25 Aug Happy 15th Birthday to God Conversations – Five Lessons I’ve Learnt Along the Way

I still remember how it felt 15 years ago when we launched the ministry of God Conversations. How do we do this? 

Since that time, I’ve spoken and trained people all over the world from megachurches in Switzerland to small communities in the slums of Philippines to long established traditional in England. God Conversations now airs on three TV networks, multiple radio stations across UK, NZ and Australia. We’ve published two books with two more on the way, hosted two podcasts, done countless interviews and delivered papers at academic conferences, all with the goal of equipping people to hear, recognise and respond to God’s voice. It’s been a wild ride.

Of course, in God’s kingdom, success measures look different to our marks of achievement. God’s priorities are always focussed on the heart and the degree to which we reflect his love. The success of God Conversations is therefore best understood in terms of the testimonies we’ve seen, the lives we’ve touched and our own walk with the Holy Spirit. We celebrate the external achievements but we understand that without love, we are merely a “resounding gong or a clanging symbol” (1 Corinthians 13:1-7). 

To that end, here are five lessons that focus on the internal journey of God Conversations:

1. The God life is a Partnership

I first learnt that the God life is a partnership while sitting on the beach having a tough conversation with a friend. She suggested I’d been too passive in building the ministry and that I should take more initiative. I’d been “sitting on my hands”, expecting God to do all the work. 

After our conversation, I decided to email an old contact about the new radio spots we’d produced for Australia and New Zealand. Within a month, God Conversations was airing across the UK.

I’d learnt that God opens doors but I can also knock on them. Sometimes that looks like God speaking miraculously behind the scenes. Other times, it looks like me chipping away day by day, doing everything I humanly do to work with God in our common goal. God plays his part. I play mine.

2. God goes “around the rock”

Imagine a rushing river hitting a large rock in it’s path. What does the water do? It doesn’t stop. It merely goes around the rock. 

Early on in the ministry, I learnt that this is the Holy Spirit’s “m.o”. Whenever we hit a rock, God moves like the water going around it. The key is to watch and see his strategy. I remember how one church wouldn’t have me in the pulpit, but were happy to  use our video Bible study and have me on their TV screens! There are creative ways to get around the human obstacles we face and as we listen to the Holy Spirit, we see how God goes “around the rock.” 

3. Every resource I need can be found in people God has given me

I first learnt this lesson in the editing process of my first book. After enlisting a professional editor whose work proved to be only marginally helpful, I realised my flatmate and friend was an expert in written communication and could do a much better job. That painful lesson taught me to adopt a learning posture towards everyone – especially those who God has placed me in relationship with. There is gold in every person if only our eyes are open to see it.

4. I am the limiting factor 

We know that Creator of Heaven and Earth has no limits. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Ephesian church that God can do immeasurably more than they could ever dare to ask, dream or imagine (3:20). 

That means that the fruit of God Conversations is only limited by the human factors involved – that is, me! It is my insecurities, my self-orientation, my fears and flaws that confine the work of the Spirit through the ministry. 

But this revelation is also good news because it means that when I co-operate with the Spirit, those limits can be removed and the ministry can flow in limitless blessing to all those around.

5. Everything Flows out of our Walk with the Spirit

Finally, the degree to which those limits are removed is equal the degree to which we surrender to God. Paul wrote “I die daily” (1 Corinthians 15:31). As I’ve led the ministry of God Conversations these past 15 years, the call to following Jesus through attending to the voice of the Spirit has become more important then ever. The goal is to be “crucified with Christ” so that I “no longer live but Christ in me” (Paul, Galatians 2:20a). It is out of this posture of the heart that everything flows and God’s kingdom can come in and through our lives.