To Step Into The Miraculous, Step Into The Mission

---

---

Here’s a summary of this week’s sermon:

• The talk emphasizes stepping into the miraculous by embracing our mission, as demonstrated in Acts 5:17-26, where the apostles display unwavering faith in God's guidance.

• The central point is trusting in God's calling and stepping out in faith, which allows us to experience the miraculous in our lives.

• The talk highlights the importance of obedience to God and following His direction in fulfilling our unique missions as Christians.

• The message is one of courage and transformation, inspiring us to take risks and venture into the unknown, empowered by the transformative power of Jesus.

• Remember, you can watch the full talk by clicking the link in our bio.

---

💬 CONVERSATION STREET --

Matt + Sharon discuss:

• What did you think of John’s talk?

• One of the things John says in his talk was “we don't tend to see a lot of the miracles inside the church building. We tend to see a lot of them outside the church building.” Why do you think that is?

• Is it true that Christianity without the miraculous is a dead religion?

• How has John’s talk challenged you and what are some of the things you going to do after hearing the talk?

• How can we develop the courage to step out in faith and take risks? How is it relevant for non-Christians?

RECENT EPISODES

---

RECENT LIVESTREAMS

---

More from this series

---

At Crowd Church, we are committed to creating a space for you to explore the Christian faith, regardless of where you are on your faith journey.

What happens at Crowd Church?

Every week we livestream our online church service and release a new story on What’s The Story Podcast. We have weekly online community groups that meet up and all of that good stuff. You can find out more about everything that goes on at Crowd by browsing through this site, and you can reach out to us via our contact page.

Come and Join In!

Are you interested in joining in with what is happening here at Crowd? We would love to meet you!

• Join in with the Church Livestream

• Subscribe to Crowd Church Podcast & What’s the Story Podcast

• Follow us on Instagram

• Subscribe to the YouTube Channel

• New to church? If so - check out the New Here link.

Any questions? Please connect with us via our Contact Page, or via WhatsApp: +44 7984 530 429

• Complete Transcript

  Kirsten: Acts Chapter five, 17 to 26. The apostles persecuted. Then the high priest, and all his associates who were members of the party of the Sadducees were filled with jealousy. They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail. But during the night, an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and bought them out.

  Go stand in the temple courts, he said, and tell the people the full message of this new life. At Daybreak, they entered the temple courts as they had been told and began to teach the people. When the high priest and his associates arrived, they called together the Sanhedrin, the full assembly of the Elders of Israel, and sent to the jail for the apostles. But on arriving at the jail, the officers did not find them there, so they went back and reported. We found the jail securely locked with the guard standing at the doors. But when we opened them, we found no one inside. On hearing this report, the captain of the Temple Guard and the chief priests were puzzled, wondering what would come of this. Then someone came and said, look, the men put in jail are standing in the Temple Courts teaching the people. At that, the captain went with his offices and bought the apostles. They did not use force because they fear that the people would stone them.

  John: Today we are in Acts five 17 through to 26, and the title God gave me for my preach today is this. If you wanna step into the miraculous step into the mission, if you wanna step into the miraculous step into the mission. I wanna explore the relationship between the experience of God's miraculous intervention in our lives through our lives with the experience of engaging.

  In God's mission in the world, because that's what I see in this passage in Acts five. I see it right through the book of Acts in the life of Jesus and across the whole. Of the Bible. So let's place today's reading, acts five in context. Jesus, for three years has been outworking the mission of God, the sick have being healed.

  The oppressed have been set free. The hungry and the poor have been provided for, the lonely have been excluded and loved and brought into a new kind of spiritual family. Jesus fully lived out God's mission on the earth and his mission was magnified through miracles. Then he was arrested. He was falsely convicted.

  He was executed as a common criminal on a cross before three days later, rising victorious from the dead, having defeated death, having defeated sin, and the powers of darkness, a miraculous supernatural event. I mean, you simply cannot have Christianity. Without the miraculous Christianity, minus the miraculous is dead religion.

  So Jesus died. Jesus rose again, and then Jesus ascended into heaven and 10 days after this ascension. That's when we're moving from Matthew Martin, Luke and John the gospels. We move into the Book of Acts and we find that all the disciples are, are hiding and cowering away in a, an upper room. They're in fear for their lives and.

  And what happens is the Holy Spirit floods into that room on Pentecost and fills the disciples and transforms the disciples. They are radically miraculously transformed into bold witnesses who go out into the world and basically continue the mission and message of Jesus, and they do that miraculously in the way that Jesus did it.

  Now in Acts chapter five are reading Today the same religious leaders and authorities that had killed Jesus. It says they are jealous of the disciples. They are not happy. Why? Because this new movement that they tried to squash. This new kingdom movement of Jesus was continuing to advance. The church was growing and it was growing through the miracles of the disciples.

  Now, the religious authorities, they had a sort of power, an institutional governmental type of power and resources, and so they used their power and their resources to have the disciples arrested and thrown into a pretty horrible ancient world prison. But the disciples had access to a greater power.

  And so in the middle of the night, an angel of God flung open the prison doors and they were miraculously released and they went back to their comfortable lives in their comfortable houses with their nice, comfortable jobs. No, no, not at all. That is not what they did. They went straight back to the same place and continued to preach the same message that had just got them arrested.

  They went back to the mission. Christianity is a miraculous thing. Miracles are a very core of part of our faith. And as disciples of Jesus 2000 years later, as a disciple of Jesus, I still believe in and we still experience miracles. Uh, sometimes in some places we experience lots of incredible miracles.

  At other times in other places, we experience fewer miracles. But what I see in the Bible and what I've observed in my own life, and the, in the life of others is that there is a clear link and relationship between the mission and the miraculous. If you wanna step into more of the miraculous step into more of the mission.

  And you know, some people, even some Christians, they'll say, well, you know, John, that was then, that was 2000 years ago. Different times, different people, not for us today. Well, I would say tell that to people like Brother Yun from China. I've had the privilege of meeting Brother Yun. He's known as the heavenly man.

  I've. I've met him three times now. He's one of the leaders of the Chinese Underground Church. The church in China is growing secretly from house to house behind the scenes in an amazing rate. There are, there are more Christians now in communist China, secret Christians, than probably in any other country.

  And Brother Yun. Well, he was arrested and imprisoned by the communist regime in China, simply because he was a leader of the underground church, the secret church, and so they threw him into prison. In that prison, he continued the mission of God. Many prisoners, many prison guards came to faith in Jesus, and Brother Yun was frequently beaten because of that.

  Then after many years in prison, God sent angels to open his cell door. Like in Acts five, he was able to walk out of that prison Hangzhou prison. They claim no one has ever escaped from that prison. And Brother Yun just walked right out unseen by any of the guards, every door opening in his wake. He walked straight back into the mission

  that God had called him to. The miraculous and the mission. Now, I don't personally have a story or an experience like that, but my experience has definitely been this, that when I am living with a greater sense of mission in day-to-day life, I experience more of the miraculous. For me, it's one of the reasons I love taking teams overseas onto short term mission.

  Going away on short-term mission can really kickstart and catalyze a sense of mission in our everyday day-to-day lives. You know, just last year I took a team of around 10 university students in Liverpool from our church to Bulgaria. Bulgaria is one of the poorest countries in Europe, former Soviet Communist block country, declining population rates as people leave large Roma gypsy communities.

  So we went over to Bulgaria to work with a wonderful pastor and his church, a number of other churches. Every evening we would get in our minibus and go up into the mountains, into the rural churches and villages in the churches, and we do dramas about the Bible. We do music and songs, and we'd preach the good news of Jesus.

  We did that using the four Points resources, which you can see at fourpoints.com. And then every evening after that, we would then offer to pray for those who are sick and we did that because that's the pattern we see from the life of Jesus. And in the Book of Acts, in the early church and throughout the history of the church, that is how they preached the gospel.

  And those students, well, some of them had never prayed aloud before for anyone. Some of them had never prayed for anyone to be healed. And some of those students, uh, prayed and saw all sorts of miraculous stuff happening over that week. Two of our students prayed for an old lady in a roma gypsy church.

  They didn't have a translator. It was all a bit confusing, but they prayed anyway. Now, halfway through that Prayer, this old lady just jumped up and legged it out of the church, across the little bridge, over the little river, and they were like, well, okay. Didn't expect that. And just cracked on with a meeting.

  About five minutes later, the same old lady came back with all of her family, her kids, and her grandkids. The translator told us she'd had severe knee pain, she could hardly walk, and God had healed her knees. Mission and the miraculous. Of course, the challenge is how we can bring that into our everyday day-to-day lives, into our workplaces at the school gate when we're walking the dog or at the supermarket.

  But I think experiences like that are key to developing a sense of mission in our day-to-day lives. A few years ago, we were in France on a family holiday, and it was, um, Sunday morning, and our youngest son had not been feeling well all night. He was probably 10 or 11 years old at the time. His, his ear was bright red and hot.

  The hole, the canal in the ear had completely closed up and the glands in his neck was swollen. He was in a lot of pain and I think it was, Cause he'd been swimming in the river near the campsite, and later on we found upstream a dead bloated cow floating in the water. Anyway, it was Sunday. It was France.

  All the pharmacists were shut, the doctors were shut. So we decided to pray for him. For healing and we anointed him with oil like it's in, we're an in instructed to do in James five 14. And you know, we, in seconds, within seconds, the redness went, the ear canal opened up and the inflammation in his glands totally disappeared.

  He, and we were shocked, miraculous. Now the reason I tell you that story is this, um, When someone wants Prayer for healing, now my son will be the first person there to pray because that was his experience and so he believes God can do it for others. And the reason I tell you that story is because as a church, the church I lead, we always have time in our service to pray for the sick, to pray for healing.

  That's something we do every time we gather, but the purpose of that time is far more than, so a bunch of nice Christians can have a nice time in a nice church service in Liverpool. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's great when Christians go to church and encounter the power of God and receive healing, but there's a greater purpose to it than just for ourselves.

  It's so that we can create a culture and an expectation and an experience of the miraculous that helps us to step into that on Monday and Tuesday in our mission place to pray for our neighbors and our colleagues and the people at the school gate and the bus stop. Um, I think it was John Wimber, the founder of the Vineyard Church movement, who used to say something like this.

  I'm paraphrasing that the meeting place is the training place for the marketplace or something like that. So those students in Bulgaria, or my son in France, or what happens in our church service on a Sunday is there to equip us and provoke us to live that out in our day to day lives. That's what we see in the earliest Church in Acts.

  Acts shows us that the vast, vast majority of miracles and supernatural events don't happen to Christians in a church building. Because they didn't have buildings. The vast, vast majority of miracles take place for non-Christians outside of the church building, outside of the gatherings in the mission of Day to day life.

  I was with a bunch of church leaders talking about this very thing a few weeks ago at a conference in Denmark. And, and whenever you talk about healing in a church setting, the question is always raised well, what about people who don't get healed? That's a good question. It's a, a big question, but it's only really an issue for those who have a weak theology of suffering when you've got a poor theology of suffering and then someone doesn't get healed.

  That's when things like disappointment and discouragement can creep in. And so we have to have a rigorous, mature, developed theology of suffering that underpins all of this. And I know that's something that's been talked about on Crowd Church before, but let me just say this, uh, the risk of someone not getting healed and then getting discouraged is not a good enough reason in itself to not pray for the sick. And what I was saying to those church leaders in Denmark at the conference was this, that what I have found is that when we put our praying for the sick outside of the church building, outside of, uh, Christians, for non-Christians like we see in acts like we see in today's passage, we totally bypass all of those problems because the people we're praying for.

  They don't have a bad theology that they've picked up from church. They don't have any theology about it. And so when I go into city center from time to time and I'll just say to someone, hi, I'm John. I'm the leader of the local church. I'm out praying for people. Can I pray for you for anything? Well, sometimes they say no.

  And that's fine. Sometimes they say far worse than that, and that's fine as well. Often they say, yeah, pray for world peace, and I'll say, well, can I pray for something far more personal for you? Like, are you sick? Are you in pain? Do you need healing? And nearly always people want to receive Prayer. I don't do it as far often as I'd like to do it, but it's something that I want to grow in.

  So if I'm out walking the dog and I get chatting to someone and they're telling me that they've been sick, I say, can I pray for you? Can I pray right now? And right there and then, and I'll pray a simple Prayer, something really short and simple like this, Jesus. So that this person use their names so that they know that you are real.

  So that they know that you love them, I pray that you would heal them right now. Ah, amen. I pray a Prayer as simple as that, and I've seen God do some incredible instant stuff off the back of simple prayers like that, like when I prayed for my neighbor's gout in his swollen foot, and the swelling instantly disappeared and sometimes I've prayed and nothing has happened.

  And, and that person will say, thank you, and they really appreciate you praying for them, and they're not asking big, philosophical, theological questions. Even when they aren't healed, they still find it to be a really positive experience that someone would pray for them like that. The way to step into more of the miraculous is to step into more of the mission.

  The mission releases the miraculous. I'm gonna finish there because one of the things I love about Crowd Church, I love that there's the, the Conversation Street afterwards where we can unpack this in more detail. Actually, I've had a couple of experiences over the past few years because of lockdown and so forth where we've been able to pray for people online and over Zoom and in other parts of the world, and some of those people have been healed.

  So if you're watching this live, if you're watching it later, we'd love to pray for you. Do send in your Prayer requests and um, we'd love to pray that God would touch your life. But for each and every one of us, I pray and well, I wanna pray using the words of Acts five, that we've read the words of the angel in Acts five.

  I pray that we might go and I pray that we might proclaim the full message of this new life that we have received, new life that is available to all. Amen.

  Matt: Coming up, we have Conversation. Street, but before we get into that, here's a clip from our podcast. What's the story which you can subscribe to on all your favorite podcast apps.

  Mark: And we got separated from a convoy on the same trip and had to hide from Saddam's kill squad. They looked through the window of the house where we were, looked up, left, right, and forwards, and did not look down, which is the only natural place to look where we were hiding underneath the windowsill. So I just.

  Oh, God's incredible provision to the point where it was absolutely terrifying, but incredibly exhilarating cuz you just think, yeah, it was life or death and it turned out to be life, I think. So it was very, very rewarding. Um, and then meeting people who were really putting a lot on the land to see ordinary people doing extraordinary things under the power of, of the Lord was.

  Some of the most meaningful months of my life to be quite honest. Uh,

  Matt: So welcome back to Conversation Street with myself and my beautiful wife. We are gonna get into, uh, John's talk about stepping into the miraculous and, uh, stepping more into the mission. Whole bunch of questions about this, which we've just had amongst ourselves, hadn't we, babe? Just chatting away. Um, and so yeah, let's get into that.

  And I, it's, I thought it was a very well chosen, uh, what's the story clip, because John talked about mission and going on mission in his talk. And then here you've got Mark going on mission smuggling, Bibles in, and uh, I mean, if you've not heard Mark's, uh, what's the story interview? Do check it out. He's a great guy.

  And, um,

  Sharon: got very lots of crazy stories going on.

  Matt: He has, hasn't he? Because we've had Mark around our house for dinner, um, of an evening and, um, he just sat around the table telling the, the, all the stories and we were just all going. This is amazing. It's all crazy stuff. And so, yeah, we did the, um, the podcast interviewing his, uh, really interesting. He saw the hand of God in quite miraculous ways, didn't he?

  Sharon: Yeah. But he's also been through a lot in other ways, so it's really interesting just hearing the impact of different things. So yeah, definitely check it out. Very interesting guy.

  Matt: Yeah, definitely, definitely well chosen. So, uh, the title of this week's live stream to step into the miraculous step into the mission, which is a good alliteration. I like that. Very memorable. Well done John. Uh, good preacher points right there, uh, with the title. What did you think to John's talk babe?

  Sharon: Well, I listened to it earlier as well, just so that I could start thinking. And it was a bit of a, an ouch talk to be honest, because I was like, Ooh, I don't really see much of the miraculous. Uh, it's just like, you know, little bits here and there. And it, it did make me, made me think how much do I actually get distracted by daily life and not, I'm not always aware of.

  The mission. And um, it did make me actually, after listening to that the first time around, just go, oh, actually there's a few people that, uh, conversations have started naturally with that. I said that, oh, you know, let's continue this on WhatsApp because, um, uh, they were with people who don't speak much English and.

  It was difficult in person, so, and they were like, oh yeah, let, let's continue this. And then I've not really picked up on that. So after the hearing, the first talk, I was like, right, let's do this. So I've texted a few people because yeah, I'm, I think I am easily distracted by things that are good things like with work, uh, with doing a good job.

  And I think it's important to do a good job in whatever work that we're in, whether that isn't a paid job or voluntary, or whether you're a stay-at-home parent, whatever. Uh, but yeah, it was very owie for me that talk. What about you?

  Matt: Very owie. I like that phrase. Uh, I do like that phrase. I just, I, I mean, I, I, I find these kind of talks quite challenging because I. Like you, I think it's easy just to sort of drift in. Drift is a maybe the wrong word, but it's easy just to get your head down and crack on. And before you know it, six months has gone past,

  Sharon: Yeah.

  Matt: um, and

  Sharon: or 10 years.

  Matt: 10 years

  Sharon: the case these days.

  Matt: yeah, it's an interesting one, isn't it? Because you then think, well, when was the last time I prayed for somebody to get healed? Or, um, when was the last time I saw something like this? And then you were kind of like, well, when was the last time I was intentional about this. And I think, um, when it comes to the miraculous, there's something about that intentionality isn't there?

  Just deliberate. I mean, John was talking about even walking around the park and just talking to people and praying for people. And I do think back over the Crowd Church history, if you like, and I, the people that we've prayed for and we've seen some funky stuff happen, they've tended to be either very new Christians or not yet Christians.

  Um, And that was something else that John picked upon, which I, again, I thought was just a really interesting alignment that he'd made. That actually a lot of, we don't, we don't tend to see a lot of the miracles inside the church building. We tend to see a lot of them outside the church building. Um, which I thought was a, a really interesting point.

  Sharon: Why do you think that is?

  Matt: Well, John talked about how, um, he talks about how. You tend to find I think it's true. I think sometimes when you pray for Christians, there's baggage, but when you pray for people who aren't Christians, there isn't any. Um, and, and there's something about that, and I think there's also something true in the statement that we tend to see more miracles in the less developed nations of the, of the world because it sees if, you know, like if I have a problem with my back, which I, you know, Might have on occasions cause I've been doing stupid things with weights.

  Um, it's easy to take some ibuprofen, Do you know what I mean? It's, and, and that becomes your default thinking when you don't have medicines easily. Your, your first choice is always to pray, isn't it? And so I think, um, I think it's. It's just a, I dunno, I dunno if this is answering your question. I, I don't know why we tend to see them more outside of the church building than we'd see in them, uh, church buildings, but I'd, I'd, I'd say it's probably quite a true statement.

  Sharon: I do wonder as well, like, uh, cause I did the talk a couple of weeks ago and we were talking about signs and wonders and there was that whole thing of the, the miracles and that there to kind of back up. What is being spoken just to say, actually this is real, but it's not like, um, I mentioned then that God's not Father Christmas, so it's not just like, we can just put all these little requests in for whatever we want, and it's just like, oh yeah, I just get whatever I pray for.

  Um, because it, our faith is about deeper things than that. It's, it's great to have those miracles. I would love to see more of that. But it is more about the relationship and our character and deepening all that stuff, which I'm not sure we would get if we just got given everything we wanted all the time.

  But it, it, it is a very, it's a tricky subject, isn't it? Because obviously we know lots of people who have got long-term illness and you're like, God, why? Why are you, why don't you just heal them? It would be you make their life so much better. So there, there are lots of things to wrestle with within this.

  Subject. I think it, you know, the whole, the subject of suffering that again, that, um, John touched on, um, and having a good theology of suffering. He mentioned, uh, yeah, it's a, it feels like a massive subject that, yeah, not sure whether I've completely got to grips with, but yeah.

  Matt: it's something we wrestle with a lot, isn't it?

  Sharon: Hmm,

  Matt: It is interesting that John talked about having a weak theology of suffering versus a strong. Uh, theology of Suffering,

  Sharon: hmm.

  Matt: there's a great talk. Um, uh, it's just live actually now on, on, what's the story? We had, uh, Ed Walker from Hope Into Action, and he was talking about the same thing, actually, sort of framing, reframing suffering and understanding, actually suffering in the light of what the Bible talks about it versus what we in the West expect.

  Um, of God. And I thought it was a really, I, it was a really interesting interview. I really enjoyed talking to Ed about this and about this whole concept of, um, suffering. He's lived in war torn Africa in, I mean, he saw some horrendous stuff. Um, and there's, there's gonna be these themes that we start see in the book of Acts. Coming out more and more, the disciples, Peter ends up in prison. It's not gonna be his first time in jail, let's just put it that way. It's gonna be a fairly regular event and then it's gonna sort of spiral outta control with Steven. Um, and the persecution then starts and the church is scattered.

  And we, we see this sort of really interesting parallel between the miraculous sort of a. Sort of exploding and persecution correspondingly exploding. Um, and it's like this, th they sort of, there's these sort of two tracks which sort of seem to be connected and, and we'll see that sort of unfold in the book of Acts. Really, it's gonna be something that we're gonna come back to time and time again, um, because we're gonna see the miraculous.

  I mean, the miraculous here was getting released from jail. I've not been in jail. I've not had to pray. God open jail doors. Thank the Lord. Um, I love John's story about Brother Yun who, uh, who did, uh, experience that, um, We're gonna see healings, we're gonna see, uh, uh, Paul raise somebody from the dead because they didn't like his sermon.

  It's gonna be fun. We're gonna get into all that kind of stuff. Um, but at the same time, we're gonna see persecution, we're gonna see imprisonments, we're gonna see people getting stoned to death. I mean, it's a, it's a really interesting thing, isn't it? And you,

  Sharon: And I, I love all the, all the good miracles where everything turns out lovely, but the persecution side, it's like, oh, yeah,

  Matt: I dunno, this, is this a happy ending? I don't know. I dunno how I feel about this. And, uh, it's, it's very tricky, isn't it, to sort of understand that in the context of the, the western world. But I mean, that said, um, you know, John said right at the start of the talk, which I thought was a really interesting comment that, um, Christianity without the miraculous is a dead religion.

  And I, I thought that's a really interesting statement. Do I agree with that? Yes or no? And I. I thought it was, I started to think about how the resurrection is central to the Christian faith, right? If there's no resurrection, there's no Christian faith. Paul talks about that in Corinthians again, we've talked about that a fair bit on crowd, and um, it's a very true statement.

  If there's no resurrection, there's no Christian faith, but because there's a resurrection, our whole faith is based on the miraculous. Do you know what I mean? It's that that is a fundamental heart stopping. Brain exploding miracle, right at the heart of the Christian faith. And so I think it's a true statement.

  If there's no, you know, the Christianity without miraculous is a, is a dead religion. Um, so yeah, I, it's, it's, it's a fascinating one. And it's like you say, challenging. Challenging. So what's, I mean, you've texted a few folks, what else is gonna change for you, if anything, as a result of hearing said talk?

  Sharon: I think it's just trying to keep that balance of, yes, I want to do. A good job of work and have a high standard in what I do, but also keep, I think, keeping an eye on that other aspect, which is the, the eternal aspect of. Um, and yeah, I'm picking up on those conversations and making sure that I actually follow through when people have said, Hey, I wanna know more.

  Matt: Hmm.

  Sharon: Do you know, what I mean, rather than kind of going, oh, I'll do that tomorrow, and then tomorrow comes, it's like, oh, I'll do that tomorrow.

  Um, actually making that a priority and, um, I think praying into those situations saying, you know, God, what are you saying?

  Matt: Hmm.

  Sharon: yeah.

  Matt: So one of the questions here in the notes, cuz we every, you won't know dear viewer that we have a bunch of notes, uh, in front of us whenever we come out on livestream and we've got the transcripts from the talks and we've got some thought through questions and all that kind of stuff that sort of comes through.

  And one of them says, uh, on my screen, how can we develop the courage to step out in faith and take risks? So a lot of this all sounds great, right? But fundamentally it requires me to step out and take a risk, um, and it requires you to step out and take a risk and to put yourself out there a little bit.

  So how would you answer that question?

  Sharon: Well, there is a little verse which came with that question, so I hope I'll read that one out. Uh, it's from the book of Joshua and it says, Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. And I think there is, um, an element of choice in these things that sometimes I think when it says, um, be strong, yeah, it says be strong and courageous.

  Those things are a choice. I don't think you have to necessarily feel strong or feel courageous to step out. Um, but it's a choice to step out, going, okay, God's promised that he's gonna be with me wherever I go. And I think just to have a go and maybe have a bit of fun and see it as an adventure.

  Matt: Yeah, totally. I'll just put the verse there on the screen. Uh, I wasn't, you know, when I was looking away from the screen, I was still, uh, anyway, so, uh, I, I think you're right. I think just have a go. It's one of those, um, it's one of those things, isn't it? You, I remember when I first became a Christian and I was, uh, I was, how old was I?

  18, 19 years old. Somewhere around there. And I became a Christian. But it wasn't until a few years later that I sort of understood that God would actually answer quite, um, crazy prayers. Uh, was a, is the best way to, to put it.

  Sharon: And you did do some crazy prayers, didn't you, at that point?

  Matt: cuz why not have a go and see what happens? I remember, um, remember the oddest event.

  Uh, I know you've heard this story many times, sweetheart, but, um, the oddest event, Uh, when I was at uni, I was back for summer, right? So we were back in my house. Uh, I was back in my mom's house over summer and we had a dog at the time called Oscar. And Oscar was, um, gorgeous, little dog. I think he was quite new.

  I quite if. not have been, but in my head he was quite a small dog at this time. Anyway, I was in the garden, it was summer. I was having a, a sort of picnic in our garden with a friend of mine from six form who I'd not seen for a while. Cause I'd been at uni, I'd been away. And so she came around, we were sat in the garden and we were just catching up eating some food.

  And we had, and we still have in my mum's garden apple trees. And so I got the ladders out. To climb up into the tree to get some apples. Now at the time, for reasons which I won't bore you with, dear listener, uh, I had cowboy boots on and I remember, I remember coming down the steps, not realizing the dog was there.

  And I stood on the dog's leg and the dog's leg broke. Um, and we heard it snap. And the dog made some horrendous noises. Uh, and my friend who was in the garden was very distraught cause she saw this, you know, I think she saw it in slow motion. And, um, and so it was, you know, the dog's leg was, was not in a good way.

  So I went over to the dog and I thought, oh, Christmas, I dunno what. So I picked up the dog's leg and I put it in my hand and I prayed and I asked God to make the dog's leg better. Um, And sure enough, put the dog down. The dog walked around like nothing had ever happened. And my friend, who was not a Christian at this point, her obviously her chin hits the floor.

  Um, and. I remem, I, I still remember that event like it was yesterday. Like, why would God heal a dog and maybe not some other people Do you know what I mean? It's just, it just leads some really interesting questions. But the bottom line is, I, you know, the, there was a miracle that day.

  Sharon: Hmm.

  Matt: And then, um, a little while later, a few months later, my friend came round and said, listen, I've got a friend who is really sick at uni.

  Um, You know that thing that you did with the dog, does it work on people? Um, can you pray for them? So, I got on a train and I went down, I think it was London. It was a while ago. I can't remember. I remember getting on a train and going somewhere to visit this kid in hospital, um, and praying for this chap in hospital.

  And I left. I don't, I dunno whether he got better. I dunno the end of the story. I've kind of lost contact with that friend that was in my garden that day. Um, But I remember that one event that that event with Oscar the dog, sort of, there was this chain reaction of events that happened that meant I was in hospital praying for someone who was really not in a good way, um, and didn't have long left on this planet.

  And so there's lots of stories, isn't there? There's, we've, we've got these sort of stories and I quite like them and I didn't, I didn't really know what I was doing. There's no formula. That I could follow. There's no manual that I could read. I just was new to the faith. I literally picked up the dog and said, God, could you do me a favor and make this dog better?

  Uh, there was no magic words. There was no magic formula. There was no wand that wave, no Izzy wizzy. Let's get busy. There was none of that sort of stuff. It was just simple act. And I think that for me, that's the answer to the question like you say. Yeah, just a heartfelt Prayer. How, how do we develop the courage to step out in faith and take risks?

  We just, I dunno,

  Sharon: just Have a go.

  Matt: take a risk. Start with something small.

  Sharon: Yeah.

  Matt: friend of mine is real go on.

  Sharon: So I've got a question for you on that because, um, that question in a sense is more directed towards those who are already Christ followers, like stepping out in, in your faith and doing that. But at Crowd, we are not just here for people who are already Christ followers. We're here for anyone wherever you're at on your faith journey, whether, yeah, whether you are searching, just not sure.

  So how was all this relevant to those people?

  Matt: That's a very good question. Uh, and I think it's relevant in a lot of ways because what we're, if you are on your journey, you're on a Christian journey. And you are trying to investigate, is Christ real? Should I give my life to Christ? Um, if he is real, then again, like we said earlier,

  Sharon: Hmm.

  Matt: You have to wrestle, I think with the question of the resurrection, right?

  You've gotta get your head around the fact that Jesus died and that he rose again. Um, that he wasn't just a nice guy. That he wasn't just a prophet. That actually he was who he said he was. And if that's true, and if he is still working miracles today, that has quite profound implications, I think on, on how you face the world and how you deal with it.

  So, um, And certainly how you respond to a lot of things that, that are sort of going on, you know, in, in the world around us.

  Sharon: Hmm.

  Matt: And so, One of the things that I, that we do, let me fact put it on the screen. There you go. You can contact us via www.crowd.church. You can reach us on social media @Crowd Church, and on the website there's also a WhatsApp number.

  I've also put it in the comments. We do have people, um, get in touch, uh, through email, through the website, through WhatsApp. Say, Hey, listen, would you pray for dot, dot, dot now? You don't have to be a Christ follower have someone pray for you. Right. And we believe that God answers Prayer. So, um, it might not be a case that you necessarily go and lay your hands on someone who's sick and pray for them.

  Why not have a go see what happens? But um, but if you need Prayer, then it's relevant because we think, you know, God actually answers Prayer. Might not be in the way you expect it to be, I'm not gonna lie. Um, but we do

  Sharon: Or in the timeframe that you'd like sometimes.

  Matt: Yeah, there's a whole, th there's a whole bunch of things, you know, like, God, gimme the lottery numbers, please. I'd, I'd really like those. But, you know, it is, there's, there's this whole thing isn't there about, um, Prayer and answer Prayer Again, there's lots of talks on the Crowd archive about this, and, and we do talk about this on a fairly regular basis cause it is a topic that comes up quite a lot.

  Um, but yeah,

  Sharon: I think, um, Yeah, I think these verses as well, but, uh, the fact of Jesus coming in the first place with the message that actually God wants to know us, uh, he wants to be known and for us to be part of his family. And then that, uh, as Christ followers we're given this message to pass on it is like God wants to be known.

  And so if you are searching for him, it's like, He, he wants to know you and he wants you to know him. So I think it was, uh, I'd say just, you know, keep going with that. Keep pursuing, um, uh, keep asking, uh, yeah, see what happens.

  Matt: Yeah. See what happens. You just never know. Right? You never know, and I think it's all part of the journey of finding Christ. You know, you at some point, Paul prays this, doesn't he? He says, I pray that you would know the length, the depth, the, the width, the breadth, the height, the four dimensions of God.

  Anyway, he, he, you know that. But when he says that, he prays that, you know, the, the length breadth height of the love of God. That word know. I pray that you know the love of God actually means experience. I pray you experience the love of God for yourself and the biggest miracle in all of this. Yes, it was great that my dog was healed.

  Um, yes, it was great that John's son got his ear instantly healed. You know, we've been praying for people at crowd and yes, it's great that they get their prayers answered, and yes, there are prayers which we still have unanswered, which are still going forward. But in all of that, in all of those stories, the greatest miracle is that you can experience the love of God.

  I mean, you can experience the love of God in such a way that is beyond question without a doubt real for you,

  Sharon: Mm-hmm.

  Matt: and that's a massive miracle. Um, and that's, um, that's super, super important. And so if you're, if you are on, on your faith journey, that would be my Prayer, that, you know, the length, the depth, the breadth, the height of the love of God, and you know it, and you experience it deep down in your soul, uh, in a life-changing way.

  Sharon: Good prayer.

  Matt: Oh man. Oh man. Wow. You know, I like it when you say, I do. I do good prayers.

  Sharon: You're welcome.

  Matt: Wow. Thank you very much babe. Do you wanna, I think we'll end Conversation Street there, cause that seems like a good place. Unless there's anything else you wanna add,

  Sharon: I don't think so. No.

  Matt: do you wanna tell the good folks about the midweek zoom groups while I quickly do some research and find out what's happening next week?

  Sharon: Yeah. Uh, so on Wednesday evenings at eight o'clock, uh, British Time, that is, uh, we have a small group that meets on Zoom. Um, we, it's very low key. We just chat, catch up with each other, pray for each other, and pray for any Prayer requests that, um, people have sent in. Uh, it'd be great if you could join us.

  Uh, are you gonna put the link up, babe?

  Matt: Uh, the links on the website. I'm not gonna, yeah, if you, if you wanna get in touch with us. If you wanna know more about the Zoom group, reach out to us via the website of, via social media and we'll send it through to you. Uh, is the, is the, the standard protocol. Yes.

  Sharon: so have I given you enough time to find out what's happening next week?

  Matt: Yeah, yeah. Totes.

  Sharon: Whew.

  Matt: So next week we have Anna Kettle, who is normally a regular host on Crowd Church, but she is speaking. Next week, count it All joy, it says, is the title in my notes, whether it's actually the title Cuz John Harding's title, apparently today was the Fear of God is the beginning of knowledge.

  But that's definitely not what he talked about. So who knows what Anna's talked about. Uh, so yeah, Anna, who's normally a host, has actually done the talk, which I'm super looking forward to. I'll be hosting again next week. Looks like I'm hosting with Dan Orange as well, which would be cool. Um, So we'll be doing that.

  The week after that we've got Dave Connolly talking about how to deal with conflict. The week after that I'm then speaking about Steven, the first martyr in the New Testament, and we're gonna be looking at how to stand up for what's right, how do you stand up and do the right thing in this face of quite overwhelming aggression and

  can I say intolerance? Um, and divisiveness and all that kind of goes, so we've got some great talks coming up. Then John Sloan's carrying on that conversation, we've got Pete Farrington, he's gonna be, he's gonna be talking about why as Christians, we can't just assume that all is gonna go well with life and he's gonna be rounding that off by looking at Steven's.

  Uh, martyrdom. Uh, yes. Then we're talking about persecution and church growth. It's all coming up. We've got some great, some really happy topics coming up, uh, in the next few weeks, which is great. But, um, I love the fact we can learn lots of stuff from them. So, yeah. Do make sure you are subscribed to the Crowd Church Live stream.

  Make sure you subscribe on YouTube, or if you go to our webite, the email newsletter thing is back up and running. I know it wasn't working for a few weeks, but it is now. Uh, so if you sign up to the email newsletter, you'll get an email once a week just with links to the livestream, to the What's the Story podcast, and a few other notes and bits and bobs, just what's going on.

  So yeah, make sure you subscribe to that email. We'll keep you up to date with everything, so, yes. That's it. I think from everybody here at Crowd Church, like I say, do join us on the midweek groups if you would like to. We would love to see you in there. If you do have any Prayer requests, do send them through.

  The information is just there. The bottom of the screen, if you're listening to the audio, sorry. Uh, remember people, it's a lot of people. Listen to the catch up on the audio version of the podcast. Uh, it's www.crowd.church or @CrowdChurch on social media. Very good. Uh, babe, anything else from you before we close out?

  Sharon: no, just thanks for joining us. Great to be with you and, uh, see you next week.

  Matt: Absolutely. Always great to do this with you, sweetheart. Always great to do this. Uh, and yeah, thanks for joining us on Crowd Church, we'll see you next week. Have a fantastic week wherever you are in the world. That's it from us. Bye for now.

  Thank you so much for joining us here on Crowd Church. Now if you are watching on YouTube, make sure you hit the subscribe button as well as that little tiny bell notification to get notified the next time we are live. And of course, if you are listening to the podcast, uh, the Livestream podcast, make sure you also hit the follow button. Now by smashing the like button on YouTube or writing a review on your podcast platform.

  It helps us reach more people with the message. Jesus really does help us live a more meaningful and purposeful life. So if you haven't done so already, be sure to check out our website, www.crowd.church, where you can learn more about us as a church, more about the Christian faith, and also how to connect into our church community.

  It has been awesome to connect with you and you are awesome. It's just a burden you have to bear and hopefully we'll see you next time. That's it from us. God bless you.