Welcome to Crowd Church. It's great to be with you tonight, whether you're here
tonight, 7 o'clock Sunday live, or you're listening to a pre-record. I'm joined
today by the wonderful Jan.
Hi, hi, hi everyone. Nice to be here, whether you're here for the first time or
If it's your 29th time, um, you're very welcome to be here.
So, um, yeah, well, we have tonight, we're continuing these, this new series,
Jesus the Revolutionary, which is, yeah, it's been brilliant so far. Um, and
we've got the wonderful Will joining us today. Hi, Will.
Hello, hello. Good evening. How are you both?
Good.
Yeah, well, thank you.
Yeah, are you all prepped and ready?
All prepped and ready. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So we Um, we're doing this series, and if you've not been to Crowd or listened
to Crowd before, um, Will's going to do the talk, and then we will have
Conversation Street where we'll answer questions. So anything, just in the
comments, just put questions, and we'd love to be able to try and answer those
and discuss them afterwards. Um, just to let you know, we've got Will today. Um,
next week I'm doing the talk.
Yeah.
Um, about Mary and Martha, which is looking forward to doing.
That'd be really good.
And also every Tuesday we just started another Alpha. So last Tuesday another
Alpha started. So if you're interested in Alpha course, just a great way to find
out about Jesus, to informal, just ask questions, no wrong questions, no, it's
just It's great, and we had about 14 people, um, last week. It was brilliant.
Yeah, really good. But it's not too late if you want to join, uh, onto that,
onto that group, then you'd be more than welcome.
So great.
I think Will would—
oh, I'm sorry, just catching up on my Facebook. No, that's fine. Hello, hello.
So yeah, good evening. Um, as Dan said, we've been looking in this series about
Jesus the Revolutionary. And so far it's focused on His interactions with
different people. Tonight we switch context a little, and since we're British,
we talk about the weather. So we're looking into the well-known story of Jesus
calming the storm, and you can find this, if you've got a Bible, in Mark 4,
starting at verse 35. So I'm just going to read that scripture now. That day
when evening came, he said to his disciples, 'Let us go over to the other side.'
Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along just as he was in the boat. There
were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up and the waves broke
over the boat so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern sleeping on
a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, 'Teacher, don't you care if
we drown?' He got up, rebuked the wind, and said to the waves, 'Quiet! Be
still!' Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his
disciples, 'Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?' They were
terrified and asked each other, 'Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey
him.' That's Mark 4:35 to the end of the chapter. My earnest prayer life began
at the age of 6, and we generally go camping by the sea for summer holidays as a
family, and every night I would pray, "Thank you, God, for a lovely day. Please
can we have another one tomorrow?" I do remember a very sunny holiday, and it's
easy to dismiss the rather self-centered prayers of a child and perhaps their
coincidence for sunny week in July in the UK. But I have continued periodically
to pray for the weather over the years, and I remember more answers than not. My
favorite story is a cycling holiday in the west coast of Scotland, um, with a
very good friend of mine. And the plan was we get an overnight train from
Liverpool. This was back when I was, I don't know, early 20s. Overnight train
from Liverpool So, we got out into the Highlands about half past 6 in the
morning and we cycled down Glencoe. Now, Glencoe, if you don't know it, is a
very large glaciated valley, a beautiful kind of U-shaped valley, massive
mountains either side down towards the sea. It's absolutely beautiful. Going
down Glencoe is a better idea than going up it if you're on a bike. Anyway. We
got off the train, no sleep, 6:30 in the morning. Also, if you know the
Highlands of Scotland, the midges descended, absolutely eaten alive within about
30 seconds. And we started cycling. Now I'd been to Glencoe as a kid on a family
holiday. And I remembered, I just had this memory of this incredible place. My
friend that I was cycling with had never been there. So I was really looking
forward to showing him. But 6:30 in the morning, midges and cloud, not quite in
front of your face, but very, very low cloud, no views, very soggy, classic
Scottish weather. And as we were cycling, my friend was beginning to question
more and more the wisdom of this idea of this cycling holiday. And we started
going down Glencoe, and to be honest, it was miserable. We were so tired, we
were wet, eaten alive. But as I was cycling, I kind of had in my mind, and I did
sort of start praying it, just what it would be like if the sun just started
coming through the clouds and the clouds lifted and we start to see this
magnificence. What a great way to begin our holiday. Um, and 10 minutes later,
that exact thing happened, exactly as I'd seen it in my mind, started to happen
in front of me as I was cycling down this road. And it got to the point where
the clouds just completely lifted, these shafts of sunlight coming through, the
mountains were there, blue, blue sky. And I just shouted to my friend, said,
"Stop, stop, stop, stop!" And I told him about basically what I prayed about a
quarter of an hour before. We then had the most incredible week cycling all up
to Skye in beautiful sunshine. But so what? Surely God has got better things to
do and changed the weather. Something about that story was that it was probably
the first time I really understood God's love for me. We'd both been serving on
a summer camp with lots of young people, and it had been a really hard work
month, but brilliant. And people had come to faith, and people had grown in
their faith, and it was just— and in my sort of slightly naive young mind, I
thought, oh, maybe this is God just like, you know, rewarding us by giving us
this beautiful day cycling down Glencoe. And I thought, don't be stupid. But we
were the only ones in that valley, and it just struck me that God would do that,
just kind of shift the clouds and give us the most awesome view that I will
never forget, um, just because he loved us. So there was that. But sometimes, of
course, there is much more at stake than having a nice day out. Two quick
further stories, one from the Bible and one from living memory. There'd been a
drought in Israel and no rain for 3 years, and this account is in the book of 1
Kings chapter 18. And the prophet Elijah had a big standoff with the in vogue
priests of the idol Baal. And he says to the king Ahab, "Get home, the rain is
coming." Now there had been clear skies for 3 years and the sky was still
cloudless. But God had said to Elijah he was bringing rain, and so Elijah was
operating out of faith. He then goes up to a hilltop and starts to pray,
earnestly pray. It describes him as having his face between his knees, a
position of humility, but also sometimes likened to a position where you might
give birth. Jan, as a midwife, can correct me on that one. 3 times, While he's
praying, he sends his servant to scour the horizon for an answer. 3 times, 3 and
a half years of blue sky. On the third time, the servant sees a cloud rising
from the sea the size of a man's fist. Soon after, the sky was black and heavy
rains came. The second story is to reclaim the spiritual heritage of the Battle
of Dunkirk. Um, this episode early in the Second World War when the majority of
the British Army was about to be wiped out. And there was a great Christopher
Nolan film made in the past few years— great, except it completely scrubbed one
of the most essential elements. In May 1940, Nazi Germany had invaded the
Netherlands, Belgium, and France, and there were 400,000 exhausted Allied troops
who'd been retreating and were driven back to the Channel coast. They were
pinned down and surrounded finally at Dunkirk, which is a seaside town with a
very long sandy beach. Instead of continuing in for the kill, the Nazi
commanders preferred to bomb the clustered troops from the air at leisure and
also decrease risk to their vehicles, their tanks, etc., and their troops. And
on the 24th of May, King George VI in England called for a national day of
prayer. And tens of thousands poured into churches and synagogues. You, you can
see online, you can find old photos of queues to get into Westminster Abbey that
day to pray. Now, at first it was only naval ships being used to transport
troops back over the Channel to England, and their size meant that getting right
up to the beach was difficult and evacuation was really slow. There was 700—
7,600 or so in the first day. These ships were also large and making, making
them very vulnerable targets for the German aircraft to bomb. Many were lost in
those first few days. Now the hope at that point amongst the Allies was that
with luck on their side, they might rescue 45,000 before the Germans would block
further evacuation and close in. So in desperation, small boats and their owners
were enlisted all along the south coast to assist with the evacuation, but these
were much more vulnerable to the rough sea conditions the Channel was prone to.
Miracles were needed and miracles were prayed for. Over the following 8 days, 3
weather interventions turned disaster to salvation. First were days and days of
rain and low cloud limiting the effectiveness of attacks from the air. Second
was the blowing of bomb smoke from attacks on the town to cover the beaches and
obscure the extent of the evacuations being achieved. And third was the sudden
lull in wind and waves the day the largest flotilla of small boats sailed. The
Channel that day was described as a millpond, very unusual, and these factors
culminated in the largest evacuation day of over 68,000 troops on the 31st of
May. In all, bearing in mind they'd expected 45,000 to be rescued, Over 330,000
were eventually saved and brought back to England. So why am I telling you
stories of changes in weather in response to prayer? I want to make 3 brief
points: Jesus is God, Jesus cares, and Jesus does not abandon us to our fears.
In the Bible passage we just read, Jesus commands the weather and the weather
obeys. And as I've outlined in those stories I've told, it's for God and God
alone to transform the weather. Even with our sophistication and the control of
our lives and cities with technology, weather is still mostly outside our remit.
We are much better at predicting it than we ever have been, but we mostly cannot
change it. But as well as the weather in this story, Jesus also commands the
sea. And for the majority of Jewish people, the sea was associated with turmoil
and death, which is why in visions of heaven there is apparently no more sea,
which always disappointed me when I was younger. In Psalm 89, God is worshiped
as ruling the raging sea and stilling the waves. So, by his command over the
wind and the waves, Jesus was clearly aligning himself with the divine. Others
have prayed to God in the Bible and were answered, as we've seen. Jesus directly
commanded. It was his spoken word that canceled the storm. It's no wonder that
his followers were terrified in the sudden calm. Who Is this? But not only is
Jesus God, Jesus cares. There are actually plenty of weather gods that many have
worshipped over millennia. There's Zeus, Thor, Indra, Vajrapā��i, just to say a
few. Worship of these gods seeks to placate the gods' wilder tendencies with
sacrifice and service. Those gods didn't really care. They needed to be buttered
up, if you like. But we see no such ritual or offering here, just a desperate
help from men well used to sailing and weather, but nevertheless fearing for
their lives. Now, in the passage we've read, these men directly challenge Jesus,
"Don't you care?" They're indignant Jesus can sleep in in apparent peace while
they're struggling for their lives. But Jesus does not care less. He's not a God
needing placating with sacrifice. Jesus is just completely at peace about the
whole situation. He knows absolutely his identity as the Son of God. He knows
absolutely the authority he has. As a bit of an aside, what's astonishing is
that through his Spirit, and this is in Matthew 28:18, he bestows that same
identity and authority on all who follow him and call him Lord. Jesus knows they
are not on the verge of disaster in the boat, but he also wants these followers
of his to recognize who he truly is. He also wants them to grow in faith. And
this brings us to our third point: Jesus does not abandon us to our fears. I
think in this account, Jesus is demonstrating that he's not just a fixer— "Don't
trouble yourselves, I'll take care of it." He's also not an overprotective
parent, keeping us well away from any challenge or upset. His care extends to
walking with us through our fears, mastering them, knowing our true identity in
the midst of them, and beginning to think and act accordingly. Now, there's a
common misconception, it seems, that faith in God, and perhaps especially faith
in Jesus, transports us somehow into a perfectly managed existence of peace and
joy and wholeness. Nothing goes wrong, no accidents happen, no harm befalls us.
Christians safely living in the in-crowd, guaranteed priority boarding to
heaven, all the perks implied. This is faith billed as a protective magic charm.
Faith as a ticket to the first-class lounge, if you like. But Jesus viewed it
very differently and modeled it differently by his life. He said to his
followers, 'In this world you will have trouble.' And certainly in his life he
did. Or perhaps our modern rational selves would tend towards perfect control,
managing for every eventuality through following the best teaching or process,
making sure we have all bases covered just in case, playing it safe. And this is
faith as a self-help guide, a cast-iron guarantee life hack. Faith is a premium
insurance policy. But as the famous modern philosopher Mike Tyson once said,
everyone's got a plan until they get punched in the head. Neither of these are
the faith Jesus is training his disciples in, and to extension, us. The storm
came. Jesus in the boat wasn't a magic charm protection. Jesus knew the storm
would come and yet still allowed or even told his disciples to row across the
lake. Following Jesus' instructions didn't keep them from danger. Yes, Jesus did
rescue people where they were helpless to rescue themselves. And yes, he did
teach and outline a way of life that would bring fullness and joy. Connection
and eternity. And make no mistake, belief in Christ is a guarantee for eternity.
But here, in this boat, in a terrifying swell and dark clouds, he wanted his
followers to know, "I am with you. You are mine. You are safe. Do not fear." He
met them in their place of terror. And he demonstrated he had authority to
protect them in that place. So by Jesus' word, he demonstrates he is God,
demonstrates he cares, and he will not abandon us in difficulty. I wonder what
the proverbial storm you are needing reassurance in is. Have you given up crying
out for help? Does God seem altogether too relaxed about the situation you find
yourself in? I encourage you not to stop asking. I encourage you to ask Jesus
his perspective on it. And I encourage you that, in my experience, you will not
be abandoned. Jesus lived among us, but he was never wholly one of us. He is a
solid rock in a storm. He's not flustered by what threatens to tear us apart,
but he does care and he is able.
Thank you, Will. Yeah. He does care, doesn't he? He does. Um, that was great.
Thank you very much for that. Jan, yeah, where do we go? What, what came to—
what was the thing that stood out to you?
Just, just so much thanks, Will, for that. That was really, really excellent.
Um, I just think that your voice as well throughout it all was it was calming,
and I was just like really soothed by it. Um, most of us, I would say, have not
been— we don't work, you know, in fishing or in the sea, on the sea. So most of
us have normal type of jobs where we're on the land, on land, except if none of
us work in the airport or anything. Um, but I would say that, um, we can still
come across these chaotic, frightening moments in our lives, whatever, you know,
wherever we tend to be. So, um, I just wanted to kind of ask the question really
to you, Dan, first. Is it, you know, what, what do you do when things feel out
of control? Or can you think of an incident where that has happened, you felt
like that?
Um, I can't, I can't think of an incident off the top of my head, but, but one
thing that really I, I wrote down that Will said jumped out was when he said,
surely God has got better things to do.
Yeah, he doesn't, does he?
And that's, that's what I love, that, um, I, I read something today and a lady
had tweeted, I don't think God really— yes, he's all-powerful, but he's not—
doesn't know everything. I thought, no, he does, because he does, because he, he
wants to, wants to know our situation. He cares particularly about our
situation. And yes, he has— he does want to do, you know, hasn't got other
things to do. He wants to focus on you, he wants to focus on you, Jan, on me, on
Will. And yeah, I love that. That— yeah, so going back to your question, when it
is perhaps a bit chaotic or something, and, um, at work, my, my prayers are
always, God, help me in this, because I know he— I know he does, always has
done.
Yeah.
Um, and always will continue to.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
So if it bothers us, it bothers God.
Yeah.
Isn't it? That's the truth. And I just think what really came out as well, um,
for me was, um, that knowing him is the key, isn't it? Um, so one-off situations
that I've been through, you know, where I felt very overwhelmed or very anxious
or even frightened, um, you know, certain times in my life. Um, but God, you
know, I've prayed and God has intervened and come, but I haven't continued to
live in that peace. Um, and I think, I think God's saying here, or the, the
scripture is, is sort of saying that this is more of a lifestyle possibly.
Yeah.
Than a you know, situations that we can write in our diary and say, "Gosh, do
you remember that July 7th, you know, when that happened? I really trusted God
because I had nowhere else to go." Unfortunately, if I'm really honest, is God
always the first place I run to? Possibly not. He's in my thinking. But I, I
think we need to— it's just like childlike faith, isn't it? It's like a little
child will ask mum or dad to pick them up and, and they'll cry and show they're
upset and they'll need comfort. Um, who better to go to than, than him, our
Father? But we don't do it as quickly as possibly we should.
I know that, that, that modeling of a, of a lifestyle, yeah, was something that
really struck me in this passage, that Jesus knew the storm was coming. He told
the disciples, like, oh, let's go to the other side, knowing full well, if we,
you know, believe he's God and knows all things. Um, but he really wanted to
kind of meet them in that place of fear. And, and you can imagine them talking
for years after, it's like, oh, do you remember the storm? Remember when he was
asleep on that cushion?
Yeah.
And what did he say to us? And he challenged us about our faith. And the You
know, there'll be other storms that they would have come across where they'd
remember this story and they'd talk about it and go, "Well, he did it then, so
we can do it now." And you know, I've got so many of those stories, and as a
family, we then talk about, "Well, God did it then, so why not now?" And I
think, yeah, and that's what I was saying when it's like, Jesus doesn't wanna
just fix everything and protect us from everything, a bit like a sort of cotton
wool parent. He wants us to walk the hardship and grow and learn. Um, for
whatever reason. But yeah, that's certainly the way God works.
And some— sometimes he interacts in different, different ways. That we, as a
family, we used to go away quite a lot, a lot of times, all over Europe. And we
had a— we had a big, um— well, we started off with a bright yellow ambulance and
the trailer behind. We go to places like Portugal and Poland and all over, um,
for most of the summer telling people about Jesus. And on the way home one time,
we were in— it was a bigger truck then, massive trailer— and it kept breaking
down on the way, on the way back. And it would just be— would just be going, and
then it would just stop, and we'd have to get outside the road. Weather wasn't
great. My job was to put out the triangle, um, you know, this has been like in
France, um, and We'd— Dad would like bleed the engine, get, get all the air out
and stuff, and then we start and we go again and go again and again again. It's
happened so many times, um, and we missed our ferry.
Oh no.
But that ferry was— it was— this was in like the late '80s when the crazy storm
happened and Kew Gardens and all this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So this was what, the opposite? The storm still happened, but God stopped us
getting on the ferry and going across. So sometimes he works, he cares about us.
He might not stop that storm, but he just might stop us getting in the way of
it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He surely does care. Yeah, he does. Yeah, yeah. I
love that, um, also you put that Jesus knew his authority, didn't he? Yeah. And
that he passed it on to us.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which, yeah, which is astonishing.
Isn't it amazing that, I mean, the universe gives us That's an authority. Yeah.
And he wants us to learn it, because I mean, what's the point of having
authority if you don't know you've got it? But yeah, it is an amazing thing. And
again, I can imagine his followers, you know, after he died, rose again, they
received the Holy Spirit, remembering these stories and going, oh yeah, Jesus
had authority. I mean, he said he was going to give us, you know, all the more.
So it's like, oh, maybe we— yeah, yeah, it would be part of their growth.
I think in the process of growing in our faith and, uh, trusting God in these
situations where we feel overwhelmed, where life is chaotic. The, the beautiful
thing in— I've experienced is that God doesn't humiliate me. He doesn't, um,
make me feel ashamed. Um, yeah, he's like, come on, catch up, you know. Um, but
there's no shame in it, and he's not angry with me. Yeah, I think, um I don't
know, I'm speaking for myself. I think I've often imagined him being annoyed and
like, 'Hurry up, how many times do I need to teach you this?' Or, 'Why are you
getting worried again?' You know, um, but he's not like that. He— there is no
shame, there's just love and acceptance. And, um, he affirms us each time,
doesn't he?
Yeah, yeah.
And 'Cause he does challenge the disciples here in this passage. He says, "Have
you still got no faith?" After all the things they saw. And we're talking about
some of those in this series about the different people, the healings and
different people.
He literally just fed 5,000 people.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, they're kind of living a miracle every day. But no, you're
right. He doesn't like, yeah, there's just a sense of like, "Oh, let's keep
doing this." Yeah. Keep on this journey of learning.
Yeah.
Um, yeah.
And I think it's certainly true that we don't— you know, God says that you will
have troubles.
Yeah.
I think we can all testify to that. Um, but we're not on our own in them.
Yeah.
Um, which is amazing, isn't it? It's just, yeah, just incredible. Yeah.
Alicia's got amazing testimony here. So she, she said, um, I like to remind
myself that God is good both in small and large things. And, um, happy birthday
was Alicia.
It was her birthday.
Last week. Yeah. And but bittersweet because it's her, um, first birthday since
her, her mom's passed. Um, and she said she had an, um, incredible encounter
last year with him where I told Jesus, I told him how I longed for my mother's
hugs and basically wished he could hug me. But I thought, well, that's not
possible, is it? But the next morning I woke up feeling like I was enveloped in
the most indescribable hug I've ever known. And it was an original song of
praise on my lips that was not of my own making, isn't it? Just, yeah, surely he
cares about us. Okay. Yeah, individually. Yeah, that's great. Thanks for, for
sharing that, Alicia.
Thank you. Yeah, yeah.
And then that was that, that story of that, that mad cycle in the Highlands.
Just like, I mean, literally, you know, we hadn't seen a soul. We're the only
people that were there to see that particular amazing weather miracle. And I
think that was the first time I realized, yeah, God does care about the small
things.
Yeah, um, yeah, I am— many years ago, and I just learned to drive, I was, um, a
student nurse, and I was, um, out on a placement, um, in quite a rough area. And
it was first thing in the morning, it was November, and so it was quite foggy.
Um, I'd borrowed my dad's car, he'd let me with, uh, you know, fear and
trepidation, rightly so. And, um, I broke down just on this, the road near
where, where I was going. And it was literally, there was not a soul, it was
about half six in the morning. And, um, it was, you know, I couldn't see a
thing. I didn't know what to do. The engine just stopped. And I was a bit
nervous to get out of the car because it was early. I didn't know what to do.
Anyway, I just prayed and said, you know, God, help me. I really need to get to
work, but I don't feel safe here. Anyway, the next thing, literally out of the
blue, I heard a voice go, "You alright, love? Do you need a hand?" And I was
like, oh, and it was a man came towards me. I couldn't tell you what he looked
like. He was a, you know, like a father age, my dad's age. Um, he told me to
lift the, you know, open the bonnet, did all that. Um, and he said, try the
engine now. Um, did, and it turned, and that was it. And I, I was, you know, he
put the bonnet down And I was like, 'Tha!' And there was no one there. He'd
gone. I don't know whether he'd gone into the mist, but there was no footsteps.
I couldn't see him. It could have been an angelic thing. It could have been God,
you know, a God moment. Um, but he, he does care. He really does. And, um, yeah,
I've had many moments like that. You know, which is brilliant.
Yeah, yeah, amazing.
And as well, Will, you said that he doesn't take us— doesn't take us out of that
place, does he? He meets us in— yeah, in our place of terror. Yeah, because it
said in, in this world there will be troubles.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't know, I don't know where this idea comes
from that, you know, you— well, people talk about Christianity as a crutch,
don't they? And like, oh yeah, the, the reason you've got faith is because
somehow you're gonna your life's going to become perfect. Um, which, I mean, I
suppose that makes sense. That's the offer, isn't it? It's like, yeah, you give
your life to God, God makes your life perfect. That's the contract, that's the
transaction. Um, and if you've been— if you've listened to anything on Crowd for
any amount of time, you recognize that that's really— that's really not the
case. Yeah, but actually it's better. Yeah, even though, you know, it's— and
people struggle with bad things happening, and of course we, we all do. Um, but
actually that sense of knowing, knowing God with us in it. And, and then, you
know, another thing that you'll hear a lot in, in Crowd is that, that
accessibility, that just that kind of cry for help, much like you in the car,
you're just like, help! There's not a, there's not a ritual, there's not a whole
kind of way we have to, I don't know, be, be favorable enough to God. We can
just say help.
Yeah. Yeah, um, you mentioned again in, in your talk about sometimes we do
think, is this a reward for when you're that kind of— it's a reward for this.
Yeah, yeah.
And he just loves to lavish, doesn't he? And he just loves to hear— and he loves
to hear our voice. Yeah, I do believe that. He loves to hear our voice. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow, wow.
Um, what else can we— are there any more comments?
Um, yeah, yeah, she's just, yeah, really hot on emojis. Um, yeah, he, he loves
to hear our voice.
Yeah, he loves—
prayer is a strange thing, isn't it? Um, if we sort of— it's not really a bit of
a tangent, but that, um, he's the God of the universe, he can do what he wants,
he knows our thoughts, yet we need to pray.
Yes.
Um, yeah, we still need to ask him. Um, and it's— so if you're in a
relationship, you, you know, I know my— what, what my wife likes, I know what
she does, I know what she does in the morning and, and through the day. But I
still like to ask her about today. I still want to talk to her, have that
conversation. Um, and he's, he's still for us in that, still wants that, that
relationship.
Yeah.
What I, um, really liked as well was the— you told the story about how the king
called for a day of prayer. Yeah, that just blew me away. Can you imagine that
happening now? Um, in this country, people are Really, I think, I think, I hope
that people would, you know, take the challenge. Yeah, take the challenge. But
then we'd get like, because we're so multicultural now, it wouldn't just be
going to church.
But, um, I just think that's, you know, but it's actually another really good
example, isn't it, of being powerless? I mean, that was a proper time when like
this was This was most of the kind of professional, if you like, army about to
be wiped out. Before the war had really even started, this was like, and it's
just a desperation of like that call to prayer. I mean, I believe it was done in
faith. I think George VI was quite a godly man. But again, it was just that
help. We are out of resources. We are out of ideas. I've grown up with a lot of
very cynical people who will always, always ask, just a coincidence, and, and,
you know, whatever answer to prayer you could say that of course there's an
answer, and it's irrational. But, but part of the, part of the journey of like,
yeah, but when we, when we did it and then it happened and it built a faith and,
and it kind of, we got to know more of God, and, and that, that sort of journey
of really risking that prayer. And I, you know, I really would encourage you to
to risk saying those prayers and, and just, just turn off your little cynical
voice for a moment and say, well, yeah, but what if God answers that? What if it
is a really stupid thing? And what if it might have happened anyway? Just pray
anyway. As you say, he loves to, loves to hear our voice. He wants, wants to be
on that journey.
Yeah, he does. Yeah, absolutely.
I think I've met quite a few people, um, in the past who are so controlled in
their life that they don't allow themselves to get into an awkward situation,
or, you know, they think of every eventuality. If they're going on holiday, if
they're going out for the day, they've got this and that and the other. Um, and
I, I kind of admire those people. I am not one of those people. Um, but you
know, there's some things that happen in life that no matter how prepared you
are, you still haven't got the right stuff on you for that moment. And that,
that would freak a lot of people out. But I just think it's, um, that's when
trust comes, where you can almost let go of all that fear and that, oh, you
know, that sort of tightness, you know, that anxiousness, um, because God's— God
can handle it. I loved what you said at the end, he is able.
Yeah.
And that is so reassuring to know that he's with me and he can do it. It's like,
okay, thanks.
Yeah.
Yeah, you might have gathered that we, we as a crowd, like to put our trust in
Jesus. Found that it, found that it works, found that it's the best way.
Absolutely.
Um, and again, like we mentioned at the beginning, if you, if you do want to
know more about, about Jesus, obviously there's loads of talks on Crowd Church,
but there is an Alpha that's just started. So please, um, yeah, get in touch.
And if you want to, just fill out the form on crowd.church, you find the form
there. Um, we're almost coming to an end, so when, when we finish this live
stream, we will do a live lounge. Live lounge is the word. Yeah. Um, so Zoe's
going to put the—
yeah, come meet us—
the address, or Matt will put the address in the— uh, Matt's going to do that,
put the address in the comments. So come and meet us. Yeah, and we're talking to
you, and But before that, is there anything you'd just like, any parting words?
Well, just that final verse in our reading, actually, when the disciples are
just kind of dumbstruck at all that's just happened, and they just say, "Who is
this? Who are you?" And you know, that's a great prayer.
Yeah, yeah.
Just say, "Jesus, who are you? What is this? Who is this? What are you doing and
what do you want to do?" um, start that journey, start those, those steps of the
big and the little answers to prayer and, uh, knowing that, yeah, he is God and
he does care.
Yeah, absolutely.
He's with you in your storm.
Yeah, amen. Yeah, thank you.
Anything else?
No, I think, um, I think we've said, you know, said what I wanted to say.
Well, thanks for joining us, and we will see you next week. And Like I said,
come and— if you're, if you're watching this now, come and meet us on Google
Meets.
Yeah, Live Lounge.
Yeah, see you next week.
See you there.