Chris Bright 0:06
Welcome to the thinking church podcast with me, Chris Bright. Every week, I'll be speaking with a church leader about Ministry of Strategy and getting to grips with not just what they do the thinking behind why they do it. So without further ado, let's get on with the show.
Okay, My guests today are Chas and Ann Paul. Chas and Ann serve on the leadership team at One Church, Gloucester, which is my church. And they look after the Prayer Team. Chas previously worked with Suzette Huttingh, who is the was the head of intercession with Reinhard Bonnke. And they have been faithfully serving at my church, One Church for well over a decade Chas and Ann it's so, so great to have you on the podcast today. Thank you so much for joining me. That's great to be here.
Chas Paul 0:55
Thanks for this opportunity, he says mumbling his words.
Chris Bright 1:01
Well, I think today, it's a bit of an investigation and a bit of a, there's probably maybe it's just kind of testing something like this that's in my heart and something that's that I've been kind of working through recently. And that's why I wanted to speak with you. And because I know that you guys have been on a similar journey and, and that you've kind of been, it's been a journey of prayer and worship. And obviously, you've been running the prayer team at one church for a number of years now. But you've been on a bit of a journey recently. Um, could you explain that journey to us? And just let us know. Yeah, what journey you've been on in terms of prayer and worship recently?
Chas Paul 1:42
Sure, yeah. I'll kick it off. Because it's, there's, I just say right at the start, there's lots of backstory. So if I jump around a bit, it's just because there are lots of backstories that lead into this main event. It's like, it's like a main an old picture of a tapestry, you know, and I think as what God doesn't realise he weaves a tapestry in our lives. And it, it might begin years ago, with one particular thread going over here somewhere and in another thread is going in a different direction. And a ll these threads that we don't even know are going on over the years, suddenly come together, and they form this beautiful picture. So that's what's happened. That's there's been a whole lot of different threads of my journey with God over many years that have culminated in something that we're talking about today. So forgive me if I jumped around the best.
Chris Bright 2:34
No, that's fine.
Chas Paul 2:36
So yeah, as you mentioned, I worked with Suzette Huttingh, who was Reinhard Bonnke's intercessor. And that's where I learned to pray, if you can learn to pray from someone, she she trained us. She trained, trained me in that, and that was many years ago. But her her style of prayer that I was taught that time was a very active, forceful kind of prayer, which is great, I still I love that kind of prayer still. But I found some years ago, probably about two, three years ago, when I was sitting, having my quiet times in the morning, praying like this, God, one day just said to me, Chas, shhh just calm down. Stop talking for a minute and just listen to me. And God taught me to sit quietly in his presence and start to appreciate his presence more than the activity. And I think that's what sort of led us to this place. So t hat's a bit of that. But where this journey particular journey really kicked off was within Lockdown, like, like many of us, Lockdown kicked in, in March back here last year in the UK. And overnight, I was I was sent home from work and told to stay at home and had nothing to do. My job is to support telephone services on site. But no one on site. There was no one to support, I literally had nothing to do like many of us. So I thought well, let me make use of this time. So I made use of the time first of all by investing in my quiet time in the morning, because my job traditionally starts at 730 in the morning. And so I didn't have much time I've always struggled. I'm not a morning person I've always struggled to squeeze in. What we call our quiet time in the morning is sort of grabbing 10-15 minutes before going off to work. But now being at home all the time. had all the time in the world. So I think I probably made one of the best decisions I've ever made in my life, which was I'm not going to just lie in bed because I can I'm going to get out the door time I've go but now I've got time I don't have to just sit for 1015 minutes and now I've got to be out the door I can spend time with God. So I made a quality decision to to stop doing that, just start spending an hour, hour and a half every morning, just sitting on the sofa, listening to God, as he had taught me to do, being still in his presence and join us presence. And I was loving it. And it was just a revelation for me to to be able to maybe for the first time in many, many years, have the opportunity of quality, sustained quality time with in the mornings. And I really started to learn about the presence of God in those times. But then, when I decided to push it even further, I thought, okay, so that takes an hour or two of my day, my morning, what about the rest of the day. And so I made another point, which I believe is a positive decision. And we both decided, let's start watching more podcasts. I wanted to study more of God's Word and that but I'm not a good study yet. I'm watching listen and do type of learner rather than a reader. So I started watching lots of podcasts from all around different features from around the world. And something started to stir in me as I was watching these these different pictures and these different sermons, something really started to happen in me. And I found that I just start crying last night while I was watching these services online, and I couldn't explain it, but I recognised that was whenever the preacher had a particular anointing on him or said particular things, I would you start weeping. I'd be sit on the sofa just was quite embarrassing. First until, you know you got used to I got over, I got over them, and my wife's gonna see a cry, okay. And so I started watching these sermons and I was crying all the time. Then something happened, I started being drawn to watch the worship, rather than the preach. Now I'm not a musician, I can't, I can't sing, can't dance, can't paint instrument can't read music, you know. And I've always done the traditional thing, and fast forward through the worship, watch the preach. And I found that to be drawn more and more to watch the worship, which for me, it was quite unusual. And same thing happened if the worship leader or the worship set was particularly anointed, I would just sit there in tears. And I'd go through entire sets, worship sets, watching and just crying all the way through. I want to ask God What is going on? What are you doing to me? Firstly, my prayer was whatever you're doing to me, don't stop. Keep doing it. But then I said, Well, what is it you're doing? And before I'd even finished asking that question got answered and he said, you're beginning to recognise my presence a lot well that's it and then he said, pursue it chase after it is good enough to recognise that present but you also need to chase after it yourself. So again, another quality decision said yeah, I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna determined to chase after your presence. I then started watching... find myself being drawn to watch not just preaching I'm not just worship sets, but preaching one worship, if that makes sense. So I find myself drawn to certain that there's a what there's so much resources on YouTube as wonderful. I was watching, teaching about worship, like I said, I'm not a worship leader, or anything like that. I can't sing can't dance complainants, remember, but I found myself being drawn to watch worship leaders teaching other worship leaders. And there was a particular podcast that that just God used to speak to me. And I was watching it. It was a Stephany Gretzinger. And now if anyone knows of Stephany, Gretzinger, I think her name is, she's very free. She has a very free liberated style of worship. Which has been unusual for some, but I love it. And I was watching her shoot now she was teaching other worship leaders. And someone asked the question, Stephany, how did you get so free in your worship? And she said, she said a couple of things. Firstly, it starts at home. She says, we're all comfortable. Any one of us and we'll recognise this, we go to a conference, you're surrounded by 700 people, you'll raise your hands, your raise your voice, your wave your arms around, you might even do a bit of a dance, if it's that kind of music. And you will love that. You know, that's fine. But alone in your living room. You're too embarrassed to do that. when no one's watching. What's that about? And she said, You have to get over your pride. Surrender your pride, surrender your dignity, because that's all that stopping you. She said, it has to start in your living room. Okay, I can do that. But I'm sitting here quietly, nicely enjoying God's presence. As you continue speaking, and she said this, she said, some of you need to calm down and just sit in God's presence. But while I'm doing that, and I'm feeling quite smug about this not thinking, yeah, that's me. I'm there. I've been doing that for years. Steph, what do you want about that should continue that the next sentence. And the rest of you, she said, I've been sitting for so long that you're not doing anything. And that just hit me on my heart. Like, yeah, you got me, you got me. So I made a decision to be active start being active in my worship at home. Which it was it was, it's really a strange thing. Nobody's watching you. But you feel embarrassed in your own living room, to to raise your hands to raise your voice when no one's listening. Why Why is that I just don't understand what that's about. But get over that. I got over that. And it's it's set me free and worship. And it opened up a whole new realm of worship for us, which which we're still exploring today.Do you want to throw anything in?
Ann Paul 11:04
No, I think that the decision we made then was to worship together for an hour every evening. And those hours. Were really, really precious. There were times when I would just have to lie on the floor of my face. Because the prayer I knew the presence of God had entered the room. And that was just through the TV screen. It's it's a surrender.
Chas Paul 11:31
Yeah.
Ann Paul 11:32
And yeah, yeah.
Chas Paul 11:33
So I had to surrender pride. Because an embarrassment of and seeing the worship like this. So we made the decision. I said, Okay, and let's, let's do this together. Because up until now, it had been my journey. Really, I thought I don't need to be doing this with my wife. So we had a conversation about this. Yeah, we made a policy decision. Lots of decisions. I keep saying that, that we set aside an hour every night, simply to worship along with YouTube. And it just changed everything for us. Yeah, absolutely changed everything for us.
Chris Bright 12:07
Yeah, I'd love for you to be able to describe what that what you feel like that change in you has has been because it's definitely you know, hearing some of your story. And obviously, I've heard this story before. But what do you feel like it's done inside you? Like, what do you feel like has changed in you in those times of worship?
Ann Paul 12:28
For me, it's, it made me aware of the presence of God outside of those worship times. Because it's like in those worship times, where I've been deliberately seeking the presence of God, I've made a connection. So when I've gone about my daily, my daily life outside of that hour, I still feel that connection. because something is bonded, you know how a mother bonds with a child and the father bonds with the child, you know, you you rested, you rest that child on your heart. And I feel that's what that creates a bond. I feel that's what's happened for me in I like, I've got that one now. So when I go outside of it, I'm still aware of the presence of God. It's very tangible for me, it's not not spooky, but it's very tangible.
Chas Paul 13:26
Absolutely, as fast as happening for me, it's an awareness of God's presence has been the tangible presence of God is more real to me now than it's ever been. And it's not just confined to the times of worship or a quiet time or a celebration at church. It stays with you when it's sustained. And it has to be daily sustained. Keep that time up. If that President God I find stays with you. It's also I know it's changed. It's changed some attitudes and me. Yeah, I'm a lot more patient than I used to be. And less critical than I used to be. I realised this first day was smack in the middle of lockdown. We're still in a very strict lockdown. Members times we're still queuing up to get into tescos and such and read all the restrictions and are sitting in the car waiting for him to come out of the out of the store in the car park. And I noticed a young couple pushing that trolley up to the car which was parked in the disabled Bay and they clearly weren't disabled. And they unloaded their shopping so that that one the upgrade away. Well it would have and then they unloaded their shopping into into the back of their car, pushed the trolley into the next day and just left it there. Then she gets they get in the car, and before they close the door. They lent out the car peeled off the rubber gloves and dropped them on the pavement on the road. And then drove off and that just that just really... years ago I would have just been whenever you had months ago would have been so are you you know, I'm going to chase after them and tell them you you bad citizens, you know sort of thing. But instead I just felt love for them. And I said that response in my heart was on man, they don't know that Jesus loves them. And that's when I realised, oh, something's changed in me. Because that's that's not my natural reaction. Yeah, so it's worship has has changed, it's changed me inside has changed, my attitude has changed how I respond to situations and people. It's also it's also become my go to place when, when I've had a bit of a rough day, or I'm feeling a bit of stress, or, you know, it's my go to place I get just points in the day, if it's a stressful day or a busy day, or things are just being rushed and stuff, I get to places where I just think, ah, I need to go and worship because it's become my safe place. If you like my place of reset my place of restore ragging go to and get back, get centred, get grounded again, and get back back in tune, the voice of God is so wonderful to hear. And I think that there's it's a, it comes with a challenge for us all, because I think there's, you know, that the making that time for the presence of God is such an important thing. I'd love to ask about the the change that you started to see in our church, because of it in the church, in our church in Gloucester. Because of you, you started to bring these times of worship, into the kind of prayer meetings that you're running every week, you can just tell us about that a little bit and the change that you're going to see in the in the church. Yeah, so for for 10 years or more. We've been leading prayer in the church, we've been having every Monday night, a prayer meeting in the church, which has been of a particular style, quite active, and now as as as my style of prayer. So that's why it looks like that. That all stops for, for Lockdown and went on to online prayer meetings, which worked for a time. And then we we started asked the question ourselves, what happens after lockdown? How do how does prayer look in our church, after Lockdown? We knew, we just saw her knew it couldn't look the same as it did before something had to change. And then we started on this journey of worship. And then God started to speak to me and said, this is for this is for the churches, not just for you. But I'm doing it in you first because it can't happen through you and tell us happen in you. And so we we chatted about, okay, when prayer comes back, I just felt a real strong conviction that we weren't going to go back to prayer meetings. But we're going to go back to worship meetings. And we really believe that's what God was telling us to do, saying, don't worry about the prayer right now that will, you know, will come that will come. What I want you to do is to worship. And the reason is people need to reconnect with God. That's what God said to me. So people need to reconnect with new people and lead healing, they've become adrift. And they need to reconnect, and they're going to reconnect through worship. It also goes back another backstory years, but three years ago, following our church conference, God spoke very clear to me and he said, I'm going to do a new thing in your church. And the gateway is through worship. I shared that with the leadership, they also this, this confirms what God's saying to us. That was three years ago, totally forgotten about that word. until several months back, I was looking through my text, and I thought, oh, gosh, it's happening now. So we made the decision. As soon as we were able to just start meeting again on a Monday night, and we let everyone know, guys, we're resuming Monday prayer, but it's not prayer. It's worship. And we people arrived, we made a very clear guys. This is not a prayer meeting. This is a worship meeting. I don't want to discourage you from praying, but we're here to worship. And we were very deliberate about that. So we started doing worship sets, worship, worship meetings on a Monday night, led by YouTube, which we didn't know if it would work or not. It worked for us at home. But would that work in a corporate setting? We can just put a worship set on YouTube and would it work? So we very nervously went along to the first one. I picked out a great worship set that we knew everyone would be familiar with and know that most of the songs, press play and I I was in tears within about 15 minutes, 10-15 minutes of that worship said, starting April, I cried all the way through. And at the end, I had to close the meeting. And I struggled to close the meeting because I was in tears. And I said, Guys, I'm just crying because I've been dreaming of this moment for months, were people God's people have gathered together, not to work out strategy, not to put a plan together, not not even to pray, but simply to worship simply to love on Jesus. And that's what we're doing tonight. And it was and it just carried on from there. So every Monday night now, we get together and pray... and worship sorry. And God is still saying the same thing. Yes, we keep asking God is a time, time is a time and he say, No, it's not time to change it, according to worship, continue to worship. It's like God has pressed the big reset button. And calling us back to a place of intimacy away from our busy, busy, busy back into a place of intimacy. And it begins with worship.
Chris Bright 21:07
Yeah, it's been really interesting thing as well, what's been happening in the Worldwide Church recently, as well, you know, there's been a lot of these bands in a maverick city, upper room, Bethel, just just to name a few. There's just really started to emerge that have been very deliberate in, you know, seeking the presence of God. And it feels like God's doing something worldwide at the moment. What What do you think that talk to that kind of, what do you think God's doing at the moment with this?
Ann Paul 21:42
I think he's calling us back into that place of intimacy, where he wants a surrendered people, so he can do what we can't. You know, he's given us all abilities. And we've worked on those abilities. And it's all been good. I mean, take nothing away from from what the church has done in the past decade, but God always moves forward. And new waves come all the time. And I think this is a wave where God is saying, This is my only my personal opinion. I think this is a wave where God is saying, Now, you've done well, and and you've, there's lots happened in your own strength. But now it's me. Now it's going to be seen that it's me, doing it, not you, you know, that change your hustle fat? How he was faced with and we're faced with mighty battles, at this moment in time? Can you tell us what that was? And what what did God say? He said, stand still and see what I'm going to do. But when they lose the doctor battle, but go out like this, and the praises went first didn't know. And as they went first, that enemy was confounded. Because God did it. As the people praised, God did the work. And we can't do, we can't do what God wants to do at the moment. Not in our own strengths. I feel it's like, he's going to do it. As we praise. And we worship, you know, we would just sing in this morning, this is how I fight my battles. This is how I fight my battles! With praise, with worship! And then God does the work. And I think God is saying to the church, let me do the work. You surrender, you worship, you praise.
Chas Paul 23:50
I think that church worldwide has been given an incredible opportunity by by COVID. By lockdown, incredible opportunity that we've had an opportunity to strip back. All the programming, which we need, we need programming, we need strategy, we need all this. But I do believe that the church worldwide certainly the western church, perhaps got bogged down in in in strategy and planning and we became very corporate. And I think COVID locked down has given an opportunity to strip all that back and God saying, Okay, let's start again. This time. It's not based on your strategy or your planning or the programmes. It's based on me, and place of intimacy with me. And out of that God will do is miraculous works just just this morning. I received a text from a good friend of ours, who just sent a text to encourage us in this journey. We're on it and she said she was reading the account of when Jesus goes into the temple overturns the tables. Then it says, My, my house will be a house of prayer, a prayer presence. And then this is after that, for the blind, and the lame are brought, and Jesus healed them all. And it's like Jesus, God has saved my heart, my presence needs to be restored. When my presence is established, miracles will happen, that I firmly believe that if you get people into a worship environment, I believe that there will be times when we won't even have to pray for them just because they're in the presence of God, they will get healed, they will be set free.
Chris Bright 25:42
Yeah, I love that and completely agree. And I remember, you know, I, I grew up going to, to Faith Camp, which is, I think that's just stopped running recently and the person who was running it, Colin Urquhart, is just been promoted to glory. And but that sense of worship and presence of God and pursuing the presence of God was definitely taught to me at an early age, but I know that's certainly not the case for for many people, and they met many of the many people listening to this thinking, Okay, what can I do, you know, as a church leader, to start fostering more times of spontaneous worship, pursuing the presence of God's allowing God to speak to us in those times, what could church leaders start to do?
Chas Paul 26:30
Well, I'll repeat something I said before, it's, it can't happen through you as until it's happened in you. It's just the way God works, it's not going to do something through you that you haven't, you know, has to happen in you first, before it can happen through you. I would encourage church leaders to, first of all, on a very personal level, pursue that presence. Put time aside in your diary every day, to chase after the presence of God. If you're in full time, ministry, employment, then put it into your, into your into your work diary. Scheduled out an hour, every day during your working day, where all your staff know that from 9am to 10am. You are unavailable, you are unreachable. Take that time every day, lock yourself away. Leave your laptop behind the firm behind, you're not there to do sermon prep, you're there simply to worship God. Take that time, put it into your diary, schedule it in your calendar. Everyone knows, during these hours, you are unreachable. And it's non negotiable. If you had an appointment every day, to meet the CEO of your company, or to meet the president or the Prime Minister, you wouldn't let anything intrude on that. How much more with the living God. So it starts I think, with a deliberate decision from us an individual to say, I'm going to do this, I'm going to chase after God, I'm going to put time aside, we did that on a small, smaller scale by saying six till 7pm. Every evening we're going to worship, you know, that. As an employee, as a minister of the gospel, you have the right to do that. I would encourage every any ministry leader, anyone in ministry to Yeah, starts with you make the make that time. For to happen to you first.
Chris Bright 28:27
Yeah, really, really good. Well, as as you know, this is a strategy based podcast in church, we, you know, we, we help with strategy with with churches. And I've been kind of working on this hypothesis, not hypothesis, probably not, probably not a good word. But I've been really started to be aware that I never really kind of put the link together between worship and vision and therefore worship and strategy. But could you just speak into that, and, and why you think that's linked? And on why you think that's, and the importance of that, because I think this is something that we can definitely investigate a little bit more in, because I'm conscious that the two here are linked. And I think that maybe there's something that's new coming where before we've done strategy, but now it's strategy from a place of worship. Yeah. Could you speak to that?
Ann Paul 29:29
That's quite hard, Chris. 'cause I'm certainly for me because I'm not a strategic minded person. But I'm aware that worship is God's strategy.
Chris Bright 29:46
Yeah,
Ann Paul 29:47
He's used it to progress the church, right from the beginning of time, I mean, even in Genesis The account of when, when God creates things, it says at the end of his creation, he says, Wow, that's good. And you know that, that's worship, that's praise. He's the same to to, to himself into Jesus into the Holy Spirit. Hey, just look, we've done that good. And so it's, it's as I think it's as we worship, then, then that creative ideas will drop into, into into your head, did you? Yeah, yeah.
Chas Paul 30:38
I, we, the previous we never sat under the ministry of the previous pastor of One Church was Albert Garner. But I heard that he used to have the saying all the time said that. There are good plans. And there, I've God plans. And we can be very tempted to go for good plans, which which are good plans, but are they God plans? And the only way to know if it's God's plan is to talk to him, and hear from him. And that's what worship does worship. I believe, when we worship in shinsen, it changes the atmosphere in which we live and work. It opens the heavens. And it gives us that direct correspondence, if you like that, it just makes us more sensitive to the voice of God, and to the influence of His Holy Spirit on us. Because we were, we were created to be creative. And God is extremely creative. So if he if God has creative and he wants to create something, yeah, he needs to use us. Yeah. So he wants to put his creative ideas in us. But in order to receive those creative ideas from God, we need to be open to him and worship is, is what does that opens his door? worship opens that opens it up.
Ann Paul 32:00
Yeah.
Chas Paul 32:00
Yeah. Yeah. And I just reminded of the word that God gave me years ago for our churches is I'm going to do a new thing. And you and the key is through worship. It has to be were created to be creative. And worship is the key. You know, what? If some people struggle with worship, then why does God demand our worship? Is He that egotistical? You know, though, He is not like a lovesick teenager saying to their partner, tell me you love me telling me you love me. It's not that God's not egotistical, but God knows that we are, he's created us to be expressive. And when we're expressive, it opens us up. You know, when, when you're expressive towards your husband or your wife, it opens your heart up, it does then good, sure. But it opens your heart up to receive and try to think bigger, then, you know, what should I bang in the oven for dinner? You start to think what, how can What special, something special I can do, and you become more creative? You know, silly example, but I think it works. So I think I think worship opens up a whole bunch of stuff for us, which allows us to be more creative in in what we do for God, and allows us to hear his plans have been created for him in that manner.
Chris Bright 33:27
Brilliant. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. It's been really great just to investigate this and just to hear your story. And I love what God's been doing in you. And I think my prayer for thinking church is that, yeah, we've got to put some plans together. And we're going to do that as best as we can. But we want to do that for a place of going, "We want to genuinely hear what God is saying to us as a church, and then we'll put that into action." And yeah, very much that kind of, you know, we don't want to get man's plans. We want to get what, what God's plans are for the church. And so yeah, I just appreciate your time today. Thank you so much for for taking the time to be with me today. Yeah, thank you so much.
Well, thanks for joining us for this week's show. We'll see you again next week.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
