Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Now, word of God, I'm going to bring you just one verse today, and I normally share lots of verses, but I'm just going to bring you probably my favorite verse in the entire Bible.
[00:00:14] And it's found in Philippians one, verse six. And it says these words, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
[00:00:34] I love that opening. Being confident, not in any way having a doubt that God is going to do this.
[00:00:48] And as there's lots of changes taking place in the church and there are lots of things that feel like they're going to be a little different in the months ahead, I want us to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and being confident that God, who has started this work in us, will be faithful to complete it.
[00:01:10] 96 years ago, this church began in this city. We're four years off our centenary celebrations.
[00:01:20] 96 years of probably thousands of people praying, serving, giving, participating in the journey of what God has done this far.
[00:01:32] 96 years of people on their knees seeking the face of God for this city. 96 years of people sacrificially given of themselves. Given up holidays in order to give, to build in funds, given up the things of comfort in order to serve the purposes of God. 96 years.
[00:01:53] And whenever you joined us, the baton passed into your hand and mine. And it's our part of the race now. But there's another generation after us that will take that baton from our hands and will continue the work of God. And in all of that time, over all of those people, over all of those years, we can be confident of this, that God who started this work in this church will be faithful to complete it. We can be confident not in what we bring, not confident in what we can do, not even confident in what we see today. Not confident in a new building, not confident in ministries, but confident that God who started it will complete it.
[00:02:41] Because that's what he does. The church is not owned by anyone.
[00:02:47] It's not owned by the pastors or the elders. It's not owned by the denomination. This church is owned by God. It is his possession. We are his people and he will finish that which he starts in his people.
[00:03:02] I believe when churches seek to make themselves famous, things begin to unravel. But when they seek to make Jesus famous, God establishes his purposes in them. Now, there are two dynamics to this good work. There's a good work in you and me, and there's a good work in us, the church, and of course, the church. We are talking of rediscover. But we are part of one church, not just in the city and the region, but one church across the world, one church with many expressions. And God has determined that those who commit themselves to make his name famous, that he will establish his purposes in them.
[00:03:48] So these two dynamics, I believe the corporate destiny of us as rediscover is outworked when our personal destiny is outworked.
[00:03:59] That we are living stones in the body of Christ in this building of his, that he is establishing his people. That as we allow the purposes of God to outwork in our lives, the purposes of God outwork in the church, it can't happen. Unless that happens, God is not going to raise up some ministries on the stage of this church, and that they will set this church into their destiny, unless you and I are stepping into our destiny.
[00:04:32] The fulfillment of all God wants to do in this church is fulfilled when each of us are fulfilled in the purposes of God in our lives. There's a symbiotic relationship between these two things, because I don't believe that you and I can step into the fullness of the purposes of God in our lives, unless we are stepping into relationship of the fullness of God in his people. I've met lots of people over the years that they believe that they will be richer as a believer, they will be stronger as a believer. They'll be less frustrated as a believer if they withdraw from the body of Christ.
[00:05:10] There are enough of those stories now to make some pretty clear, evidential statements that it does not work.
[00:05:17] It does not work. If you're tempted to withdraw from church, you may still consider loving God to be a part of your life. You might still pray. But the discouragement that you will experience on that journey will mean that you are very unlikely to step into the fullness of the purposes of God. Because when God speaks in his word about anything of his purposes being established, he talks about it in the realms of community, the people of God. You are not the bride of Christ. We are the bride of Christ together.
[00:05:53] And our fulfillment of the destiny and the purpose of God in our life is only really materialized when we're part of team, part of church, part of the body.
[00:06:05] There's never been a famous footballer in the world that has never been in a team.
[00:06:11] There may have been good footballers in the world, there may have been highly skilled footballers in the world, they might have all that it takes, but no one knows them because they're not on a team, because it's a team game.
[00:06:25] Church is a team thing. It's a call. It's a family.
[00:06:30] It's us as living stones in the building of the Lord's work.
[00:06:35] And it's really important that we understand the symbiotic relationship between those two. Your destiny, the church's destiny. And I believe that you and I are experiencing an invitation of the spirit to step into a new level of that destiny in our own lives and in one another.
[00:06:53] We need each other, and each other is needed.
[00:06:57] Since God added Nitro and I to this rediscover story just over ten years ago, we've sought to both serve and empower us all to fulfill the destiny of God in our lives.
[00:07:08] We've sought to encourage us to be the church of Jesus, to make his name famous.
[00:07:14] We've been prayerful about this because we didn't want to come with good ideas. We wanted to come with, you know, one of the reasons why we're prayerful as a church, and I want to encourage you. If you feel you're not a praying believer, then I want to exhort you. You're missing out so much. My best ideas come in prayer.
[00:07:34] My best peace comes in prayer. My best understanding of what God is doing in the world comes from a place of prayer. It doesn't come from a seminar. It doesn't come from a book. It doesn't come from a conference. It comes from prayer because I directly commune with the Lord. And those prayer times, sometimes they're in my study, at home, on my own. Sometimes they're in a car. Sometimes they're on a walk. Sometimes they're in fellowship with others. But wherever I am, the Lord is, and my prayer is my communion with him. And I believe that we cannot be the people of God. We cannot step into the destiny of God unless we learn to be a people of prayer. Some of you, in your personal understanding of the purpose and destiny of God on your life, you're trying to do things in your own strength. You're trying to live out your dreams and your hopes in your own strength. And occasionally you'll say, lord, will you bless what I'm doing? And God's saying, no, I want you to know what I want for your life. I want to talk with you about some things, and then we can look, a partnership.
[00:08:42] See, God's not just here to put a little sparkle on our lives. He's here to bring a partnership, a relationship between us and him. And when we join together, there is nothing that's impossible without God.
[00:08:56] See, we believe this is God's work, and God will complete that which he has started in this church for the day that Jesus returns.
[00:09:07] Now I want to share with you some words that have been spoken over this church over the years.
[00:09:12] Here's an excerpt from a prophecy that was given publicly in this church a number of years ago. It says, rediscover. You carry a very rare call of God, one that many churches never get to fully step into. And you have a particular call to. All I heard the Lord call was radical pioneering, that you are not just pioneers, because there are many pioneers, but you are called to rabid, radical pioneering, and it's a gift given to a few.
[00:09:40] I believe our spirit leapt when that word came because we sensed something. The elders spent a year praying over some of these words to understand and to apply. The church planting academy has come out of this because God has not called us to settle. He's not called us to just have a bigger building and sing louder songs and to rejoice and enjoy being together. He's called us to pioneer because this world doesn't need light to be kept in buildings. It needs light to be shone into dark places. And unless we are prepared to be stirred up to be pioneers, to partner with God, we'll carry on having lovely light ceremonies in our buildings. We'll carry on continuing to sing beautiful songs of adoration and enjoy his presence, but no one will be impacted by it. But God has called us to pioneer, radical pioneering. That's a call on this church. That's not a call on Mark Pugh. It's a call on this church. It's a vision of this church. Let's look at the next excerpt from the same prophecy.
[00:10:47] Slide. And as we flew into this region, we felt like I was flying into a womb as we landed. And the Lord said to me, you are entering, as I came into exile, the womb of the nation. And what is birthed here will go across the nation. And the Lord said, this is a place for birth in new ministries, birth in new books, birthing new business models. Come on. And some of you just need to catch hold of that. And the Lord says, but I'm putting the go beyond anointing on what you birth. And it's time to step over and step into the days of going beyond, for this is the go beyond season, and the Lord welcomes you into it right now.
[00:11:29] That's happening. That's happening in the church. That's why when we feel slightly disconcerted that our pastoral coordinator is no longer going to be in that role, it's because God is stirring us. He's birthing things, he's moving things.
[00:11:48] There have been other words about a river of the spirit flowing out from this church, flowing out to communities and surrounding places around the southwest to touch the lives of many people. We've had words about God wanting to gift us a large building facility.
[00:12:06] There are many words. If we gather them all, we could be here for weeks just talking about these words.
[00:12:13] But God has a plan.
[00:12:17] He has been involved in the last 96 years, and he will be involved in the years that are to come, and he will complete his work. And we can be confident this is his work. He started it. He will complete it if we continue to follow him. And there is an if. There neither and I are seeking to allow God to complete this work in us.
[00:12:48] 18 months ago I began personally to get a deep sense of burden for our denomination, the Elim Pentecostal churches.
[00:12:58] This is an elim church. We've been part of Elim since his foundations of this church.
[00:13:04] George Jeffries, who started Elim, started this church. He hired a theater in the city of Exeter, advertised in the community, and very few people showed up on the first night.
[00:13:18] But there was a young girl got miraculously healed on that first night, and very quickly words spread. So that theater was filled night after night, and people gave their lives to Jesus. And on the back of that, this church was established. This church started with the fires of signs and wonders and revival.
[00:13:38] Elim started on the back of the Welsh revival, on the fires of revival and mission, taking the land for Jesus. I was speaking a few weeks ago in Elam's largest church, Kensington Temple in London, and the stories of what God has done in that place. There's a basement underground. And a number of years ago they were clearing out the basement and there were just wheelchairs and walking sticks, piles of them that they found. And these were all the things that had been deposited at the front of the church as people had had hands laid upon them and they'd been healed and people no longer needed them when they left.
[00:14:18] There has been a spirit of revival in Elim for years.
[00:14:22] And 18 months ago. I began to get deeply burdened that God once again wanted to do that through the elim churches. But there were some things needed to change.
[00:14:32] And I felt burdened and stirred, and I felt almost a lament in my spirit that I did very little with that other than take it to a place of prayer.
[00:14:42] Some six years ago, I stepped off our national leadership team. So I had no voice around that table.
[00:14:48] I just felt the spirit of God burden in my heart.
[00:14:52] And then around five months ago, our general superintendent announced that he was no longer going to stand for his next term of office. And immediately Nita and I felt the stir of the Lord that maybe God was asking us, we didn't pray that we would get that. We prayed, God, if this is something you want, we're here, we're available, and we've prayed that throughout. We've not prayed once to get the role.
[00:15:20] In fact, sometimes it's been, God, I don't know if I want to do this, but, Lord, you know where we are. But there's some challenges to that because as far as I'm aware in our history, no one has ever been appointed to the role. And general superintendents, like national leader, oversees the 500 or so churches.
[00:15:44] And over the years, that appointment's always been made of people who are on the national leadership team. And I stepped down from that six years ago, so that can't happen.
[00:15:56] And that's been a bit of story for my life, if I'm honest.
[00:16:00] When I was 16 years of age, I felt God stir me to go and work with an evangelist full time.
[00:16:08] And I went to see my pastor and he said, you can't do it. You're too young.
[00:16:16] The evangelist sent a word back to the pastor, said, if he's old enough to join the queen's army, he's old enough to join the king of King's army.
[00:16:27] Wasn't a lot you could say to that, really. So I went.
[00:16:32] When I was 21 years of age, I was working in accountancy and I got promoted to be the manager of a department, an accounting department, but I wasn't qualified as an accountant. So they quickly began to send me to college to get some qualifications to the job I was doing. Feels like God has often opened the door in a way that doesn't make sense in the natural.
[00:16:54] This one, I love this. When I was 23 years of age, I'd moved to Derby to become a youth pastor, associate or assistant pastor in the church.
[00:17:03] And someone said, you should apply to Elam to become an Elam minister. So I applied and I got turned down.
[00:17:18] I got turned down as an Elim minister.
[00:17:26] When I was 25 years of age, someone said, you should try again.
[00:17:30] So I did, and I was accepted as an Elim minister.
[00:17:36] I think it's a bit like drivers. The best drivers fail first time and all of those people cheering fail their first test, then quite a few journeys between that. But at 32 years of age, we left a church that we were very comfortable in and we were involved in leading and to set up what's now known as limitless, Elim's youth department.
[00:18:11] And Roger was my predecessor in leading the youth work all those years ago in Elim on target team. And then we took that and we developed cirrus for God, the new phase. And now it's limitless. And when I was 32 years of age, we left the church, had no income.
[00:18:30] There was no team, there was no staff. I had no computer.
[00:18:35] And we set up a degree program to train youth pastors, which was accredited by University of Manchester.
[00:18:47] And the weird thing was, I was the course director and partly creator of this program, and I did have a degree.
[00:18:57] You see, God does unusual things when people avail themselves and follow his purposes. There's too many of these. I can't do that. There's too many. No, God could not do that with me. God can do anything he wants to.
[00:19:13] And here I am, 18 months with this burden for elim five months ago, this stir that maybe God might be opening a door, but they're also aware that I'm not on the national leadership team.
[00:19:25] And so we thought, we're going to make this a bit tougher for God. If he's stirring us, I want his fingerprints on it, not ours. So we didn't talk to people. We didn't share any of this stir of the spirit.
[00:19:38] In fact, I kept off a lot of social media, a lot more than I normally would because I didn't want to remind anybody I was here.
[00:19:46] And then one Monday morning in January, I get a phone call from the current general superintendent, who says, mark, are you okay to speak a moment in private? So I left the room because I was in a pastoral team meeting. And he said, mark, I'm with all the national leadership team. We'd like to invite you for an interview for the general superintendent role.
[00:20:10] So we were prepared, but it still felt impossible. But at the same time, this inner tension that God might be doing this.
[00:20:22] And then I go for the interview.
[00:20:27] And you know what I talked about in the interview?
[00:20:30] I talked about the things I've been praying around for the last 18 months.
[00:20:36] And there were things that could have lost votes because they're pretty radical.
[00:20:44] But it didn't matter because I'm not trying to get a job. I'm trying to be true to the call of God in my life. I'm trying to be true to the things in my heart. I'm trying to be true to the things I sense, the spirit of God saying, and if they lose votes, so be it. God will do what he wants to do.
[00:21:00] And I won the vote.
[00:21:03] I phoned near just after the interview. I said, I've got a clue how it went, because every time I brought another controversial point, their eyebrows raised even further.
[00:21:14] I don't think I've got a chance. And then get together and Mark, we'd like to nominate you to be the next children superintendent. Like, really, did he hear my interview?
[00:21:27] And then I said, well, I want to do that. If I can share the vision to all our leaders before they vote. Saddica, two thirds majority. I want to share with them what I believe God's stirring in my heart, the things I've shared with you today. Normally, all that happens is you give a little bio and people just vote based on personality or whatever, but I wanted them to understand the things that I sensed God was saying.
[00:21:54] So over the following five weeks, I met with hundreds of leaders and shared vision for elim from this burden of my heart that for the last 18 months, I've been stirring with.
[00:22:08] And I was grilled. I think I probably had so many interview questions by so many people over the, over that period of time.
[00:22:18] And then last Thursday night, 1 minute to midnight, the voting closed. After four weeks.
[00:22:26] And not knowing till the next morning whether I would have got the two thirds majority or not, I lay in bed and I thought, God, there's one of two options tomorrow.
[00:22:37] One is that the vote is 65% or less, and I don't get it. And the other one is the vote is 66% or more. And I do get it.
[00:22:46] And I thought about both those permutations, and I can honestly tell you I had an absolute peace about either, because God is the one who leads us and directs us and whatever he leads us into. You see, I don't have to worry about those things because God will do what God wants to do when we avail ourselves to him.
[00:23:14] And I had a real peace about waking up the next morning and just saying, okay, haven't got it.
[00:23:21] I'm serving the Lord and enjoying what I'm doing here.
[00:23:25] But the vote came through. I had a phone call from Chris later that morning, current GS, and said, mark, delighted to say that you've had more than that two thirds majority.
[00:23:39] And I'm just as I'm weighing up this whole thing, one of the things I've said is that normally this role demands that people leave their local church and take up an office because we're one charity. It's a big charity.
[00:23:57] All the churches, we're all one charity together, so there's a lot of requirements and compliance and so on. And normally that's more than a full time role. But I don't believe God has finished with me here yet.
[00:24:12] And I believe those words that we've just read about the church spoken over this place, part of the promise of God for this place. I believe that part of my role as I step into the fullness of what God has for me, that I'm playing my part in serving what God is doing here and what God's going to do in the nation. You know, we've had a vision for the last few years, and we continue to have a vision that in the southwest, we'll see 100 churches planted in the next ten years. Well, I guess we have to stop saying ten years. We probably have to start eating away at those now. And it's not ten years, two years ago when we said that.
[00:24:50] But I believe if one church in the southwest can commit to do that, what could 500 churches around the country do? So we're talking about the church planting academy going national about resourcing leaders all over the country. And where was that birthed? Here in the womb in a place of rabid pioneering.
[00:25:13] I'm looking forward to helping unroll apex across the country.
[00:25:19] Where has that found its early days expression? We got a long way to go on this here, but here.
[00:25:26] And I believe that God is inviting you and I, but by bringing the best that God has for us, that we help fulfill the purposes of God in this church, in this region, and in this nation.
[00:25:43] And I believe that your destiny is linked to this church if this is your church family.
[00:25:52] And I believe this church family's destiny is linked to yours. If you're part of this church family, that it's symbiotic.
[00:26:01] We're called to pioneer new things. We're called to break up new ground. We're called to change.
[00:26:08] Sean, we just pass my phone to the seat there.
[00:26:13] Thank you.
[00:26:16] I get notifications sometimes that says there is an update available for your phone. I'm sure you get them.
[00:26:27] I remember once leading a large conference for young people, and just before we were about to set up for that event, I had one of those notifications on my phone phones, do an update.
[00:26:45] And I just thought, if it's got an update, I'll have it now.
[00:26:51] It took ages to work through on my phone, and someone said, why did you do that just before you had a bigger.
[00:26:58] The timing of an update is important.
[00:27:03] The inconvenience of an update is always an inconvenience because there's a moment in time when it's downloading that my phone doesn't really do a lot. It's just got this little swirly thing saying update and update and updating, downloading, downloading. And then when it does that, it has to be switched off and then come back on again. That wonderful tech solution to everything, switch it off and on again.
[00:27:31] And then when you start to use the update, it's like things are not in the same place, things are a bit messy, and then when you get used to it, you think, how did I ever manage before this update came?
[00:27:48] This is an update moment for the church.
[00:27:51] This is not a time for us to say, oh, there's things changing how we're going to manage. This is an update moment.
[00:27:58] This is a moment for us that God, I believe, has ordained for an update. I don't believe it's an accident that the building comes at the moment this announcement is happening. I don't believe we're going to Miss Des Lowe's, but I don't believe the timing of that is coincidental. I believe that everything the Lord is conspiring is because we can be confident that he who began a good work in us, he will be faithful to complete it. And the question is, will you and I step into the fullness of what he's got for us? If you've been holding something back, now is the time to stop it. If you've been giving half measures to God, now is the time to give him everything. If you've been holding back on anything the Lord's been stirring in your heart, then now is the time to reset and to start afresh. Now is the moment to step into the fullness of the destiny that God has. And I tell you, as you do that it might feel deeply uncomfortable, it might feel strange, but I promise you that you can be confident of this. The God who started a good work in you, he will be faithful to complete it. He will be faithful to complete it. This story hasn't finished here. Your story hasn't finished yet.
[00:29:17] Feel for your pulse. If it's still there, the Lord has a purpose for you.
[00:29:23] If you still got breath in your lungs, it might be slightly heavier than it used to be, but the Lord has not finished with you yet. There are prayers for you to pray. There are people for you to encourage. There are ministries for you to step into. The Lord has need of.
