Latest / The OneCry Podcast / #147 Special Report with Pastor Josh Morea (Reviving Faith through Collective Prayer)

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#147 Special Report with Pastor Josh Morea (Reviving Faith through Collective Prayer) · The OneCry Podcast

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  I'm just excited about what God has done in the past now because I realize how
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  powerful that is in inspiring people to look ahead to what God will do.
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  Welcome to the One Cry Podcast, a nationwide call for spiritual awakening.
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  The goal, accelerating the movement of God through sharing revival truth, stories, and reports.
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  Music.
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  Well, hello. This is Byron Paulus, founder of the One Cry Movement.
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  And so grateful you'd join our podcast today.
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  And I am so excited about what God is doing genuinely and deeply and significantly
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  and stirring up His people to seek His face.
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  And just got an email a few moments ago from another significant movement of
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  prayer, not just here in the States, but globally, but all for revival and spiritual awakening.
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  And today on the podcast, I'm excited to have Josh Murray.
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  Josh is a pastor in Pensacola, Florida.
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  Yeah, it's Myrtle Grove Church. And two things about Pensacola, listeners.
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  I just want you to know there is a broad movement of One Cry that is called One Cry Pensacola.
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  Probably up to 40 churches now that have signed on to be a part of a prayer
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  movement of covering Pensacola in 24-7 prayer for the entire year. We'll talk about that.
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  And also, I want to talk to Josh and have you meet Josh as I was blessed to
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  be able to spend, along with some of our One OneCry team there in his church
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  for a weekend that we call OneCry Weekends.
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  So welcome, Josh, from Pensacola. Thank you for joining us today, Pastor.
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  Byron, thank you so much for having me on. Wow, what an incredible week we had
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  together and just the outpouring of the presence of God and the work that he's done.
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  Blessing to be able to be a part of it. And thank you for your ministry and
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  what God has put on your heart to initiate this One Cry movement.
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  Well, the one thing about, let's begin there at Myrtle Grove and the time we got to spend there.
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  I don't know how your people were prepared, but I do know when we arrived,
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  they were hungry, they were thirsty, they were anticipating. participating.
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  I don't know what all you did as a pastor to prepare for that weekend,
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  but God really had your staff and leadership and even the congregation eager to hear from God.
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  So maybe a little bit, if you want, Josh, in relation to what preceded our team as we arrived.
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  Sure. Really, the very first thing that God did was He brought a retired missionary
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  couple named Greg and Shelly Brooker to our church.
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  And I know Greg is on your team now. And he introduced us to the One Cry book and the movement.
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  And several small groups began to go through the One Cry book and they were
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  having such a wonderful experience going through the book and hearing the revival
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  principles and praying to that end in small groups that we finally decided,
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  hey, this is something This is something that we need to latch on to.
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  This is something that we need to do as a church.
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  And we began to study through that together as a church.
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  And that really preceded everything that we did before the weekend happened.
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  The entire church was going through the book together. We had a couple of sermons
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  on that as well, on revival, that were inspired by some of the ideas in the
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  book and just preached on that.
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  Greg and Shelly Berker came to me and said, hey, what would it be like if we
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  had Byron and some members of the team come to Myrtle Grove Baptist Church?
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  And I'm like, wow, that would be amazing. We would love to do that.
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  We just immediately said, yes, we'd love to do that. In that same.
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  Time frame, the Pensacola movement began too.
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  So I know you're going to talk about that in a moment, but several other churches,
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  as well as one of our retired pastors who really has a lot of influence in our
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  area, decided that this needs to be something that the city and the county around.
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  Pensacola, that the churches united together for prayer, for one cry.
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  And so that's really what happened. And the church has really,
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  really responded very well to taking up the 24-hour prayer vigil as well.
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  And so that's another thing that we're doing that's kind of in line with everything
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  that's happening with OneCry.
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  So I want to come back to that for the area-wide, the whole Pensacola and all the churches.
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  That is so thrilling. And I think it's a model, and we'll talk about that,
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  that could be replicated in cities across the nation.
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  But just some takeaways from the weekend. You know, we came in there and we
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  just felt like In most churches, even though they have a pastor that's passionate
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  for revival, is preaching messages on revival,
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  another voice to come in and cast vision for what God could do in hearts, in homes,
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  families, churches, and the nation, ultimately in the world.
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  But also to be able to come in and talk about the critical component of prayer
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  and actually spend some season of time in prayer.
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  But you even expanded on that with some workshops. So maybe just a few takeaways.
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  What do you sense God did in the hearts of your people?
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  And yeah, what would you say to others who would maybe be saying,
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  what would a weekend like that really achieve or come alongside and help?
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  Yeah, I think it's putting into practice everything that we had been studying.
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  And we were, like you said, we prepared as we were going through the One Cry
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  book and praying together around our tables, our small groups, crying out to God.
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  Man, I can't thank God enough for sending the team here and the time that we
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  had together and our breakout sessions where we really received a lot of tools
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  and a lot of ministry from you guys.
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  And then the message on Sunday was so powerful.
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  I've had so many people come to me and tell me, wow, Byron did just a fantastic job with that sermon.
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  It really spoke to my heart. But it's really the stories that you all told.
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  If I had to say there was one thing that really impacted me the most,
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  as well as I believe our congregation, it would just be the stories of revival,
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  what God has done in the past and the inspiration that we received from that.
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  That God can, not only has He done it before, He will do it again if we really seek Him in that.
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  And that really ignites our people and ignites the passion for praying.
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  They were praying and we've been praying together, but man, we are really praying
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  now, believing that God can and will do it again.
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  And so that's the biggest takeaway that I'd have to say from the weekend,
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  but everything was wonderful that we did together.
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  You know, I think you told me or somebody told me, Byron, you're just a storyteller.
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  And it may not be all I am, but I do know that revival spreads on the wings
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  of stories and testimony.
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  And so I love to tell those stories. You know, one lady came up to me after
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  everything was basically concluded, and I found her comment so encouraging.
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  And she said to me, Byron, she said, this is going to continue because what
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  happened was not our power, but it was the power of God.
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  And I just think what Paul said when he came, he didn't come with enticing words
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  of man's wisdom, but in a demonstration in the spirit and the power of God,
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  because their faith would stand then in the power of God.
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  And so that just was such a, and I credit the prayer and the heart of those
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  and a pastor that was so eager and ready to hear from God.
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  So I love that story from her.
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  I'll probably tell that story that if we just have the presence and power of God, it'll continue.
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  Well, you know, God has done a lasting work here at Myrtle Grove.
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  The church is 94 years old. We've been here right here on this corner for 94
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  years, and that's a testament in itself.
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  But, man, it's inspired me to go back and share the victories that we've had
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  in the past with our congregation.
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  And so I'll be doing that here soon. And we're going to come up on that that
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  anniversary pretty soon here.
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  And so I'm just excited about what God has done in the past now,
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  because I realize how powerful that is in inspiring people to look ahead to
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  what God will do. and just thankful for that encouragement that you brought.
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  And, you know, very practically, I know there's a testimony that was there that
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  one of our team members gave of being addicted to pornography for years,
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  even while I was on the church staff and in leadership.
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  And God just met with him, delivering him, and it has been on a pathway for
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  years now, just walking in victory.
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  And I know that God used that story in the heart of some people there.
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  And I'm so grateful for the way God takes those personal stories and gives hope to others as well.
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  Yeah, we're expecting to hear more out of that as well. Yeah, that's great.
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  Hey, so your church is one of many there in Pensacola that decided to be a part
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  of a much broader movement of prayer for revival and spiritual waking.
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  Why don't you tell our listeners what that looks like and.
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  Man, just I'm excited about that. And but you're there. You're on the ground.
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  Tell us what that what that is.
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  So there was a movement that happened in Austin, Texas, and Trey Kemp was involved in that.
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  And he wrote, along with Kai Bowman, a book called City of Prayer.
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  And when a couple of our leaders here in our county just heard the story and
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  read the story, they said, man, we could do that here in Pensacola.
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  And so we began to seek out together pastors who would lead their congregations
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  for 24 hours of unceasing prayer and that we could hopefully fill a calendar
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  of every day of the month being covered in unceasing prayer for our city, for our families,
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  for our churches, for our city, for our communities all around the city and the county.
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  And that really has taken root very quickly in the city of Pensacola,
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  our church being one of the first to sign up and be a part of that and many others.
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  And now we're, like you said, we're nearly 40 churches coming together.
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  So closing the gap every day of the month. Some of the churches have doubled
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  up on the day of the month, but we're giving them the freedom to do that.
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  We're not telling them which day to choose. We're allowing them to choose the day.
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  And we're just crying out together for revival.
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  One of the key things that we did that I think is a useful tool for anyone that's
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  thinking about doing this is to provide the prayer guides for them so that they
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  can distribute those to the people so that the prayers are united.
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  The prayers are all one cry to God saying, God, we need revival.
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  And the churches that are joined on are all different denominations,
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  different ethnicities.
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  I think that last I heard, I think there's about five or six different languages,
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  but uniting hearts together in prayer is the main thing that we're doing.
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  Wow, that is really amazing. So just backing up here a little bit.
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  So we have a church taking a day of the month and saying we will get groups
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  within our church to be able to pray for that 24 hour period of time.
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  And you have more than 31. I think it launched in January. Is that right?
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  The beginning of the year.
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  That's right. right we we began this in january so i
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  did a little math on this okay so let's
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  just hypothesize maybe if you will that each
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  of those churches that are taking that day and 24-hour slots if they divide
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  it up into an hour each and let's just let's just say uh well that group i mean
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  there would be 744 groups of praying in Pensacola each month. That's powerful.
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  744. 31 times 24, 744 groups of prayer.
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  And it could be two people, three people, four people, who knows,
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  maybe more. But that's amazing.
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  And I know, I think I heard you say, and maybe some of the other leaders,
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  we want Pensacola to be the most prayed over city in our nation. What a vision.
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  Yeah. And and God can we believe that God can do more in a moment through surrendered
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  prayer than he can do in a lifetime of our own effort.
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  We just really believe that. I mean, Ronnie Floyd's book was a great book.
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  We went to the church, went through that last year and just the power of prayer and fasting.
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  And so that was that was something that really, to me, that that was where my
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  heart began to be aimed toward revival was through that book.
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  But the answer for how to lead my church and lead even other churches in our
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  county to be able to do this came through the One Cry book and then City of Prayer.
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  So those things kind of came together. God brought all of that together in my
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  life to bring revival to me, to call on me to seek revival for my church,
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  and then to lead other churches to do the same thing too.
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  So I'm just, I'm so thankful for what God has been doing here and it's all him
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  and he deserves the credit for it all.
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  And I don't believe God would be stirring all these hearts together if he wasn't
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  planning to do something big.
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  And so I just believe that with all my heart, that God is doing something amazing
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  right now, both here in our city, as well as many other cities in the nation.
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  So I would think the tendency, Josh, is for other pastors that would be listening
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  to this podcast to say, man, that's really great for Pensacola,
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  but it just couldn't happen in my city. It couldn't happen in my town.
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  What would you say to that pastor? It just says, this is too big.
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  And I just don't think I could take the necessary steps to believe him for it
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  or to actually put it into practice.
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  Well, I think that's one of your revival realities that you mentioned in the
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  book is that we have to believe.
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  We got to expect God to do great things.
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  God is on the move. He's always on the move, and He can do more than we ever could.
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  It's really about us believing in Him and surrendering to His will in our lives.
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  If we would simply move out of the way by humbling ourselves,
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  being on our knees on a regular basis, just saying, God, use me in whatever
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  way you'd like to use me, God will do amazing things.
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  He'll do things that we could never, ever think or imagine.
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  And so I'm just thankful for what he does every single day.
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  And if we think, hey, God couldn't do what he's done in the past again,
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  we have a very small view of our God.
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  Wow. I love that. And John, why don't you do this?
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  Why don't you just pray for those who are are listening and many of them are
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  pastors and leaders and churches and just ask god to maybe do what you just
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  said and put that element of
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  faith and trust and belief in their hearts would you do that amen i will.
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  Father God, you are such a big God. You are almighty. You are on the throne,
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  Lord. You rule over your creation and your will will be done.
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  And Father, we pray that for these pastors, Lord, that they're considering leading
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  their churches or their community to pray together for revival.
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  I pray, Lord, that you would stir within them an expectancy,
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  Lord, that you will do great things.
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  Yeah, Lord, if we reunite our hearts together with yours, Father,
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  we'll see both the revival of the Christians around us in our circle,
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  in our own hearts, Lord, first, we know that that's where it starts.
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  But Lord, we'll see it in the lives of others around us, Father.
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  We'll also see it in the churches.
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  And Father, we will see an awakening among the lost.
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  Lord, we know that you've done it before. We believe that you can do it again,
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  Lord. And so, Lord, we seek your face for.
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  And Lord, I pray, Lord, that you would add many more churches to this movement,
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  to this awakening among your people, this revival among your people,
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  that you would bring many, many together, Lord, to seek you in prayer.
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  Lord, thank you, dear Lord, that one day you are coming again.
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  And I pray that you would not find your church sleeping, that you would find
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  us awake, Lord, Lord, serving you with all that we have.
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  Lord, we just expect you to do great things and we'll give you the credit and
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  glory for what you do in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.
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  And if you're listening to this podcast,
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  I want to encourage you seriously to go to OneCry.com and you'll find there
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  some information on these OneCry weekends that would be just suited,
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  tailored to your church.
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  We have diverse speaker team members, ethnically, denominationally,
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  and we'd love to be able to just come alongside of your church and serve you
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  and believe that by the time we're done on that weekend,
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  that God might birth in your community the same thing he has in Pensacola and
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  what he has in Reno, elsewhere,
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  Austin, Texas, and maybe your town, maybe your community.
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  Would not only have an example and model of revival ignited in your church,
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  but also begin a movement throughout your city.
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  So God bless you. Thank you for joining us today. And Josh, thank you for your time.
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  Music.