Latest / The OneCry Podcast / #250 - How Spiritual Awakening Shapes Generations (Kyle Reno)

Transcript

#250 - How Spiritual Awakening Shapes Generations (Kyle Reno) · The OneCry Podcast

0:00
The next right step is to be willing to get desperate for God, and to lay aside every
0:10
distraction that would keep us from that.
0:13
Welcome to the One Cry Podcast, a nationwide call for spiritual awakening.
0:19
The goal, accelerating the movement of God through sharing revival truth, stories, and
0:27
reports.
0:29
We are so thrilled that you're joining us today for the One Cry Podcast.
0:34
I'm Bill Eliff, and this is my buddy Kyle Reno.
0:40
We're so thrilled that you're joining us here.
0:42
Kyle, I'm so excited about this little series that we're doing on how revival ruins and
0:51
wrecks lives.
0:52
I mean, how it shapes men and women.
0:57
There's something about the nature of spiritual awakening and movements of God that uniquely
1:10
shapes people.
1:11
I want to tell a little story as we begin this, because the guy we're going to interview
1:18
is seated right here today.
1:22
But Kyle, you told me one day, you said, all the men that have mentored my life and
1:32
shaped me are men who came out of the Jesus movement.
1:37
This was years ago.
1:38
This is, I don't know, I think you were still on staff here with us.
1:45
And then you said very seriously, you said, what I'm worried about is, where's the next
1:51
level of leaders that are going to mentor all of us for the next 50 years?
1:59
And well, the next level is right here.
2:02
The next level is you.
2:04
The next level is all the 30 and 40 year olds that have been shaped by that.
2:12
And graciously, God is bringing us into a new season of revival and awakening that
2:21
I believe is going to shape a whole new generation of Gen Z that will be those Jesus movement
2:30
kind of people for the next 50 years.
2:33
And you know, what's crazy is he's done that every 50 years in American history.
2:39
Every 30 to 60 years, there's been a great awakening that has shaped the leaders.
2:45
We don't think about this, but it's shaped the leaders for the next movement of Christianity
2:52
in American history.
2:54
And I think it's happening right now.
2:56
But we want to talk about that.
2:59
Last week, if you missed the podcast, as we talked about Steve Gaines, you need to go
3:05
back and hear it.
3:06
It was just such a blessed time remembering this great giant who's gone to be with the
3:14
Lord now just recently.
3:17
But you need to hear about that.
3:20
And one of his disciples is a guy sitting right here beside me, Kyle Reno.
3:29
And Kyle, you and your brother were both saved.
3:34
I think Zach was saved first, I think, and then instrumental in helping you come to Christ.
3:42
Although you don't want to admit that, probably, but he did.
3:44
Yeah, I totally do.
3:47
It's the Lord's work.
3:48
He just so happened to use my brother.
3:50
Yeah, he just happened to use my brother, yeah.
3:53
Still that brotherly, still there, you know.
3:57
But Kyle, you came to Christ under the ministry of Steve Gaines when he was in Birmingham
4:05
at Gardendale Church during a season of real revival, we would call it, a real movement
4:12
of God, an extraordinary time.
4:15
And hundreds of people were coming to Christ.
4:21
And tell us about that, and tell us about that season of revival from your eyes, what
4:29
it did to you, how it impacted you.
4:33
Just kind of give us a thumbnail sketch of that.
4:37
Man, for one, you got me just weeping, dude, when you reference even the Jesus movement.
4:46
And just to reiterate what I do think the Lord gave me clarity about years ago in that
4:51
conversation with you, because I believe it even more than ever before, I think that our
4:57
nation spiritually has been led for decades now.
5:02
And the things that matter in the kingdom, honestly, by men specifically, and women,
5:07
but men in pastoral offices, by men that were changed and wrecked by the Jesus movement,
5:15
by a move of God that spread in our nation in that era, 60s, 70s, you know, and the fear
5:23
I've had, honestly, in me is that the next generation of men like me, 45 years old, that
5:31
is leading in the church now, has never experienced anything quite like that, in a widespread
5:40
way.
5:41
Let me pause you for just a minute.
5:44
So when we were starting OneCry, we got 50 men in an airport, I think it was Atlanta
5:54
or Houston somewhere, for a day.
5:59
And we were all seated around this big room and a table.
6:04
And Byron Paulus, who is the founder of OneCry, said, hey, we're just going to take some time.
6:11
That influenced you, that gave you a heart and a passion for revival and spiritual awakening.
6:19
Almost to a man, and if I call the names of these 50 men, you'd know almost every one
6:24
of them.
6:25
And they've been the leaders across denominational lines, parachurch guys, pastors, just spiritual
6:33
leaders in our nation, governmental guys.
6:37
And almost to a man, every one of them said the Jesus movement, the Jesus movement, the
6:41
Jesus movement.
6:42
So it illustrates what you're saying.
6:47
So go ahead.
6:48
Yeah, no, and what I do think, just I'm going to, in faith, say something here.
6:56
I think that the Lord is doing it.
6:58
I think He's raising up a generation.
7:03
I think for us, let me put it this way, I have, in my spirit, I see something coming
7:09
in our expression of that in this local church, that I'm believing that will mark future generations
7:17
as the Lord carries a revival in this region.
7:20
So for me, to the testimony part, for me, I didn't know then, now looking back, I do,
7:28
because I was an unsaved man, 19 years old, that so happened to walk into a little r revival,
7:37
real move of God, and a local expression of Jesus's church, Gardner First Baptist.
7:43
And I walked into a place where God's presence was inescapable, inescapable, like you didn't
7:51
walk away while Steve was an incredibly anointed pastor, you didn't walk away talking about
7:57
Steve, or you didn't walk around talking about the style of worship, you didn't walk
8:01
away talking about the carpet color, or the coolness, or any of those kind of things.
8:07
Like you walked away going, like, I don't know, for me as a lost guy, and my first experience
8:11
was, I didn't know what to do with God.
8:15
I didn't know what to do with God.
8:16
And...
8:17
You've been invited by your coach.
8:20
Yeah, a baseball coach that had been poor, who had been wrecked my senior year, you know,
8:26
he's the one sitting down with us, my senior year of baseball, he's my high school coach
8:31
and my superhero, you know, to make these six foot four, you know, played pro ball,
8:37
you know, cuss word creating, cooler breaking coach, but then God sits down in his church
8:43
that they go to, and wrecks him.
8:47
Well, then he comes as an effective witness to that, to his baseball team, tells us about
8:52
And I've watched, I've watched life change happen.
8:56
So I didn't know what to do with that, because he's different.
8:58
He's 100% different.
8:59
And he was the first man I knew that was fully alive.
9:04
And I didn't know, I didn't know what to do with that, either.
9:07
So the Lord was obviously softened, but then I walk into this local expression of Sunday
9:12
morning gathering out of honestly, I was, I have tried everything and I'm miserable
9:17
in life.
9:18
He's witnessed to me 100 times.
9:21
He's invited me 1000 times to come to church with him.
9:24
And I just finally did, the Spirit of God's moving, but man, I walked in and then I was
9:30
leveled, leveled by the presence of God and thought, I think this all might be real.
9:39
And I don't know what to do with that, you know, and so I'm I have no theological framework.
9:44
I walk, you've heard me share 100 times, I pray the Lord lets me share 1000s more, you
9:50
know, I walk away, sit in my truck, pray the first probably sincere prayer to a God I didn't
9:57
know.
9:58
Hey, Jesus, if you're real, would you let me get back here next week?
10:03
And I'll give my life to you.
10:05
And I meant it.
10:06
That's terrible theology.
10:07
I could have been born again in the truck.
10:10
But what I knew is that he was so near.
10:13
And so for seven days, wrestle through my, I really needed that time.
10:18
And God said to one of his angels, hey, watch over him for seven days.
10:24
Double down, guys, double down.
10:26
Be careful.
10:27
For seven days, we got to get him back.
10:30
No, it's so true.
10:31
It's so true.
10:32
But I wrestled with my brokenness for those days, that week of just in my life, I thought
10:39
long and hard about everything.
10:43
And then walked in to the 930 gathering, they had 8, 930 and 11 at Gardendale.
10:48
And I was there before the eight was done.
10:52
And with doors open, I'm in second row, and that coach shows up to me on his row.
11:00
And I didn't tell him I was coming back.
11:01
And he's like, hey, you're here.
11:02
I thought, well, you come back, can't you?
11:04
And before invitation time, and I didn't understand church stuff.
11:09
I didn't understand response times.
11:12
Before the service was over, Steve's about to come down off of the, from the stage to
11:19
the front to receive people.
11:21
And he's trying to come down and I'm already piled up in the altar.
11:25
And was born again, knelt down, lost, stood up, born again, and walked out of the room.
11:35
I tell this story all the time, man, in worship, I don't know nothing about worship, don't
11:39
know nothing about anything.
11:41
I walk out of the room walking across the street to where my car's parked and stick
11:46
my hands up in the air.
11:48
And people are going to church, right, and a guy's coming out with his hands stuck up
11:52
because I'm free.
11:54
For the first time in my life, I'm free.
11:56
And so that's where, that's where my journey, you're talking about ruined, I came to saving
12:01
faith in Christ in a real move of God.
12:05
I never knew just go to church, never knew just a religious experience.
12:12
God was so real to me from the very first moment of my faith.
12:20
And then, which was a true gift, I mean, to be a part of that.
12:24
And then, and this is where it gets real important in light of revival, I think, Bill, and things
12:30
that you've done so well, you know, across your life and mentoring people in this.
12:36
I got to have a front row seat to men that were fully alive and on fire for God.
12:44
And so that goes from coming across on a Sunday, Thursday morning, I'm at Shawnee's at 6am,
12:51
which is a little diner, I'm sure some, some folks in Shawnee's, hey, listen, that was
12:59
back in the day, breakfast buffet, you can still smoke in restaurants.
13:03
So you're dying from cholesterol intake and secondhand smoke, you know.
13:09
But for two years, a little back table in the back of that Shawnee's, I got a New Lutheran
13:17
Translation Study Bible that somebody gave me.
13:21
And they let me sit down and fall in love with the Lord with them, that coach, and who
13:26
a staff member there, Andy Heiss, that you love too.
13:31
And, and what we got to do is to catch honestly, on fire for God together.
13:39
So did that coach say, did Coach Kitty say to you, hey, we meet on Thursday morning, come.
13:48
Somebody invited you.
13:49
Yeah, I think he did.
13:51
He initiated it for sure.
13:53
It was, hey, if we're going to do this, why don't we do this all out and like grow together
14:00
inside of this.
14:01
And so I think in a lot of things to learn, Bill, you need the real fire of God for a
14:11
revival to be genuine, authentic, you know, and then you need some models to be example.
14:19
I mean, tell you what I found at Gardendale in that season, and which I pray will be true
14:23
here, is because Steve, David Jet, other men there were so radiant in the sense of that
14:34
God was just in their life.
14:36
They were real men, had their own frailties, faults, all this stuff, but man, they're filled
14:40
with the Spirit.
14:41
It awakened in everybody else a hunger for that, a hunger for that.
14:47
And so they were paving the way into God's presence, but other men were going, yeah,
14:53
but I want to get there too.
14:58
I don't want secondhand.
15:00
Yeah, I don't want this.
15:02
Yeah, I want first.
15:03
I want to be part of this thing that God is doing.
15:07
And so, man, in that first two-year window, you know, Bill, I think about now it's laughable
15:14
now, like, in the first two-year window, I'm learning about fasting and praying months
15:20
into knowing Jesus, months.
15:23
It was, this is part of Christianity.
15:26
You know, like, this is part of following Christ.
15:28
Like, hey, you set aside some meals and go after God.
15:31
I'm like, cool, if that's what this is, let's do it, because He's worth that and worthy
15:36
of that because we had models that, you know, we had some men that were embodying that,
15:43
and it was passing now.
15:46
One of my nephews was a missionary in Cambodia, and he went back to a really remote village
15:54
and kept going back.
15:57
And then one day, just basically the whole village came to Christ.
16:03
And so, I mean, they had nobody and no thing.
16:07
So he gets on his motorcycle and he, it was a long drive, several hours from where he
16:12
was, and so he can go there every once in a while.
16:15
He's got a family.
16:16
So he goes away, he gives them some Bibles, and he goes away, and he comes back, like,
16:24
two months later, and they're all fasting and praying.
16:30
And he hadn't talked to them about that.
16:32
And he said, why are you doing that?
16:34
He said, well, we read it.
16:36
Isn't that what they did in this book that was called Acts?
16:43
Isn't that what they did?
16:44
And God, yeah, they just read it, and they just did it.
16:49
And, you know, if you get in that environment, I mean, how beautiful for you not to get saved
16:55
by the grace of God, but then be put in a dead, formalistic church.
17:01
Right.
17:02
How many, how many, I've often said about my wife's grandfather, that he could have
17:09
been a great, great Christian, but he was never, he was a man who loved the Lord, but
17:16
he would never had anybody to disciple him, and he never was in a church that was full
17:22
of God.
17:23
Yeah.
17:23
And so his growth was just stunning.
17:25
But you had the privilege of growing up in your spiritual life in an environment that
17:33
was thick with God's presence.
17:35
Yes, which I think that's, you're saying it so well.
17:39
What it did was it awakened hunger, and in some ways, it expedited growth.
17:48
It grew fast.
17:49
Yeah, well, I'm just devouring the Word because I want to know God like they know God.
17:55
You know, like I'm praying and fasting because I believe that God answers prayers because
17:59
I'm an answer to prayer.
18:00
Like these, part of that culture was like, so when I get baptized, like there's this,
18:07
the coach is losing his mind, like fired up, you know, but there's a group of women that
18:12
had been praying for me by name, well, that coach's wife being one of them by name for
18:16
a year.
18:17
Wow.
18:19
Yeah, so they're like, that's, he says, there's our spiritual son, you know, he just
18:23
came into the faith.
18:25
So, but there was this atmosphere, like it was a people leaned in to the presence of
18:33
God that had, dude, I remember this so vividly, talk about being ruined by revival.
18:41
So, we had Sunday morning, Sunday night church back, you know, in that era of the day.
18:45
Yeah, which was good.
18:47
It was good.
18:48
I mean, it was, it's good because God, yeah, right, yeah.
18:52
So, we had this three Sunday morning services come back Sunday night, and I mean, I wasn't
18:58
going to miss it, you know, I wasn't going to miss it.
18:59
So, I'm in the balcony on a Sunday night, Bill, I close my eyes and see this scene play
19:05
out again, and this guy comes running into the room, it's summer, he's in shorts, he's
19:11
pouring sweat.
19:13
He sits down beside me right on the services about to start, packed out, and I said, man,
19:20
where are you coming from?
19:21
And I knew who he was, because he had a son my age.
19:25
And he said, man, we had some people at the lake that was barring our boat, they had a
19:30
lake house.
19:30
And he said, so I had to run up there and help them put the boat up and then get back.
19:35
And he said, I just hadn't stopped since I left church this morning to get back here.
19:40
And I said, literally, I said this, I said, well, Danny, you know, you can miss church
19:45
on a Sunday night.
19:47
You know, and he turned as serious as he could possibly be and looked at me, he goes, because
19:53
I couldn't even, he said, I couldn't imagine getting the call from somebody saying, where
19:58
were you tonight?
19:59
God can't, God can't.
20:03
There was such an anticipation for God's presence that he left church service that morning,
20:10
drove and did a couple hours worth of work in the summer, you know, on a Sunday to get
20:15
back to a 6pm, not because he had to fulfill some religious obligation, because he's like,
20:21
I don't want to miss God.
20:23
I don't want to, I don't want to miss meeting with God and his people.
20:27
And so that it, this atmosphere God had created, and it was hunger for him.
20:35
It was hunger for him.
20:36
And the Lord was fulfilling that hunger.
20:39
He was just, he was meeting people in that desperate state and presence.
20:44
So now you're talking about mess you up.
20:46
So I'm two years into faith and I'm seeing, you know, I've often said, sitting under Steve
20:55
preaching in those years, because I never knew preaching, you know, but what it did
21:02
was God used it to paint a picture of like, I'm calling you to do this.
21:07
I'm calling you, and it was the most terrifying thought in the world to me whatsoever.
21:11
Like, I can't do that, God.
21:13
I mean, I honestly, and the Lord will tell me, I wouldn't be surprised if almost immediately
21:20
after I came to the cross, the Spirit of God was showing me that, but I just rejected it
21:24
for a long time.
21:26
Because I can remember very early in my faith, the Lord going, in my spirit going, I'm calling
21:31
you to preach.
21:32
I'm calling you to preach.
21:33
I'm like, no way.
21:36
Not you guy, grateful to be in the kingdom.
21:39
Don't think I can do that.
21:40
But finally, surrendering to that, and then, man, after surrendering, they hired me immediately,
21:46
21, 22 years old, with no biblical education, zero.
21:50
I'm getting my secondary education to be a coach and teacher.
21:54
They hired me with no biblical educations, two and a half years really in the faith,
22:00
in the faith, to be a college pastor in a non-college town.
22:03
You know, paid me like $10 a year and let me live in a little house that the church
22:09
had.
22:10
And, you know, with Steve and Bill, you've done this too.
22:16
It was Steve and Jet, when they were in that, when they were looking for staff and stuff,
22:22
and they made a decision that I didn't know about, that I was the benefit of.
22:26
When they were hiring staff, they said, what are we trying to hire?
22:30
You know, are we trying to hire guys that got degrees, which are great, got them now.
22:34
Yeah, nothing wrong with that, yeah.
22:36
Yeah, nothing wrong with that inherently.
22:38
Are we trying to have degrees that have done all of these?
22:41
Or are we looking for people that share that same heart for God?
22:48
Right.
22:48
Same passion for the presence of God.
22:50
And so because of that, Bill, they took risk on a lot of us guys.
22:55
Yeah.
22:55
A lot of us, they just looked at us and said, you know what?
22:57
We think God's on that guy's life.
23:00
We think if we bring him into this atmosphere, he can go get some more education.
23:04
He'll get some.
23:05
But what we can't do is go find, just go find that out there.
23:09
We got to find people that have been ruined by what he's doing.
23:14
You know, I tell you a very interesting little anecdote.
23:18
When I was at, when the Asbury Revival broke three years ago, we went, Holly and I went.
23:25
And it was all, all the worship was led by students.
23:32
And they would come up like every hour or so.
23:34
There'd be a different group or two hours.
23:37
There'd be a different group.
23:37
And it was just continuous, you know, worship and praise and testimony.
23:42
And then maybe some preaching, whatever.
23:45
But you know how they got all those worship leaders?
23:49
They would watch in the auditorium for worshipers.
23:54
Wow.
23:56
And they would go approach students.
23:59
Some that they didn't know.
24:01
Some that were coming in from the outside, you know, from other schools and stuff.
24:06
And they would say, would you be willing to help lead worship?
24:13
Then they would take them back to a closet that they had cleared out,
24:18
that they called a consecration room.
24:21
And they would spend as much time as needed, sometimes an hour or two,
24:26
in a little process of consecration, of just making sure their heart was right.
24:32
And then they'd put them all on stage and let them help lead worship.
24:36
And it was just for 16 days.
24:41
But you just think about the way we think about how we choose people to do stuff.
24:48
They have to have certain abilities and this, that, yeah.
24:50
And they had no PowerPoint, no fog machines, no nothing, no big band.
24:58
It was a piano and a guitar and maybe a djembe, you know.
25:03
But it was a heart that had been prepared in revival.
25:09
It was a revived heart.
25:11
And they knew that worship leading is, you put somebody up on the stage who's worshiping Christ.
25:19
And it's real.
25:21
What happens is, everybody in all terms says, I want some of that.
25:24
I want that.
25:26
And boy, that ought to tell us something.
25:29
And I know, I want you to tell Kyle, because I know this story,
25:34
about your experience with Andy and him inviting you into a Saturday night prayer experience.
25:43
So talk about that for just a minute, because this shape you've talked about at the same time.
25:47
Yeah, well, in that discipling relationship, you know, Andy ended up really steering it,
25:55
you know, with me and that other coach a lot of times.
25:57
And the Lord was doing so.
25:59
And he had been directly really mentored and shaped by David Jett, you know.
26:02
And so I was a grandkid in one sense to David and that.
26:09
And I'll never forget how this is, and I've done this so many times with guys now,
26:14
because it was done for me.
26:16
We came out of one of those Thursday mornings, and they were Saturday nights.
26:19
But the first time was one of those Thursday mornings that he looked at me and said,
26:24
where are you going?
26:25
And I said, well, I got a class at nine.
26:28
He goes, so you got some time?
26:29
I said, yeah.
26:30
He goes, why don't you go pray with me?
26:32
I said, yeah, I'll go do that.
26:33
I'll go do that.
26:34
And we walked into this place at Gardner First Baptist, this room, we called it the lot house.
26:39
It was an old church building and stuff.
26:41
At this point, Andy was, I don't even remember what he was doing at that point,
26:44
singles ministry or something.
26:46
He was a Coca-Cola guy.
26:47
He was a Coca-Cola salesman.
26:48
Yeah, yeah, Coca-Cola guy that they had a white hot passion for the Lord.
26:54
And they were like, man, God's got something for you.
26:57
And man, were they right in that.
27:00
And it made me cry right there just thinking about it.
27:04
So he invites me to come do that.
27:06
He said, let's just go pray together.
27:08
Let's just go pray together.
27:10
We walk into a room.
27:13
It's this CD player boombox days.
27:16
And he said, I'm going to turn on some music.
27:19
We're going to walk around and pray for a little while.
27:22
And then we'll get together and then we'll pray together.
27:25
And man, I'm like days into faith, honestly.
27:29
And he turns on some music and he's walking and I'm walking.
27:34
And I'm almost like circling him and I'm listening to him pray to the Lord.
27:40
And at first I think this is sort of weird.
27:42
And I'm like, what are we doing here?
27:45
And then I heard him pray something and I thought,
27:48
you know what, I should pray that same thing.
27:51
And then I prayed it.
27:53
Then I heard him pray something else.
27:54
And I thought, man, you know what?
27:55
That actually makes me think about this.
27:57
I should pray that.
27:59
And then we did that for a little while.
28:01
And then we got together and prayed.
28:03
And no other way of saying it, but God came near.
28:08
And we're hearing from the Lord.
28:11
We're praying and believing.
28:13
Well, we just started doing that all the time.
28:15
And then I got hired on staff and probably one of the most,
28:21
I can still replay this moment in my mind, Bill.
28:24
Because Andy's a guy that came from Coca-Cola.
28:27
I'm a guy that's going to be a baseball football coach,
28:29
you know, three and a half years into my education, you know.
28:32
And he started Bible college.
28:35
I ain't, I've not done any of that yet, you know.
28:39
So we don't know anything.
28:42
And I remember Andy gets me hired.
28:46
And then we're in a room together looking at each other
28:49
on a Monday morning going like, what do we do?
28:54
What do we really do here?
28:56
And we made a commitment, almost a covenant together.
29:01
Hey, what if we just made a decision that we'll pray
29:04
one hour every day together?
29:07
One hour, okay.
29:08
And I, and we, that's all we need.
29:12
We'll pray one hour every day together.
29:14
Every day we work.
29:15
So Monday through Thursdays, we was off on Fridays.
29:17
We'll pray.
29:17
And then we know we'll pray an hour on Sunday
29:19
because we came in as a staff at seven o'clock to pray
29:23
and then pray over the spaces and everything.
29:26
So we did it.
29:28
We did it.
29:29
And we made it a commitment to do it.
29:31
And I'm telling you, it changed both of us forever.
29:36
We're still that.
29:37
Still, it changed.
29:39
And, and our ministry, the ministry's God had entrusted.
29:42
He was doing 20s and 30s singles ministry.
29:46
I was doing a college ministry.
29:48
And bro, we, we did so many dumb things like that,
29:52
that God would, I love telling this story.
29:54
Andy had a singles ministry that he named Unveiled.
30:01
Unveiled, all the names for a singles ministry.
30:07
And it came for such a pure heart
30:09
because he wanted people to be in God's presence,
30:11
like unveiled faces, you know, like, man, this is hysterical,
30:15
you know, and so, but we, we walked into that together
30:20
because we were ruined by revival
30:22
and we had models of men that had prayed and fasted.
30:25
So we're like, hey, it's got to start with prayer,
30:28
be sustained by prayer, brought to completion through prayer.
30:32
And we started praying and then God started moving.
30:34
And the first college gathering that I was a pastor of,
30:39
there was me, Andy Haas, a worship guy,
30:43
and one attendee, four, four of us.
30:47
The first Thursday night worship gathering did.
30:50
Three of us had to be there.
30:55
One of us was a visitor and I'll never forget,
30:58
and preached like there was 4,000, you know, there.
31:02
And, and one month later, I remember a guy writing
31:08
on a little piece of paper and handing it to me.
31:11
The guy that came the first time, it says from,
31:13
it said from four to 40.
31:16
And we were four weeks later, it was 40 guys.
31:18
Which by God's grace, wouldn't end up being 400.
31:20
And just the move of God in that generation.
31:24
Yeah, that was true in our church as well, as a whole.
31:31
But it, and I'm telling our listeners this,
31:35
that's at 21, at 45 now, pastor in a church.
31:41
The hardest thing that I have to fight against
31:45
is forgetting that, forgetting that.
31:49
That where it started is still the place it has to stay.
31:53
Because wisdom gained great, understanding awesome,
32:00
know more about ministry and stuff.
32:02
But all of that is not even second.
32:06
I wouldn't even say it's so far down the road
32:10
to this desperation for God,
32:12
this desperation for God to move.
32:14
And so there was just so many of us guys that were ruined,
32:18
even in ministry context for that,
32:19
that's reproduced itself in other places.
32:22
You've been with Andy not that long ago
32:24
in a praying church, so.
32:25
Oh my goodness.
32:27
Yeah, and so Andy goes up the road years later
32:32
and to plant a church in a little town, little town.
32:36
And the powers that be in that town or religious powers
32:42
told him that we don't need another church here.
32:46
And he decided to start a church that was built on prayer.
32:51
I mean, that was his state of the deal.
32:54
And it just exploded.
32:56
Yeah.
32:57
And I think in the first 18 months,
33:01
I don't know, they baptized.
33:03
They baptized hundreds and hundreds of people.
33:07
Yeah, a thousand people.
33:08
Yeah, and, but if you ask him what it was,
33:12
well, we pray, we just pray.
33:14
And I spoke there not long ago
33:18
and Kyle said, you're going to step into a praying church.
33:20
And my goodness, I walk in an hour before the meeting,
33:24
the place is packed and they're just praying.
33:28
And that, you know, because prayer is the foundation
33:32
for what they're doing.
33:33
So, I mean, you know, what gets you there keeps you there.
33:37
That's right.
33:38
And so one of the things that's a result,
33:42
and we want to wrap this up and pray together.
33:46
But Kyle, if you were to say, because I know this,
33:52
I've watched your ministry,
33:55
what you've described there at Gardendale
33:58
is what you've built everywhere you go,
34:01
whether it was in the college ministry here,
34:03
or at the church that you're at now
34:08
that you were previously at as an associate,
34:11
now that you're there as a senior pastor,
34:14
that's what you're building.
34:15
And that's what's happening.
34:17
And the same extraordinary movements
34:20
are happening by the grace of God,
34:24
but it's built on prayer and the word of God
34:27
and dependency and revival truths and principles
34:32
that we learned in a season of revival.
34:37
Anything you'd add to that before we pray?
34:40
I think to just hope, one,
34:43
to experience that personally for our listeners,
34:45
that the next right step
34:47
is to be willing to get desperate for God
34:50
and to lay aside every distraction
34:53
that would keep us from that.
34:55
And for those of us that have experienced it,
34:57
to reproduce it,
34:58
one of the greatest joys for me
35:01
is getting to serve alongside you,
35:03
plant Conway, Summit Church in Conway,
35:06
see what it has become,
35:09
and what we saw God,
35:10
but we started in prayer.
35:12
We started, and it's sustained by prayer,
35:15
and to be able to see and make a deposit
35:18
in Jonathan Bergen, who has that same spirit.
35:22
And the truth is, all that's done
35:25
has been reproduced through men
35:27
and found itself in him
35:29
has been reproduced into others
35:31
and will outlive us all.
35:32
So the beauty of, I would say to our listeners,
35:36
the beauty of a real move of God
35:38
is it just doesn't stop with the person,
35:41
it spreads through.
35:43
And so what we need to do
35:44
is so position ourself for a real move of God
35:48
that it can have generational decades,
35:50
go back to the thing you said first, Bill,
35:53
that for well over 50 years,
35:58
the church in America
35:59
has been spiritually led by men
36:02
that met God in the fire,
36:05
met him in the manifest season in our nation.
36:09
And I think he's doing it again.
36:11
Now we need to reproduce it over and over.
36:13
Amen.
36:14
And I would say too before,
36:16
Kyle, I want you to pray for us,
36:19
but it wasn't Jesus that said,
36:24
if you abide in me
36:26
and you let my word abide in you,
36:28
you can ask whatever you want to
36:29
and it'll be done for you
36:30
and you will bear fruit
36:32
and my father will be pleased
36:34
and you'll bear much fruit
36:36
and you will bear fruit that remains.
36:40
And I tell you,
36:41
one of the most fascinating things to me
36:44
in the seasons of arrival I've experienced
36:48
is the simplicity,
36:50
just the simplicity.
36:54
You don't have all these trappings,
36:56
all these things,
36:57
all these rules and regulations and hoops.
37:00
You just follow God and you pray
37:02
and you do what he initiates
37:04
and he just does stuff.
37:07
And you got to think that that's how it was
37:10
when men walked with Jesus.
37:14
There was a simplicity.
37:15
He said, my yoke is, it's really easy
37:18
and my burden is light.
37:20
And you don't have to,
37:23
because you're not doing it.
37:25
You're cooperating with God
37:28
and what he's doing in and through you
37:32
and he is producing the fruit
37:35
because he is the vine.
37:37
So Kyle, pray that God,
37:39
the spirit of all that would fall upon us
37:42
and our listeners.
37:44
Yep.
37:44
So Lord, we love you
37:47
and we come before you in a fresh surrender
37:49
and say, we know that we need you,
37:53
that we need the life of the vine
37:55
to pour through these mere branches,
37:57
that it might bear much fruit.
38:00
So we avail ourself as branches.
38:03
We open ourselves to you
38:05
and ask for the fullness of your life, God.
38:07
We ask that you would show us any hindrances
38:10
in our hearts, our minds, our lives
38:12
to that life pouring into us, God,
38:14
that we would get holy, Lord, as you are holy,
38:18
that we would humble ourselves,
38:20
that we would turn from any wicked way
38:23
that'd be a hindrance to your work and activity.
38:25
And God, I pray that you would allow us
38:29
to experience and become a revival generation,
38:33
a generation that's marked
38:34
by the manifest glory of God,
38:37
the real activity of God among us,
38:39
the lives that are changed and transformed, God,
38:43
that a movement of your spirit,
38:46
that, Lord, is so evidenced in your word,
38:49
in your word.
38:50
So Lord, I pray for every one of our listeners,
38:53
for Bill and I, Lord,
38:54
would you help us to see what you are saying
38:57
and what ways we can cooperate with you.
38:59
So we love you.
39:00
We pray all these things in Jesus' name.
39:02
Amen.
39:03
Amen.
39:05
Amen.
39:06
Well, thank you so much for joining us
39:09
and what a precious time.
39:11
And we want to encourage you to come back next week.
39:15
We're going to be talking to some more folks
39:17
and I love the privilege of hearing true stories
39:22
of how revival has wrecked and ruined
39:25
and shaped lives for the glory of God.
39:28
And we pray that's true of you.
39:31
And it'd be cool for you to ask the Lord,
39:32
God, what are you saying to me today?
39:34
What's my next step?
39:36
And then cooperate with him.
39:38
I promise you'll be thrilled with the results of that.
39:41
So thanks for joining us
39:43
and we'll see you next time.