Embark on a journey of faith, courage, and surrender with us! Our latest talk, unwraps the heart of what it means to truly trust God, even when the path seems shrouded in uncertainty.

In this talk, you'll discover:

• 🛤️ Paul’s unwavering journey to Jerusalem, despite daunting warnings, stands as a testament to his unwavering trust in God.
• 🌪️ How God’s warnings serve as preparation, not prevention.
• 💪 The strength that comes from embracing hardships in the pursuit of faith.
• 🙌 Inspiration to embrace your own journey of faith and trust.

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

where you can contribute and grow.

Our service will 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.

It'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.

My name is Matt Edmundson and beside me.

It's the beautiful, the talented, the all round good egg, which is Ellie Light.

Ellie, how are we doing?

Yeah, really

well.

Thank you.

Slightly nervous about this microphone placement already.

Already was slightly nervous about microphone placement.

We've just been chatting.

This is if you're new to Crowd Church, warm welcome to you, by the way.

Ellie is you've been a speaker before on Crowd, but you've

never actually hosted before.

That's correct.

Correct.

Are you nervous?

Yeah.

A little bit.

A little bit.

Yes.

Welcome Ellie to Crowd Church.

Thank you for hosting.

Pleasure to be here.

I'm excited.

Ellie's first time hosting.

Say hi to Ellie in the comments.

Do come and join us in the comments.

Evening Andy, Evening Matt, how are we all doing tonight?

I can see the comments coming in.

And tell me what you think to my new Christmas jumper, by the way.

it's wonderful.

Do I tell you or do they tell you?

Both!

They're gonna comment about it.

Evening Nicola.

Yeah, they're gonna, they're gonna comment about it as well.

But the, this is such a cool, my Star Wars Christmas jumper.

I'm so excited with this.

I've only got one

Christmas jumper, really?

Yeah, it's just got a snowman on it.

You don't do the Christmas

Jumper thing?

No, it has got a carrot that comes out of it though.

Oh,

it's his nose, okay, cool.

Yeah, fair play.

Just the one.

Just the one.

Every year we have a tradition in our house.

I don't know about you guys.

In fact, if you're in the comments, tell us what your Christmas traditions are.

I'd be really curious to know.

But we have this tradition whereby Every Saturday, the first Saturday of

every December, which was yesterday, if people are wondering yesterday

we walked down as a family to the shop that does the Christmas trees.

So we walked from my house through the mystery, which

is a park here in Liverpool.

And we go choose the tree.

And we all make sure that we're happy with the tree, we all get to see the

tree out and then we walk back to the house and then an hour or two later

they deliver the tree and we decorate the tree and we do the house up.

Oh, so you're not even having to carry it?

Oh, that's good.

Yeah, I'm too lazy for that, carrying that through the park.

No!

anD yeah we did our Christmas tree yesterday so the trees

are up, the deckies are up.

And I'm wearing Christmas jumpers because, we're in the run up to Christmas.

Do you want Christmas do.

What is yours?

So in our family my dad's not really a fan of things being in the house.

Like a settee?

Yeah, just like excessive things that aren't needed.

So we go out on Christmas Eve and we buy a really reduced Christmas tree

for about three quid, because who buys a Christmas tree on Christmas Eve?

Then we decorate it, and that's it, I don't know, it's up for about 3 4

days, really, yeah, oh wow, depressing

yeah, sorry Ellie's dad, that's just wrong on so many

levels, oh dear, that's wrong on so many levels, and his decorations

went up this This weekend as well.

Yeah, I think a lot of people go.

It's the time to do it really.

It is.

We did this thing where actually yesterday cause normally this is a family tradition

for us going to get in the tree, right?

And we because our family in theory has grown over the years, as we have

adopted more and more people and had more and more people come live with

us, have become part of the family.

They've subsequently left, got married.

And so there was like 16 of us going to this, picked the Christmas tree yesterday.

There was a lot of people including Sadaf, who's been on the live stream.

She just sent me a text saying, Oh, I'm coming as well.

I'm going to get a Christmas tree.

So Sadaf and the family came down.

So 17 of us just wandered down, which was amazing.

The guy at the Christmas tree shop did, was overwhelmed by the amount

of the Edmo family coming down, , or Team 53 as we call ourselves.

And , we all then went back to the house and had some food, which I'd

spent four or five hours cooking.

We did, some really nice food.

And so yeah, we by the end of last night, I was absolutely knackered, . Aw.

I was like so we first, I don't do it in November.

Don't do Christmas decorations in November.

And like some people like Jenny Oliver, who works here.

She does Christmas decorations in November.

I'm like, there's just no way.

So Will's put here in the comments your dad, I'm assuming

he's talking to you Ellie.

Your dad sounds like mine.

We went out with a saw and found some scraggy twig on Christmas Eve.

Yeah,

Brilliant.

Yeah, thankfully we do actually get a real Proper tree.

And it's so cheap then as well.

That's the thing that's amazing about it.

You're getting one, like a really good one for three quid.

But if you think about it, if it's only for

three days, it's a pound a day.

Yeah, great.

But that's how much it costs for a normal Christmas tree all December.

I'm not paying for it.

But you have, we're going to get into the talk

in a minute, ladies and gentlemen.

We will move on.

Don't panic.

But you have got a new house.

I have.

I say now.

I've been there about a year now.

Yeah.

And have you got the tree

up?

No, I don't.

I'm actually, I've put some fairy lights around my banister.

And that's it.

That's

as far as you've got so far.

That's as far as I've got.

Now you're in control of your own destiny here in your own house.

Are you going to follow your dad's, I get a tree on Christmas Eve thing?

I'm going to

go home for Christmas no.

Wow, okay, fair enough.

Matt Crew says he doesn't do Christmas decorations at all.

Why does that not surprise me, Matt?

Nicola, the force is strong with this one.

Yes.

Talking about my jumper.

Oh, very good.

Very good.

So yeah, Christmas.

Merry Christmas to you.

Warm welcome to you.

If you just joined us, like I say, my name is Matt.

This is Ellie and we are Crowd Online Church talking about Christmas.

Cause Christmas is a big thing for the church.

We do like Christmas.

We do have a Christmas service this year, so stay tuned.

We'll give you more information about that later.

But for now we are going to carry on with our conversation through the book of Acts.

We have the beautiful.

Anna

Kettle.

I read that off a piece of paper, obviously.

It's just like we did in rehearsals, ladies and gentlemen.

We've got Anna Kettle talking to us about the Book of Acts.

This week it's The Correct Talk.

Matt, I saw you put that in the comments earlier.

We are going to do The Correct Talk today.

God bless the guys last week, that was a little bit of a mess up.

I say mess up.

It was just, it was a beautiful accident is what it was Dan

and John they had a great time.

I was in Paris, so I was just grateful they were doing it if I'm honest with you.

Had a weekend away celebrating 25 years.

Oh, that's nice, isn't it?

Yeah, 25th anniversary, me and Sharon, which was lovely.

So we had a great time in Paris.

Great stuff.

So all that said, I am gonna push this button on the pad.

We're gonna have Anna on the talk, then Ellie and I will be back

after this for Conversation Street.

Get busy writing your comments, questions, thoughts, stories, and all

that sort of stuff in the comments.

We'll be back soon.

Here's Anna.

Hi there.

So today I'm talking about Paul's journey to Jerusalem.

You can read all about this story in Acts chapter 21.

So we're continuing our series looking at the book of Acts today and passage on.

Looking at, and have been asked to speak on, is Acts 21, verse 1, 3 to 36.

Now that's quite a long passage, so I'm not going to read it all here right now.

Instead, I'm going to just summarize the narrative, what happens in that passage

to give us a little bit of context for this talk, and then suggest that maybe

you can go away and look at it in your own time and read it in more detail.

So basically, just to take us to the beginning of the chapter then, so Paul

is planning to go to Jerusalem to share the good news, to encourage the believers

there, and also share the good news with those that aren't believers yet.

And the first part of this chapter just follows his journey as he travels through

the Greek Isles through courts and raids, then he goes down past Cyprus on a boat.

And then onto the mainland in the Middle East, so he first goes through Syria and

then down into Lebanon, below it, and then down on into Israel, into Jerusalem,

which is his ultimate destination.

However, this journey that he's taking is not straightforward.

No longer he receives a number of warnings not to go to Jerusalem because he's

going to be arrested there and that it's going to be dangerous for him to go.

Now, the first time this happens along the journey in this passage is

when he lands in Tyre, which is in Lebanon, and the Christians there are

warning him not to go to Jerusalem.

They say that the Holy Spirit have taught them that it's going to be dangerous,

and so they're warning him not to go.

And yet, as much as he hears their pleas and their concerns for him, he

says, no, I'm going to go to Jerusalem.

This is what God's told me to do.

I'm going to go.

And then later on in this journey, again, as he's traveling down into

Israel and towards Jerusalem, he's getting placed to his destination.

He's traveling through an area called Caesarea, which is to the north of Israel.

And as he's travelling through there, he receives a warning

from a prophet called Achebes.

Now, Achebes, again, has very clearly heard a word from God.

He's had a prophecy and he goes to tell Paul when he's staying

with Philip the Evangelist.

He says that the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem are planning to arrest

him and hand him over to the Gentiles when he arrives there.

Then so again, the Christians are disciples there.

The follow Jesus there in that area hear this and they peed where they're not go.

They're understandably concerned for his safety and worried that he's gonna be

arrested or that horn won't come to him.

That he could even be chilled if he's arrested when he gets to Jerusalem.

So they're saying, don't go and yet pause, answer.

It's really interesting at this point.

He says this, he says, Why are you weeping and breaking my heart?

I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem

for the name of the Lord Jesus.

Wow, that is quite a severe answer, isn't it?

It's quite intentional, there's nothing that is going to move him or

dissuade him from going to Jerusalem.

He's like very single minded about going because he believes God's told him.

And finally the Christians there realize, and so they give up, they realize they

can't stand in his way, that he's going to go, that he believes God's told him to

go and that he has to be obedient to that.

And in the end they resolve saying, okay, the Lord's will be done then.

And of course, Paul continues on his journey and he does go to Jerusalem.

And of course, when he does, sure enough, false accusations

are thrown at him by the local religious leaders there in Jerusalem.

And so he is arrested and he is imprisoned for his faith.

Now, that's the kind of context of the story.

I don't know about you, but I find this slightly confusing chapter.

It's weird, isn't it?

That Paul feels that God has told him to go and to preach the gospel in Jerusalem.

And so he's got this clear word from God.

And yet, along his journey, the Holy Spirit sends loads of different warnings

for the danger ahead in his journey.

And then he still goes straight into that danger anyway.

It leaves me feeling what's the point of all that?

What is this passage trying to tell us?

On the one hand, is Paul being disobedient to God by ignoring all of these

warnings and going into, the danger?

Is he being silly?

I'm not sure I would have gone if I'd received so many warnings about being

arrested and possibly a threat in my life.

Is he being disobedient to God?

Is he ignoring the warnings of the Holy Spirit?

But then equally, is God contradicting himself?

Because he's already told Paul to go, and Paul feels so

confident that he should be going.

So then why is the Holy Spirit seeming to contradict what

God has already said to him?

It doesn't make any sense to me.

Paul feels very strongly that God's told him to get in there and he's acting on

that conviction but now he's getting all these warnings, danger ahead.

I Guess there's three simple points that I want to pull out of this

passage which might just help us with some of our understanding of it.

The first one is this, it's that God always prepares us for what he asks of us.

I'll say that again, God always prepares us for what he asks of us.

So just going back to that question about why God sent those

warnings to Paul and he still went.

Personally, I think that those warnings from the Holy Spirit were

intended to prepare Paul, but not necessarily to stop him from going.

And I think there's a difference, isn't there?

That they're about preparing his heart, about getting him ready for what lies

ahead, for the challenges that lie ahead in the road ahead of him on this journey.

That's not, being warned about what lies ahead doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong

for him to go, or that he shouldn't go, that the other Christians around him were

saying, don't go, but that's their inhuman projections and their own anxieties,

that them talking about their own fears, that's not necessarily what God's saying.

And so these warnings aren't necessarily a warning not to go, but

just a warning about what lies ahead.

And they helped him to be more prepared and ready for

what God was calling him into.

And yet, I wonder how often we make a similar mistake where, when hardship

comes, we're too quick to give up.

I Wonder sometimes when things get hard in our own journeys of faith, or when we

meet resistance or hit difficulties along the way that we suddenly start to question

whether, was that really God's will?

That questions that.

Was it really what God wants of us?

Is it still really what God wants of us?

Are we still on the right path?

Have we heard God right?

And we're so quick to question and to doubt what God's asked

of us when difficulty comes.

But sometimes those difficulties don't mean that we're on the wrong path

or that we're not hearing God right.

It just means that path is hard.

Difficulties don't mean that you're on the wrong path.

Often they mean that you're on the right path.

And that is just a difficult journey that you're undertaking.

And that brings me on to my second point, which is that Paul was so willing to take

risks and endure hardship for his faith.

He was so willing to go through difficulty.

He was warned of incredible hardship ahead, that he'd be arrested and

imprisoned, and that he could potentially even die or be putting his life at risk.

And yet he didn't seem to hesitate in any way, even though others around him.

We're really anxious and telling him not to go.

He didn't hesitate because he knew what God had told him and he didn't

doubt it and he didn't waver on it.

Now, I'm not suggesting that those similar kinds of troubles are probably going to

face many of us in our own walks of faith.

At least not here in the UK.

I know that some Christians elsewhere in the world right now can sometimes face

persecution, arrest, imprisonment, maybe even death for their faith, but that's

not common, certainly not here in the UK.

And so Yeah, but at the same time, it makes me think there are other

risks that we're asked to take for our faith sometimes, aren't they?

Even very small ones, and I wonder how willing we are we

willing like Paul to not hesitate?

Do we actually hesitate when those small difficulties come?

Do we hesitate when we're worried about feeling a bit embarrassed about

talking about our faith to people that don't share it or understand it?

Are we potentially worried about sounding a bit weird or about having our attentions

misunderstood or misinterpreted when we share about our experiences with God?

There's so many different levels of risk and different types of hardship that we

can be asked to endure for our faith.

I don't think many of us have had to endure to the point of

arrest or imprisonment or death.

And the third part that I wanted to just pull out of this passage was that

enduring hardship is actually part of what it means to follow Christ.

I know this isn't a particularly popular message, particularly in all

Western churches where we're quite used to being quite comfortable in

our faith, but actually when you read about the early church here in the

book of Acts, you just can't get away from the truth that following Jesus

isn't always easy or comfortable.

thE word Christian.

Literally means Follower of Christ I am, Christ Follower, and yeah, I wonder

how many of us who call ourselves Christians, who say that we believe

in and follow Jesus, aren't actually that willing to follow him into

difficult things, into hardships, into discomfort, into putting others before

ourselves, um, into Making ourselves uncomfortable through our faith and, I

count myself in this challenge as well.

I find this stuff hard.

I actually see some real parallels in this story about Paul troubling

towards Jerusalem and knowing that there's hardship ahead of his

journey and also the story of Jesus before his arrest and crucifixion.

In the Gospels, before Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane

and ultimately faced a horrific death in the cross, there's at least three

times in the Gospel accounts of his life where he predicts his own death

to his disciples and his followers.

And there's possibly other more subtle references that he knew what was coming

too, but there's certainly at least three occasions in the Gospel accounts

where Jesus Makes it clear that he knows what's coming, he knows what's

ahead in his own journey as well.

He knows that a cross is coming and that he'll be arrested.

Yeah, it's challenging, isn't it?

And just like Paul, Jesus didn't shy away from that difficult road ahead.

When he faced imminent death, these were some of the final words that he spoke.

He said, Father, if you are willing to take this cup away from me, and yet not

my will, but your will be done, you can read that passage in Luke 22 verse 42.

And it strikes me that's not that different Paul's response

here in, in the Book of Acts.

iS it?

He's, The conclusion here is the Lord's will be done.

That was the conclusion that the disciples came to when he refused to change course

or to stop in his journey, to not carry his journey on into difficult things.

And it leaves me feeling that challenge of, I wonder how many of us

are willing, toss that, say the same kind of thing when things get hard

in journey of faith with challenges coming our lives when God asks us to do

something and then to go and gets tough.

How many of us can say a similar thing, not my will Lord for yours be done.

As I said, not many of us are going to be asked to, lay down our lives for our

faith, at least not in this country, or threatened with arrest and imprisonment.

But, there are other things that we may have to surrender to God.

How many of our comforts are right?

Are we willing to part with our cash when Jesus asks us to give someone

a wage someone who needs something?

Or to part with our material things?

Or to give up our time when Jesus asks us to serve someone who needs something?

Are we willing to give a poll right to a certain kind of

lifestyle or quality of life?

Are we willing to put relationships or family or career or other things second

to what Jesus is calling us to do?

iT's, there's one example that I've got from my life in the

last couple of years where.

I had an opportunity to take a promotion at work, and this promotion would

have meant quite a significant amount more money, and I would be paid quite

a bit more, and a lot of colleagues were saying you should go for it,

you'll totally get it if you go for this, you can do this job, it's almost

certainly yours if you go for this role.

At the same time, it's quite a lot more responsibility and time commitment too.

And, I prayed about it and thought about it for a number of days and

I just didn't really feel any peace in myself about going for this role.

And it was because I felt like the role was going to take me away from

some of the other things that God was calling me to do in my spare time.

It was going to take me away from being spending enough time with

my family, but also from different ways that I was serving him.

Even doing things like this, like doing talks for Crowd Church,

or podcasting, or writing.

Other things that I, ways that I feel like God's asked me to serve them.

And I didn't go for the role.

And it, that might not be the area of challenge for everyone right now.

It may not be that God's asking you to put your career second to you.

They're following him.

I wonder if there are any other areas of your life where Jesus is asking you

to take a risk, or maybe to count the cost by choosing obedience to him over

your own comfort or unusual preferences.

thEre's loads of different areas where this can apply.

And it might be a very different challenge that is coming up in your life,

but as I said, just because something that seems difficult doesn't mean

it's the right or wrong thing to do.

Something that God has called you to do something, he'll give

you the tools to go through it.

And I can say that, or say, It may not be an easy decision

always to be obedient to God.

In all the years that I've been a Christian, I've never once regretted

doing what God has asked me to do, even when it feels challenging or hard

at the time to make that decision.

So I just want to leave us with that thought today, really.

Perhaps just ask you to take a moment to reflect on that.

So reflect on the cost of following Jesus in your life right now.

And as you do that, I just also want to finish with a short prayer, and I'm

going to pray for us all if that's okay.

So Lord, we're so sorry that we can be slow to do what you're asking

of us sometimes, or reluctant.

Sometimes we don't want to be inconvenienced, or to have our

comfortable lives disrupted, or to really have to count the cost.

And in these times.

I just ask that you'd help us to remember how much you have given up for

us and how you paid the ultimate cost.

Because you're an innocent man who died on the cross as a sacrifice for us.

You went and you did all that in our place.

And so I pray that in response to that you would help us to say in every situation

that we come across, just as Jesus did and as so many other Christians have done too,

Lord, I'm finding it hard to say yes to what you're asking of me right now, today.

Yet, not my will, but your will be done.

In Jesus name,

Amen.

Amen.

Amen to that.

Oh, great talk by Anna.

I love that.

We're going to get into that.

We're going to get into this whole thing that Anna was, jeez,

what a lot to get into there.

So we're going to get into all that.

Make sure you write your questions, comments, thoughts in the comments below.

And we will get to those as well.

What a great talk though, Anna.

Loved it.

Loved it.

Loved it.

Thank you.

Yeah.

What did you like about it?

I'd say is maybe the wrong word.

What was the key point do you think that stood out to you in that talk?

I'm not sure necessarily a key point, but I think what was

really, I found really powerful about it was just the honesty of it.

I think talking about the hard things in faith is really important.

I'm not necessarily sure we do it enough.

I think it's very easy to walk into Christianity and think, Oh, great.

This is brilliant.

Everyone says how wonderful it is and now everything's

going to be better afterwards.

After I've met Jesus and all of this, but actually, wE still

face really difficult things.

The answer is that he's with us in them.

Not that they disappear or and particularly on this, that it's

so challenging that God's then asking to actually go into a

physically dangerous situation.

Ooh, I'd find that hard.

God's not asked you to do that recently.

I take it.

No, not

recently.

No.

It's yeah, no, not at all.

iT's interesting.

Yeah it's funny, isn't it?

This constant conversation.

We've been working our way through the book of Acts, right?

And one of the things that has come up consistently in the Book of Acts

and we've brought it up a number of times on the live stream, is this

idea that you cannot read the Book of Acts and go, yeah, Christianity is

sunshine, rainbows and unicorns, right?

It just isn't.

But what you can do is say that Christianity is a God who is with you.

And actually, the path that you go is not always easy.

But he is always with you on it, right?

And I think this is brought out again in this This portion of scripture.

What's interesting to me about what you said and about what we read in the book

of Acts is the reason for the hardship.

If that makes sense.

So sometimes we go through hardships or difficulties because let's be frank.

We were stupid.

Yeah, do you know what I mean?

We made some rather.

Rather strange decisions along the way.

A classic one for me is I don't, you can see, part of my

right index finger is missing.

And so that was not a pleasant time.

When I had my accident, I cut through three of my fingers.

My youngest son, my middle child, Zach was like weeks old, weeks old.

Maybe days old.

He was super young.

And I made a stupid mistake.

I took the safety guard off a saw.

Oh,

never do that.

Where were you 20 years ago?

But it was something that I had to go through.

And I cannot in all of those circumstances go.

It was.

It was something that God wanted for my life, right?

And it was a mistake that I made.

It was a stupid decision that I made that cost me.

Yeah.

And that resulted in hardship.

Does that make sense?

In more ways than one, in a lot of ways, it's affected us.

And in ways that, we've we've learned to live with it, but I'm always

reminded that actually There were enough warnings from God never to take

the safety guard off the saw you don't even need God to warn you to do that

Yeah,

there's common sense yeah, but it turns out

I didn't have any Who knew?

And so Matt's Crew's put in the comments here, Ellie, this

is Matt's I'm an idiot story.

I'm getting that, yeah.

Yeah.

Nicholas put safety first.

Yeah, thanks guys.

Appreciate it.

Just, give me the heads up now.

But it was, it's fascinating, isn't it?

So we, I think we go through difficult things in life because

of decisions that we make.

I can tell you, we'd go all night about the stupid decisions

that Matt's made over his life.

Money.

finances, things with work, that's cost us a lot of money, making really

silly decisions and you're man alive, um, but even when it's my fault, God's

still with me in it, if that makes sense, which is a beautiful thing.

So I think sometimes, in fact, most of the time, I have faced things

And the hardships that I've come across, the reason for them is

because I was a bit of a plonker.

That said, in this story and in certain occasions in my life, I dare say certain

occasions in your life, the reason for the hardship was because God said go.

Do you know what I mean?

And God's told Paul to go into a particularly difficult situation.

And I love what Anna said that The reason it feels, it seems like God is

telling these things to Paul is not to dissuade him but to prepare him.

Yes.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Now if it was me, I think Anna mentioned this in her talk, if it

was me, I would hear those warnings and I'd be like that's it, I'm out.

This is God telling me not to go.

I would have gone to the beach maybe or something.

I don't know.

But it's interesting that Paul didn't, right?

And so there are sometimes there are some occasions where God deliberately leads

you into places that create hardship.

And that is not an easy theology.

Yeah, no, I think what I find particularly helpful about this

and weighing up, I quite often get a bit overwhelmed at the idea of, is God

telling me to do this or this and getting quite caught up in like the details of.

Am I hearing from God?

Am I not hearing from God?

And that's usually when I'm like okay, chill out because God doesn't come

into your life to create confusion.

And what I love about this is for Paul, he's so sure that all of his mates

that he's meeting along the way telling him you're going to get hurt and you

might get arrested and you might die.

He is still so sure that he knows that he's going anyway.

Yeah.

And I find that particularly encouraging with the whole, how do I know when

God's speaking to me and when he's not?

Yeah, because actually, if he needs me to know, I'll know, because if Paul can know

and go to it and know that he's walking into that, and be so sure that's what

he needs to do, because God has told him in such a way that he is very sure of

that, then I'm sure he can tell me quite clearly about whether I need to like do

this or do that, do you know what I mean?

Yeah,

absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's what Matt's put here.

In all situations, remember that God can give you the guidance at all

times, which I think is quite true.

It's interesting.

I don't know if we've come across, I can't remember where that's in

the book of Acts is because it's all blurred into one in all the prep.

There's this really interesting part in the book of Acts where Paul goes on

one of his missionary journeys, right?

Paul is, to give you some sort of insight into Paul's character, Paul

is, I think he's an action man.

He's a doing guy.

He's right.

What was the last, he's the kind of guy that would respond to the question,

what was the last thing God said to me?

Let's keep doing that until I feel like God's told me to do something else.

And so he's very much an action guy.

He's the kind of guy that if you said to him, if you, if he was alive today, you

put him in a car on one side of Liverpool city centre and you said Paul you need

to get to the cross the other side.

He's just going to get in a car and go.

he's going to feel his way rather than just wait for all the traffic

lights to turn green and all of the ducks lined up and off he goes.

And neither one is right or wrong.

But this is part, this is why I see in Paul's personality is he's an action guy.

He's a doing guy.

And so he heads off.

On one of his mission trips.

And the way the scripture, but I love the old the old King James version.

Oh yeah.

The way it talks about this, he said the Holy Spirit constrained him.

Oh, he was constrained.

Yeah.

And this is Paul.

This is the Apostle Paul, who wrote two thirds of the New Testament.

He's heading in direction.

It's when he goes that he feels God constraining him.

Yeah.

In other words.

I don't know if Paul knew or didn't know whether this was the right thing to do,

but he's an action guy, so I'm just going to keep going until I'm told otherwise.

And I get that impression in this story that we read today, that

this is Paul, he's okay, so I'm going to get changed, so what?

God's told me to go, so I'm going.

Mad that he doesn't think that his mates

been like, you're gonna die.

It's God saying, oh, stop.

That's funny, isn't it?

It is funny how we interpret those things.

Yeah.

Yeah, really, because, and this is what again, that in the story.

So the Christians in the story, the church in Jerusalem would

like man, you need to not go.

Yeah, yes.

Yeah.

Everyone was going,

what are you doing?

I find that so challenging.

I find that really challenging.

But again, you come to being led by God, there's this there

is this very correct teaching in the church, which says, in the mouth of

two or three witnesses, let a thing be established, there is safety in a

multitude of counselors, this, all this stuff when scripture, which talks about,

I'm just trying to scratch my head around the microphone it's just this

whole thing in scripture about listening to one another, bearing one another's

burdens, God speaks to you through other people and here God is speaking, but

Paul had the ability to discern that.

What was preparation versus instruction and that I find very challenging.

Yeah, me too.

I also love what was it that he said?

I love how emotional Paul is like all the time.

But I just think it's really a nice and encouraging thing.

It's not Oh, an emotional man.

Wow.

It's when he says, why are you weeping and breaking my heart?

I just think that's so oh, I think that's really beautiful because I

can just imagine being like, guys, I just really need encouragement.

Stop stop telling me I'm going to die.

And yeah, breaking my heart like this, it's, it exposes that he is, he's

nervous about this, that he's scared about it and that he is, there's an

element of him being heartbroken at the idea that's what he's walking into.

And yet.

He's still sure that God's telling him to do it and he's gonna do it.

Yeah.

What a cool guy.

I love him

There's this quote of the week, Paul, what

a cool guy And I totally agree.

And again Yeah, it's fascinating, isn't it?

I guess there's two things here There's what the Holy Spirit is saying and then

there's why he is saying it, right?

So the church heard What the Holy Spirit was saying But they

didn't necessarily understand why.

And I think when Paul was talking to them, there's you're breaking

my heart, not because what you're telling me is factually incorrect,

but you've misunderstood the why.

Yeah.

Do you know what I mean?

And I think here is the, again, the challenge for us as Christians is

understanding what God is saying and why God is saying that particular thing, what

and why two very important things, aren't they, and it's a really tricky thing as

a Christian sometimes to understand that.

Because I know sometimes once I've heard the what I just assume the way.

Yeah.

Do you know what I mean?

This is the first time I'm thinking about it, to be honest.

Nicholas put here, I often look, if I add that to the broadcast,

I've just reformatted this computer.

So I don't know if this is going to work, or if it's all set up.

Oh, look.

I often look back on some of the tough times I've had, and they

have been very tough and hard.

Would I change the choices I made?

No, it's made me who I am.

And also I'm able to help others going.

Yeah, actually, that's true.

That's very true.

But I changed some of the choices that I've made that comes into this interesting

topic of conversation called regret.

Yes.

Oh, that's fun.

That's fun isn't it?

, Matt Edmundson: regret.

Is regret a good thing, a bad thing?

What do you regret?

What would you change if you could go back in time and change it?

Is thinking about what you could change and going back in time and if

you could go back in time, a futile exercise 'cause you can't do it and

you're just, you're living in the past.

And Paul, another thing that Paul said is, I forget what's past, I

just press on towards the goal.

Again,

so cool.

I just, I think he's brilliant.

I really love Paul.

I know that's like the least original thing to say.

Yeah, no, it's cool.

Okay, interesting.

Is it futile to look back and reflect and regret?

I don't know if it's futile, but we do it, don't we?

Yeah, sometimes

too much.

Yeah.

Yeah, just part of being human, I think, really.

Yeah.

I think maybe Some people do it too much and sometimes it's easy to fall into it

and as a bit of a pattern, but Also, don't beat yourself up for doing it because

it happens because sad things happen.

Yeah, like to think I wish I'd not done that

I wish I'd bought my Christmas tree earlier.

Yeah, I'm going to call my dad.

Just regretting all of our Christmases actually, Dad.

All of our

best Christmases.

Sorry if you've just joined in.

That joke won't make any kind of sense at all.

Little

call back there.

Yeah,

you have to go back and watch from the beginning.

That doesn't make sense.

Interesting.

Anna, Anna said at the end, she was talking about

Paul enjoying hardship, right?

. And how enjoying hardship is actually part and parcel of

what it means to follow Christ.

. And this.

I think Anna, I can't remember the exact phrase she used, but she talked

about how in the Western Church this has become an uncomfortable

truth for our Christian faith.

That's a really interesting thing, isn't it?

What, would the Apostle Paul, with his theology on all of this, be welcoming

most Western churches, do you think?

Would he be welcoming them?

No, would he be welcomed into?

If Paul turned up to crowd or frontline or whatever.

Yeah.

I wonder how we would respond to him.

Because his call is often to, to to vacate, for want of a better

expression, our comfort zone.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Which is what he's doing here.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think we're all quite quick to be like, oh, I think,

God wants me to be comfortable.

God wants me to be happy.

God wants me to be Okay.

And yeah, I'm sure there's elements of that, it's not that he wants us to be he

doesn't want us to be, destroyed or have all these things happen to us, but he

also wants us to do what he asks of us.

And it's the fear of those, of losing the comfort, isn't it, that stops us doing it.

Yeah, I think we probably are quite, maybe too comfortable.

I don't know.

It's so hard, isn't it?

Cause then you get into all the different I get into all the different,

like little anxious thoughts about it.

What's the, should I make myself uncomfortable on purpose?

All those things.

Yeah.

Wiggly.

You can't go around in circles.

Sue's put here in the comments, Sue, sorry, has put in the comments, I

regret being in a cult for 25 years and still trying to work out why.

Left 8 years ago many regrets, talking about regrets.

Wow, thanks for sharing that's, and it's put here, you can't change the

past, but it's what you do in the present that can affect the future.

Yeah.

It's interesting, isn't it, when you think about things like that, because

there's a really interesting book that came out recently by Dan Pink.

I don't know where he's, it's not a Christian book, I don't know

where he is in terms of faith.

whEre he talks about the power of regret.

Okay.

All right.

And how you can use regret to, in a way that is powerful.

There's been some really interesting research that has come out recently

on on how to journal about past trauma or past stressful situations.

So when we've been in situations, the way we, there is a protocol

to quote Andrew Huberman about how to journal about that in a way that

helps us deal with it in better ways.

And one of the things that struck me about this podcast, and this is, he's

a neuroscientist human in effect, he, what he said was, and I'm paraphrasing

about an hour and a half's worth of information in effect, what he said

was, um, telling the truth to yourself.

is incredibly powerful.

Yeah.

Great.

Good.

Great.

And as I was listening to him, he was like, the only thing that I, the thing

that was going around in the back of my head all the time is that scripture where

Jesus talks about how you will know the truth and the truth will make you free.

But there's this knowledge of the truth that has to come first.

You have to know the truth for the truth to set you free.

And sometimes with regret, what I find is I can glamorize it or I can overplay it.

And it's all a bit fuzzy, or I'd wish I'd not done that, whereas when we

label it, when we put names on it, when we understand the truth of it,

then we can be free of it, right?

And the thing about regrets, I've It seems the power is in being totally

upfront and honest about them, as opposed to just going, I'll regret that.

And it's just this fuzzy thing in the back of my head that I

don't want to think about because it makes me feel uncomfortable.

Yeah.

Does that make sense?

Makes loads of sense.

That's great.

Top tip.

No, I think that's really good.

Yeah.

Because, yeah, if you're not really looking at it, if you're not remembering

it properly, if you're not thinking about it properly, so I guess that's the

whole thing of dwelling on it or not.

If you're dwelling on it in.

With the right lens, then you can actually process and be like, Oh

yeah, no, that was really hard.

And that's fine that I was really hard.

That's fine.

I wish I hadn't made that decision, but also.

Recognizing that you couldn't have made any other decision different.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Really interesting.

Fascinating stuff.

So thanks for sharing.

Actually, I should put here.

I have no bitterness but often feel so sad about all the things

that I've missed with my family.

Many died in that time.

Yeah.

My heart breaks for you.

There's no easy answer to things like that other than to thank

God that he's with us right now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And actually.

I don't know, my theology on this is interesting.

I think all things ultimately are redeemable, right?

With God.

Everything is redeemable.

We can, there's nothing that is beyond his redemption.

I'm utterly convinced of it.

But sometimes we have to deal with and feel the consequences of decisions, right?

So you read the book of Job.

Interestingly spelt job.

You read the book of Job and he goes through this horrific time talking

about enduring hardship, right?

He goes through this horrific time.

And scripture says at the end that God restored him back

twice what he'd lost, right?

Which is really interesting thing.

So in other words, that whole situation was redeemed, but it was redeemed in

certain ways, as in his wealth was twice what it was beforehand, there

were certain things which were better.

But he still lost family members through the whole thing.

And he still had to deal with the loss of his family.

Yeah.

Mad.

Yeah.

Mad is the right word.

So yeah, it's it's one of those, so as I'm I, it's there I believe that

period of your life can be redeemed.

I don't think that always means that we can escape the consequences

of things that have happened.

Yeah.

But I think, I think it was, it is just one of those things

where we just trust God.

Yeah, as cliche and Christian as that sounds.

Yeah,

I think that's.

Tends to be what the answer always is.

But it's true.

Like even if you're ever in doubt, just going to him and, whether you're making

like big decisions of do I do this?

Or do I do this?

Or, just go, the more time you spend with God, the more, his voice and

the more he knows how to talk to you and you know how to hear him.

And then you'll know whether he's telling you to do this or this.

If you've, if you're regretting something or if something's really

painful going to him, because he knows what you need more so than you do.

And It's got it all.

It's got it

all.

Got it all.

whAt was the name of the book?

So amazing you brought this up the subject of regret.

God bless.

I really wish I could remember the name of the book, but it's by Daniel Pink.

So if you Google Daniel Pink regret I think it will come up.

Like I say, it's not a Christian book.

So I don't know if I'd build a theology from what he said.

And I'm very keen that we don't Crowd and I don't think the Bible and I don't

think Christianity is about self help in a lot of ways, I think it's easy to

try and make it about self help, but it is still a fascinating book to read.

And yeah, I think it's called The Power of Regret or something like that.

Yeah, enjoy that as they say.

So count the cost of following Christ.

It's not always straightforward.

So I guess the question here is, if I look on my life, what are some of the

things that God's asked me to do, which are slightly outside of my comfort zone

that I have to be intentional in doing?

It's a really fascinating question for me because I don't know if

you can grow that much inside your comfort zone, if that makes sense.

Yeah.

And that a lot, don't you?

You actually see that in the physical body, muscles don't

grow unless they're stretched.

I wish I could just sit here and just watch my biceps grow.

That would be amazing.

It seems like God has ordained in such a way that actually, it's in the

hardship, it's in the It's in the stress.

It's when things are not going right that we actually grow the most.

I don't know if you've found that.

Yes, I would say that.

Um, yes, sorry.

I'm in my head.

I'm distinguishing the difference between having gone through a hard thing that

I've then learned from, and then like recognizing the importance then of

things like, spiritual disciplines that aren't necessarily like as painful as the

hardships that you end up going through.

Yeah, not saying so what do you mean

by spiritual

disciplines?

Just spending time with God every day, praying, fasting, all those

things that, can sometimes feel like a bit of inconvenience if you're

not in the right headspace for it.

Yeah.

But actually just like.

You can't, you need to exercise, as you're saying to look after your body.

Sometimes you just really can't be bothered.

And some days you're really like, yeah, I'm going to go for a run or

yeah, I'm going to praise the Lord.

But I'm never,

I'm going to go for a

run.

It's the discipline of actually, I know that this is a good thing for

me to do, so I'm going to do it.

And that's the discipline, is it?

And sometimes that feels really uncomfortable.

And sometimes it doesn't.

And that's the same a similar thing of.

I was just going to try and distinguish that I think there's a line between

oh, you have to go, you have to put yourself through difficult things

to be able to grow because I don't think that's quite the same thing.

But I think that's an unnecessary distinction, because that's

obviously not what you're saying.

Fair play.

Yeah.

Yep.

Fair play.

It's true.

Oh, here we go.

I have healthy kids.

Food, a house and a job.

Very blessed, but my heart gets heavy at times.

Yeah, no, I bet it does, mate.

Yeah, I bet it does.

Bless you and all of that.

Yeah I've had a horrendous year this year in some way, says Matt Crew, but

having more time to pray and recover this year has been a highlight in

order to recover my mental health.

Yes.

That's the other thing, isn't it?

It's never waste a good trial.

When you find yourself in difficult times or hard times.

Yeah, it's yeah.

God, what are you saying in this, right?

And actually, never waste a good trial because there's a lot of

learning that can happen in them.

Yeah.

There's no doubt about it.

Anything else?

You took lots of notes, anything else in your notes in the

last few minutes?

I think we've really covered it, Yeah, oh, I've just hit the mic, sorry.

Full circle, eh?

Smacked the mic with my book.

How very good, well done.

How did you find it, your first hosting?

Yeah, it

was fun.

I enjoyed it.

You're just so

cool, Ellie.

So chilled out and laid back.

Me, I'd be like

She's nice talking about things, isn't

it?

Yeah, it's nice having a chat.

Yeah, it's always good fun.

Always good fun.

That's that's the end of Conversation Street.

We'll draw that to an end there.

Thank you so much.

Don't break the mic.

It's very good at telling you what to do after you've done it, Matt.

I've noticed this.

Yeah,

good.

I suppose that's the nature of the whole live stream, isn't it?

It's a little out of sync, isn't it?

Yeah.

Oh, Bukele again.

There we go.

Oh, I know.

Let's get the dates in.

This is what Matt wrote in the comments, if you can't see.

I can add it to broadcast.

There we go, Bukele again.

Promote the Zoom.

Yes, I will.

Alright, Matt, calm down.

Yes, thank you for joining us.

So just to let you know a few things every Wednesday we have a Zoom online group.

Come join us on the Zoom if you'd like to join an online community

that Matt's talking about here where he says promote the Zoom.

That's basically what we do.

We just get together, a few of us on Zoom, we'll chat, we'll catch up, we'll pray,

we'll do all those kind of good things.

If you'd like to join us, we'd love to see you in there.

If you go to the website www.

crowd.

church or find us on social media at crowdchurch and just reach out

to us, we will let you know those.

Details.

Susan, by the way.

Oh, Susan stands for Susan.

Susan, brilliant.

Thanks for the laughter.

Laughter helps.

It does.

Yeah, it

does.

You could do a whole other episode on that, couldn't you?

Yeah, it says it in the Bible.

Mary Hart does good like a medicine.

It's so good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And if you need to laugh, my advice, go watch anything by Tim Hawkins.

Oh, all right.

Have you come across Tim Morgans?

No.

Christian stand up comedian, which I appreciate sounds like an oxymoron.

Yeah, it sure does.

Hang on, Christian stand up comedian, what are you talking about?

But I can tell you the chap is exceptionally funny.

He's got a lot of videos on YouTube.

Yeah.

And In 2018, I went over to the States with Josh and Zach, just dads and

lads trip, just brilliant, loved it.

And we managed to go see him live in Connecticut.

We went and stayed with some folks and we went over to

Connecticut and watched him live.

At the end of that set, I was like, I'm like, please, can you

just stop telling jokes because my sides were hurting so much.

So good.

Yeah, he's really good.

Really good.

So just go, ever need to laugh, go watch Tim

Hawkins.

So good to have a giggle.

Ellie, give Matt his Ancient One pills.

I don't

get that reference.

Oh, it's just he likes to call me Ancient One.

Oh, okay.

And then you have a pill to make you not ancient.

If I did have such a pill, I would be selling them.

I'd make an absolute fortune.

The ultimate youth pill.

So yes, it's great to connect with you Susan.

Thanks for joining us.

Like I say, if you'd like to know more about Crowd Head over to the website, www.

crowd.

church, if you want to know more about the Zoom, everything's on there, www.

crowd.

zoom.

You can reach out to us on social media, we'd love to connect with you.

Coming up in next week, what we've got next week.

Do you remember?

No!

Obviously not!

We talked about it an hour ago, Matt, we talked about it, and I did write

stuff down and Ali just looked at it and went, there's no way I can read that.

I can't

read it at all, absolutely not.

I can see there's things circled, but I don't know what the circles mean.

It's just highlighting stuff for me to do.

So next week, yes, we are talking about Biblical worldview.

I say we, it's me.

I'm doing the talk next week.

We have Dan and Will hosting.

So Will Sobworth, he's another first timer.

Oh, that's fun, isn't it?

Yeah, he was in the comments earlier.

I don't know if he's, if Will's still around, but he.

His first time hosting next week, like you, he's done talks at Crowd,

but next week's going to be hosting.

So he's such a legend, Will.

He's such an, he's an absolute legend, love the bones of the

man, he's such a great guy.

And so I'm excited for next week.

Yes, you've got Will and Dan hosting, you've got me doing the

talk all about biblical worldviews.

Glorious.

Yeah, let's go with yes.

I'm just racking my brain.

Was he glad?

I don't know.

I hope you enjoy the talk.

I hope you find it challenging and informative all at the same time.

His hand sketch is the best.

Are you talking about me, Nicola?

My hand sketch?

I'm not quite sure.

Isn't that the

comedy?

Comedy man.

Oh,

yeah.

Comedian.

Sorry.

Yeah, Tim Hawkins, his hand sketch is the best.

Yes, he's talking about, I should play that on Crowd Church.

He talks about what happens when I get it now, Nicholas, sorry, I, he's got

this routine, where I think if you just Google or go to YouTube and put in Tim

Hawkins worship hands and what Christians do with their hands during worship.

Yeah.

Very good.

I can imagine it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Just after this live stream.

Don't do it now.

When the live stream's ended, just go Google on YouTube, Tim Hawkins

worship hands and it will come up.

I'm fairly sure it will come up.

And it's, if you've been around church any length of time,

you will find that hysterical.

I think that's good.

I think we'll end the live stream there.

Ellie, thank you for joining me.

Been a

pleasure.

Thanks for having me.

You coming back?

Sure, why not?

This is so cool.

Got nothing better to do.

Dunno, if I get the curtains up next time.

Yeah.

Brilliant.

We need to go get you a Christmas tree, that's what we need to do.

Yeah.

So Merry Christmas, everyone.

I hope you find Advent interesting.

Advent's a fascinating time just to reflect on the story of Jesus, the

birth of Christ coming up December 25th.

In case you didn't know, happy birthday, Jesus.

We've got a Christmas service this year.

whEn is it?

Matt will know.

I will tell you now when it is cause I've got the information here.

So next week we are talking about worldview.

And then we have our non live stream.

Where is it?

Here it is.

24th, Christmas Eve.

Crikey.

Christmas Eve.

It's a Christmas on a Monday.

I'll be

by my Christmas tree.

Listening to Crowd Church while you're in your

headphones while she's by the church, oh I don't want that one.

Out of the two that are left for 3.

There's

always loads left and they're always really good quality.

Yesterday when we went with Jenny and Rob.

Jenny used to live with us.

She's a paramedic.

She got married last year.

Yeah.

to A guy called Rob who's also a paramedic, two of the

funniest people on the planet.

That's nice.

And so we go and choose a tree.

I'm like, I want one that's really wide and bushy.

'cause it's now bay window.

Lovely.

Yeah.

Sadaf was like, I want one that's a bit narrower 'cause we don't

have a big bay window and I still wanna be able to access my room.

Sensible.

Which was sensible.

And then Jenny walked over to the guy and said, I just want

one that smells really nice,

. Ellie Light: It is the smell.

That's the best bit

about it, isn't it?

The best Christmas.

So we were all walking around smelling the trees.

He must have thought, what's wrong with you?

I think this one smells better, Jen.

Oh, that's

so nice.

Oh, now

I want a Christmas

tree.

You should totally go get one.

I can recommend the guy, go buy a Christmas tree and

get the decorations on it.

So yeah, get your Christmas tree up if you haven't done so already.

But yes, that's it from us.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Have a fantastic week.

I think that's it for me.

Is that it from you?

That's it.

That's it.

Okay.

Awesome.

Bless you guys.

See you soon.

Thanks for joining us.

Bye for now.

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

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So if you haven't done so already, Be sure to check out our website www.

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church where you can learn more about us as a church, more about

the Christian faith and also how to connect into our church community.

It has been awesome to connect with you and you are awesome.

It's just a burden you have to bear and hopefully we'll see you next time.

That's it from us.

God bless you.

Bye for now.