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World Outreach Podcast
World Outreach Podcast
EP 47 Guided by the Holy Spirit: A Journey of Faith, Mentorship, and Service with Ps. David
Have you ever wondered how a single moment can change the course of your entire life? David's transformative baptism in the Holy Spirit did exactly that, setting him on a path of decades-long service with World Outreach. Join us on an inspiring journey that began with a simple invitation from his friend in northeast India. Ps. David opens up about his spiritual awakening influenced by Brother Andrew of Open Doors Ministry and the powerful experiences he had with friends in India, filled with incredible movements of the Holy Spirit. Ps. David also shares about a life of faithfulness with Jesus and the power of having good mentors in your life.
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That's great to be here, great to have you here in Norwich, ben, and I was delighted. I love World Outreach and I'm delighted to do anything to encourage the mission and encourage the missionaries. I love that attitude We've noticed it.
Speaker 2:We've seen it for the many years that you've walked with us, so why don't you tell us how you got involved in World Outreach?
Speaker 1:Okay, I became involved in World Outreach through my very dear, close friend Kit Buck many may know in northeast India. He was at Bible College with me in the late 1970s and then in the early 90s God gave me the opportunity to go and visit him in his place, as he calls it, and we traveled a lot together, did ministry together there, and then I think it was on my second or third visit or planning it that he said to me he'd like to introduce me to world outreach and would I become a member of a leadership seminar training team with other ministers from other nations to gather together pastors in northeast India and impact them. For I think it was usually about five or six days or something like that. We did back-to-back seminars one place, travel for a couple of days and then repeat the same thing. So, and on that team is where I first met delightful characters like Peter and Max Chisholm and many others, and my love for world outreach begun then really.
Speaker 2:So exposure to seeing what's taking place in the nations and what God's doing there. So step back. Just before that, Tell us a little bit about your professional ministry career and your life and that and how that connects with your relationship to world outreach.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, I was born in Norwich, which is the chief city in Norfolk, which is in the UK, brought up in a Christian family, was involved in church activity, Methodist church background, involved in youth work and home group, and actually was the church organist for many, many years as well. And then, back in 1974, many people will know the name of Open Doors Ministry, founded by Brother Andrew, and he made a one-time visit to Norwich in 1974, just for me and Sandra is what we say anyway.
Speaker 1:And it was in that meeting in a big municipal hall that I really became a Christian. That was really when I say I was born again Two years later through a team that came from a Bible school in America. We had been hungering after something more, both Sandra and myself Sandra was my wife for 54 years, but passed away last year. But back in 1977, together with a young family, this team came and it was through that visit that I became baptized in the Holy Spirit and, quite frankly, life has never been the same since and as it should be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, absolutely. I think the big thing I say is by nature I mean people laugh at this now but by nature I'm not a really an upfront person, I'm really a bit more reluctant to do things like that. But being baptised in the Holy Spirit has been the change in my life in the sense that I feel that sense of God's presence and that empowering. It's just something within me. It's like I must do this because the Lord is saying it.
Speaker 1:I've had one or two occasions, interestingly, and learning experience for me, where, over the years I've been in ministry, I'm about to either preach or minister and suddenly I believe the Lord has just taken away that power, or at least put it on hold momentarily. And I've looked into the faces of the people that I'm supposed to be ministering to and I go right back to how I was as a teenager and feel absolutely like I can't do this. This is too much, I'm not equipped to do this. And in talking to the Lord after these mainly two occasions that I can remember, I just felt that whisper within. It wasn't a voice, just that inward sense, just want to remind you where the power comes from, and I found that so sobering and saying to you, ben I think it was yesterday that, yep, after 47 years in ministry, I still get what I call the Sunday tummy.
Speaker 1:I still sense that responsibility. It's awesome In one sense. It's like I wouldn't be without it. But there is that sense that, hey, we're doing this for God, almighty King of Kings, lord of Lords, we're doing it for Jesus. So there's that sense. It's always been in my journeys. You need to remember where the power comes from.
Speaker 2:So good and I mean in our conversations. I've just been quite humbled by your own humility and understanding and your awe and reference fear of God. Really, I mean just putting him first and that understanding. It's all about him and his dependency on him. You were sharing a story coming back to the Holy Spirit. You've had Empowerable Counters with the Holy Spirit and then fast forward into some of your times doing leadership seminars in India, working with the teams there. You shared a story around how God moves and the power of the Holy Spirit being poured out. And yesterday was Pentecost Sunday. As we were recording this, we spoke on the Holy Spirit at a church here and that passion for having the Holy Spirit imparted into people. Can you share that story of God imparting the Holy Spirit into a team of you were ministering to?
Speaker 1:Well, I remember and I really ought to talk to my friend Kidbuck about this but I remember when we made my first visit to a place in India called in the Garo Hills and he and I went and he'd hired a big hall there with many, many seats in it. I think he counted them as 996. As I recall, we did an evangelistic weekend and it was very hot and it was. People came from all the villages around and many people became born again on that particular occasion. And I particularly remember on the last day, kid Buck had said to me I'm pretty sure it was in the morning of the last day what are you going to share on in the final session? And I said well, I'm a bit like this, I'm not too sure at the minute what direction to go in. And he said quite directly to me and Kid Buck can be very direct and he says I think you should teach on the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And I said, oh, ok, so it was a very direct teaching.
Speaker 1:We went through the occasions in the Book of Acts where people were baptized in the Holy Spirit and then at the end we gave a call for people were baptized in the Holy Spirit and then at the end we gave a call for people to come to the front and again I can't remember but many, many people we were there for a long, long time with the team praying for people to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1:Then again I can't remember the exact timing in it, but I would say probably three or four years later I returned and this time I was with a team from World Outreach and I can remember walking into this same building and Peter Smith was with me and we were just swamped by people who came and, particularly for me, were saying oh, I got saved when you were here last time. I got baptised in the Holy Spirit. I'm now in training for church leadership, I've now planted a church, I'm now a pastor in a church. I was just so overwhelmed. It's like to me it was another stage in a journey with these people. I had no idea what was going on, but God was organizing it and just to have that sense that what begun those years previously was now building into this was just so thrilling, so humbling really. I mean, god is just amazing in what he does. So I mean that particular occasion always sticks in my mind and it's an amazing story of God doing something right.
Speaker 2:As vessels, you know, we're entrusted with this responsibility to train and to disciple and to teach them, but it still has to be the Holy Spirit that does something in that person's life. So tell me you know walking with the Lord, baptized in the Holy Spirit, for 50 plus years. Tell me about how do you maintain that intimacy with the Holy Spirit?
Speaker 1:Well, I would say in the first place, recognizing for myself, as for many others sometimes, the discipline of keeping up that relationship with the Lord. It's a little old-fashioned these days to talk about a quiet time, but I'm old-fashioned enough to say, hey, it's important. Whatever you want to call it, you need time with the Lord every day. And one of the beauties of my married life with Sandra and one thing I miss when she's not here is we began every day together my routine in the morning. I wake up usually the same time, go and make because I'm English a good cup of English tea and I go back in the bedroom and Sandra and I would begin the day, usually for half an hour, three quarters of an hour, even longer. We'd read the Bible together and we'd pray together and commit the day together, commit our family together to the Lord, and that's been part of our life right back to 1974. And it was one of the hardest things I found to get used to when Sandra went to have had her promotion just over a year ago. But you know, the Lord has encouraged me and I still do that. That's still my routine. But I think the thing is, I would say, in the heart of all that is that learning to be really honest and real with the Lord. This is how I'm feeling, lord. I'm feeling down today, lord. Lord, I'm feeling excited today. How do you want me to approach this Lord? And just waiting for that sense within. Very rarely have I heard the voice of God in an audible sense. I have, I believe, but normally it's just that sense and confirmation within that this is the direction to go in.
Speaker 1:I had a very interesting encounter just a couple of weeks ago which I actually shared. If you remember, ben, yesterday morning I was having my hair cut and I don't normally look for a move of the Holy Spirit in the barbers, but I built a relationship with this guy who comes from Egypt and he knows a little bit about my story. He knew about Sandra and the challenges that she had, and then he had opened up and shared about his family in Egypt and the fact that his father has got a very serious cancer condition and was actually seemingly going downhill and he was preparing to go back there again for a week or so I don't know how long, because he's very close to his father and he was obviously quite emotional about this. Interestingly enough, I sat there in the barber's chair and this is after all the years I've been walking with the Lord and my heart is beating 20 to the dozen.
Speaker 1:You know it's like should I pray with this guy? He's a Muslim, he knows what I believe, but God, why have I heard this story today? You know, and as it happened, as he finished my haircut and that the salon was emptied, it was just him and me. And so I just said to him said his name, you know. I said you know I'm a Christian and I do pray about things. I'd love to pray for you and your dad. Can I pray?
Speaker 2:for you now, and he said oh, yes, please.
Speaker 1:And so just a very brief prayer of committing them and asking for peace, and he was quite emotional about it after I prayed and it's like that sense of the word that I shared yesterday morning and I would repeat, it is this we need to be very specific in our asking the Lord. Is this we need to be very specific in our asking the Lord. Is this the time to pray?
Speaker 2:Shall I move now in the power of the Holy Spirit and then, of course, the challenge of being obedient to it. Yeah, absolutely. That's the hardest part, isn't it? Talk to me about this idea of time with the Holy Spirit, time with God. We were conversing and you were talking about the importance of needing to step back and create space. What does that look like? You were a full-time minister for many years. You were very busy. You have a large family. How did you build rhythms of stepping back and create space?
Speaker 1:Well, I go back to what I said before. There was always that time with Sandra in the morning which sort of, in one sense, laid a pattern for the day, but then for myself in ministry. I love the outside and we talked Ben about this book by Gary Thomas called the Spiritual Temperaments.
Speaker 2:I think Spiritual Temperaments, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And when I read that book I felt it almost, in a sense, gave me permission to be the one who could walk outside and enjoy walking outside and being with the Lord without feeling guilty that I wasn't doing something. And so, right back and I can't remember exactly the year of it, but it was a good number of years ago it was to build into my day, those occasions when I know that I really do sense God's presence and I live thankfully live in an area where I can walk out, I can go down to the river, I can be on my own and just in a sense get lost. So I mean, I make no bones about it, I walk along. People probably think I'm a little bit mad, but I'm chuntering in, you know, in my prayer language, talking to the Lord, and then suddenly I might say, oh God, you're wonderful and something like that. But it's walking along and knowing he's with you, enjoying that. Yeah, very good, that somehow and I've had no end of sermons thoughts come to me that are birthed in those occasions.
Speaker 2:So that book talks about seven different kind of temperaments to connect with the Holy Spirit and I can't remember them all and we don't need to, but there's like activists doing stuff. There's people who need to be out in nature. There's people who need to contemplate and sit in silence and just wait. But the encouragement is to find how you connect with the Holy Spirit and then create that space so that you're doing for that long going walk yeah well, I think you create the space.
Speaker 1:And then you, I mean again, it's probably a little bit old-fashioned, but you invite the Holy Spirit, you know the Holy Spirit's in you and say, look, I'm giving this time. I'd love to hear your voice, lord. What do you want to say to me? Please speak, and then waiting and believing I mean, this is the point, isn't it? It's like everything we do is a step of faith. It's then believing that, if you've cleared your mind, if you know there's no barrier between you and the Lord, that that next sense of what comes into your thinking and into your heart is God speaking to you and to me. That's happened on many occasions and I find that awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is amazing. He's speaking to me. He's speaking to me. Yeah, Yesterday you shared a story with me as we were talking about how you went to this conference, and God just spoke very specific, through somebody else your wife's name, the exact circumstance and it opened up a new season of ministry for you. But that importance of knowing that God sees you and God knows is huge in our walk with him. What other ways have you seen that God's hand is on you or God's leading you as you've been in ministry and as you've walked with him?
Speaker 1:Well, I think it's trusting the Lord, I think, to really accept the fact. Well, I mean, when I was born again in 1974, the scripture that came to me, which was so powerful and impacted more than I am Psalm 139, in that sense that he knows every word before I speak it. He knows when I'm going to get up and sit down. There is no place in the height of the earth and the depth of the earth that you can go when he's not there.
Speaker 1:And it's that sense that wherever you go, he is there with you and therefore you can converse with him. And then to believe in your heart, at the deepest level, that he wants to converse with you, I mean that's the wonder of it, isn't it? I mean that he wants to speak to you, and I think that in those situations when we walk, I always remember the first occasion that I went to India and through I mean, this is before mobile phones, before emails, before texts and everything we were relying on yep aerograms. Some of you might even know what an aerogram is, and that was my communication with Kibbutz and for some reason, which we still don't really understand, there was a misunderstanding between us at the time that I was going to arrive in Calcutta or Kolkata Airport. I was expecting Kibbutz to be there. He wasn't there and I spent three days in Calcutta on my own and the only thing that I had was a little card that was given to me by a minister the night before I flew out. He had been a missionary for many, many years and he had been given by somebody the address of a minister's hostel and retreat in Calcutta. He'd never been, didn't know why he had it, had it in a drawer for 40 years, found it the night before I went to India and thinks, oh, that might be useful to David. So he comes around, he gives it to me, prays with me and I have this in my pocket.
Speaker 1:So, standing in Calcutta airport, what am I going to do? I couldn't get in touch with Kidbutt. There'd been a storm in the northeast, the phone lines were down. I got a taxi I have to say was ripped off in it and went to this address and discovered that it was no longer a retreat for ministers and missionaries but it was a hostel for the volunteer workers of Mother Teresa. But they were so kind to me and they offered me a bed, as I said, for two or maybe three nights. I think it was three days. I was there all together.
Speaker 1:And so I said to this guy where is the nearest telephone that works? Now this is back in the 90s in Calcutta and things have changed a lot, I think, since then. And he says, oh, it's a 15 to 20 minute walk away from here, in the back of a Chinese restaurant. So he gives me the direction and I end up walking down this very narrow street. It was more like a passage in the street, surrounded by Indian people the only white face there and fear came over me and it's like what on earth am I doing here?
Speaker 1:I feel really, really vulnerable and I started to pray under my breath in the spirit, and I felt God said remember why I've called you, remember what led to this. And this peace came over me and I said, okay, lord, everything in me in the natural wanted to run back to the airport and come back to the UK, but it's like no, you can't do that. God has given you this time. And in the end I did find the Chinese restaurant, the phone did work, I did speak to Kid Buck and I did end up in Shillong, and that you know, and that has been a really blessed time in my life and ministry, working with Kid Buck and many of the pastors there and world outreach people as well. I think the enemy always wants to throw you off, doesn't?
Speaker 1:he yeah, and very often it's through fear and things like that, and I think implementing those things that God has given us as our weapons, not least our prayer, language and things like that, is so important and we have to exercise it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a decision. Yeah, yeah, that's good, so we have just a few minutes left. You mentioned another key aspect of longevity in ministry, and something of key importance is mentoring both being a mentor and being mentored. Briefly, just describe why that's so important to you as you look back on life.
Speaker 1:Well, as I look back, I think of the people who have spoken clearly into my life and it wasn't that I read anything particular. I'm going back now probably into at least 30, if not 35, years, when there was a particular occasion in my family life I was very concerned about and I went to see somebody who I wouldn't have at that time called my mentor, but he was 10 years older than me and always spoke clearly into my life the things of the Lord and I had to share with him a certain aspect of this family crisis we were in. And he had a very direct word to me. It was almost a command like don't do this, because it will have this effect. And from that moment on I realized the importance of having somebody in your life, call it a mentor and that who you can be really open and honest with concerning your emotions and your feelings and who you know you can trust and will speak clearly into your life. And over the years, as I've tried to teach that and share that in different churches, I've come to see that it's an ongoing journey.
Speaker 1:Here am I, now 76, this same man is still in my life. I still meet with him every month. We still pray together and we're very honest with one another. You met him last night, peter Ben, and the other side of that coin is, if I'm receiving this from other brothers or sisters in the Lord, this mentoring sense, I need to be passing that on to others. So through the course of many years now, I've always had people around me who will come usually to visit me once a month or something like that for that experience. I don't call it mentoring, I call it sort of like coming alongside, but speaking into somebody's life. I think is a huge privilege and yeah, I would say I don't think it should ever stop. There's always something to learn from the Lord and I still learn from my friend Peter and I hope there are others who still learn from the times that I'm able to share with them.
Speaker 2:That's such a great word. We all need to be discipled and disciple people Absolutely, and that's what you're talking about.
Speaker 1:That's the flow through discipled and disciple people Absolutely, and that's what you're talking about, that's the flow through. Yeah, you know which is wonderful, very good.
Speaker 2:Well, david, thank you very much for your time today sitting down and sharing these stories, these words of wisdom. Thank you for your long service to World Outreach and being an ambassador and being a part.
Speaker 1:We are truly grateful for all that you've done Well, bless you, Bless you.