02 Nov Tania, Can You Give Me a Prophecy?

Sometimes when I visit churches, people ask me to prophesy over them. Their angst is written all over their faces, and usually points to a need for guidance on some sort of life-changing decision. Personally I find the request a little awkward. Are they accustomed to hearing God’s voice for themselves? Have they been hearing the Spirit for their discipleship journey? Or are they treating me like Moses…? “You go up the mountain and hear from God then come back and tell us what he said.” (Exod. 20:18,19)

The scenario reveals a common issue in the Church. It’s not that the desire to hear from God is misplaced or that God doesn’t want to guide us in our decision-making. It’s that too often our congregations have learnt to rely on the experts to hear God’s voice rather than hearing God for themselves. So they look to a visiting prophetic ministry, a social media prophecy or their church leadership to hear God’s voice on their behalf. Inadvertently we have led our people back to the time of the Old Covenant where the norm was to hear God’s voice through someone else.

This is where the ministry of God Conversations finds its place. We are committed to equipping people hear God’s voice for themselves in the context of discipleship and the accountability of the local church. It’s a very particular calling that I didn’t fully understand at first. I’m not your typical prophetic leader who visits churches and spends time prophesying over everyone. I am not even naturally spiritually intuitive, feeling more at home with analytical left-brain types!

At the same time, I’ve learnt to hear God’s voice clearly for my life. The God Conversations ministry came out of a personal journey, starting out as an avid Cessationist and learning the ways of the Spirit as I went. Later God called me to equip others to hear God’s voice just as I had – describing it in his typically creative way – through a dream.

The Broken Periscope

In the dream, I saw myself being shown around a beautiful home. The house was huge! We came to one particular area – it had white marble tiles on the floor, grand columns and French windows. In the dream, I knew the home belonged to a banker.

Then the scene changed. I was walking along a dusty path and came across a young boy. He was playing with a toy periscope, but the periscope was broken and he handed it to me to fix. I saw the problem straightaway. The two mirrors inside the periscope were fuzzy and you couldn’t see through them properly. So I took out the fuzzy mirrors and replaced them with clean ones, and I gave the periscope back to the boy. Then I woke up.

A few weeks later, I was chatting with a colleague at work. I had mentioned my need for a new place to live since my flatmate was getting married. “Funny you should say that,” he said, “because I have a friend – and he’s a banker. At the moment, he’s overseas on a longterm contract and I need someone to live in his home.”

Soon after, my colleague took me to the home and showed me around. It was huge! In one particular area of the house, there was white marble tiles on the floor, grand columns and French windows. I moved in a few days later and lived there rent free for a year and a half.

The banker’s home was a spectacular display of God’s grace and provision, all revealed in advance. But there was more to the story. Later God used it to describe the nature of my ministry:

Tania, I want to speak to people and like a periscope, show them things they can’t normally see. I want to give them insight through the lens of my perspective. The problem is – their mirrors are fuzzy. They don’t see the inheritance I’ve given them through the Holy Spirit. Your job is to take the fuzzy mirrors out and replace them with clear ones. Then give the periscope back so they can hear my voice for themselves.

Confusion in the Academy

It wasn’t until I began my PhD that I fully understood the problem of the periscope’s mirrors. To my shock, I discovered the topic of hearing God’s voice is absent in the Protestant academy! There is virtually no theological reflection on the topic of direct Spirit revelation among Protestant writers. For the few theologians who do mention it, it is largely through the lens of prophecy as seen in 1 Corinthians, a specialist gift that involves hearing God for others.

The neglect of the topic in the academy has startling implications for the Church – the most important being the disconnect between the voice of Jesus and the voice of the Spirit. This connection that was made so strongly by Jesus before he left the earth (John 14-16) and then by Peter when he interpreted the events of Pentecost (Acts 2:16,17) has been completely ignored in the wider Protestant Church. Pick up a book on hearing God’s voice and you’ll rarely read about Jesus and discipleship. Pick up a book on discipleship and you’ll rarely read about Spirit revelation. This means that trainee pastors and ministers can study years of theology and rarely learn about hearing God’s voice in their courses. Our church congregations suffer as a result.

Problems in the Church

In practice, our lack of theology means that we expect God to speak for our “encouragement and comfort” (1 Cor. 14:3), but not our sanctification (Matt. 14:24). We reduce prophetic experiences to guidance, but not to discipleship (John 10:27).

Of course, God is still speaking and people are still hearing, but because our practice doesn’t align with our theology, we end up with countless pastoral issues… a lack of Spirit-led sanctification, discernment through the lens of our desires rather than Jesus, increased potential for manipulation and abuse and most significantly, a shift back to the Old Covenant paradigm where we look to someone else to hear God’s voice for us and revelatory experiences sound more like Jeremiah than Jesus.

The Church who Hears God’s Voice

Christians are called to enjoy the fullness of our New Covenant reality… The Spirit is given to each one so that they can hear God’s voice in the same way as the Old Covenant prophets (Acts 2:16,17); where the prophetically gifted use their gift to encourage and strengthen others but not without equipping them to hear God’s voice for themselves (Eph. 4:11,12) and where we are all listening, recognising and following the continuing voice of Jesus through the Spirit.

This is the clarity God wants to bring to the global church. At God Conversations, our mission is to come alongside you on the journey and give you the strategies you need to facilitate the voice of the Spirit for everyone you lead in the context of discipleship and the accountability of community. Our goal is to help you make the mirrors clear so that we can be the church who hears God’s voice! May each of us receive God’s periscopic insight into our lives, and in doing so, find the courage to follow.

The Church who Hears God’s Voice

After hours of study, a PhD in practical theology and years traversing the globe and speaking to Christians of all persuasions, Dr Harris presents her ground-breaking research. Drawing on insights from theology, sociology and personal testimonies, she skilfully guides her readers across a challenging terrain to present a comprehensive theology and pastoral strategy for how all sectors of the Church can hear the Spirit’s voice for themselves. The Church who Hears God’s Voice will enable leaders and thinkers to safely and effectively lead their people into the powerful experience that was intended to be a normal part of every Christian’s life.

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