Are you ready to embark on an incredible journey of spiritual growth like never before?

In this enlightening session, you'll uncover:

• 🌱 The crucial role of nurturing relationships in your spiritual journey.
• 🔗 The power of self-leadership and how it ignites your spiritual journey.
• 🌟 The magic of speaking words of encouragement and hope.
• 🐑 The priceless value of God's flock and your place in it.
• 🙌 How to infuse your life with purpose, guided by the values of the Bible.

Welcome to this week's Crowd Church service.

We are a digital church on a quest to discover how Jesus helps

us live a more meaningful life.

We are a community, a space to explore the Christian faith, and a place

we last about an hour, and in a few seconds we will start with a time

of worship, after which you will meet our hosts for our service.

Who will introduce today's talk.

After the talk, we head into Conversation Street, where we look at your stories

and questions that you've posted in the comments throughout the live stream.

I want to invite you to connect with us here at Crowd Church, and there are

a few ways that you can do just that.

Firstly, you can engage with Crowd from any device during our live

stream, and if you're up for it.

Why not invite a few friends over and experience the service together?

Church is all about connecting with God and connecting with others, and

one of the easiest ways for you to do that is to also join one of our

midweek groups where we need online together to catch up and discover

more about the amazingness of Christ.

You can also subscribe to our podcast called What's.

The Story, where we deep dive into stories of faith and courage from everyday people.

More information about all of these things that I've mentioned can

be found on our website at www.

crowd.

church or you can reach us on social media at crowd church.

If you're new to crowd or new to the Christian faith And would like to know

what your next steps to take are why not head over to our website crowd.

church forward slash next for more details.

And now, the moment you've been waiting for is here.

Our online church service starts.

Right now.

Good evening and welcome to Crowd Online Church.

Great to see you.

Hello.

Hello everyone.

Hello.

Hello.

Jan's here.

Jan's in the house.

Yeah.

So your second week with

us.

It is.

Thanks for having

me back.

You came back.

After last week you came back.

You weren't like totally put off.

No.

Only a little bit.

Okay, we'll try

harder this week.

We'll definitely try harder.

Andy, how you doing?

Great to see you in the comments.

If you're watching the live stream, joining with us, whether on YouTube

or Facebook do say hi in the comments.

It'd be great to hear from you.

So yeah, welcome.

Welcome to Crowd Online Church.

Great that you're here.

How's your week

been?

Yeah, I've had a, an okay week, quite busy with work and various

things, all yeah, all right.

Show was okay?

Yes.

Yes, it was.

No, it was very good, actually.

It's gone by very quick.

It felt like we were here yesterday.

Yeah, I know.

It's crazy, isn't it?

I

know, absolutely.

You're just like, oh, have I left this place?

I don't know.

Andy says hello, Jan, by the way.

Hello.

Hello, Andy.

Can you read that without your glasses?

Yeah, I can.

I can see distance, fine, it's closer.

It's

just close up.

It's close up.

So yes, a very warm welcome to you if you're just joining us.

This is Crowd Online Church.

Today we have got the Right Reverend John Harding talking with us.

In case you don't know, John is, what do we, why don't you tell people who John is?

John

is a Senior Pastor of Frontline Church.

www.

crowdchurch.

org and he's been a member of the church for many years.

And he, yeah, leads the whole team there and he's great.

He's a legend, isn't he?

He is, he's brilliant.

He's a legend.

Yeah, great teacher.

grEat what?

Teacher.

I don't mean school, he was a school teacher.

He was a school teacher yeah.

He teaches.

The word very

He does teach it very well.

So yeah, we got John sharing the word with us.

So he's going to be talking from the book of Acts, which is a book.

We have been working our way through over the last forever.

It feels I don't even know where we are today.

I think chap's 20 somewhere around there.

We've got five or six more weeks.

I think in the book of Acts I could be wrong.

I think we go to the end of January.

We're going to have a slight break over Christmas.

And then we'll start on our new series.

Which we're still thinking of the title for, but we're going to be talking

basically about wellbeing and what does that look like physically, mentally,

spiritually, um, economically, all that kind of stuff, relationally, yeah, a

lot of stuff we're going to get into, which I'm really looking forward to.

So this sort of whole wellbeing series that we've got planned.

So make sure.

I don't know yet.

We've not put it out yet, but you never know.

So yeah, we've got that coming.

So make sure you like and subscribe to the online church.

And then when it comes out, you'll know all about it.

If you haven't done so already, by the way, head over to the website where www.

crowd.

church, or you can find us on social media at crowd church.

Where you can connect with us that way follow along, join in the conversation,

direct messages on the website at crowd.

church.

You will find a number, WhatsApp number, where you can

reach out to us via WhatsApp.

You can send us your prayer requests, any questions that you've got.

We've been having great conversations with people like Judy this week, which

she's just an absolute legend, Judy.

If you'd be like Judy, come and enjoy the conversation with us on Wopsap.

Wopsap?

I don't know either.

I just don't know.

I don't know.

Yes, but so we've got John Harding.

After John Harding

Nicola said, Good morning, Nicola.

Maybe for some people around the world, it is in fact morning.

It is.

I can put that to the broadcasters to confuse everybody.

mOrning, Lala.

Ah,

Julie Connolly, hi.

Look at that, Julie's joined us.

Hi, Julie.

Welcome back home.

Is Julie back now?

She's been in India,

hasn't she?

Yeah, I don't know if she's still over there.

Yeah, I think they're

home

now.

Okay, if you're actually welcome, I hope it was good in India.

I know, I still thought they were over there, but maybe

they're watching this in India.

I don't know.

Anyway, wherever you are in the world watching this great to see you.

Great that you're joining us.

Do say hi in the comments.

Love to hear from you.

And yeah, whether you're watching on Facebook or on one of the many

other channels like YouTube it's great that you're joining us.

So without further ado, we're going to get into John's talk.

Oh, Julie says amazing.

The photos, the pictures were amazing.

Do you want to tell people what Julie did?

I don't,

I don't know fully 100%, but I think she was with a team, Fliss

was there, in India, and they were, Do you know what I mean, Matt Crew,

Diocese, Prayer, Conversation Street, Holcombe, Origin, Origins, Liverpool,

Frontline Church, Jesus Christ, eCommerce

Podcast, EP.

It's very nice that happened.

So yeah, we got back on track.

We've got John doing the word.

After John has taught I think his talk is about 15, 16 minutes long

from memory, something like that.

Anyway, after when, however long he's chatting for, we'll be back, John

and I will be back for Conversation Street, where we're going to go

through your questions or comments.

in the feed and we're going to chat about we're going to talk about

the talk is what we're going to do.

Do throw your questions in the comments.

Be great to hear what you've got to say.

So I'm going to push this button on my pads and John and I'll be back directly.

We'll see

you soon.

Hi there, Crowd Church.

I want to share some thoughts with you today from Acts chapter 20.

And I'd really encourage you to listen to this talk with a Bible open.

Maybe even read Acts 20, the chapter after you've listened to this talk,

just to help you really take hold of what God might be wanting to say to you

today through the text through his word.

Let me just overview.

The chapter really quickly, just to place it into its context, you've got Paul, the

Apostle Paul, he is travelling around on mission through Israel, modern day Turkey,

into Greece, onto Rome, and as he does he goes everywhere preaching the Gospel.

People are becoming Christians.

He's gathering those new Christian believers together and starting

new churches, new communities.

He's training up new leaders for those churches and then as you go through

Acts you see he goes back to those communities from time to further

encourage and develop the leaders.

That's Acts, and then he's writing letters to those churches to help them,

and they are called the Epistles, books in the New Testament like Ephesians,

Corinthians, Philippians, that he's writing back into those emerging church

communities, and the main point that I want to make here Today from Acts 20 is

that Christianity, spiritual development, spiritual growth, is a relational thing.

It's relational.

It's something that we do better together and that comes across

really strongly in Acts 20.

I'll explain why in just a moment, but this is one of the things I love about

what we're doing here with Crowd Church.

In this modern world, A person could, if they wanted to, they could try

and develop and grow spiritually entirely on their own in isolation.

You could go online, you could find loads of sermons and teachings by people

you don't know, and you could never interact with other Christians, you

could get it all beamed into your home.

But that is not what we're trying to do through Crowd and Online Church.

What we're trying to do is find ways of connecting.

Together, growing together, and my goal is not that people would listen to this talk.

My hope is that you'd listen to this talk and then connect with others in

working out what it means to apply it to your life and to live it.

tHis chapter, Acts 20, is so relational.

In the previous chapter, Acts 19, Paul has been in Ephesus, modern day Turkey,

and he has basically caused a riot.

He's escaped for his life.

And now he's travelling through Macedonia, through Greece, onto his way.

And the first thing I want you to notice about this chapter and about

the relationships in this chapter is that as Paul journeys through

life, he takes people with him.

He walks through life with people.

And there's this list of people in verse 4 that Paul is journeying with,

people who Paul is investing in as he travels, Sopater, Gaius, and of course

Luke, who's writing everything down when he says we, he's talking about

himself and Paul, and those others.

And so we all need a few people who we are journeying through life with.

I wonder who you would name in your list as Luke names in Paul's list.

The second thing I want you to know is about this chapter and

about the relationships in this chapter is that everywhere Paul

goes he is encouraging people.

Verse 1 says he encouraged the disciples.

Verse 2 says he traveled through the area speaking many words

of encouragement to the people.

If you want to build good friendships, good relationships, speak words of

encouragement and life to people.

Don't be one of those people who are always moaning, always

complaining, because, people don't really want to journey through

life with people who are like that.

Speak words of hope, speak words of encouragement, speak words of

blessing to those people around you.

Yes, be open, be honest, but make sure that you are investing

more into the relationship.

So I wonder, if you were to do a little audit of your speech, if someone was

to record your speech, what you say to others, would your speech be characterised

by encouragement and blessing, or by discouragement or discouragement?

So then, through chapter 20, as we hit verse 17, Paul stops his journey

for a while in a place called Miletus.

And Paul sends for the leaders of the Ephesian church to come to meet him there.

Because he wants to meet them, but he can't go back to Ephesus safely because...

He caused a riot the last time that he was there.

So he gathers those leaders to himself.

Relational.

And in Acts 20, we read Paul's words to those leaders.

They are incredible words.

I wish I had time to unpack them with you, I'd encourage you to read those

words that Paul speaks to that team of leaders, he says to them, verse 18, You

have seen how I lived when I was with you.

And that is really important, how I lived.

Because in the Christian faith we learn more through imitation.

Learn in community, learn in relationship, I'm not really

interested in how much someone knows.

I'm interested in how they live, how it's applied to their life,

the difference that it makes.

juSt a thought, but I wonder, what lessons are people learning from you,

from the way that you live your life?

Now, it is clear from chapter 20 that Paul...

Paul has a pretty good idea that this is going to be the last

time he speaks to these leaders.

Verse 38, those leaders realise that they may never see Paul again.

So when we read it, we can read it as some of Paul's last words.

That's how, in his mind, he intended it, to speak to them, his last words.

And so I just want to focus on those words from verse 28, chapter 20, verse 28.

Paul says to these leaders, keep watch over yourselves.

And all the flock.

Now, flock is a relational term, isn't it?

That's why I say in this passage, it is relational.

The Christian faith is relational.

As we enter into a relationship with Jesus, we become part of a flock.

We have a relationship with others.

We then have to find a flock, a community, a church, a place

of refuge that we can belong.

But notice that Paul says...

Watch over yourselves and all the flock.

In other words, as leaders, we have to lead ourselves well first.

That is the first level of leadership.

That's what I'm looking for when I'm looking to develop leaders.

Someone who leads themselves well.

Those levels of leadership, leading self, leading others.

And how many leaders do we see that can seemingly lead others well?

They can seemingly lead organisations into impacts and growth, but

then later on we discover they hadn't kept watch over themselves,

they hadn't led themselves well.

Leadership starts with self leadership.

And Paul then reminds those leaders, actually, it's not their flock.

They don't own the flock.

The church community, it is Jesus church.

It is Jesus flock.

He is the chief shepherd, the good shepherd.

As a church leader, I find that so liberating, so freeing, that

as leaders, we just steward and care for what belongs to you.

By the way, verse 28 also reminds us of the cost of this flock.

This flock is precious because he bought it with his own blood.

There was a cost to being part of his flock.

Verse 29, Paul then talks about the savage wolves who attack the flock.

Now, this is nothing to be scared of, there's no fear for us

because our good shepherd Jesus guards us and watches over us.

But it is a warning to us.

And this is again about relationship, it's about belonging.

I as a sheep in God's flock, I'm prone to get disconnected.

I'm prone to go about...

My own way I'm prone to wander.

It's what sheep do now, that is the sort of sheep that the wolf,

the sat, that Satan is looking for.

Easy pickings, that one sheep that gets separated and disconnected from the flock.

So don't let fence, don't let church hurt.

Don't let pride.

Don't let unforgiveness, don't let consumerism and preference, don't

let it disconnect you from the flock.

Stay connected in relationship with other believers.

Now I'm going to finish in just a moment.

I'm keeping it short, not least because in the middle of the

chapter is the story of Eutychus.

Paul preached right through the night into the morning.

And in the morning, Utica fell asleep and he fell off a third

story window and he died.

And Paul, very much in the imitation of Jesus, he imitates

Jesus, Elijah and Elisha, and he raised the boy back to life.

In fact, he uses the very same words that Jesus had used when

Jesus had raised Jairus's daughter.

So actually, if anything, this passage affirms long sermons.

As long as those long sermons are accompanied by a demonstration

of the Spirit's power.

No one cares how long the preacher preaches for if someone gets

raised from the dead, do they?

That all night preaching, it does help me to land on my last point, and it's this.

Paul grafted, Paul served the Lord with all of his energy, Paul worked hard not

to earn his salvation, not to earn God's favour, he wasn't striving, he wasn't

some sort of self serving workaholic, no, he loved the Lord, and he loved people,

and he wanted people to be brought into relationship with Jesus, into relationship

with others, the church, the flock, Paul's work, his labour, I would say, reflexed

out of his relationship with Jesus.

It reflexed out of God's grace that was abounding to him and at work in his life.

If I'm honest, one of my concerns about modern Western Christianity is

that we give the impression that...

We should put our effort and our energy into ourselves, into self

development, spiritual formation.

It's a bit of a pendulum swing from previous generations and

now we've discovered Sabbath.

I'm just resting in the Lord.

I'm just Sabbathing, a permanent Sabbath rest.

Don't ask anything of me.

But actually what we see in the earliest church in Acts is that the joy, the

energy, the transformation personally.

came as those first believers sought to seek first the kingdom of God.

As they built the kingdom, as they extended the kingdom, as they

sowed into and invested into the lives of others, that's where the

joint transformation was found.

And this is the dynamic that we see here in chapter 20, and in Paul's

final words to them, verse 35.

And Paul says to them, he says, It says everything that I did, all the hard

work, all the serving of the week, it was all done in response to Jesus words.

That it is more blessed to give than to receive.

It's more blessed to give than to receive.

There is a greater joy, a greater happiness, a greater satisfaction,

a greater transformation that comes through the giving of ourselves.

In loving service of King Jesus.

Now usually when you preach a message like that I've found people like to

qualify it and balance it out and say, Ah yes, that's right John, but you

need healthy boundaries, don't get burnt out, which is absolutely true.

It's correct.

And as we read earlier, shepherds...

Take care of yourself first and then the flock.

But I want my final points here to be this that Paul calls us

into observation and imitation.

It's about observation and imitation of a way of life.

Who are you observing?

When I observe the lives of the healthiest, happiest, most fulfilled

people I know, I see people...

Really, who are truly living out those words of Jesus, they have discovered

that it is more blessed to give Than to receive people who serve.

So Acts 20, relationships.

Who are you speaking words of encouragement to?

Who are you journeying through life with?

Who are you caring for and who are you serving?

Amen.

So welcome back.

John was pretty good.

. I enjoyed that talk.

Have you got lots of notes?

I saw you doing this with your glasses, so I'm just like,

I'm going to read them now.

Yeah.

I've just got to get my head around the notes.

Thank you, Mr.

Harding.

That was fantastic.

It was.

Really encouraging.

Very challenging.

And yeah, before we get into that, let me just catch up with the comments here.

So we have got Anna Kettle saying, lovely to see you.

Thank you, Anna.

And as a legend, she's one of the hosts on the show.

Yeah.

It's not a show, is it?

It's a church service, I don't know.

Yeah, Friday night live.

I do podcasts, other podcasts, hence the reason I keep calling,

sometimes I call this one a show.

Actually, sometimes I call the other podcast online church services,

which is completely not true at all.

So it's, maybe it's an age thing, I'm just getting a bit mixed up.

Yeah, I think so.

We've got Miriam in the comments, who's watching from Scarborough.

Scarborough.

Scarborough, she's on holiday in Scarborough.

Actually, I went to Scarborough when I was a kid yeah, as a holiday.

I've really good memories of it as well.

And yeah, so much so I've not wanted to go since.

Just because I don't want to destroy the memory, if that makes sense.

Scarborough Fair.

Scarborough Fair.

Yeah, Nicola's put in the comments, I love being in the crowd flock.

John obviously used the word flock a lot.

We're going to get into that.

But Nicholas put that I'd have been part of the crowd flock

and I just replied, actually, I think that's maybe the new name.

We'll change it from Crowd Church to Crowd Flock.

Yeah.

crowdflock.

com No, we're not going to, not at all.

So got Isaac in the comments.

Hello, Pastor.

Greetings to you.

Please pray for my orphanage home for food and water.

I think Isaac's from Africa, actually.

So Isaac, good to see you.

And God's blessing on your orphanage.

It's going on there.

Andy liked the bit about investing in relationships, otherwise relationships

might not be mutually balanced.

Very good.

So we're going to get into all of this.

Keep your comments coming and any questions that you've got based on

John's any questions, full stop, really.

We'll try and answer them, unless it's what are the latest lottery numbers, in

which case it'll be a complete guess.

But yeah, keep your questions, keep your comments coming as

we're going to get into it.

Because there was a lot there.

Yeah, there was.

What's in your notes?

What's top of your notes?

What have I put in, just about how Christianity is

first and foremost, relational.

Yes.

It's not just an intellectual faith.

No, it's not a solo sport either, is it?

No, it's about people.

Yeah, it is totally about people.

And that's important because I think quite often society at the

moment is super isolated, isn't it?

Super, super, I don't know if you've noticed this in your job, Jen, actually.

But it's, I think it's so isolated at the moment and it's just

we've become conditioned to it.

Do you know what I mean?

And I think it's just not, it's not what God intended really.

No it's not that kind of isolated solo sport thing going on.

You need to be part of a team really, part of a community.

I think there's meaning in that, I think there's purpose in that, and I think it's

part of God's design is to be with people.

There's protection in that.

Yeah, which John talked about actually in his talk.

Yeah.

So that whole protection side of things.

Yeah, so it is relational.

Christianity is relational.

Yeah.

It's about being in a relationship with people.

What else have you got in there?

Just about how, When he walked, when Paul walked through life with others,

he was investing and choosing people to journey with, and I think sometimes we

can focus on our jobs, we can focus on our family primarily and not really pay

much attention to who we're journeying with outside of those relationships.

I think it's really important.

I remember Nick Harding once saying that you become like those you spend time with.

Yeah.

And that's so true, isn't it?

That we have to be intentional, I think about who we journey with.

What does, what do you, what does that

mean though, to be intentional?

I think choosing your friends I think what I mean by that is the people

that we trust with, with things with us, with our lives that we open up to that

we live beside and who we socialize with.

Yeah.

I think.

It's important that we are careful in that.

In, in work, actually, you can't choose those, your colleagues.

But out of work, I think you can.

And I think it's important to be with people who encourage, who are kind,

who are loving, and who are honest.

What do you

think, Matt?

Yeah, I agree.

I think, we connect with all kinds of people, don't we?

Throughout our lifetime and we create close bonds and friendships with people.

And we journey through life together with them.

And I think for me, this whole intentionality thing I have a thing in

my diary like half an hour scheduled a couple of times a week where I'm

just like, during this time, reach out to, and I have a list of people

because if I don't connect with them and it might just be a simple text

or an email, like I might email Andy or I might send a text to Nicola or

whatever and go, Hey, how you doing?

Just checking in and it's just part of my routine where I have different

people and I have a little calendar reminder just to remind me, Oh, if

you've not heard from these people, just check in with them, connecting with

them for a little bit, because I think it's so easy to get disconnected from

people that we should stay connected.

With right.

I know Sharon does this, for example, with my mum, she's really good

at staying connected with my mum.

And she has a little calendar reminder to call my mum and say, howdy doody.

And I think there are people that we are friends with that to be intentional

in that relationship, whether it's a friendship, whether it's my marriage,

whether it's people at church, where actually I have to reach out

because it's easy not to do that.

Yeah.

Do you know what I mean?

In the current world in which we live.

Definitely.

Yeah, definitely.

I I 100 percent agree.

And I think even if it means that we have to write things on a calendar to remind

ourselves then so be it, it's not that out of sight, out of mind, particularly, it's

just that our lives are so busy and, we just don't think about, or we don't always

make the effort to, it's not that we don't care, it's just, our lives are too busy.

So I think having reminders to do those things is

brilliant.

Yeah.

I'll tell you, it works for me.

I'm not saying it's for everybody.

I'm just saying it works for me.

And I know there's, the past couple of days there's a family that I

know that's just been on my mind.

I've been praying for them.

And I keep thinking to myself, oh, I must give him a ring.

. You know what I mean?

I must give him a call and then something happens.

I know.

And it, and then I don't And it and you.

Yeah.

And I can sit here and think actually, I've been saying that

to myself for the last few days.

And if I'm not careful, I won't do it.

So I have to make a note.

Yeah.

To do that, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Who have you not reached out to recently?

Who do you need to connect with?

Just send a text message or an email or give him a ring.

To say, Hey, howdy doody.

It's great to connect with you.

I'm just checking in.

What are you saying to them?

Howdy doody.

What's that?

Do you not know the phrase?

Howdy doody?

Of course I do.

I just,

it's a very bizarre thing to say.

Howdy, if you said that to me, I'd be going.

Okay,

everybody text Jan, howdy doody, just do it randomly throughout

the week, just text Jan, howdy doody Jan.

Mental note to meself, text Jan, howdy doody.

Nicola's put here I think if it had not been for church community,

I don't think I'd be here anymore.

Now this is another, this is a part of what John Harding was talking about

in terms of encouragement, right?

It's one thing to connect with people and to actually, make that a habit in

whatever way works for you, say for me, the calendar appointments, but

in a way that is encouraging, right?

So I have this challenge, that I give people all the time and I think it's a

really good challenge to have because we have become, I think John touched

on this actually, Christianity has become quite consumer led, hasn't it?

In the sense that, yeah, church has to give me whatever

it is I want out of church.

And if it's not giving me whatever I want, I'm off because, that's

not what church is all about.

It's all about making me happy.

I need to feel a certain thing and you need to give me great teaching.

You need to.

Yeah.

And it's, there's an element of you need to get fed in

church and I appreciate that.

But in Hebrews, if I read it correctly church is more about what you give.

And specifically, Paul talks Thessalonians, John talked

about it's day from the talk.

Who can you encourage and that.

Desire that understanding that whenever I work in, walk into the

church building, regardless of what I'm going through, in some respects

And it's not, there are times, don't get me wrong, there are seasons

when you want to go to church, you want to connect with God.

And you want to hear from God, right?

. And you do.

And you want to know what's going on.

And I think that's super, super important.

But nine times out of 10, actually going to church is about encouraging

those in the church building.

And just how different would church be if we just went with a mindset

that says, God, help me encourage people today when I go to church.

Who can I find and encourage?

Do you know what I mean?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I'm a, I love encouraging people.

You're very good

at it, Jen.

Do you think?

Yeah, I think you're great to be around.

Oh, thank you.

And I think people always feel loved up and encouraged when they're around you.

That's a nice thing to

say.

Thank

you.

Because you have this really cool sense of humor, right?

And and if you don't know Jen, and you don't know Jen's sense of humor,

sometimes, People just think you're being totally serious and she's just,

like the how do you do dee what.

iT's just really funny.

But I think at the same time, you're also super encouraging.

Oh, thank you.

And I think you always come, it's like today you came and you said, Oh, I was

listening to Sharon's What's the Story and she was great because of this.

You didn't have to say that, but it's just, it's an encouraging thing to hear.

So I think you are naturally quite encouraging.

I don't know if it's intentional.

A bit of both.

Yeah, I really like doing it.

Because I don't think there's enough encouragement in the world.

No.

But yeah, it is the one thing that's very nice.

I just picked up on what John said as well.

I think when the world is telling us it's about number

one, it's about Self development.

It's about, making sure you're okay.

I think the opposite of that is, is kingdom values is it's about serving.

And actually I think when we take our eyes off ourselves, that's

when we get true true joy and.

depth and meaning and purpose in our relationships.

I think when you can give to someone else um, although it feels like it's hard

sometimes when you're tired or you're hurting or, you're feeling not great.

I think whenever we make the effort to serve or to help someone else.

God always blesses us, doesn't he?

Yeah, he does.

It's I remember, going various points to Africa, and Julie can relate to this,

going to India recently, that you go there thinking, oh, I'm gonna, we're

giving this and we're bringing the other.

Actually, you're always blessed so much more.

Yeah, you always take more out of it.

Yeah.

So yeah, it's good, more blessed to give than to receive.

That's an interesting, yeah, that's very true.

It's very true.

And I like this idea of what you said about serving, and actually it's the

exact opposite spirit of the culture in which we're in at the moment,

which I have to be honest with you.

I think is um, we're going to get into this actually in a couple of weeks.

I'm doing a talk on worldview.

So I'm going to get into this in a lot more depth.

But I, we live in a culture at the moment, which is so narcissistic in the

West, which is so based upon me, right?

So what do I mean by that?

In the sense that now it's got to the stage where if you do not agree with

me, and what I say may be inaccurate, it may be an untruth, but if you don't

agree with it, then not only are you intolerant and a bigot, You are wrong.

That's right.

And I talked about this with Tony in the talk we did on friendship,

which was a great conversation.

If you've not heard it, do check it out.

Actually friends, they are people that not only encourage you, but

encouraging you is not making you feel better about yourself, right?

Encouragement from a Christian perspective is, hey dude, this is what God says.

Let's understand what God's saying.

This is what God's got us for is let's pursue this with all our heart and

encourages in that right in the things of God and to know God and to understand God.

It's not necessarily about making us feel better about ourselves.

And so we've gone so far down this path now, which says, actually, I am so right.

And I am so it's all about me that if you don't agree with me, then

Everything about you is wrong.

That's right.

And we're gonna close the door.

And, the whole cancel culture came outta that, didn't it?

And I think

is People take fence, don't they?

Oh, they do.

They do.

I think offense is a real, it's so toxic, isn't it?

, I've been on the other end of offending people various times of my

life, and it's really quite shocking.

It's very unpleasant And, I just think, again, I remember one of someone

talking at Frontline a few years ago saying, we have a choice whether we take

offense or not, just because someone disagrees with us or like you just

said, Matt, don't have the same opinion.

You have a choice there and then whether you're offended by that.

And, It's just about growing up a little bit, I think.

Yeah, it's about, it's like you say, it's about

not being so focused on self.

Yeah.

And it's not being so focused on me and my rights, it's not so focused

on that, it's more about serving.

It's about understanding the person in front of you and

going, how can I bless you?

How can I encourage you?

How can I serve you?

Rather than, how can you serve me?

How can you edify me?

How do you make me feel better about myself?

It's, Christianity I think is the opposite spirit.

And part of the time, to be fair, Christians haven't

been great at doing that.

We've been great at disagreeing with people but we've not been

great at encouraging people.

And I think I think it's a real shame, I really do.

And so yeah, serve and encouragement, in fact, encouragement and

serving go hand in hand.

Serving is one way to encourage people.

Nicola's very good at that, although she's put wine or gin in the comments.

I'm not quite sure that's a glass of wine, red.

Yeah, it's a bit too early for a gin and tonic, uh, in England anyway.

I don't know if that answers your question.

Random question in the comments.

But yes.

One of the things that John put my glasses on now so I can read my notes,

I'm going to do that thing that Jan does, just have them on the end of my nose,

just look over the glasses very superior of me um, so yes, so the speech audit.

Oh, yeah.

I thought that was an interesting idea.

Doing an audit of how you talk to people.

Yeah, I know.

It's fascinating.

Yeah, it is, I think it, I don't think it would go well for me.

I think it would.

I think it would.

Yeah.

There's there's a really interesting app called Otter.

Now, they do not sponsor Crowd Church, let me just be totally clear.

Otter is a transcription service.

Oh yeah.

Okay.

And I have it on my phone.

I have it on my computer and with work, one of the things that I do whenever

I have a meeting, like a zoom call or a, this, a few of us chat, and I'll

put the phone down or I'll turn the, and I will record that conversation.

Right, and Otter will transcribe that conversation and so it will say, these,

and it's great because it then goes through and it summarizes what was said

and it draws out the action points, which in, yeah, work is a beautiful

thing because I'm rubbish at taking notes when I'm engrossed in a conversation.

And I, one of the reason I'm telling you this is one of the things that

Otter does, which utterly fascinates me.

Is it tells you the percentage of that conversation that you have spoken for?

Really?

So if you and I had a conversation and it recorded it, it would

say, Matt, you spoke 70%.

70%.

And you, Jan, spoke 30%.

And that has become really interesting to help me understand in a conversation

how much I actually take up and not giving space to the other person's talk.

It's not always that you don't I'm not talking about you personally, but

it's not always about taking up space.

I think sometimes people, need to give a bit more, don't they?

Yeah, they do.

They do.

But

yeah, that's really interesting.

I tell

you what was fascinating was, The numbers next to people

were not what I expected them to be.

So you should download the app, and just record the conversations

that you have, obviously with the permission of the people.

Is it free?

Yeah.

Really?

I think there's a paid version which we have because we use it so much.

But yeah, it's just this really interesting idea and just doing

this sort of speech audit.

So not only what I say.

But how much of the conversation I

take up.

Yeah, it's really interesting.

Yeah.

Fascinating.

Yeah.

Really fascinating.

And so it's meant actually when I do different podcasts that I I tone down

the amount of, I'm, I'm actually aware of talking less and asking more questions.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's really, it's a really powerful tool.

Anyway, speech audit.

What would your speech audit come back at?

You know what I think the best thing to do here, Jan in the short term,

for me, I reckon if I went and asked Sharon, she'd tell me straight.

What?

spEech audit.

If I said to her, am I encouraging or discouraging?

Yeah.

Those people around you, those that you're journeying with life,

will be able to tell you whether you're encouraging or discouraging.

Yeah,

definitely.

I think you're an encourager.

No, I don't.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm not

joking.

This is the Encourage Each Other Club tonight.

Yeah, so I thought that was a really good thing.

We still got more time, or?

We got plenty of time.

Is there something more you want to say?

I really liked what I thought the whole talk was great, but about the

importance of leading yourself first.

Oh, yes.

That a good leader has to lead themselves before they can lead.

Anyone else?

So I think that's talking about um, discipline, self discipline.

Yeah.

Basically not just, it's not do as I say, is it?

It's do as I do.

Yeah.

Do you know what I mean?

So you can't just get up on a Sunday and expect people to Follow your lead

if you're not living it yourself and,

Do you know where I've figured this out the

most, or seen this the most?

It's having kids.

Okay.

In the sense that kids are brilliant at mirroring your actions.

Yeah.

And that's a little bit eye opening, isn't it?

Yeah.

Have you found that?

Because you've got three great kids.

I think, yeah, def, oh, 100%, but I only realised that all their,

The bad things really did from Tim.

So all the good qualities clearly from me, obviously,

Obviously Tim's Jan's husband, by the way, if you don't

know.

Do you find that?

Yeah, they get all their bad qualities from me and all

their good ones from from Sharon.

Definitely.

No.

But no, I think it's just really fascinating when you have kids that

Julie's put in the comments, by the way, you're a total encourager.

Ah,

thank you.

It might be you, she means.

I think it's definitely you.

Ah, thanks, Julie.

Oh, she's a great, speaks the truth.

Woman of truth.

She is.

Yeah.

Yeah, definitely.

But no, I think since having kids and seeing the

scenes, sometimes my kids act and understanding actually, they've

totally picked that up from me.

And you just go, Oh, maybe I need to change this.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was, I would do stupid things like I'm not great now, if I sat

at the table with the phone, the kids are going to think it's okay

to sit at the table with the phone.

Yeah.

It's just what they do.

And so leading by example is the old, it's what they used to say, isn't it?

The old fashioned way, lead by example, we should do that.

buT it's really interesting because Paul said in scripture, didn't he?

He said, imitate me as I imitate Christ.

That's a pretty bold statement, isn't it?

I don't know if I've ever gone to people.

I don't actually know how people would respond to it.

If I just turn around to people and say no, copy me as I copy Jesus.

It's a pretty bold thing to say to folks, isn't it?

Because you've, I think you've got to be fairly sure that you're

copying Jesus in the right way.

I think I'm, I think I'm doing all right.

Don't get me wrong.

I don't think I'm perfect by any

way.

You then become aware of actually.

How you act, as well as what you say, right?

And I imagine this is especially true with what you do for work.

Yeah.

In what way of, what

do you mean?

I think you're in the public a lot.

You're in the community a lot.

And um, is it okay to tell people what you do?

Yeah, sure.

So Jan is a community midwife.

Yeah.

Not just a midwife.

A community midwife.

And so you get to see people at the most vulnerable, don't you, in a lot of ways

at a time when they're both really excited and quite petrified all at the same time.

And yeah that, that's what I mean in terms of, what you say and what you do,

I think becomes quite important because you can, I suppose if you say one thing

but act in another way, that's going to really, that could cause people to flap.

Yeah, I definitely feel like you don't care.

Yeah, absolutely.

It goes across the board.

In all our relationships that it goes back to what we said last week.

It's about integrity, isn't it?

I, I think, as a midwife, as a health professional, that I have to just focus on

what I'm doing on my patient, the patient.

That, I'm not thinking about myself but I'm thinking about how I can be the

best for them and give them the best care but if I was, not consistent

in that, then they would soon know and they would, women talk, women these days

either, they don't put up with much.

We'd soon know about it if they weren't happy, but yeah, no, I think it affects

all of us in all of our relationships.

Yeah, absolutely.

No, it does.

And I think just encouraging people.

I, Julie says here, you look lovely as well.

You've got it, you've got it all coming from

Julie.

Thank you, Julie.

Julie's always got lovely hair.

She's got good

hair.

Very good hair, Judy.

It's a very important thing to say.

Judy's got good hair.

Isaac says, I thank God for your blessing which is great.

Andy's put, WWJD.

What would Jesus do with me?

Does it mean me?

What would John do?

I,

we could go either way.

Julie says, yeah, I have got good hair.

Yeah, we know Julie, it's always immaculate and shiny.

Always

immaculate and shiny.

Yes, no very beautiful hair.

It's extraordinary.

What would Jesus do?

What would Jan do?

Two great questions to ask in life.

Do you know what?

I was doing a a business event in the land down under.

I was in New Zealand, right?

I was speaking at an event down there.

I don't know, there's a couple hundred people at the event.

And I was doing this business conference type thing down there.

And I was speaking at that.

And I was talking about this The phenomenon at the time of the

WWJD, the bands where you used to get WWJD, what did Jesus do?

And they just said WWJD.

No one in New Zealand knew what I was talking about.

Really?

Really surprised me.

Yeah, I was like, oh, goodness me.

There goes that whole talk, I had to rethink something.

Ha!

Slap, there it is.

But WWJD.

They do say New Zealand's about 20 years behind, don't they?

No,

don't say that.

They do.

No, they don't.

New Zealand's awesome, I love New Zealand.

Yeah, what would Jesus do?

Is a great question to ask yourself.

Good question there, Andy, what would Jesus do?

That's a good, that whole imitate me as I imitate Jesus.

That's it, absolutely.

Thinking about what would Jesus do.

Yeah.

Anything else in the last minutes, Jan, from your notes

you want to desperately talk

about?

Just can't ignore the fact that John used the word reflex.

Because in all of his talks, which, it's a good thing.

It is a good

thing.

John has even written a book, hasn't he, called Reflex.

Yeah, he has indeed.

I'm surprised, actually, he didn't show a copy on screening.

You can find out more about Reflex from my book.

It is a good book.

Reflex, do you

remember that song?

Duran.

Yeah, I was, I am a Durani, or used to be.

I'm a

Durani.

Did you ever go to a Duran concert?

Oh yeah, of course.

How many did you go?

Were you a groupie?

I would have liked to have been, but I was

about 14 when they were out.

Okay.

But I did bunk off school once to go and see them.

Yeah, so let's come in now.

They do know what they did now, but no, it was the only time I ever did

it.

So as we're talking about Imitate Me as I imitate Christ, and as we're

talking about how kids imitate their parents, I think, Kerish, you've

just got license there to bunk off school and go to any kind of concert.

You

haven't, none of you have.

If your kids are watching, you're in so much danger.

Indeed.

It's just very funny.

Very funny indeed.

Yeah, Duran.

What legends they were.

Yeah.

Defined an era.

Yeah, they did define an era.

So if you're just joining us, welcome to Matt and Jen talk about Duran.

The 1980s.

Actually no the reflexion and it's, uh, the way John talks about it is

very much, it's like our default.

It's our way of responding, our way of acting and what our default response

should be hopefully as we become more and more mature in our walk with

Christ, it should become more and more like that, shouldn't it really?

Yeah, in theory.

Yeah, absolutely.

So yes and then obviously lead yourself well first.

I thought that was a great phrase.

You mentioned that earlier about the first level of leadership,

lead yourself well first.

And for me, John picked on the fact that we are now, we've, as a church,

there's been a lot of books recently in Christianity about doing Sabbath,

and we've taken it from one extreme to another, because that's what Christians

do, we like to swing the pendulum.

And he drew attention to that, leading yourself well.

Yeah, I think actually involves more self discipline than anything else.

Yeah, I think so.

Do you know what I mean?

And I think one of the fruits of the Spirit is self control.

Not something we talk about that often, but it is.

And actually leading yourself well is Being very self controlled I've got a

finite amount of time, I'm going to spend it this way, I'm going to be intentional

in these relationships, so if you're married, I'm going to be intentional in

my marriage, if I have kids, I'm going to be intentional with my kids, my friends,

I'm going to be intentional there, I'm going to go to church, I'm going to

encourage the socks off everybody that I meet, I'm going to pray for them, I'm

going to have a, hopefully seek God and try and get a word for, some of them.

That's what I think leading yourself well.

It's all about

us.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

I love that.

You sounded like you were going to say something.

No, I was just thinking, how great is that,

how different church would look like if we actually did that.

Yeah.

And our workplaces.

You've talked before about, not being, and you've

mentioned it again this evening.

We're not, we shouldn't be consumers, should we?

We are givers, really, we should be giving.

And what are people learning from our lives?

It's self reflection is good.

Just totally focusing on self isn't.

But I think when we take our eyes off ourselves onto Jesus then I

think we, real happiness, real peace comes from that, doesn't it?

And we can build proper relationships.

It's not just all about how you're feeling.

yOu know what you're getting out of it.

Yeah,

very good.

I think it's very true.

Seeing yourself through the lens of Jesus is quite important, really.

Through the eyes of Jesus.

So no, it's super, super cool.

Let me tell you from my notes here, what's coming up next week.

I'm just going to click on it and find out because I don't actually know.

You talk for a sec, John, while I figure it out.

'cause I should have checked this before.

No, I just yeah.

Thank you for for John bringing that word.

I like the little pictures as well.

The graphics that written.

Oh yeah.

Tanya Between, that was really good.

Yeah.

Tanya's getting on with a video editing.

That was Tanya who edits the video.

She's the legend.

Yeah, that was very good.

She's the legend.

So next week.

You have got Dan Orange.

In this chair, he is doing hosting along.

John Harding will be next week in that chair.

And apparently Anna Kettle is speaking.

Anna, looking forward to hearing what you've got to say.

Next week, I'm actually going to be in Paris.

Who with?

My wife.

We've been married for 25 years and finally we get to go away and celebrate.

And Sharon's never actually been to Paris.

Yeah, I was shocked too when I read it.

Mais

non.

Mais non.

Mais non.

Paris is, I love Paris.

Do you like it?

Beautiful.

Yeah.

Paris.

Oh, have a

wonderful time.

Yeah, I'll be tuning in to Crowd from the streets of Paris

next week, so wherever you are.

Oulala.

Oulala.

Sometimes

they're just no words, are they really?

Ooh la.

Ooh

La.

Excellent.

Let's get some control back.

Now, if you haven't done so already, head over to the website, www.

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Consume content, whether it's on Facebook or YouTube or however you do it, it's

been great to be with you this week.

Any final words from you, Miss Jan?

Nope, just have a wonderful week and yeah, just pray that, that we all

really make a note of what are we saying to other people when we're living our

lives, when we're going about our everyday life, what are people learning from us,

and try and encourage someone this week.

Be intentional about encouraging wherever you

are.

Very good.

Be intentional about encouraging wherever you are.

Top tip.

And on that bombshell I will bid you or we will bid you adieu.

Have a fantastic week wherever you are in the world.

Thanks for joining us.

Thanks for all your comments.

Au revoir.

Au revoir.

I'm practicing my French.

Oh la.

Anyway, see you next time.

That's it for us.

Bless you guys.

Bye.

Bye.

Bye.

Thank you so much for joining us here on Crowd Church.

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That's it from us.

God bless you.

Bye for now.