he's your partner. Listen to him. Here's how you listen to him. Here's how you respond. And so there's a simplicity to operating with the Holy Spirit in your life, yeah, but there's also a level of intentionality that has to be there. You have to be leaning into it. It's, I always thought, almost too here was the other thing. It was like, when God wants to do this in my life, it's almost like a lightning strike. Doesn't happen that often, but when you hear the thunder clouds of a really great worship service, all of a sudden the fire from heaven might strike you. If you're lucky enough, you get hit by lightning, and a miracle would happen. I don't think the Holy Spirit's operation in the world is a lightning strike. It's actually, again, a partnership.
• 26:02
  Jeff Leake: It's, it's, it's like going into your car and turning on the engine and pressing the gas pedal and moving forward. It's, it's an action that we do with when we're in the vehicle of the Holy Spirit, where he starts to move within our life. And you're right. I don't think, I don't think many pastors and leaders understand they're waiting for lightning strikes too sure. They go into church thinking, maybe today we'll get struck by lightning and God will move. But it really isn't that. It's, it's learning to operate within the framework of a partnership with the Holy Spirit for him to work.
• 26:36
  Jeff Leake: But we have to be, it has to be a simplicity and a practicality about it. There also has to be intentionality, yeah, and that has to be not just in church services. It has to be with our everyday life, absolutely, and
• 26:49
  Dave Leake: we can get into that. And I guess the last thing, the thing that is true, that's intuitive, that is that when you do have a greater intimacy with Holy Spirit there, there does come without a level of grace and anointing, but it's available for every believer.
• 27:02
  Dave Leake: That's the thing, like, for me, even, like,
• 27:06
  Jeff Leake: even at the moment you're in right now. That's what I'm saying. It's like, it's like the next breath is right there, so the Holy Spirit is as close as your next breath, yes, and available to because of who he is, available to you things through you and and in you that are supernatural and life changing and transformational, amazing. But I don't know that we approach every church service with the awareness that he's present and ready. Or if we approach every day that way,
• 27:38
  Dave Leake: yeah, trying to find a Yeah. I think Yeah. I don't know whether I'll save this first. I'll save this first. So to everybody in general, I think we should, we should acknowledge that the Are we living below where we could be, in terms of with the Holy Spirit? I think I'm probably talking primarily to church leadership here, and this is probably something that I'm feeling the burden for. But I think to people in general, there's more for you than what you have right now, and it's available right now. There doesn't have to be a certain level you can get to the Holy Spirit wants to partner with, although
• 28:18
  Jeff Leake: you can practice a partnership with the Holy Spirit, helps to be around other people who are proficient at operating with the Holy Spirit.
• 28:23
  Jeff Leake: Helps to be in atmospheres where the Holy Spirit, you need to seek the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and you need to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. And it's really good to have these really focused mission experiences where you set aside a couple weeks of your life to go and do the 100% this for us for two weeks, because it does seem to elevate you to another level of expectation, even if you go back to your mundane, everyday life. So all of that's all that's good. But so in this, in this podcast episode, Dave, you normally the one peppering me with questions, and because this is your like, you're carrying a passion for this on some ways, I'm playing that Devil's ad advocate. It's okay.
• 29:00
  Jeff Leake: So let me, let me ask you. Let me ask you this, because I want to, I want to pull out of you.
• 29:03
  Jeff Leake: Sure. Go ahead. So if we were to, if at the doorside campus, which is where you Pastor, you would hit the level of where you should be, what would that look like?
• 29:17
  Dave Leake: Well, when you say should like what I would desire to be So
• 29:21
  Jeff Leake: describe so Give me.
• 29:21
  Jeff Leake: Give me the picture. So if acts as our model, and we're saying we're living below the level of our potential, in terms of where we live in 2024 and in our function, in terms of a church family, what would that look like if you started to lead to the level of your potential.
• 29:44
  Jeff Leake: What would that look like? This
• 29:45
  Dave Leake: is not gonna be practical. I just give you a picture, though. Yeah, that's
• 29:48
  Jeff Leake: what I'm asking. I
• 29:49
  Dave Leake: think, I think the picture would look like this. I think if we got to that level, when people would walk in to the north side campus on the weekends, they would feel the presence of God, not. But it's about feeling. But I'm just saying I think when the presence of God is resting in a place heavily, it's evident. I think there would be constant signs of wonders. There'd be prophecy that do an operation, constant describe. I think every single week, we would be seeing the demonstration of the Holy
• 30:17
  Jeff Leake: Spirit's power. Just as someone is healed, someone is delivered. There's a word, yeah, there's a word of prophecy given, save the gifts of the Holy Spirit. But, okay, I've been to the north side campus.
• 30:25
  Jeff Leake: Isn't that happening? Like, but not, but not. And you feel the presence of God there. Okay? And
• 30:33
  Dave Leake: you asked me, like, what would it be like to get to our potential, where we could be, yeah,
• 30:36
  Jeff Leake: so you're saying it would be heavier. I
• 30:39
  Dave Leake: think it'd be heavy.
• 30:39
  Dave Leake: I think we'd be not just seeing smatterings of things. I think we'd be seeing just an outpouring of the Holy Spirit's power. I mean, I think, but
• 30:49
  Jeff Leake: now you're using these. All right, all right. So like, be
• 30:53
  Dave Leake: real, real practice.
• 30:53
  Dave Leake: Yeah, I think people would be coming in wheelchairs, and they'd be getting out of their wheelchairs, okay? If
• 31:00
  Jeff Leake: the Katherine Kuhlman thing, I think, I think there
• 31:03
  Dave Leake: would be a multiplication of people that are called into ministry. I think there'd be people that are stepping out as people actively using prophecy, people that are using gifts of healing, even in like the Walmarts or the giant Eagles of the area, spill over then into everyday life. Yeah, that it's multiplying, not just from that the leaders are doing this, but that everyday believers are using this like crazy. I think we would see people that are resistant to the church, or that are outside of it, that are constantly being won like we'd be seeing people that are added to our number.
• 31:34
  Dave Leake: We'd be seeing people that are sent out across the nation or to the world, that are carrying the same kind of things. I think if we saw the full version of this, which is what I'm hungry for, we'd see dead people that would be raised. Okay, you know, all
• 31:49
  Jeff Leake: right. So, so this is good. I love that vision. So why is that not happening?
• 31:52
  Jeff Leake: Because this is where it gets real personal. If you're a church leader, you're like, okay, yeah, that's the question.
• 32:00
  Jeff Leake: That's the question of acts in its fullness. So I have one thing I want to come back to, but let's ask the why question, and let me ask it of me, and let's ask it of all churches that are out there that believe in the Holy Spirit. Why are we not seeing more? I
• 32:18
  Dave Leake: have a few answers.
• 32:18
  Dave Leake: Okay, all right, one answer is this, I think that with charismatics today, they're because of just where the internet is and the reputation that's been foisted upon charismatics by non charismatics, which I think is total bull crap at this point. I really do well, you
• 32:37
  Jeff Leake: gotta tell them.
• 32:37
  Jeff Leake: Tell what. What are they? What's
• 32:40
  Dave Leake: the okay, what's the reputation that that? Which is what I was a little bit embarrassed of, is charismatics are emotional experience seeking, type of Christians that are not really good at expounding on the Bible, at exegesis, at studying the Bible.
• 32:54
  Dave Leake: Well, they're
• 32:56
  Jeff Leake: shallow. They're emotional. Yeah? They want an experience, even not completely.
• 32:58
  Jeff Leake: They walk by
• 33:01
  Dave Leake: sight, not by faith, yeah, what they really want?
• 33:03
  Dave Leake: They're in for Christianity, for their own blessings. They're in for a new car. They're in for an emotional experience. But they're not in it through suffering, or they're not in it for what the Word of God says, which is just totally, who's
• 33:15
  Jeff Leake: underneath your your what birds under your saddle?
• 33:18
  Jeff Leake: But there must be someone, oh,
• 33:20
  Dave Leake: I don't know how you are not aware of this. Yeah, there's a, I mean, there's a huge movement of Christianity that would brand charismatic Pentecostal Christians that way.
• 33:30
  Dave Leake: And so because of that, I think I've always been and, you know, talking to my good friend Jordan Claire, who's been on this podcast, he leads the Alpha ministry at Pittsburgh, like he's kind of had some of the same experiences me, like, well,
• 33:42
  Jeff Leake: sometimes, what has that done to you? It's
• 33:44
  Dave Leake: made you hesitate, shy, shy, yeah,
• 33:47
  Jeff Leake: so you're saying, I'm coming out of my shell. I'm gonna be an unabashed because
• 33:52
  Dave Leake: the more I've studied the Word of God, it's so clear. Okay,
• 33:56
  Jeff Leake: so let's, let's start there. Let's say, Okay, so let's stop being shy about it.
• 33:58
  Jeff Leake: Let's be bold. What else?
• 34:01
  Dave Leake: Okay, um, there's a proverb that I wanted to read now. Proverbs 2027, seven says the full soul loathes a honeycomb, but to the hungry soul, every bitter thing is sweet. Okay? I think that sometimes like, what is stopping me? I'll say what has stopped me in the past is I probably haven't really been stoking my hunger for this kind of move of God, the way that I feel like I am now, like I feel like I just genuinely am. That's the thing I feel like I'm the most hungry for. I want to see just the full, you know, the full whatever God wants to bring the full flood unashamed,
• 34:40
  Jeff Leake: be hungry, yeah.
• 34:40
  Jeff Leake: What else
• 34:43
  Dave Leake: I think there?
• 34:43
  Dave Leake: There's an element of it that's just God's sovereignty in his timing, okay, right? I think there are times of there are moves of God that God begins to stir. So to me, I feel like
• 34:52
  Jeff Leake: expect, expectant, but patient. Yeah, I
• 34:54
  Dave Leake: feel like the season that we're in right now, where I feel this way is somewhat because God's. During that, not just with me, but with a number of people. It might even be happening all across the nation, okay, but I feel like there's this stirring for so
• 35:08
  Jeff Leake: like there's a gathering of a wave, yeah, you can feel like, when you're out in the ocean and the in the wave, you know, the water gets silent, sometimes it's because there's a gathering, yeah, of a big wave that's coming, and then it comes and crashes down upon you. So you, you feel that there's a way of gathering, yeah, definitely. Hey, well, that's good news. Yeah, yeah, okay.
• 35:28
  Dave Leake: I those. That's everything that I then, actually,
• 35:30
  Jeff Leake: I think there's another one, and that is, you have to make room for it, yeah, it. You have to be intentional about it. And at some point you need to take a risk Absolutely.
• 35:41
  Jeff Leake: You get in, you're on your platform. And instead of just ending the service, you have to say, before we go, I want to lay hands upon people, or Yeah, I want to believe, we're going to believe God for this, you have to put yourself out there to where the Holy Spirit can work through you, because you're making yourself available and creating a space within the context of your your ministry.
• 36:01
  Jeff Leake: I'd like to talk about that a little more in a minute, because I think there is something about this that is easier than what we make it to be. But before we get back to that, make sure I remember you want to say something else. Yes,
• 36:18
  Dave Leake: but wait, write it down. There something to computer, because I don't even really know where you're going, I will remember. All right, all right. The I think the other thing too, from a church leadership perspective, like, what has to be different is we, so you alluded to this, but I'll say it a different way. I think we have to be comfortable with the risk, like, so there, there's this, you know, when I was talking about the hesitancy to be bold about being charismatic, part of it is because there is a risk of either something actually weird, or at least the perception of you being weird being put on you by people that are there. Well,
• 36:54
  Jeff Leake: that's not the risk I'm thinking about but, but it's a risk for a lot of people.
• 36:56
  Jeff Leake: Okay, so
• 36:57
  Dave Leake: Okay, let me explain my risk is, what
• 36:59
  Jeff Leake: if nothing happens, okay, but
• 37:01
  Dave Leake: let me follow up with that, though. But as a church leader, though it's like so I could focus on good growth church plant strategies in terms of excellence and in terms of the right kind of service flow and excellent communication and the good content for service series, yeah, right. All this kind of videos, professional, yeah, mailers that are hitting the right sections of our demographic, the right lingo, events, yeah, to draw in young families, whatever, systems and those kind of things, if you get focused as that being the only thing we're doing, I'm not saying that they can't Jive together. They absolutely can where you can have really good strategy, really good outreach and have room for the Holy Spirit. But there is a pressure that, if you're getting all these new people in what are they gonna think if we start going this way? Well, I lived through something
• 37:52
  Jeff Leake: like this here at Ellison Park in 1997 and so like was stirring in you. There was something stirring in me in 1996 because there were revival movements happening all over the country that were very charismatic. Toronto Blessing was one, and Brownsville revival was another. And we, we were fasting and praying and expecting God to move and making room for that to happen. And then it hit us, and we, we it was, I think I have learned a lot more about how to operate with the Holy Spirit now than I did know then sure that was more like we were standing in a space, and all of a sudden someone unlocked a dam that broke loose, and all with the flow of the Holy Spirit came and we were just swept up in it. It was just, it was a little bit beyond my pastoral control. It happened all around me, and I couldn't have done anything about it if I had wanted to. It just, it just was, it was more of a lightning bolt strike. But it lasted for several months because we kept coming back and having services and expecting the Holy Spirit to move. And when that happened, Dave, we did. We had a bunch of people who left Allison Park church who were very uncomfortable with the emotionalism and sometimes the length of worship and the times of prayer, and it was uncomfortable for me. Really honest, there were some things that I remember someone standing next to me and looking over and say, What do you think that is?
• 39:16
  Jeff Leake: Is that God is that the devil?
• 39:19
  Jeff Leake: Is that them? And I was like, I have no idea. What are you going to do about it? You're the pastor. And I was like, I don't think I'm going to do anything right now, because I don't know what to do, right? I felt helpless. I felt overwhelmed, but,
• 39:31
  Dave Leake: but if that happened again now, you would probably see something like that with your experience and love, with level discernment you have, and you'd probably be ready for it, right?
• 39:39
  Jeff Leake: So being in that environment helped me learn how the Holy Spirit works, and I'm be much more prepared to pastor in a moment like that now than I was then. Right, no doubt. But at some point, Dave, there was a staleness that came with the routine where we were expecting to come this is what I think the critic criticism of some charismatics is, which is. We wanted. We were no longer looking at the people who are broken and hurting in the world that needed to be be touched by God. We were all coming for the next experience, sure, and that can, that can be bad? Oh, yeah, at first, it wasn't really about us. It was about people. So we had a lot of people who left Allison Park church during that time, and we had almost 1000 people saved in two months, and we baptized a bunch of people in water, and we grew as a church.
• 40:24
  Jeff Leake: So some people left, a ton of people came, yeah, but at some point we started. It was like a merry go round. We still, we sang the song already, didn't we pray this before? Like the experience became too confined to within us. Yeah, you didn't release it enough, yeah? And so when, when we stopped having the quote, unquote revival services, actually, what broke out was a church planting wave. Yeah? So the very next year, we planted our first church. And then, you know, we planted 34 over several decades, right? So, so and so, many things came out of us, sure. So what can go wrong with a move of God is, if it becomes about the believers liberty and experience? Yeah, I just want to have a new spiritual experience that makes me feel like God's at work in my life and and we stop looking at a hurting, broken world. Will people are oppressed by the devil and need a touch from God. So at some point, has to go beyond a church service experience, and it has to become a transformational movement.
• 41:30
  Jeff Leake: Yeah, where? Where we never lose our focus on lost people, yeah, and we, and we never stop pushing past our own experience, into helping somebody else, into serving the world, into planting a church, into going on mission.
• 41:45
  Jeff Leake: So but yes, when the Holy Spirit starts to move, some people who are believers will become uncomfortable, because when the Holy Spirit starts working, some people do get emotional, and sometimes it is a bit out of control, yeah, like, sometimes it's the Holy Spirit's work.
• 42:01
  Jeff Leake: Now, I do think there's a way to pastor it in such a way so that it doesn't have to be so weird or uncomfortable. The biggest thing that I think I learned in that whole process is when God's moving, slow down enough to explain to people what's going on. Yeah, sure. Don't leave people in the dark. Try to be as plain and practical as you can.
• 42:20
  Jeff Leake: Being plain and practical for people is not going to turn the Holy Spirit away. It's actually going to empower them to learn to partner with him even more.
• 42:26
  Jeff Leake: Yeah, I probably didn't do enough explaining during that particular time,
• 42:34
  Dave Leake: but when I reflect on this so I I'm reading this book on healing by Bill Johnson, Randy Clark, and they're talking about some of their personal testimonies and you know, Bill Johnson felt like he heard God ask him, like, are you willing to go for this at any cost? And he said he had this experience that just was, like uncomfortable in this dream, and God showed him, like, what if I touched you in such a way to where, like, people thought this wasn't me, and you'd have to get up in your church and you couldn't communicate. Well, what? And he felt like, you know, he was like, whatever the cost is, this what I want. And obviously God didn't impair him or anything like that. But I think that they're ha like, they're, they're, I feel like a lot of these kinds of moves, which what you're described is what I'm so desperate to see, not just for my experience, but that's awesome. I love that. But I feel like it's like, whatever the cost is, like, I feel like we as church leaders have to be willing to go there and to see that. And
• 43:31
  Jeff Leake: so little promo. Let me answer a promo. By the way, if you hunger for this, like Dave does, and you live in the Pittsburgh area and you have a local church you go to, you can show up in the north side on Sunday nights, Yeah, you're welcome. Like, was it six o'clock? 6pm 6pm dinner before five every week. So yeah, we go after God with Dave. Because, yeah, you know what? This is what I noticed, and that is sometimes when God starts to stir up hunger and the in the life of the pastor, especially because this is where it started. Was with me. I started coming, coming to the people at Alice park in the fall of 96 and saying, God's getting ready to do something here. I sensed it.
• 44:04
  Jeff Leake: And it's funny that at that time, there were a lot of missing pieces about what we were as a church. Our worship service was not all that well put together, because we were sort of in between worship leaders. And I remember leaving some services, thinking, Oh, that wasn't very good. So it was, like, totally, totally counterintuitive to where we needed to be, if you would expect a move of God. But here's the thing, the Holy Spirit doesn't move because you have great musicianship, although that does, it doesn't hurt. It actually happens because there's hunger and desire, and so when you start to go after God, God's able to do things, because if you're church, you're like, Oh, we're not set up for that right now. Well, Holy Spirit's not limited by talent. Sure, he can move in any situation. But, well, the reason why I say maybe you want to join Dave down at the north side is when hungry people get together. Yeah. Yeah, and start to focus their faith.
• 45:00
  Jeff Leake: Believe in God for something, you know, I shouldn't say unusual, something acts normal, right? There is, there is something about that that is well, and if
• 45:13
  Dave Leake: you want to get hungry, come get around hungry people. Yeah, I think being around hungry people actually makes you hungry too,
• 45:19
  Jeff Leake: you know. And if you're not in a church that's not all that hungry, collect the few hungry people that are there and start to pray together, yeah, under authority with under authority. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 45:28
  Jeff Leake: Not not saying, you know, this church doesn't follow the Holy Spirit. You know that my pastor needs change before God.
• 45:35
  Jeff Leake: Dissension or criticizing leadership is not going to bring the Holy Spirit. Stops the Holy Spirit the total opposite thing, yeah, of what you need to do.
• 45:44
  Jeff Leake: But let me go back to to this idea of being intentional, making, well,
• 45:48
  Dave Leake: I before I had one more thing that that was so interesting. I'm sorry to keep the way stop. We're believing
• 45:52
  Jeff Leake: for this in Hampton too. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 45:55
  Jeff Leake: Greg is what I know Pastor Greg at Butler is longing for the same thing. I just threw that up because Dave happens to meet on Sunday nights, which means you could do both if you happen to
• 46:04
  Dave Leake: and because that's like for us, we have, we have one service, and this is kind of like, well, this is like, all we do. Like, we always have extended worship and pursuing God at the end of every service, because we're not limited by time, just where anyway, what the quick thing I was going to say? I This felt fascinating and convicting to me that when Bill Johnson was talking about his testimony, he said that he felt like he he was taught and realized that, you know, when it comes to move of God, like in the Old Testament, in the the tabernacle it was, or, yeah, in the tabernacle, it was God who lit the flame, but it was the priests that had to keep the flame going. There you go. And he says, like, you know, far too many moves of God that have ended or blamed on God's sovereignty, when actually it's been that people haven't kept the hunger or the faithfulness to sustain the move of God going. So anyway, well
• 46:55
  Jeff Leake: I'm what I would add to what you said, Dave, is that the move of I asked you, what would it look like if the Holy Spirit started to move? And you described a lot of the things that were present in 1997 for us, which were in service activities, yeah, yeah, okay.
• 47:09
  Jeff Leake: But the move of God to be a true move of God doesn't stay inside.
• 47:13
  Jeff Leake: I also
• 47:16
  Dave Leake: described, but I said that people being sent out and but sometimes,
• 47:19
  Jeff Leake: so this is also sometimes how we measure it, though, we measure it as what has God done this Sunday in church, right? You're right, you're right. And really the book of Acts was less about what God was doing in sun on Sunday, in church, there were moves of God in life, groups in homes, and it was random things happening all over the community. When they would come back together, yes, it would celebrate what had been happening in their everyday lives, out in the marketplace and in their in the streets and where they were living. So we do tend to box in the Holy Spirit into an experiential church service for believers, right?
• 47:55
  Jeff Leake: Yeah, and it isn't just that, and in that sense, I feel like in many ways, be through our partnerships with organizations like SOS or will Jones with AMI, through our church planning initiatives, through our APLA activities, that we've been riding a wave of the Holy Spirit. Yeah, here all no doubt, no doubt that is continuing to be reverberating and impacting the world. But could there be more? And is it time? Are there times where we settle back for less than what we could do? We need to be more intentional. You know, we just had a meeting yesterday with a lot of our staff, and we were talking about things specifically at Hampton, which is the campus that I preach at. And you know, everyone in the room, just like you, Dave was saying, we need to make some more room around the altars for people to be prayed for. We need to, we need to activate our faith together like we shouldn't be so bound to the program. Like there's there is something stirring, and it's not just in you. There is something that's stirring. And maybe you're hearing this and something stirring in you too.
• 48:59
  Jeff Leake: Maybe you're doing the same things at your church. You're like, man, we want to see God really work, if that's so encouraging to me. Because, man, that's what, that's what we need. We need a fresh move of the Holy Spirit. Yeah. So let me, let me go to making room.
• 49:10
  Jeff Leake: Great. Okay, so in, in those moments in your service where you intentionally take a risk and you say, Here's in a moment, I'm going to step away from my message, from the song, we're going to create a space for the Holy Spirit to move. When you say that as a pastor, all of a sudden there is this pressure to produce something really amazing. Like Eli, I'm going to give you a prophetic word right now. And there's this pressure to produce something very amazing. And here's what I have discovered, when the Holy Spirit moves, he moves in tiny little doses, yeah, like I remember watching Ron Johnson, who's one of my mentors, and I was in a service with Ron, and we were in Tanzania together. We were preaching to about 3000 pastors, and he got up and he gave a word that totally explained. Go to the room. We as soon as he was done giving this prophetic message, there was just, I mean, people began to cry out to God, run to the altar. It was like, wow. So afterward, I said to Ron, When did God give you this word? Was it beforehand? Did you come up like and he said, it happened as I he said, all God gave me was the first sentence.
• 50:23
  Jeff Leake: And I said, You mean that whole paragraph that you just said God gave you? He said, Here's how I've discovered that it works.
• 50:30
  Jeff Leake: You obey God in the tiny little prompting, and then, as you do, he gives you more. Yeah, and I think sometimes we expect that a move of the Holy Spirit has to be sort of delivered to us in a full package that we understand.
• 50:42
  Jeff Leake: But most of the time, when God does something, it's it's a tiny little prompting that person over there go pray for them, or this, this promise from the Scripture, I want you to say it, and then as you say it, then God gives you a little bit more. And then as you say that, God gives you a little bit more. Before you know it, there is something happening in your life, but if you never obey that first tiny prompting, you don't tend to get the larger work of God that that is going to happen. So you have to put yourself out there where and sometimes what I'll do is I'll just create some space where the musicians are playing, and I'm encouraging people to pray, and I'm just tuned in, trying to listen to any little prompting from the Holy Spirit that might be there. And when I get it, I go with it. And sometimes nothing happens. And I was actually maybe off and I didn't see it correctly. And you move on with the service, you do something. Other times it's like, bam, like something happens, yeah, and this is what I'm talking about. There's a simplicity and a practicality to learning to work with the Holy Spirit, so that in moments when he's beginning to move, whether it's in an outreach or a church service or wherever you give him space and take the risk, yeah, to try. So
• 52:00
  Dave Leake: let's talk about the costs. Now, okay, because I think that, as you're describing that I'm like, Well, I do think that. So everything you said is practical, and it is the first steps to it. And I think if you're wanting to become more like you want to step more into, move to the Holy Spirit and using the gifts and things, those are the first steps. But I think to do that, there has to be a willingness to pay a certain price. Which part of what we've described, which is, this could be weird, it could make somebody uncomfortable, people could leave. So I also think it was one. I also think it's what you were talking about, which is, what if it doesn't happen? Yeah, I don't know if I've mentioned this on a podcast before. I think I have, but when I was growing up, there was a number of people that came through that were like prophets, and they would do a little activation training, all right, we're all gonna hear from God right now. And I felt like I never heard anything, like all my friends would get something, and I'd be like, I don't know if I heard and I think I probably actually was hearing something.
• 52:54
  Dave Leake: By the way, a little tease
• 52:57
  Jeff Leake: we are going to talk about in a future episode, what we've teased a couple of times, which is how to activate and hear from God to get a word for your life and for your ministry.
• 53:05
  Jeff Leake: It's good. But, yes, go ahead.
• 53:07
  Dave Leake: So I probably was hearing some things, but I was such a cerebral kid that I wanted to talk to yourself out of it. Yeah, I wanted to feel different. And I think I'm making this up. It wouldn't sound like this. Well, later down the road, I did what the equivalent of our Allison Park Leadership Academy. Side note, if you want to get training and all this stuff, sign ups still available. This is part of what we do, is train you to hear from God and train you to move in the supernatural, along with, you know, giving theological training. But anyway, I felt like I heard God tell me, you know, go give this word. This one lady was somebody I didn't know, and was the middle of worship, worship service, during the music. I felt like to go do it right then. So I went up and I tapped this person the shoulder. Didn't know them. And I was like, Hey, I don't know you, but I felt like I heard God say this, does this sound right to you at all? And they were like, no. I was like, Oh no. And I was like, okay, sorry. And I walked back to my seat, and I was so embarrassed, but I felt like, I felt like God. Was like, are you willing to be embarrassed? You know, to steward, to steward, what I give you? And I was like, fine. And, you know, I thought about that so much sense. Who knows whether that actually was what right? It could have been that person didn't want to hear it. It could have been that I was off, because we ought to be humble enough to be wrong. So. But how proud God
• 54:26
  Jeff Leake: the Father is when you try, yeah, God's never like, oh, you screwed up.
• 54:31
  Dave Leake: And I think, how much does it honor Him when you say, I would rather be embarrassed, yeah, and go after whatever you have for me, then retain my dignity and reputation and be safe with nothing happening. Yeah? Well,
• 54:44
  Jeff Leake: there is another cost that we should probably talk about, and that is, if you're going to show up in a moment and believe for God to use you, you got to get prayed up. Yeah? So yes, you got to start to live with a purity of heart. You need to repent of.
• 54:58
  Jeff Leake: The stuff that it's not supposed to be in your life. Get rid of the guilt and shame. Get into the presence of God. Pray yourself ready, yeah. So a lot of times, Dave, when I go in, really ready for a service, I have not only prepared a sermon, I prepared my spirit, yeah, meaning that the sermon is ready, and now I pray in the Spirit for a season over the service, asking for the Holy Spirit ahead of time, to give me something that he wants to say through me, or even just to prepare me for the moment.
• 55:30
  Jeff Leake: Sometimes when I go as a guest in places, I'll say to the pastor, I know you want me to sit up front, but I'm going to probably walk around during the worship service, so I'm going to be go to the back, and I pace and I pray in the spirit throughout that whole time, asking God to give me something specific for that particular place that I'm in. And oftentimes God gives me multiple things that I'm supposed to say in that moment. So it's readying your Spirit, so that you're not just there prepared to preach a message or sing lead and worship or whatever it is that you happen to be doing that day, but that you're ready for God to finish. It's
• 56:04
  Dave Leake: way beyond. It's way beyond that too. It's, it's, it's prioritizing being with God in your like over your normal pastoral work things, yeah, like it's pressing in, carving out more time to press in than just to meet with people, then just to have a good sermon, like I Josh and I were talking about this, you know, while ago, and this is now part of what our goals look like for our whole church. But I was like, Man, if I was everybody's boss, I wish.
• 56:33
  Dave Leake: I guess you are, but so I'm not saying this, but I'm just telling you what I would, what I would like I would, it would be like, great if people came in and the first hour of their work day was devotions, like, I'd rather them. It'd be great to do it at home. But even if you just did it as a part of your paid hours, and you're in the presence of God for a solid hour and you're reading and you're that would be so much better than being really productive and just getting a project plan done and calling the right people. I
• 57:04
  Jeff Leake: don't think they're mutually exclusive. Actually, probably one helps the other.
• 57:05
  Jeff Leake: But I'm saying, I
• 57:08
  Dave Leake: think, very often, but we often sacrifice the one we do, we do. You're right.
• 57:10
  Dave Leake: That's I think you told me once, don't just be a ministry tactician. Do you remember saying that? No, yeah, like, meaning, like, don't just do a good job with, like, the strategy and the recruiting and the and the setup of your systems, or whatever else happens in a ministry function.
• 57:25
  Dave Leake: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like be someone that's full of the presence of God so that you come in ready. And I think that that's an easy thing to miss in ministry if you're full time pastor or missionary or whatever, is actually just carving out that time. Just described
• 57:39
  Jeff Leake: my practice over 30 some years of life. That's what I do. I when I started here in 88 I would come in at 730 in the morning. The sanctuary was open for prayer. There were like four or five other people that would come. I'd spend an hour down there, and then I come up and start my work. Yeah, and honestly, those moments with God just shaped me in so many ways.
• 58:01
  Jeff Leake: So the pre work, or I guess the personal one on one, intimacy with God makes you ready for for the public ministry. So okay, I think we, I think we've covered it, yeah. So to recap, raise your level of expectation, fuel the hunger. Get around other people that are going after God make room within your services and in your life, get yourself spiritually hot and ready to go take some risks. Believe God for the supernatural. Don't be afraid of being criticized as being weird, and be willing for nothing to happen right when you take those steps of faith. But you got to get out there. And
• 58:41
  Dave Leake: as a Just one last practical tip, start reading or listening to people that have testimonies of what they've experienced. Yeah, man, there's nothing like really about the Wigglesworth, oh, my goodness.
• 58:51
  Dave Leake: Like, I just was like, I should read this. And midway through, I'm like, I'm feeling like, not even bad about myself, just like, wow. Like, that sounds so crazy. He just was a normal guy, but that could be me, you know that. And so, yeah, so I think if you want to be hungry, it helps to to be inspired by the testimony of others. Okay, so, yeah, well, we
• 59:17
  Jeff Leake: want to thank you for tuning in with us on this episode, and if you want to leave us a review or give us feedback on this episode, we'd love to hear from
• 59:25
  Dave Leake: you that way. Yeah, you can if you're watching on YouTube, you can comment, we'd love if you'd like it, subscribe, you can share on social media, leave us five star review, give you a shout out to the technical podcast. But in general, we're so glad you're a part of this, and we'll catch you guys again next time you.