Synergy Sessions
The landscape of the Church is shifting dramatically across nations and communities. God seems to be streamlining His Church, confronting familiar systems, strategies and areas stagnation. We must respond!
When we think of missionary work, our minds often wander to distant continents. Yet today, many Christian foundations in our Western nations are being challenged daily, and the mission fields on home soil grow ever larger.
To navigate the wild spiritual terrain of this season, we need change! For too long, the Church has focused primarily on raising up two key leadership gifts: teaching and pastoral care. While many teachers and pastors are wonderfully equipped and ready, they need people to disciple!
The question is, how do we shift into "missionary mode" in our own nations? The answer lies in including and activating the fivefold ministry working together in synergy.
But to do this we believe a reformation of the prophetic and apostolic gifts is needed in the mix.
The Synergy Sessions will dive deep into the reactivation of these gifts from Ephesians 4—exploring both how we can do this and what it will look like in the Church today.
- What does healthy prophetic and apostolic ministry actually look like?
- How do they differ from each other?
- How do they work together with evangelists, pastors, and teachers?
Their purpose is to equip believers for every calling - people with healthy and mature character—disciples who represent God’s Kingdom, not just a ministry.
Come and join this important conversation!
Through engaging teaching and thought-provoking interactive discussions with experienced leaders, we will explore how the Church can rise to meet the challenges of this critical moment in history.
Synergy Sessions
Healthy Prophetic
Naomi McKinley (Wildfire Ministries) teaches about ‘Healthy Prophetic’ and shares about hard words, the secret place and character. She also challenges us to receive from the LORD for intercession rather than always for releasing. Then listen to Alan McWilliam (Cairn), Charity Bowman Webb (Streams Creative House, Streams Scotland) and Ruth Kennedy (Church of Scotland) as they comment and there their thoughts and experiences afterwards. Such a rich discussion, enjoy!
Hi, this is Alan McWilliam.
SPEAKER_01:And this is Charity Bowman-Webb.
SPEAKER_00:And we want to welcome you to the Synergy Sessions.
SPEAKER_01:This month, our teaching is by Naomi McKinley on Healthy Prophetic, and there'll be a chat about it afterwards. Enjoy. I was asked to kind of share a little bit about the prophetic. That's my favourite subject. And I thought, what do you share with a bunch of people that's probably heard every talk there ever is to do with the prophetic? I'm just going to share what the Lord spoke to me about and what's been brewing in my heart for like a couple of years and haven't quite formulated and we'll see what God does. So I'm going to read a couple of scriptures to start with. Amos 3, 7-8 It says, A lion has roared, who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken, but who can prophesy? And then also in Isaiah 6, 1-8, and I'm sure you're quite familiar with this. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on the throne, and the train of his robe filled the temple. And they were calling to one another, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty. The whole earth is full of his glory. At the sound of their voices, the doorposts and the thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. Woe to me, I cried, I am ruined, for I am a man of unclean lips. I live among a people of unclean lips and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty. Then one of the seraphims flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he'd taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, See, this has touched your lips. Your guilt has been taken away and your sin atoned for. Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send? And who will go for us? And I said, here I am. Send me. And one of these things I'm thinking about, one of the things I'm quite passionate about is about how do we become mature as prophetic people? How do we move from infancy, from milk, from the basic things to the meat and to walking, not just being people of gifts and being able to prophesy, but to walk in authority and your prophetic gift? How do we, even if you're not prophetic, how do we move from being gifted to walking in authority? and all that God has called you to be. So if you're not that prophetic, which I know that you all are, because ultimately your sons and daughters will prophesy and it's because the Holy Spirit was poured out in all flesh and every human being can hear the voice of the Lord. So every human being, when they release what God has said to them, whether it's in preaching, whether it's in prayer, whether it's in art, whatever it is, you're all prophesying because you're receiving revelation from God and you're releasing it. It's not a special gift for the elite. It's something that is available to every person. That's why everybody can do it because it's ultimately the simplest form of it is hearing the voice of the Lord and releasing that. But how do we move into the maturity? And I read these passages because there's some correlation between them. These are prophets. These are people who God are calling to speak for him. And to prophesy is a real honour. It's a responsibility. But both of these people and both of these encounters, they are connected with the holiness of God. It's about people being undone in the presence of God. And there's a realisation of their humanity, of their frailties. And the fact that in and of their self, they're completely unworthy to stand before the holy God. And it's people who are called to speak for them. I believe that that's the biggest call. that is recognising our position in the place of speaking for God. That we're being entrusted with the counsel, the guidance, the advice that's all rooted in scripture to reveal God's will, to promote spiritual growth and to focus and discern what God's plan and purposes are. And you know the word revelation is, we throw it about so easily. But the real true word revelation means to have your eyes so awakened to truth that you can never live the same way again. And in scripture it says we go from glory to glory to glory. We're always going up a level. We're always seeing more of the Lord. We're always having our eyes opened. And therefore we should always be being transformed to the likeness of Jesus. And so here we see there's this holiness that brings humility. And Amos, it says that we see in Amos, it says that the lion roared. Who shall not fear? The Lord has spoken. Who can prophesy? He's looking for people who will speak and who will be obedient to release what he gives you to say. And it's the same with Isaiah. Who will speak for me? Who will prophesy? Who will be trusted with the mysteries of God? Who will be mature in their prophetic gifts? Who will pursue a life of holiness, being undone over and over and over again as we behold the beautiful Jesus? Do we have the fear of the Lord? It's the beginning of all wisdom. And God always reveals his plans to the prophets. That's what it says in Amos. That he reveals, God has mysteries and he reveals it to the prophets. He always does that. But there's something that those who are trusted as those who take that responsibility really seriously. And I think one of the things as well is that we can often find, If you have a gift of the prophetic, if you're anointed and then if you have the authority and our lips are not clean, what we do has major power. It says in Jeremiah 1, it says that we have the ability to bring down, to uproot, to overthrow and to build and to plant. That's the power of somebody who has the authority to operate in the prophetic, which is why this holy undone-ness. This fear of the Lord, this knowing who we are in comparison to him, it goes hand in hand. That's how we are trusted when we are humble. Lord, I am a man of unclean lips and I live among those people. But there's something beautiful in that Jesus Christ comes and he cleanses our mouth. One of the things I do before I prophesy is I take communion. Because I want to have clean hands and a pure heart before the Lord. It's so important. And I guess just asking the question, has our prophetic practices became quite casual? Sometimes, I don't know, there's been times that I went into prophetic rooms because I've done it over and over and over again. And it just seems like second nature. And I just get into the flow of it. And it's maybe just a little too casual. That's when we start to make mistakes. Me and God have this deal where every so often he lets me get it really, really wrong. And I don't always know when it's going to be, but it's so that I realise there is nothing to do with me and it's everything to do with him. And I have to humble myself and I have to say, I'm sorry, I got that wrong. I remember being in a prophetic room and I'm given this word, I think God's called you to this. It's because I'd registered and they're like, no. And in that moment, you have an option to reframe the whole thing to be a spiritual symbolism, to make it fit for them or to just say, oh, I must have got that wrong. And, you know, for me, the growing in the prophetic community, is actually just not being afraid to get it wrong and own it. Our own pride is the thing that holds us back from the prophetic. That's why to really, truly be a prophetic voice, you must walk with humility. It's non-optional. And that's why the Lord is saying, who can go for me? There's other scriptures that says that God looked and there was nobody. Because he's waiting for seasoned, mature people who walk in the fear of the Lord, who walk in humility and who have radical obedience to him. One of the things I want to look at, and it's something I've been looking at for years, is to do with sonship. And we hear a lot about sonship. I think it's been a revelation we've had for quite a long time. We had the father heart in Toronto. We had sonship. And so I want to look at it a bit more because there's so much more to unpack in sonship. We have this idea in the Jewish culture that when they became 12 years old that they become a man. Do you know there's four stages of Jewish sonship? and scripture in the Jewish culture. In Galatians 4, 1-2 it says, What am I saying? What I am saying is that as long as an heir is underage, he is no different from a slave. Although he owns the whole estate, the heir is subject to the guardians and trustees until the time that is set by their father. Romans 8, 14 to 19 says, For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you receive does not make you slaves so that you live in fear again. Rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Now, if we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may share in his glory. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be received in us. for creation waits an eager expectation for this for the children of god to be revealed and you know there's four there's four stages of sonship there's i wish i had time to do my powerpoint and i'd put it up for you there's neopause which is zero to five year old and that's an infant son and uh that's really just children who are entirely under the care of their guardians they're completely dependent on their parents they don't have any rights they have no authority and they don't have their inheritance and it means that their child by birth but they're just not mature yet And then we have the pedion, which is the young son, the learner. And that's from 5 to 12. And they begin to learn the Torah. They learn the household ways. They're still without authority or legal standing. And it literally means to be one that can't speak maturely. They're immature in speech and understanding. And do you know what? I think a lot of prophetic voices don't tend to get past this. A lot of us. It's myself as well. This speaks to me as well. And then there's the techno. And that's ages 12 plus. And this is the rite of passage. This is the bar mitzvah that we hear about. It's where a boy is formally recognised and accountable for his actions and they can participate in the synagogue and in legal matters. They begin to take on spiritual responsibility and they start to learn the father's business and trade. You see, up until the age of 12, a boy would learn from their mother. And then at the age of 12, they would be taken on by their father and they would learn, they would go to synagogue and they would learn the way of the father's business. And what's really interesting is at the age of 12, Jesus stays at the temple and he says, I am in my father's house because there's a switch and there's a change from being under the covering of his mother to being under the covering of his father. And then there's huios, which is the mature sons. And that's about the age of 30. And this is the father actually chooses a time. It's round about this age, but it's actually the father's time. He chooses. And this is where the son is legally declared by the father as fully mature and able to handle the family's business and inheritance. And what would happen is there was a public declaration that would happen. And it would be when the son was ready to speak as the father speaks. He was about his father's business. And the father would go to the business gates. And at the business gates, there was elders, there was priests, there was politicians, there was business people. And he actually said these words and they might be familiar to you. But he said, here is my son, whom I am well pleased with. he's saying this is my son and what this does is he's communicating to everybody my son's no longer in hiding see between the age of 12 to 30 Jesus was in hiding between the ages of 12 and 30 Jewish boys learned the father's business and the hidden secret place and when they were mature and when they were ready they went to the business gate and they decreed this is my son he knows my business you do business with him you do business with me when he speaks it's as if I'm speaking and he passes on this authority to operate in the business that he has nurtured them in for so many years and this is what happens with Jesus at his baptism the heavens open at the gate of salvation what was that the gate was repent for the forgiveness of sins and be baptised. And at that gate, the entry point of the kingdom, that is when the heavens open and the Father declares, here is my Son, whom I am well pleased. He is ready. He has authority. When you see him, you see me. When he speaks, I speak. What he does, I do. He's an exact replication of myself. And so it puts a different spin on, and it actually is the real word for mature son, that it says that all of creation is waiting and groaning for the revealing of the sons of God. Actually, the word is mature sons. And what they used to call this ceremony was, it was the revealing. It was, this is the revealing of the son that had been hidden. All of creation is waiting and groaning for the revealing of the mature sons of God. And I mean women as well. The reason I say sons is because they're inheritors. Neither male or female. We're all sons, male or female. The men get to be the bride. I think fair's fair. You know, we're sons. We're inheritors of the promise. For as many are led by the Spirit of God, they are the mature sons of God. Where are we at? You see, we often think that we have an issue and we're not seeing God move. We're not seeing God's glory being poured out because we keep crying and crying or there's something in the spirit that's not quite getting through. And I would think it's actually more challenging to believe that it's a discipleship issue. Where people who are in authority, that feel intimidated and want to keep their place and don't want to be overtaken, try to keep the other people down so that they can stay elevated. Discipleship. Jesus raised up the disciples and then he released them to do greater things than he done. But he waited till they were ready. Maybe you're in a season where you're being hidden. Maybe you're not ready. Maybe you're still learning. I remember Alan would go out and he would go and worship everywhere. And at one point I was a bit resentful. I'm like, how does he get to have all the fun? And I'm at home with the kids. This sucks. This is not what we talked about before we get married. And then you have kids and you realise, oh, that doesn't work. It doesn't work. And I remember speaking to a minister's wife and she says, what's your calling? I says, I've no clue. I've not got a clue. I said, I don't really know what I'm called to do. And she says, well, whenever you don't know what you're calling is... Your call is to minister to Jesus. And that's the greatest calling anybody can have. And so Alan would go and he'd leave and I would be doing the laundry, putting the kids to bed and cleaning up the house. And I chose, this is my time to minister to Jesus. And I don't know, sometimes you get, I remember I was ministering with Stacey and it was at a boot camp and she's like, every prophet has the moment where God strikes them and says, you're called to be a prophet. When was yours? And I says, when I was doing the dishes, when I was doing the laundry, and actually I didn't really know. I says, for me, I just learned to hear and recognize God's voice. My sheep will know my voice. And he trains us in the secret place because it's easier to hear him. And Moses, you know, for Moses, he saw the glory. He saw the fire at the burning bush. He saw the clouds of fire, the pillar of fire and cloud. He struck the rock, the Dead Sea opened as well. And yet the thing he longed for more than glory is that he could see his face. You see, Jesus, well, Jesus God, you know, the Lord, the Lord didn't speak to the people as a whole. It was only the secret face-to-face where God spoke to Moses as somebody speaks with a friend. The glory is great, but the face-to-face is greater. The presence of God and God is, you know, even after Jesus receives this authority, he's still tested. He's tested in the wilderness. And some people have interpreted where the enemy says to Jesus, if you are the son of God, to be a questioning of his sonship. He's not questioning his sonship. Jesus had no doubt that he was the son of God. The heavens just opened. He just had this great revealing. He's saying, if you are the son of God, use this newfound authority you have for selfish motives. Turn the stone to bread because you're hungry. Fall down and worship me and I'll give you power. And fall down and see if the Lord will come and catch you. You see, even as mature people, we are continually being tested on the motivation of our heart because we can still have authority, but we can have wrong motives. And it gets us into trouble. But this testing, he was given the authority, tested to see if he would abuse it. And when he passed the test, it says that he went from that place and he'd done signs, wonders and miracles. That he walked in the authority that God gave him. You see, I think the world is desperate for people like that. The world is desperate for us to step up and not be relying on a church service, to not rely on the glory encounter, to not rely on the feelings and on the prophetic word. They're fabulous. The glory for Moses was fabulous. But if that's all you've got, it can be a little bit like, well, we've done this and we saw this and we saw that, but he didn't know you. To know God. Is the greatest calling you'll ever have. If you want to be a prophet. Listen to Jesus. Practice his presence. There is no shortcuts. Everybody wants shortcuts to the anointing. There ain't no shortcuts to the anointing. You have to spend time with the anointed one. You have to give yourself. And usually there comes a time of crushing and pressing. If you're going through that right now. Be encouraged. Because. Olives have to be crushed to release oil. And so, yeah, I just, I don't have much more to share with you other than solid food is good for the mature. Who by consent use and have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. Maturity has the spirit of discernment and that's what Jesus displayed and the temptation in the wilderness, a discernment between good and evil because the enemy used scripture too. We often think that it was only Jesus that said it is written. Jesus was responding to the devil who was quoting scriptures to him and then he said it is written. What was the difference? The difference was Jesus knew the heart of his father. He knew the meaning and what God had called and what was on the Father's heart. You see, we can take scripture and we can use that to appease ourself or to kind of make ourself feel like we're doing the right thing because it's comfortable and it's good. Most times it's uncomfortable what God calls us to. We're not called to comfort. I know, it'd be really good, wouldn't it? If we were called to comfort, I'd still be in California. We're not called to a comfortable life. We're called to a holy life. As a mature son and daughter set apart, maturity discerns. 1 John 4 says, Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone into the world. A lot of people say they're prophets, but they're not. And do you know the difference? Is that they might have started off with the gifting and the calling, but when they got to that wilderness, they chose the selfish motive and the selfish ambition. And that's where they operate from. I don't want to be like that. That's why the holiness, the fear of the Lord, the humility is what stops us from being deceived. It keeps us in the way, the path of the life, way, the truth and the life. It's narrow. It's not popular. People don't want to walk on it because it's hard, because it's not about you. It's about him. Maturity discerns, is this from God? Is it for now? Is it for intercession or proclamation? You know, Jesus at the well, the woman at the well says, come and meet the man who knew everything I ever did. It was interesting because he never told her everything she ever did. He only told her the thing that was going to unlock her heart. So when we're prophesying, do we feel the need to prophesy everything we see? Or do we stop and say, God, what is going to unlock this person's heart? Because, you know, we can have, if it's about us, we can go in and say, oh, well, I figured this out. I've seen the mystery. I've seen all this stuff. And I'm going to tell you, but actually that's not done in love. That's selfish. And you're just a big noise. And actually the whole point of giving a word to the Lord is that you want the other person to receive it. And if that means you see sexual sin, what does that look like? How can they receive that? The Lord's called you to purity. But the enemy keeps wanting to come and take that from you. But the Lord says you are holy and you are set apart. And he's calling you up to a new space of holiness and purity in your life. Is that not a way somebody can receive a hard word? Do we stop and do we discern what is going to unlock their heart? What manifests the love of God? Because prophets say we are the middle person. We are not the significant person. God is and they are. Where there is a prophet among you, I the Lord reveal myself to them in visions I speak to them in dreams but this is not true of my servant Moses he is faithful in all my house I speak with him face to face dreams and visions are great but face to face is better For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when completeness comes through maturity, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child. I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the childish things behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror. Then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall fully know as I am known. We get to see Jesus face to face, like right now. And as the now and the not yet, of course we're not physically going to see Jesus face to face, but as a sign of the age to come, the Lord comes and he speaks to us face to face and he reveals more of who he is. We shall see face to face, now I know in part, but then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. Prophetic revelation is incomplete, it's layered, it's symbolic. As mature people of the prophetic we carry mystery. But can we hold that without rushing to interpret everything? And to release things prematurely. Can we steward mystery faithfully? Quite often as soon as something's revealed. We feel the need to just release it. Because that's what we think we're supposed to do. How do we sit with the weight of revelation? And say God what do I do with this? And the gift of authority. Comes. You know many people. Many prophets are raised in the place of intercession, being people in the wall, watchers in the wall. Jeremiah, the Lord reached out and touched my mouth. See, I have appointed you over nations to uproot, tear down, destroy, overthrow and to build and plant. I looked for someone among them who would build up the wall. and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so that I would not have to destroy it. But I found no one. Who among us is mature? I'm not mature yet. Why? Because I'm not seeing signs, wonders, miracles and all those things following me. I desire it, but I'm not there. Nowhere near it. That's my desire, my prayer is God, how do I become mature? Because the world is desperate. It's groaning and crying out, where's the mature sons? Where's the mature sons that will be about their father's business and operate in authority and integrity and purity and humility? I want to be one of those people. I want to say, here I am. I still say that, but I make a lot of mistakes. And the great thing is that God still uses us. It says in the scripture I read before that God actually doesn't say anything except through telling his prophets first. And it says that, you know, that they're really not that great. But he's going to use them anyway. That's the good news. We don't have to be perfect. But there is a journey of maturity and character. gifting and we've all heard this gifting is without character you can't use that you can't or you can but it's going to be really messy for you and that's what the secret space is about it's the training in that place Are we carrying the burdens of the Lord? His burdens easy, his yoke is light. It doesn't mean that what we're carrying is an easy thing to carry. It's just his grace and his walking beside us and sync with us means that he's carrying it with us. Is our prophetic life driven by the ache of God's heart? Not the thrill of being heard. mature prophetic people steward their burdens that God's given them privately before releasing the words publicly. And so I guess I just want to finish by just challenging us about where we're approaching the call super casual. Listen, I'm not saying there's not a joy. I love nothing more than when the Lord uses me. You know, like when you hear testimonies of other people doing stuff, it's kind of cool, right? But when God uses you to do something, it builds an altar in your heart. It says when... Moses was up the mountain and they overcame the Amalekites. He says tell Joshua to build an altar and call it the Lord is my banner so that generations would remember what had happened here. When we overcome and when we see God move it creates an altar in our heart and so it means that we always remember the things that God done in and through us. So it's great to hear of somebody being healed but you'll never forget the time you laid hands on somebody and saw them healed. It's great to give a prophetic word or to hear them being given by a prophet, but you don't forget when God reveals something so crazy to you that you could never have figured that out in your own mind and you release it to somebody. You don't forget those things. They create an altar. We're called to be mature and the altar actually says to the next generation or it says to you the next time, God done that before, he's going to do that again. I know it. I remember when God done that. That's why testimony is a spirit of prophecy because we remember what he done and we're like, we've got this. Well, he's got it and he uses us. And also just want to challenge maybe in our own secret place as a way of exercising some of this is to ask the Lord. To give you a burden. A word from his heart to yours. Not for you to release publicly, but for you to intercede over. For you to pray in the secret place and practice and ask for more revelation. Ask him to show you more. Ask him for more strategy and prayer in that hidden secret place where you're building up the equity of trust with the Father. commit to carrying it in a place faithfully in the private secret place I want to finish and then we'll move back into worship I want to finish with just I know that sounds really old fashioned but I've just got right into them a little bit of a benediction so basically a decree over you may you walk as sons and daughters Not only gifted, but mature. Trusted with the Father's heart. May the fear of the Lord mark your hearing. The weight of heaven shape your words. The burden of God guide your silence. May you no longer be driven by the need to speak, but by the call to carry. Not chasing platforms, but hosting his presence. And may the Father bring you to the gate and declare over you in the spirit, this is my beloved child, this is my son in whom I am well pleased. Go, not just as prophets who see and speak, but as mature sons who steward and serve, in power and wisdom and in love, for creation is waiting. And your revealing has only just begun. Amen.
SPEAKER_00:Well, hello and welcome to this episode of the Synergy podcast. The Synergy session is great to be with you. My name is Alan McGaugham and I am delighted to have with me Charity and Ruth. Hello, Charity.
SPEAKER_01:Hello.
SPEAKER_00:How are you today?
SPEAKER_01:I'm excellent, thank you.
SPEAKER_00:And Ruth, how are you?
SPEAKER_01:Hello, hello. Yes, I am rich and abundantly blessed, as we all are, are we not? Indeed.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, that sounds very enthusiastic. That's great. Thank you. So a word of introduction to myself, and then I'll ask the others to introduce themselves. My name, as I say, is Alan McWilliam, and I lead the Cairn team. And we've been involved in kind of trying to encourage people to think about the fivefold ministry and how it actually works together and how that creates this beautiful synergy in the kingdom of God as God releases more and more of his people into different aspects of the ministry that he's called in this too. So my gifting predominantly would be the apostolic with the secondary element of being the evangelistic one as well. So Charity, what about you?
SPEAKER_01:I lead... Streams Creative House and I also co-lead Streams Scotland which are both part of Streams Ministries International and so I would say primarily the gifting I carry would be it's almost 50-50 apostolic and prophetic when I've done the Cairn tests which is interesting. So Streams Creative House really believes that God has placed a creative DNA in every single person and the the teaching that we go after is what does that really look like? It is not just for the arts, but it certainly includes them. And it's a really important part of how God communicates to us through his language as the creator. And Streams Scotland, much like Streams Ministries, we teach people in healthy prophetic, how to nurture their prophetic gift, the value of the prophetic, and how that works with all the other components of God's church. So that's a little bit of that.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you, Charity. And Ruth, what about you?
SPEAKER_01:Mine might be a little bit shorter or a messier of a nutshell than that. That was fabulous to hear, Charlie. So yeah, I'm Ruth Kennedy. I'm a minister with the Church of Scotland and I currently work for Faith Action in the National Office and our mission support team as the digital ministries advisor. So everything online and really that's about enabling and equipping the whole people of God to be alive and vividly engaged with the digital world and reaching out for those that are way beyond our buildings, just with good ministry and ways to stop the scroll and stop and think about God and go, ah, yes. There is Jesus walking amongst us. So yeah, that's what I'm doing. In terms of five-fold ministry, do you know what's funny? In that Ephesians verse where we talk about the five-folds that it comes from, I loved that verse way before I was involved in any kind of church leadership or training or anything to do with that. And it took my pastor to come alongside me and say, Ruth, do you know why you like that verse? And I go, no, I have no idea. Why do I like this verse that talks about, oh, you know, the gifts that God gave the apostle, the prophet the evangelist, the teacher and the shepherd. And he says, because you're right there in it. This is about you and how you are going to be able to function well for God. So I've just, I've loved it from then. And ever since then, so that was, oh, that must have been about 30 years ago. I've just really delved into kind of gift analysis and different seasons because I've been aware of seasons, life change. And even in all the different seasons, I've found that the apostolic, the prophetic and the evangelistic are, they kind of hover all around together and predominantly are in this season, kind of predominantly I'll kind of lead in my thinking in terms of the apostolic and then the prophetic. They're very, very close. And what a joy it is to have, you know, different ways of thinking about stuff.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. And I think that one of the beautiful things there is that you touched on and this is really what the kind of the whole point of us doing these chats are in the kind of the fivefold ministries is it's actually it's about everybody it's about every member of the body of Christ being mobilized into the mission and ministry that God has got for them and that everybody has a call everybody has a role everyone has a place to play and actually if we can just discover who we are and how God has shaped us then that just that releases us really into the kind of into the opportunities that God has given to us and it really I think the a lot of the you know a lot of the beauty of this thing is that I see I love when people kind of do the five fold ministry kind of stuff and it comes back and they kind of go oh I'm a whatever it was and then they'll sort of say and you know I always knew that that's actually what people have said to me I've always said you know I was this that or the next thing but there's an energy that's released and an encouragement and a real sort of sense of oh I now begin to understand how I fit into the body of Christ and how I can play my part and I just love that so that's That for me is one of the reasons why we've spent some time talking about these things. So great. Good. Well, this is who we are. And thank you for being here. Our intention today is really to kind of take some time to reflect on the teaching that Naomi McKinley has done for us. Great teach that she did. And I suppose for me, I would just summarize by sort of saying it was a call to grow in maturity and the prophetic by pursuing intimacy with the face of God. So that was really kind of, you know, her thing. And we were, you know, as we go through to this chat, obviously we want to kind of touch on different things that Naomi said. But I want to just start, Ruth, by asking you the question about just where have you seen the best examples of mature prophetic ministry that, you know, and how has it impacted you? You know, so just tell us about, give us some examples of places you've seen it and in terms of mature prophetic?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yes. What a great question. It gets you delving through your memories and all those encounters and experiences with God, really rich things. And, you know, there's a couple of incidents and incidents, events, people, ministries, organisations, churches that really come to mind on this. And some of them have been really impactful on me as a self in my own personal growth. So whether that was... there was a ministry that brought lots of different churches together, different denominations across the central belt and it was linked in with Bethel and they brought over Ahab a number of years ago, a recognised person carrying a prophetic gifting at the time. It must have been around at about 10 years ago and this chap he just had a prophetic word from the Lord it was a really kind of tight circle we'd been worshipping we trusted one another and he was trusted in the midst and he spoke and said about me having a kind of significant voice on the internet now at the time there was nothing like that on the radar right and I kind of went Okay, well, I'm going to put that into prayer. That's fantastic. And then, you know, the last two years, my whole ministry that God moved me into has been digital ministry, everything online. So I just, and that has taken years to be fulfilled. But he wasn't fussed about getting feedback from me saying, oh, by the way, you were spot on eight years later. He just gave everything. And my duty as a receiver was to take that word and to pray over it. And when the Holy Spirit brought it back to remembrance, to keep praying on it. And that's what I did. You know, about four years ago, I was saying, what is that word all about? So that was really, really helpful. And it was done in a particular environment, particular context. I really want to give honour to Helen and Stephen Anderson. that really champions and pioneered the healing rooms. Now, I know that they are predominantly known for a healing ministry, but actually in their training for the healing rooms, what they do is they really equip and sharpen the prophetic anointings and giftings on people as well. So you are really quickened to hear the Holy Spirit's voice and be confident and assured that you are hearing the Holy Spirit's voice and not to give it glibly, but actually to sit with it. That's what Naomi was saying as well about you don't just give it away. You sit sometimes with that revelation. But being really particular for the people that you are in amongst and amidst. And for myself, I took that and I practiced it, if that's the right word in that sense, and gone after words of knowledge. that would bring healing and release in others, whether that has been ears being healed or shoulders being healed or brain tumours not having the massive effect that they might have had because we've shared that word of knowledge in a church setting and we've prayed. So that has been a really good example of healthy prophetic and how you receive training and then perhaps how you give. And the last example that I'd love to give is one that, again, it took me from student to teacher, kind of leader, equipper, enabler on this one. And it was with a pastor and she took me under her wing and she got me on the floor of the prayer room. And I wore out my knees and so many pairs of jeans because we were interceding. And it was the most phenomenal time of intercession that I have ever experienced. And we prayed in the Spirit, but she had this understanding of speaking and praying in tongues in a way that was really, really profound and mature. So she was able to discern from the Holy Spirit where a leading in a group of people that are all praying in tongues, where that group, that leading may well be going, And for us all to then follow. And it was like she would marshal her troops in the Spirit. It was absolutely phenomenal to be part of. And within all of that, she taught us how to listen to the Holy Spirit when you are praying and to move with him. And then when we were doing that, we would see incredible visions and hear songs and sing songs and give words that were really prophesying into places that we were not physically there. So whether that be corridors of power and then what we would see the next week. was those prayers fulfilled and enacted. I mean, it was absolutely incredible. And when Naomi talks about prophetic is raised from the place of intercession, 100% is. If you, if we cannot sit with the Holy Spirit and listen and be in that secret place and it's just the two of us and you know the voice and you know what's coming or you see or you hear or you sense, if that's not our place of learning, then I would question that authenticity because we need to have that intimacy. And the other thing about intercession, which was a really great teacher and example of healthy prophetic ministry that I then shared because I went on and then led that group of intercessory prayers, was that you've got to come in so humble. You've got to come in so humble to listen and to know and to respond with knowing who you're responding to in terms of the sovereignty of God. So yeah, they would be off the top of my head. Those would be absolutely three fantastic examples of really healthy prophetic ministry that I have taken and used in places where I can minister myself and also hope to have equipped others.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and the great thing about that is that the range of examples that you've given actually are not just personal transformation, although that was part of it, but it's actually the impact it's had in other places for this in terms of, as you say, in terms of kind of the prophetic stuff impacting how you pray and therefore impacting kind of the wider system. culture and society as well and so there's something about the kind of that but also just picking up on the kind of the thing of you know the humility piece at the end you know that actually the maturity stuff is as we know really kind of based on that kind of the depth of character and the engagement with God which again Naomi kind of really kind of made very clear now I'm going to ask Charity good examples of mature prophetic that you've seen but I'm sure that you could rattle off like a dozen so maybe you could kind of like restrict yourself to your top one or two
SPEAKER_01:yeah I think um I mean, I think about this a lot, obviously. I see, you know, being in prophetic ministry for a couple of decades now, I've seen really good examples of the prophetic. I've seen really bad examples of the prophetic. And I think I am really grateful for streams. There's a reason I've been with streams for 25 years or I would have gone somewhere else is that I think John Paul Jackson, who wrote The Art of Hearing God, I mean, that really changed my life in the year 2000 and the sort of integrity of the teaching in raising up prophetic gifting, it still stands today as producing some of the most humble, in some of the most gifted people, you know, prophetically that I've seen in our Streams family, not just in the UK and Scotland, but in all the different countries where Streams still operates. There's just a real sense of authenticity And I think the reason is we weren't trained to look for stages, build platforms, make it about us, get as many likes as possible. So as we've moved into more of that kind of era and the prophetic, that's really grated on me. I found that really difficult in the last, you know, especially sort of seven years, I would have said, as you've seen the prophetic rise into that era. But thankfully, God is now dealing with a lot of that stuff because it kind of flew in the face of examples I saw. Obviously with John Paul back in the day, but then with the new leader of streams who succeeded him, John Thomas, who has been a really good friend of mine for 10 years. What I've seen in John is continue to model not being a big cheese. So there was something Naomi said that was so important. You know, when you give a prophetic word to somebody, it's not about you. It's about God, and it's about the other person, and you get to be the middle person. So however you present, I think the way I was trained that stands so true, I think, is that the humility that you mentioned, Ruth, it's like check your heart, check your motive, because as prophetic gifting matures or increases, You can hear so much more than you're often given permission to say. And I've heard people being given prophetic words where far too much is said and the receivers had a very embarrassing or excruciating experience that puts them off for life. I've heard that far too often. Whereas in the opposite end of the scale, if the deliverer of the word is humble, is actually really trying to find the heart of Jesus and the spirit of Jesus for that person, then the delivery and the impact are completely different. And it's a really beautiful thing. And I think what you just described, Ruth, and I'm sure Alan's had this, is to be on the other end of that, kind of receiving that kind of prophecy that's powerful, but given with a correct delivery, a godly delivery. can just be completely life-changing. And I've had lots of prophecies like that that have blown me away since I've been a young Christian across the years that spoke way ahead of where I was then. And like you say, Ruth, you know, you would put them on the shelf, you would dust them off, you would keep praying them through. The Spirit would say, pick that one up again. And then 10 years later, you're like, wow, this is that. But it encouraged you. And so the The other examples I've seen I really want to give honor to are a couple that really raised me in this in Scotland, as we're really trying to address sort of the UK home ground in this as well, would be Rick and Cindy Hayes. And what they modeled was, intercession but teaching and such a heart to raise up others rather than try and always be the ones that had the big word on the big platform but when God asked them to they could step up and into but actually I watched them they kind of raised me for years and I knew them I still do behind the scenes and they modeled family they modeled character we were always drummed into us from streams character over gifting because character is the thing that holds us, keeps us humble, we will be able to protect the gifting if we actually go after nurturing our character more than just developing gifting. And we could see examples of why that's important all over the world right now in prophetic ministry, that if you lift up gifting before character, horrible things happen. People get hurt and people don't just topple off their self-appointed podiums or whatever. They tend to hurt the sheep with them, which I find heartbreaking as a prophetic leader. I hate to see that. And I love, so to me, 25 years later, what I learned that first time I took the art here in God is still so key today. Character over gifting, learning and hiddenness and humility, never run ahead of the Holy Spirit. Check your heart. What's your motive? Why do you want to be in prophetic ministry? And just to end, there was something lovely that a phrase Naomi had when she said, you know, what you should be asking is not, Lord, show me everything. And then I can tell them what they had for breakfast and lunch and the names of their kids. And I am going to look amazing. I'm paraphrasing really. But she said, I should be asking, what is the key to open their heart? It's not about you. It's not about embarrassing them. And I know we're going to go on to difficult words, and that would be a really good lead up to that. What is the key to open their heart, to hear from God, to receive an encounter with God that will be transformational? And that's the pure, you know, the pureness of the prophetic, the power of it.
SPEAKER_00:Well, we're going to get onto that in a minute or two, but let me just ask another kind of thing about growing. We've sort of given examples of good examples of the mature generation, prophetic but you know how I suppose how do you get there you know what are the things that we need to kind of put in place to really kind of to move people from into maturity within the kind of prophetic gifting again a charity I mean obviously you've touched on a number of these things in terms of training and so on but is there anything else that you think is really going to be that we need to reflect on
SPEAKER_01:There's a really good, amazing kind of example that I was given. Again, it's from the Art of Hearing God course, but this stuck with me. Because when I took the Art of Hearing God course, I was barely saved. I was like two years baby Christian. So I hadn't got a clue what he was talking about. But things would stick in my spirit that I would, you know, unfold with God. And this to me is still one of the best. So there's an example of private victories versus public victories. And this is so perfect for growing character. And if you imagine a huge concrete platform, really solid, like the size of a stage, and concrete is made up of sand. So what we were taught is that, you know, everybody... Well, everybody's got a bit of want in them that, I've got a gift and I just need a public platform. I need to just lead a group, to lead a house group, to teach others, just give me a microphone or whatever, or whatever stage you're at. And actually... when you're pocked up in any kind of public ministry, there will be opposition that comes with that. And the enemy will not just sort of sit back and go, sure, just release holiness and encouragement and all that kind of stuff, edification. He will oppose that. But how do you build that sense of humility? How do you build that character? How do you build that concrete platform that will hold you up when God will pop you up and then be happy to go back into hiddenness. And all those grains of sand he called private victories. So what are the things that God asks you to do when no one is looking? The little things, pick up the towel off the bathroom floor, make your husband or wife a cup of tea, help an old lady across the street, you know, pick up stuff behind you, just those tiny things that the only person really watching is God or maybe one other person. And he said that, all those hundreds and thousands of little private victories, they develop maturity and character and humility and quite happy to be hidden and spend loads of time in that hidden place with God. And then when you're public, you've got much less chance of coming through the wrong motive, the wrong want, the soul needs, and you're much more likely to operate in the spirit and therefore be protected and protected. and other people are protected from you as well.
SPEAKER_00:As I think about this question about how can we actually help people to grow into maturity in the prophetic, one of the issues I think that there are within the context that we live in in Scotland is that we're living through this season of transition as a church where actually the settled, gathered kind of pattern of church that we've had for centuries and centuries through Christendom is really kind of transitioning now into a space beyond that. And actually, most of the kind of gifting that has actually been cultivated in terms of leadership around the kind of fivefold has really been around the shepherd teacher. But there hasn't been a context in which people can really develop and mature in terms of the absolute prophetic and evangelistic. And I think that probably, I think that probably for me, one of the things I kind of recognised was, I mean, I was, you know, I've been a Church of Scotland minister for 31 years or something like that, a long time now. But I remember kind of coming through the process. I remember it took seven years. I had to do all sorts of, you know, theological reflection training and placements and then 18 months of probation, you know, and all sorts of things. And all of that time was actually a time where I basically just was awful at things. I mean, I was really, I preached for a far too long. I had like, I remember once having a kind of sermon where I preached, where I actually put, every sort of phrase I had was on a card. I think I had 72 cards and I just kind of kept on going through them. And I'm fairly sure, because Diane was there, my wife was there, and I'm fairly sure that she kind of, she was rolling her eyes and kind of like trying to kind of catch my attention and to sort of say, would you please stop doing that? That's awful. Anyway, so I know that that was a period where I was able to make a mess. You know, I was able to go through the stages of growth and the gifting in terms of teaching. Now, whatever you think of my teaching now, I don't really care. But the point is that I actually had years and years and years of being told, you know, what to do and how to actually kind of grow in the thing. But I had the space as well to be nurtured in the thing. And I was encouraged. I was coached. I was mentored. I was, you know, I had, you know, I did have people giving me feedback, you know, all of that kind of stuff. And actually, that's how you grow in the teaching gift. That's how you grow in terms of knowing how to pastor a church and so on but where is that in the apostolic prophetic and evangelistic where's the space for that where's the because I think certainly for me I know probably it's probably more obvious in I was going to say it's more obvious than the prophetic and the evangelistic folks that I know rather than the apostolic. But what I was going to say is how easily offended people are by these gifts and how often they then close them down because they make a mess and they cause difficulty, etc. Which is true. Of course it's true. Because just like me, when I was learning to teach, I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I had a go at the thing and I stumbled and I fell and I did all sorts of stupid things. And actually, eventually, I kind of moved into a place where I became, you know, competent at the thing. And I think the problem about it is that, you know, if we think about, you know, some of the greatest challenges of kind of specific, we think about maturity and the prophetic, where are those spaces? Do you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I was just thinking, I think part of the problem and one of the challenges we've got within that in terms of creating the spaces for the prophetic to grow and to kind of have that safe place is the fact that so much is pushed through social media. So all those wee unseen things that Charity you were talking about, we're fighting this culture that says, share it, shout about you, make you great, ego, ego. And everything in me is going, yuck, let's not, or I fall into the trap and it's out and it's gone. We all get pulled into it, but it's definitely one of those challenges is having that shortcut to success.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:success in inverted commas because I know we're on audio and not visual but it is it's having that shortcut and that's one of the biggest challenges to create in that space because I think when you start looking at the prophetic when you start realizing actually this is the way that you are hearing from God in a really kind of the that's your dominant way you think that it's really important to get out and share it but that feeds into that whole narcissistic egotistical part of society we've got and unfortunately we can fall into that real flesh pool that's selfish ambition and that you know you kind of think right how do we how are we creating the space to to ensure that the prophetic's growing healthily and maturing well without falling into those traps. That's why one of the reasons these podcasts are so important and we really want you to go and share it with others is because we are talking about those areas and we are equipping each other to create those spaces where we're holding a safe place to say, we're going to show the way of humility. We're going to show the way of character. We're going to take you on this path where you are not up and shouting on any kind of social media platform or big main platform as your goal the goal as you're saying charity it should be to unlock it's to bring healing wholeness release freedom and that goes through and then takes forward the kingdom doesn't it and we see you know kingdom transformation um so definitely i think there's there really is that battle um you know that spiritual battle that we've got where the culture is definitely pushing back against everything that's at the true heart of the prophetic
SPEAKER_00:And the thing that protects you from that, though, is actually having healthy, accountable relationships with people who you're in community with. One of the most amazing kind of things I've ever seen, one of my friends, Iris Hall, who's now passed to glory, but was part of the church that we were part of in Glasgow for years. I remember her kind of going to the Art of Healing God years and years ago, and she just got lots and lots of revelations. So she'd had tons of stuff, and she'd write it down on a piece of paper, and she bring these pieces of paper. And it was all unicorns and rainbows as far as I was concerned. I mean, it was like, wow, flipping heck, what were you talking about? And it was helpful. There were some things that were just like really, really good, very helpful. But do you know what she did? Well, I was encouraged as the kind of person she was bringing it to by someone from Streams. It was Rick, actually. Rick Hayes had said this to me. Get her to write everything down. Don't let her share anything in public for six months. to see whether or not she has the willingness to actually be accountable in that. And actually encourage her to take it into prayer and to come back, not just simply with the revelation, but the interpretation and the application. And as she brings more and more of the application from what she gets, then you can release the thing back into the public space. hugely helpful and she followed that through and her gifting just deepened and became much more rich and beautiful and powerful actually and when she spoke she spoke with such an authority after that because actually she'd gone through the process and I suppose really what I'm saying is if we want to kind of get to the place where we have maturity and the prophetic it's those kinds of accountable relationships and dynamic kind of uh spaces of living in community where actually you you know that you're going to be held accountable you know that people are going to ask questions are going to push you uh and and see how you respond well that that allows me then to kind of transition and sort of move into um The question, I suppose, for you, Charity, which is, Naomi did talk about, you know, what happens when you get difficult words? What happens when you get revelation, which is not easy? And I suppose we would just love to kind of hear, I'd love to hear from you, just how do you deal with those situations? You know, when you do get challenging or difficult words, and how do you process that? How do you kind of develop into that space where you're able to use those, where you're able to, to take them and then give them in a healthy way?
SPEAKER_01:It's a really good question. And so is everything you guys were saying before about having those spaces to nurture people because difficult words, really, God wouldn't give a really difficult word to a whole church or a leader through somebody who was just starting out in the prophetic gift. And that's something that's been really helpful again with the streams training is just think about, you know, when people bring words is teach them, write them down, pray them through. What's your motive for giving them? So at times when God's given me challenging words, I can think of several times, different church communities, South Africa, America were a couple of ones last year. And it's how you say it. Everything, first you check your heart posture. What's your motive for saying it? Usually this is a real fear of God moment for me. You should really feel the fear of the Lord. Like you don't want to give a difficult word. We should never want to give one. But if the Lord is wanting to use you to help that community turn a corner, make a response, take a breath, see an issue, then you really need to be, you know, carrying that fear of the Lord. Right, God, I will do this because you asked me to. The second thing is like, how do you present that? And Naomi touched on that. You know, you'll probably see or hear a lot more than you would deliver. So what do you need to deliver and what do you not? What is for prayer, for you to pray? And also, what is your favor? That's another thing that I've learned. I learned through early teachings of John Paul. What is your favor? Sometimes people have come to me and said, oh, I've got this big word and it's to tell this person or this church. I just think, and I'll go, really, what's your relationship with them? What's your favor with them? Oh, I don't know them. They don't know me. So, well, it's highly unlikely that that God is giving you a very difficult corrective word for them. So do you have favor with those people? Do you have a heart for those people? Are you willing to pray for them? Are you willing to walk with them after you've given the word? Are you willing to take responsibility? And I think I liked what you touched on, Ruth. There has been a real change that's come against the prophetic because I can remember a day when I was being raised up in the prophetic in Scotland, there was a lot more healthy nurturing of the prophetic in the local church It was a lot more widespread. And then suddenly we came into this era of platforms and egotism and narcissism. And it has come hard and fast against the prophetic, you know, amongst other areas of the church. But the prophetic, I mean, wow, what a change. which has been really difficult to watch, but it's pushed Healthy Prophetic back. So then, you know, difficult words are now being issued right, left and centre on, you know, YouTube or whatever platform. And actually, amongst those of us who are in prophetic ministry behind the scenes who are very concerned about this, we would say, really? Are these all true hard words? Do they all need said? What is the motive? Because some of them are just tagged with a salacious title to be clickbait. And these are the moments, I think, where we are losing holiness in the motive in the church. And actually, a lot of people are beginning to just tune out with the prophetic, difficult words, corrective words, even the good stuff, because of all the white noise and the lack of the fear of the Lord on difficult words. just being used to pump up another ministry, catch another attention, draw another crowd of drama seekers. And we're awful needing to really reset the prophetic back to that plumb line. What's your favor? How are you invested in the people you're giving the word? How much are you praying for the people? How much are you spending time with those people if God asks you to give a very difficult word? So holiness, maturity, Walking the long journey of maturing and this and the prophetic before I believe people are asking it. Very difficult words.
SPEAKER_00:Ruth, have you ever had to give a difficult word? Have you ever had stuff that's revelation that you think, oh my goodness, what on earth? And how did I give this? What insight have you got into this stuff about difficult words?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, I don't like confrontation. So difficult words, I feel, are quite confrontational, but that's part of the prophetic, isn't it? Not necessarily confrontational, although there are times for that, but the disruptor, the agitator, right? That's part of the prophetic. And I find that because of my character and how I am as a person, the difficult words will come more in as a disruption or an agitate. And I will give those words to churches. And in various different ways and in the platforms and the places that have been given to speak that maybe don't sound like a hard word because I don't like confrontation. But part of that also has come through training that I have had. And Charity, I love that you are talking about relationships and how the restoring that plumb line for the prophetic because I'm walking through the walk with people that you're sharing this prophetic word with. Because for me, what I'm hearing in that is the value and the honour to the local church, where the prophetic is, for me, it's got to be ingrained. It sits within the local church as well. That's where we're wanting to see people's gifts really released as well. And that is so important, I think, because, well, for me personally, it's important because When I started this journey, considering and exploring my prophetic anointing, I was taken to Agabus and I was asked to do a study on Agabus. And Agabus is tucked away in Acts that you never really hear about. He's only mentioned twice. And the first one is in 11 and then he's in 21. And in Acts 11, where we first meet Agabus, he gives a really difficult word. He's talking about a worldwide famine. That is a difficult word.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But he gives it to people that know him, that he's in relationship with. It's into the local church and then the bigger church as well. And there is a practical response of charity, of compassion, of love, of mercy. And for me, that models really healthy, mature prophetic words and how the church deals with them, responds with them, serves with them, and how we see the maturing of faith that we can hope and expect for from the prophetic. But that word of famine, That's difficult to guess, isn't it? Where you say, yeah, there's this verse in the Psalms and it says, in this dry and wearied land where there is no water, oh Lord, you are my God. And singing over Scotland, oh Lord, you are my God, in this dry and wearied land where you give us our water. That's a difficult word, but it's also, it's been true because when we are honest with God, as people that have got that prophetic giftings and anointings, when you're honest with God and say, the land is dry, the land is barren, we need your water, we need your life, we need you to turn the graves to gardens, we need you to come and fulfill Isaiah, then we're getting all this... momentum and spirit behind God's word that we are praying, we're putting our voice into and we're seeing God then, you know, work to action and fulfill his word with it. So wouldn't, I would urge us don't shy away from the hard words because sometimes, yep, hard words can be about correction for people's lives, but actually don't If you look at the end point of a hard word, it's to bring the streams, it's to bring the blossom, it's to bring the love and compassion, and it's to bring life.
SPEAKER_00:That's really, really good. Thank you, Risa. I think that, again, one of the reasons why we want to really dig into this stuff about the maturity of the prophetic and bringing... accurate, helpful, life-giving words, which, I mean, most of them will be comfort, expectation and encouragement, you know, because that's the bulk of kind of what you get in the New Testament, obviously. But there are times where we get correction and direction. And those aren't the majority, those aren't the bulk of what we do, but they are really important. And I think that one of the kind of challenges, I think, is that when we don't have that sharp prophetic insight brought with maturity in a healthy way, what happens is that the body of Christ becomes immature. It becomes deficient because of that. It lacks clarity and understanding. It lacks the ability to be able to discern what God is doing in that time and place by the Spirit. And so we kind of almost that we miss that whole strand of the spirit moving, of God actually being the one that directs and guides us in terms of what we're going to do. And we just do our own thing. That's what we default to. We just do our own thing. We just do our own ways. We run our own patterns. But actually, we miss the dynamic spiritual experience that God is really wanting to bring that would really bring us into life, would give us direction, would sort out the problems, would address the issues. And I think, you know, sometimes what I feel happens within the church, and I think this crosses over into kind of, you know, not just the prophetic, but actually how the pastoral works, is that actually we're trying to kind of just make this so that it's nice and it's easy and it's not difficult and that nobody is offended and all that kind of stuff. But actually, what that does is it keeps everything superficial. It keeps everything at the shallow. It keeps everything at the point where actually we're not getting to the point where actually we're really addressing the real issues. Because actually we're not hearing the voice of God through the prophetic and we're not addressing these issues through the pastoral. Again, Charity, just as we're about to try and land a plane in a few minutes, but any reflections on that in terms of how you've experienced it?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think working with local churches for like two decades, just, you know, love the local church. It's so, it's such a key in, you know, the prophetic within the local church to grow it in maturity and where you see it, where it isn't there, the prophetic also sees the future. You know, the prophetic gift doesn't see all of the future, but frequently it You know, I've learned as a prophetic person, you always live with at least one, if not two feet in the future. And sometimes it's really hard to stay in the present. And the beauty of working with the rest of the fivefold within local church and within the wider churches, they keep you in the present. But if you just delete the prophetic or if you, I've seen it minimized, I've seen it kept immature. But then what I see at leadership level is what you've just said, things never change. Everything stays the same. Or decisions are made and you think, what on earth? Because I've seen this at national level. I've seen this at international level. I mean, I've seen a lot of this. Decisions made, none of the mature prophetic voices were consultant. And all the prophetic people were seeing one thing and the other leaders would make a decision on another. And when it all rocked out, if they just asked the prophetic people, they had seen it. It doesn't mean all prophetic voices are right, but what I love about the fivefold is, you know, I've said this for years, the prophet isn't, the language is so important. This, thus saith the Lord, this God has said, tagged onto everything. I personally, some people out there may disagree with me. I don't like that. I wasn't trained like that. That gives the other leaders and people know where to go. I've heard from God and you haven't. That's what that says. Whereas I think the way we present ourselves as co-leaders in the fivefold, co-workers, co, you know, sisters and brothers, it's about language. It's about humility. It's about, this is what I sense or I feel God is saying. Now, what do you see? Because, you know, the word of God says that we would all prophesy. So every gift is going to see in part and together it's, healthy expressions of the prophetic with other healthy expressions of the gifts. We fit together mysteries, jigsaws. We find strategies and solutions. We solve God's enigmas. And he isn't going to let us do it without him.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's good. Obviously, we've been bouncing off Naomi's teaching about how to grow into maturity in the prophetic. Are there any other kind of questions that we haven't addressed, Ruth? Is there anything as we kind of come into land that you kind of want to share or think about?
SPEAKER_01:And yeah, I suppose there's just some thoughts around about maturity there. But I have to, I can't let it slip though, right? I can't let it go by what Charity just said because I kind of felt if you ever need a reason as to why you need to grow as a leader or a minister or whoever you are listening to this, why you need to grow the prophetic, why you want to encourage the prophetic giftings in your people, it's what Charity just said. Because as a church, We're quite at a place of going, pardon, what? What's happening? Exactly what's the vision? If that is where you're at. please take the teachings and grow the prophetic in your churches because that is where we're going to see flourishings of the visions and we'll get out of so much of the ruts and the troughs that we've got stuck in and just listen and go with it. So I just really wanted to say yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes, please do. And yeah, just about, so returning to what you asked me about questions, I think I'm just sitting around maturity. Naomi said a gorgeous thing. And I just I'm just wondering around about it. And I think it's in part because I want to understand a bit better what she was talking about when she said maturity brings signs, wonders and miracles. And I think it's just because perhaps I don't know a lot about Naomi, about where that kind of comment came from, because, you know, for me, I'm kind of thinking, oh, well, I can you know I can think of some folks that I've seen that have been in meetings and you know in my more immature days I was in a healing meeting and there was talk about oh we were seeing God grow a leg that were uneven legs we saw God grow a leg in the A&E department and they were sharing different testimonies of this and they said to the crowd that was there there was about 200 of us who wants to see a leg grow so my hand immediately shot up because I'm like yeah I want to see the miracle of God well before i know it i'm then holding this guy's leg you know his ankles in my hands because he had a leg one leg shorter than the other and they said right you come up and do it then and i'm going pardon so i'm holding the guy's legs his backs against the against the chair and i'm giving direction at my shoulder about what to do you know you're talking to the legs and then i'm seeing Like with my eyes, I am seeing this leg grow in my hand. He's not moving. God is doing this. And I'm going, oh my goodness, the leg's going to end up longer than the other one. I'm like, stop. And so I said, it's going to end up longer. And the direction was just tell it to stop then. And I was like, oh, okay then. And so it did. And he stood up and he verified. And a couple of days later, it was all verified that God had performed this incredible miracle of lengthening this guy's leg. Absolutely. Absolutely amazing. And I was really immature in what was happening. And so that's why I'm thinking, okay, help me understand that better. Can you unpack that a wee bit for me?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. That's great. God uses, you know, asses and all sorts of things. You know, I mean, come on. Even if we would not testify, then he would make the stones cry out. You know, so... The fact is that, you know, he can do anything and he can use anybody. And I think that sometimes there's something about the beauty of the innocence and the kind of the immature, which actually in the naive, that it's like, I'll just have a go, you know, and actually God uses that. And I think that that's absolutely, that's absolutely true. And of course, we see that all over the scripture. I think for me, as I listened to Naomi anyway, and she was talking about the signs, wonders, and miracles happening, what it does is it actually reflects the scripture that talks about the fact that the apostles' teaching and preaching was attested to by the signs, wonders, and miracles that were following. That that was a normal pattern. And it was not exceptional. And it was an authenticating activity of God to go alongside the rest of the kind of teachings and the rest of their activity. And so I think in that sense, there is something wonderful about the fact that actually God can use anyone. and actually does, and often happens. I like that, as you experienced with your leg growing experiences. But at the same time, you know, there is also something about the aspirational thing of, you know, as we move in, you know, grow in our calling in God, in our maturity, in our connection with God, that we should be looking for more of his kingdom to break out. We should be saying, Lord, we want you to kind of come and to make your presence known in a way that has absolutely undeniable for anybody, whether they're Christians or not. And so for me, certainly, that's how I would have taken that kind of teaching. I don't think it's an exclusion that says anyone else can't do that. But I do think that there's something about, there's a healthy aspiration towards a greater kind of flow of the work of the God and the work of the kingdom that would come.
SPEAKER_01:Let me get on that. I know we've only got one minute. But lots of the prophets in the Bible, including Jesus, who was known as a prophet. I know it was all the gifts. But signs and wonders followed the prophets all the time. And I mean, the things that happened to Daniel, Ezekiel, I know we call them dreams and visions. But even I'm thinking of all the years that God has had us like delve into the prophetic creative, which was a whole pioneering ballgame. I can't tell you how many crazy signs we've seen. So sometimes we think it has to look like being healed of a sickness or something. you know, or this or that. But I mean, the amount of signs and wonders that we've seen that just can't be real. And several people have seen them, lights, weird rainbows. I mean, stuff. I've got photographs that look of lights where there was no light. We have hundreds. It's like it's followed us. Like, you know, it's very common. It's almost like God going, keep going. I've had literally pieces of art that have supernaturally lit up when there is no light on them, like lit up like a light bulb. And we have photos and hundreds of witnesses from things like that. And so I think that's what Naomi was talking about. Sometimes in the church, we narrow what signs, wonders and miracles look like. We think it's only a leg growing or we've been told it's only somebody being healed from cancer or, but actually in the Bible, they look like all sorts of crazy stuff. And it's just, do we have eyes to see? And again, that's prophetic training, digging into the Bible. You start to open your eyes and be aware of things you would never have thought of before. And then you realize it's God.
SPEAKER_00:I feel a little bit like the preacher that says, and finally, finally, finally. At the moment, I'm going to say, okay, let's wrap this thing up and give us your takeaway, your application. One thing you kind of learned as you kind of listened to this and you think it's really important that people can take away. What about you, Ruth? Why don't you give us yours first?
SPEAKER_01:Best things come to those who wait. Definitely. If a day is like a thousand years to the Lord. We have got to just, you know, in one sense relax, but rest in his presence because the best things come to those who wait on the Lord and couldn't be truer than the prophetic and especially not hoarding it for yourself, but sharing it free-handed, share it, grow it. So yeah, that would be my one-ish summing
SPEAKER_00:up. Great. And Charity?
SPEAKER_01:This is a really powerful call for the prophetic to return to holiness. And everything it was meant to be, to point to that plumb line of heaven, point God's people and people who don't know God to that plumb line of heaven, the kingdom of heaven, and not some of what it's become. I was in the room when she taught it, and the presence of God was really stunning. He was happy with this message.
UNKNOWN:Very good.
SPEAKER_00:I would say that the thing that I've learned is that actually if you happen to be involved in miraculously growing a leg and it looks as though it's going too long, you should just tell it to stop. That's the one thing I'm going to take away from today. But actually from Naomi's stuff, I just... Again, I just love her kind of focus on intimacy and the kind of face of God. You know, that's the thing that actually kind of changes everything rather than necessarily the platform or the kind of performance of the actual ministry stuff. So that was great. Thank you, everybody. I hope everyone that's listened to this has really been blessed by this conversation. It's encouraged me, blessed me. Thank you to Charity and to Ruth. And we hope that you'll be able to kind of join us again on the next Synergy Session podcast.
SPEAKER_01:We hope
SPEAKER_00:that you've been inspired by what you've heard and we hope that that encourages you as you press in for what God has got for you in the future.