By Signs and Wonders with Stephen Elliott

In By Signs and Wonders: How the Holy Spirit Grows the Church, Steve Elliott takes a close look at evangelism. How did the Good News of Jesus Christ spread in the years following Jesus’s life? What methods has God used to see entire communities converted in the great revivals of the past? Why has the recent rise of friendship/lifestyle evangelism fallen so short of producing disciples? The fastest-growing denominations and local churches around the world today are far more reliant on a strategy apart from friendship/lifestyle evangelism. This is the focus of this book, to provide laity and Christian leaders with a critically important insight in how to more effectively evangelize a lost and dying world.

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Andy Miller III: welcome to the more, to the story. Podcast I am so glad that you have come along, and I'm excited today to in in just a few minutes introduce you to somebody who's been very helpful to me through his writing. I had one podcast interview with him a few years ago, but now I'm bringing him to the more to the story crowd as well before I introduce him. This podcast is brought to you by Wesley Biblical Seminary, where we are developing trusted leaders.

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Andy Miller III: for faithful churches. We do that, and we work with a hosted denominations across the kind of Pan Westland world, and many denominations that are even outside of that we have close to 500 students now with the influx of students, have come just in the last year. Who are part of the global Methodist church. We have bachelors, masters, doctoral degrees we have lay initiatives. We'd love for you to find out more about us@wbs.edu.

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Andy Miller III: Also, I'd love for you to sign for me my email list at Andy Miller, the third.com. That's Andy Miller iii.com. If you do that, I will send you a free tool called 5 steps to deeper teaching and preaching. It uses the inductive Bible study method with with the aim of like, I'm thinking creatively

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Andy Miller III: as you're studying Scripture so that you can have powerful messages. I hope, if a as the spirit enables and when you, as you're working through the preparation process, so it's a 45 min video with me. And then 8 page Pdf. Guide that you can use for your own Biblical study. I could use some people to take some time to subscribe to this on Youtube, subscribe on your various plot podcasts leave a review for us on

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Andy Miller III: on apple. Itunes. That would be something. We really appreciate our apple podcasts as we're kind of like getting word out of various things happening at Wesley Biblical Seminary. We'd love for you to check this out.

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Andy Miller III: Okay, I am so glad to introduce to you. I say, my friend, we haven't actually met in person ever. But I'm gonna call him, my friend, and that's Dr. Steve Elliot. He is the National Superintendent for the Wesleyan Church in Canada, and he's also a program director at Kingswood University. That's a a school in the Wesleyan Church. Steve, welcome to the Podcast.

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Stephen Elliott: Hey, Andy, I'm so pleased to be with you.

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Andy Miller III: Yes, I I I have often referred people to your book, the one I know. I know. You have multiple books at least 4, maybe 5. One come here soon. But the one that's published by seed bed, called by signs and wonders. And when I was serving as a local church pastor in the last 2 years. In that my last appointment, I, you know, came up, became familiar with your book, and it it was incredibly helpful to us in in part because I

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Andy Miller III: it shares your story, and I saw a lot of myself

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Andy Miller III: in your story, and then I and then and then it was. It's like a great book, because it also says like how to get out of like the the challenges that you're kind of experiencing. So before we even hear about your story in that book. Tell us it's been a while now, probably 5 or 6 years since that book was published. Tell us about the you know what's happened with your own public ministry. Since that book.

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Stephen Elliott: Well, yeah, when we first talked, I was just serving as the program director for pastor ministries and church planning at Kingswood University, which is Canadian Bible College, on the East coast up by the Atlantic Ocean.

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Stephen Elliott: and then, about 5 or 6 years ago, the denomination approached me, and asked me if I would consider allowing my name to stand as a national superintendent for Western Church in Canada.

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Stephen Elliott: And so I have a lot of prayer. Thought went into that, and the Lord opened the door, and so we stepped into it. So I've got the 2 dual responsibilities, and there's a lot of things I'm not very good at, but one thing I am pretty good at is time management.

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Andy Miller III: So good.

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Stephen Elliott: My wife, as I said to you earlier. My my wife affectionately calls it my 2 full time jobs that I've got, but

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Stephen Elliott: I love our students at the Bible College, and I love what I'm doing with the National Church as well.

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Andy Miller III: Gotcha. So are you. BA, do you actually live where Kingswood is?

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Stephen Elliott: Yes, actually, if if anybody knows the campus of Kingswood University with a huge chapel, I mean, it's it's a massive chapel, and there's only one house right beside it, and that's where my wife and I live, and that we're just off the highway, the one the trans Canada highways.

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Stephen Elliott: and so sometimes transients that are on the highway. They see the big church. They think it's a local church. They don't realize it's attached to a Bible college, and so they just assume that the house beside it is the parsonage. So it's not all that unusual that we had people stopping and asking for help for this, that, and the other thing. But no, we live right on the campus, and

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Stephen Elliott: we love hosting the students, especially the girls. My wife is very proactive and and trying to be supportive of the girls that are preparing for ministry, and so it wouldn't be uncommon for us to host an evening with maybe 30 40 of the students that would be in our house for games, nights, and food and hell loves to cook. So

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Stephen Elliott: yeah, my wife is very, very hospitable. So.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah.

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Stephen Elliott: She's an amazing person.

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Andy Miller III: I'm sure it's great that you could be so in such close proximity. I I since we talked last I've become more familiar with Kingswood. Just knowing some alumni my friend Dave Lun Aaron Perry, Eric Ireland, who who was taught, was on administration there, Steve Linux and I, and as I've learned about your school. I'm sure I'm leaving people out names that I people I've met in the last few years.

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Andy Miller III: I've just been really thankful for what Kingswood means, not just to the West, a church in Canada, but, you know, across the country, probably the world to across the continent, and not probably the world, too. But I know that it's been holding fast to the Gospel and e, and it's been a faithful institution that many people look to and also creative in the way, you know, developing programs and serving the church.

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Andy Miller III: So I really admire what's going on at Kingswood. So

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Andy Miller III: I wanted to check in. I wanted to just like mention like, get you to to walk through some of the prelude to the changes you started to make in your pastoral ministry. As I mentioned, I feel like there. There's a lot of similarities with my own story of like working through church growth, ideas wanting to serve a community, but really realizing that maybe even as you came into communities in your

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Andy Miller III: and preparing preaching, working hard, it was really kind of swapping people and your your own longing for people to come to Christ and kind of Hun. The roadblocks you came to in that time. Maybe we could just start there and then transition eventually to talk more about where you went.

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Stephen Elliott: Sure. Well, I graduated myself from Bible College in 1983,

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Stephen Elliott: and we moved immediately to one of the suburbs of the capital city of Canada, which is Ottawa, and the suburb that we settled into is called Kannada, which is high tech

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Stephen Elliott: capitals of Canada, and we started with just my wife and I. We knew 2 people that lived in Connecticut, and they were both going to another church, so it was literally just the 2 of us, and

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Stephen Elliott: the Lord helped us. We found a school to rent. I mean, we're doing a church planting thing, and we did some advertising. In the early days. We went door to door with a guitar. If you can imagine somebody coming to your door in Canada in February, freezing cold snow, and we'd show up at the door and ring doorbells and ask people if it's okay if we sang the song. And

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Stephen Elliott: well, most people are so dumbfounded they said, I guess so. And so we've seen them a little song, and then we'd ask them if they had it a local church, and invite them to come to ours, and at our very first service, which is just 2 months later, which is February 84, we had about 20 people from the community that showed up for our first public worship service. I didn't know them. They didn't know me, they didn't even know each other. We were total strangers to another.

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Stephen Elliott: and we began to grow. And for about the next 1314 years, up to 1997 we grew just slowly, about 10 people per year.

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Stephen Elliott: and around 1996, 1997. We're around. I'm 100 2,030 people at the church, and you know, people were congratulating us. We we were doing everything that we knew evangelistically to reach our community.

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Stephen Elliott: And when we first arrived it was about 18,000 people that lived in the city, and by the time that we get to around 1996 or so, it's about 50,000 people.

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Stephen Elliott: And so we've grown very slowly. And but as we looked at the growth that we had.

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Stephen Elliott: The vast majority of our growth was transfer growth.

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Stephen Elliott: Few people that we'd seen come to faith in Christ. But it was really one of my professors when I was in Bible college called the keeping of goldfish Bowls, where you swap goldfish back and forth, rather, being fishers of men.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah.

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Stephen Elliott: That have been very true for us. Most of our growth was just people coming from a Baptist or Pentecostal Nazarene or Salvation army, or it was just a swapping of believers between local churches.

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Stephen Elliott: And so in 1996 we actually had a retreat which I'll I suspect you'd you'd want me to talk a little bit about that. But although we are 100 2,030 people and people thought of us as a success as a church plant. I was not feeling very successful, because it it didn't seem to me that we were resembling anything even remotely close to the Book of Acts.

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Stephen Elliott: Yeah. And so something happened in 1,996, and I could delve into that right now if you want me to. But.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah, let me just follow up and just acknowledging the power of you recognizing what was happening. I've been it been in those situations myself where there's kind some incremental growth. And and people like maybe look around. Say, Hey, things are going well here, and and and you could kind of think. Well, I'm applying myself. I'm I'm giving all the energy I can to preaching to pastoral care to being creative.

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Andy Miller III: But I I I'm interested. The fact that you were unsettled in that way. What what do you think? Well, I I haven't. I. What was leading to that? What was leading to that sense of like the being a success in when the Wesleyan Church sense like what wasn't good enough.

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Stephen Elliott: Well it. It was the fact that, as I said.

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Stephen Elliott: that when I look at we start with 2, my wife and I, in the size of the city back in 1983, and then 1996, 1997, I was looking at the size of the city, which had grown very dramatically

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Stephen Elliott: including the influx of a large Asian population because they needed more software engineers than than were readily available. So we had a large influx of Asians into our community.

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Stephen Elliott: And I'm I'm just looking at what's going on. I'm thinking

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Stephen Elliott: we are not impacting this community like.

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Andy Miller III: Muted.

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Stephen Elliott: We're not impacting them for good and for God.

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Stephen Elliott: We were being as creative, we as we knew how. I mean, I consider myself a very creative person we were doing. Oh, just anything that we could ever think of to advance the gospel. We did

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Stephen Elliott: evangelistic crusades. We did literature distribution we passed up to Jesus. Video. We did live nativities at Christmas time. We did Eastern musicals and Christmas musicals. We'd, I mean, we taught our people evangelism strategies how to share their faith. I mean, we brought in special guests to do apologetics. I mean, we were doing everything we could. We got. We got some of our guests that would go on to the local radio talk shows programs and and talk about

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Stephen Elliott: from

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Stephen Elliott: evolution versus creation.

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Stephen Elliott: The design of of the world, and like we were doing everything that we knew. But we were just not penetrating the community with the Gospel. We were seem to be attracting just lots of other Christians. But the non Christian population seemed very indifferent to the fact that we're even there and you know. So we're just

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Stephen Elliott: this unrest that was within me, as you've already pointed out.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah, it it's I. I hope people could see like it's at this moment, at the United kind of the Wesleyan world, the Pan Western world. In America there's a lot of energy because churches have disaffiliated and now are re-establishing themselves outside of the United Methodist Church. And

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Andy Miller III: and that's like there's like kind of a spark that comes with that particularly being a part of a denomination that might not be holding you back. But there is a bit of a danger I've I'm I'm amazed at what can happen in some of these situations. I've been to some on their, you know, their first few Sundays where they're separated out.

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Andy Miller III: And they've dis affiliated. Or maybe they've started a new church, and how quickly we can go back into the exact same motions of kind of taking care just. And now there's nothing wrong with nurturing and serving and discipling our communities. But when you, when a new church there's there's there's some around this area that come around, and

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Andy Miller III: they go into a new new opportunity, like with a new building, a new moment. But yet they're primarily thinking of serving people who have left another church

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Andy Miller III: and not what can we do to get to people who aren't Christians in this community? And so I feel like that's part of what was at the the heart of your concern. And and you mentioned this. Retreat. I mean, this is like a key moment in some of your own study. That was a part of that. So tell us what happened. There.

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Stephen Elliott: So prior to the retreat in in 1996, which was a board retreat earlier in 1996, I had shut down all of our evangelistic efforts. We still kept having worship services and our small groups and all that kind of stuff that we're doing. But I shut down all of our evangelistic efforts, because I realized it just did not resemble the book of accent. It certainly was not penetrating the gospel into our community.

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Stephen Elliott: and I think it was a God thing I felt like like I should do a Biblical study

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Stephen Elliott: on the factors that contribute to people coming to faith in in Christ in the New Testament.

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Stephen Elliott: So I had done my own Bible study. I looked at every conversion story in the New Testament, any place where it said that they trusted Jesus, or they followed Jesus, or they became a Christian. Anything that gave any indication that a person to become a Christian.

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Stephen Elliott: And what I was doing is, I was writing down what was true about those events, like what was happening that was causing people to come to faith in Christ.

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Stephen Elliott: and

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Stephen Elliott: I eventually a bit of a of a format began to emerge. Of course it's all foundational of the love of mercy immersed of God, you know. If it wasn't for God's grace nobody would ever get saved. And so that was foundational, and I already knew that.

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Stephen Elliott: And then the first 3 things I and I could have told us, told you these 3 things before I even began my study. I knew the church was praying pray for me, and I pray that God opens door of opportunities, and so I I knew the Church was praying. I knew the Holy Spirit was working generically. God was giving gifts of evangelism to some people.

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Stephen Elliott: Jesus said, Nobody comes to me unless the Father draws them. So the Holy Spirit was was active.

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Stephen Elliott: and the believers were usable and available like. Here am I, send me type of thing. And so it was. The next. That next layer of those 3 things with the Church is praying. The Holy Spirit was working, and believers reusable and available like that. That was very obvious, and I could have articulated that even before my study.

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Stephen Elliott: But the first surprise was the next one above that

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Stephen Elliott: which was how frequently miracle signs and wonders were in the conversion stories

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Stephen Elliott: at least, and this is extremely conservative. At least 50%

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Stephen Elliott: of the conversion stories have an identifiable miracle that's just happened either to the person or in plain sight of the person

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Stephen Elliott: you know the the easiest example to get her head surrounds is the raising of lazars. And so Lazarus has been in the tomb for 4 days. Jesus comes on the scene, roll away this stone Jesus! Come forth, lazers comes toddling out, take away the grave close.

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Stephen Elliott: and the very last sentence in that story says, and many put their faith in him.

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Stephen Elliott: and I remember when I was looking at this study, I said, Duh, I had been there, and I just seen a dead life. I would put my faith in Jesus as well.

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Stephen Elliott: but I didn't realize how frequent these miracle signs and wonders were in the conversion stories. I didn't realize it was minimum, 50%, if not more.

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Stephen Elliott: The other, the other factor, the the fifth factor, was that somebody shared a clear presentation of the Gospel. Somebody talked about sin and the cross, and the blood of Christ, and and the need for repentance and faith, and so the a clear presentation of the Gospel is made.

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Stephen Elliott: 50% of those occasions were intentional. It's like Paul going out on his missionary journeys. That's that's why he's going the other 50%. We're very just. Matter of fact is, Jesus sitting beside the well, on comes this merit. And woman, he says, can I have a drink of water. It's just a conversation, and out of that she gets saved.

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Stephen Elliott: And so the clear presentation of the gospel is, is one of the factors.

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Stephen Elliott: the sixth factor, which is the second. The second thing that caught my attention. The first one was, how frequent miracle signs and wonders were

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Stephen Elliott: the sixth factor that caught my attention is how infrequently

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Stephen Elliott: lifestyle and friendship evangelism was.

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Andy Miller III: Yes.

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Stephen Elliott: Version story

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Stephen Elliott: it accounts for less than 1% of the conversion stories in the Bible which totally floored me.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah, exactly.

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Stephen Elliott: I had been taught

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Stephen Elliott: that lifestyle and friendship. Evangelism was the biblical method of seeing people come to faith in Christ.

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Stephen Elliott: Now in fairness it is present. It, you know. The the cleanest example for me is the story in first, Peter, where it talks about that. If a saved wife has an unsaved husband. He could be one over without talk

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Stephen Elliott: by the behaviors and the attitudes of the wife, and so clearly

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Stephen Elliott: how she's living, and has some type of a persuasive influence on somebody coming to faith in Christ.

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Stephen Elliott: But this lifestyle and friendship evangelism only accounted for less than 1% of the conversion stories.

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Stephen Elliott: the other 5 things the Church was praying. The Holy Spirit was working believers, reusable, available miracle signs and wonders in the clear presentation of the Gospel. That accounts for over 99% of the conversion stories.

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Stephen Elliott: So I'd done this study.

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Stephen Elliott: I add.

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Stephen Elliott: we had a Church Board retreat that fall in 90, 96,

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Stephen Elliott: and we were talking about what's hindering us from accomplishing the vision that God's given us.

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Stephen Elliott: And one of the things that came out of that was a decision that we're going to

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Stephen Elliott: revolve all of our evangelistic efforts around these 5 factors. It's not that we're not gonna ever do sports evangelism or not those other things. But the main thrust is, we're gonna put all of our all of our eggs into these 5 things. But the church is praying, the the believers are usable and available.

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Stephen Elliott: The Holy Spirit is working miracle sense, and wondered to pursue certain miracle, sense and wonders.

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Stephen Elliott: and then the ability to clearly present the essence of the Gospel.

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Stephen Elliott: So that took place in 1996,

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Stephen Elliott: and we made a number of decisions at that board retreat

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Stephen Elliott: that we said, this is the future direction of our church. If we are wanting to see God work in this type of way, what what would be the environment which is God is most likely to to to work these ways.

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Stephen Elliott: We felt one of the applications. Real life applications was that we were incredibly poor worshippers. We felt we were good. Musically. We felt that our intentions were good, but we did not feel that we're good worshippers, so we said, whatever it takes for us to become

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Stephen Elliott: passionate worshippers of God. That's what we're gonna begin pursuing. And so it put us on a whole new trajectory. And if if I could bring up the chart and show you everybody that looks at our growth chart from 1983 t019-96-1997, it's just like a slow, even growth, you know, 10 people per year, and from 1997 until we left, and 2,005 for me to pursue my doctoral degree and begin teaching.

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Stephen Elliott: We're growing at something much closer to a hundred people per year. So from 10 people getting becoming part of our church to a hundred people per year, and so we were just nicely breaking through a thousand in attendance when I left the church in 2,005 to about 13 1,400 people, that it were now calling us their church home, and I think we'd had 4 4 weekend attendance over a thousand at that point.

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Stephen Elliott: So yeah, anybody that looks at that chart. Everybody says what happened in 1997. It all goes back to that Bible study of what were the factors that contributed to people coming to Faith and Christ

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Stephen Elliott: and Andy. I'll just add this because it's so important.

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Stephen Elliott: From 1997 to 2,005.

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Stephen Elliott: Most of our growth was conversion, growth.

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Andy Miller III: Okay. Okay. Yeah.

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Stephen Elliott: Prior to that, it was just transfer growth from 1,997 to 2,005. Those last 8 years the vast majority of our growth was conversion, growth.

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Andy Miller III: Wow, that may. Now, obviously, it's really tempting in any time that we're in the church world to say, Okay, this person was successful. What did they do? Tell us the formula? And it's and what I found so different in reading your book and thinking, not thinking of as like a church growth book as much like I didn't. I didn't have that sense like, Do this trick make this happen like you know. Use this color on your sign. Change your name, whatever what and not that it's not import. Th, there's not things to learn

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Andy Miller III: from a variety of church growth techniques. But tell us, you know you mentioned the passionate worshipping. Wh how did that look? What was different? I mean, did you tell people to raise their hands? I mean what what I mean. I know it's more than that. It's different. How did you become persu more passionate worshippers.

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Stephen Elliott: Well, as I said, we were very good musically. We actually even had some Nashville studio musicians on our worship team. I mean, we we were very good musically, but we were just not good worshipers.

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Stephen Elliott: and we did not have anybody in the church that was able to lead us into worship in that way. So we began looking around looking for somebody that that actually was a passionate worshipper that had the skill level that could actually help us. And one day this guy walked into our church, and I didn't even know he was there, and but he had heard that we were looking for for a worship leader.

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Stephen Elliott: And he thought he thought that a Wesleyan church was like an Anglican church, and so he actually came very reluctantly. He thought it was gonna be very liturgical, you know, just very, very formal, and of course we we were not that way. And during the worship service. I remember watching, I saw this guy get up and actually leave our service.

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Stephen Elliott: which was kind of unusual. And

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Stephen Elliott: you know, maybe 5 min later I saw him walk back in, and I remembered, as I was preaching, thinking, Look, I must have just went to the washroom, or something like that.

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Stephen Elliott: And at the end of the service I'm at the back door. And as I'm shaking hands with people as they're leaving church. And again, this is this, like 1997. So we're still like about 100 2,030 people. And so we're small enough that we know each other.

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Stephen Elliott: As he went by me. He he held onto my hand and he said, I hear you're looking for a worship, pastor. He says I'd like to give you my resume.

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Stephen Elliott: and and so he handed me. That's what he done. He'd gone out to his car and got his resume.

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Andy Miller III: Oh, wow!

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Stephen Elliott: And brought it back into the service, so that he could give it to me after the service, because he sensed both from what he was seeing and what he felt. He was hearing from the Lord that this was the place that he was supposed to serve.

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Stephen Elliott: and he brought. He brought worship to us, I mean I don't know how else to say it. He's such a passionate worshipper of God.

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Stephen Elliott: If you had asked people up until 1996,

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Stephen Elliott: why do you come to to our church?

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Stephen Elliott: The vast majority would have said, we come because we love Steve's preaching.

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Stephen Elliott: but from 1997 on

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Stephen Elliott: when we started really having encounters with God in our worship services.

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Stephen Elliott: it would be much more common for people to say.

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Stephen Elliott: you know, if Steve doesn't get up to preach. It's okay.

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Andy Miller III: Men.

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Stephen Elliott: But

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Stephen Elliott: so yeah, we just we just became much more open to the spirits presence

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Stephen Elliott: towards the end we were up to 5 worship services a week one of which was only worship. We had no preaching at the one service. It was just times of quietness before God worship listening, praying. It was just wonderful times that that we'd get together, and there was no preaching aspect to it. And so yeah, we we started carving out time in our worship services.

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Stephen Elliott: telling people

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Stephen Elliott: God doesn't want to just speak to to clergy. He wants to speak to you

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Stephen Elliott: just like little Samuel, you know. Speak, Lord, for your servants listing type of a thing.

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Stephen Elliott: and so we would start carving out like a minute of silence in our servicer worship services.

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Stephen Elliott: and just say, Lord, your people are here listening.

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Stephen Elliott: and if you've got a word of encouragement for them, or word of rebuke, or if there's something that you want them to do, or we're just gonna be quiet before you.

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Stephen Elliott: We started inviting people to come to the altar for prayer for healing.

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Stephen Elliott: We would do that during the pastoral prayer time, partway through the service.

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Stephen Elliott: And we had to figure out how to do these things because it it just wasn't part of my tradition. It's not something I'd ever seen before.

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Stephen Elliott: And so, in order to help our our alter team, we would say, if you're coming up to pray about a fiscal healing issue, would you pray on this side of the platform over here at the altar rail, and we got some people that will pray, and not you with oil. If you're coming for any other issue, finances or relationships, or something else. Would you pray over here just so that we would know who to annoy with oil.

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Stephen Elliott: We instructed our our our prayer teams not to pronounce healing on people.

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Stephen Elliott: Let's say, had a remove from God. They're not to do that. Much more. Leaning into the Flippings passage where it says, Present your request under God.

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Stephen Elliott: And so we're we'll pray with you, and we're going to request that God would extend grace kneeling towards you.

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Stephen Elliott: So we we started, leaving much more heavily into the Alpha program, which, as you would probably know, has got a a strong Holy Spirit component to it.

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Stephen Elliott: and we saw a lot of healings that began to happen. Words of knowledge began to emerge, prophecies began to emerge.

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Stephen Elliott: We never saw anybody raised from the dead. But we had all kinds of

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Stephen Elliott: miraculous provisions, like amazing stories of of how God was providing.

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Stephen Elliott: Waste it.

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Stephen Elliott: Anybody. I I don't think anybody in a right mind would say, well, that's just coincidence. Now, do you want me? Tell you one of those stories I can tell you.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah, sure. Sure, I loved it. Yeah.

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Stephen Elliott: Okay, th, this one is very personal to Helen. I because it happened to Helen. I

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Stephen Elliott: we had bought a house in Canada.

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Stephen Elliott: and we've got 3 kids, and the kids were little, and we'd we'd really push our budget right to the maximum. So one day Helen said to me, says, wouldn't it be nice if we had a sandbox for the kids?

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Stephen Elliott: And I said, Honey, we cannot afford a sandbox like

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Stephen Elliott: we're on a really tight budget here.

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Stephen Elliott: and so Helen says, well, why don't we just pray and ask that God would give us a sandbox.

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Stephen Elliott: and so I'll be as honest with you as I can possibly be. We never told a soul. We never breathed it to anybody.

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Andy Miller III: Wow!

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Stephen Elliott: Well, we started praying on Tuesday that God would give us a sandbox that Saturday.

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Stephen Elliott: I'm at the side fence of our house with the neighbors. It's kind of like Tim, the toolman, like looking.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah, sure, right?

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Stephen Elliott: And my neighbor was on the other side of the fence, and he says to me, is, Hey, Steve, he says, would you like a sandbox. You've got little kids. We don't have any little kids anymore. Would you like a sandbox? And I said, Yeah, so he says, Come on over. So I ran around the fence and got a sandbox and brought it over, put it in the backyard, and ran the house, and brought down Sandbox. How looked at it and looked at me and looked back. She says it's a sandbox. And I said, Yeah, she says there's no sand in it. We didn't pray for sand.

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Andy Miller III: Oh, my!

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Stephen Elliott: Sandbox.

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Stephen Elliott: and she says, Well, let's pray for sand.

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Stephen Elliott: And so the following Saturday I'm in my front yard.

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Stephen Elliott: and my neighbor across the street from me, walked over, and we're having a chit chat. And he said, You notice that we're doing some work at our house here, and I say, what are you doing over there? He said. I'm putting a swimming pool in my backyard. He says I got a problem. What's your problem? He says we ordered too much of that white sand that you put underneath the the blue liner of the of the sand of the pool, he said. Oh, this white sand, he says, do you have any need for nice white sand? As a matter of fact, I do. So. We got a wheelbarrow and brought like 4 or 5

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Stephen Elliott: loads over and put it in the sandbox, and then I ran the house and brought down, we could say, and I was so thrilled, and the Andy. Like as we're speaking right now, like I'll be 70 on my next birthday.

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Andy Miller III: Okay.

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Stephen Elliott: In my 70 years of living

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Stephen Elliott: nobody has ever offered me either sandbox

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Stephen Elliott: or sand.

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Stephen Elliott: except the 2 weeks that we prayed about it.

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Andy Miller III: Wow!

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Stephen Elliott: And at some point you, when these things are happening over and over again, somebody's gotta say, Okay, this is more than coincidence. There's something else that's going on here. And so we that's just one example, like there's dozens and dozens and dozens of examples of how God was providing it. And people began to sit up and take notice of

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Stephen Elliott: good grief. What's going on there? There's there's something that's happening.

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Stephen Elliott: It seems like.

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Andy Miller III: I think it was so clearly God's presence being E evident like, got that? There's no other way to explain. It's happening. It's not winning an argument. It's not a a clever way to like, okay, I'm gonna take somebody out for coffee several times. Work. My, okay. Now I'm ready to present the gospel, but it was God showing up and being active. And what what your book helped me realize is that within the life of a congregation I wasn't

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Andy Miller III: making enough space for that like you just said the very first thing you did. You started having a quiet period where people could hear from God for 1 min now that can feel like a long time the first time you do it right, and then but we we copied that that idea, and I was amazed

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Andy Miller III: how God was at work in that time. When you leave just a little bit of space like a couple of minutes, and then we just asked, Does anybody hear anything from God? Then this was interesting. And then and then the wonderful words of encouragement that came from within the congregation again. This wasn't my clever planning. I I know I kind of, I said at the beginning it wasn't my 5 steps to deeper teaching and preaching. It was nothing that, like it was just. God was making himself present through other people, and I, and that then led us to also think

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Andy Miller III: I had. I I so I was. I'm I'm 44 years old. I'll just throw it out there. So I my! My dad, is a pastor. I come from many generations of pastors, and in the eighties and nineties there was this probably seventies too. But this resistance, or allergy to any sort of charismatic expressions, particularly again in the Westland world. I think this was just a part of like wanting to. Not

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Andy Miller III: There's probably some social reasons why this happened, and so there was a lot of push back against that type of thing. And so the general approach was well, we believe, and

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Andy Miller III: speaking tongues that can happen, and there needs to be an interpreter. And if you would have asked me before I read your book, do I believe that I would say absolutely. But I never created a space for it. Now, here it's interesting enough, like we just tried to say, like, Leave enough space

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Andy Miller III: where God can be at work, and if an interpreter were to arise, then we would assume that this was the right situation for somebody speaking tongues the same thing with healing. I was amazed, like you mentioned just, I love these little clear instructions that are in your book is what I needed to say. Okay. And somebody come to this side the altar. If you're seeking healing, decide if you're coming to pray, and

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Andy Miller III: oh! As a pastor I found I loved, and then also given this opportunity other people

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Andy Miller III: to have people present requests for for healing, and even though I didn't, didn't know if what was going to happen.

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Andy Miller III: I was just thankful to pray for for people and anoint them with oil, like all these things just led to an opening that I I felt like, why didn't I think of this before. But tell us some of the I mean. Sometimes people are afraid because they're like, even like a word of knowledge like, I started to leave opportunities open for people to share you. You kind of

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Andy Miller III: you. You had some growing pains, even with that sort of experience, like trying to figure out how to make sure things happened that were consistent with God's Word. What were some of those? What were some of those other practical things that you did

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Andy Miller III: to create space in a worship service for God's Spirit to come by signs and wonders.

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Stephen Elliott: Yeah. Well, the the words of knowledge. We're we're tricky one for sure, because, just for me to, I'll just clarify what I mean by.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah, yeah.

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Stephen Elliott: A prophecy is something that God reveals about the future. A word of knowledge is something that God that reveals. It's presently true.

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Stephen Elliott: And so, you know, people would receive prophecies, so they receive words of knowledge, and and we gave permission, if they were positive, you know, go ahead and share them with whomever you know, if you see you've got a word for somebody else that God loves them, or something of that nature, just go ahead and share. But if it's in anything a warning or discipline, or rebuke, or anything like that

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Stephen Elliott: in the early days we were just allowing people to stand up and share those words of knowledge. And and that's incredibly unwise. I mean, we're we're the shepherd of the flock crisis, the we're the under shepherds of Christ. But we're we're giving the responsibilities to protect the flock.

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Stephen Elliott: And so that's very early on, we realized that we needed to have a vetting system. What could be said publicly, and what could not be said publicly. And so we would tell people, if if the Lord gives you something that's any type of rebuke or discipline, or anything of that nature. If it's got to go to a pastor first, and the pastor, we either release it or will not release it. The the believe that the person is

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Stephen Elliott: a

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Stephen Elliott: given, you know they they've they've been responsible. They brought it to somebody, and then it's my responsibility. Now, whether or not that kind of thing is shared. And you're right. I mean, there was outrageous things that that people came up with. Had. One lady came to me one time. I think it was 5 or 6 nuclear bombs, she said. We're going to go off on the same day. It's 6 different Us. Cities, or something like that.

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Andy Miller III: Wow!

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Stephen Elliott: And I said, well, I believe you've absolved yourself of your responsibility. You've shared with somebody in in position of authority what you believe you've heard from God. But you do understand. If that day comes and there's no nuclear bombs going off.

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Stephen Elliott: that you and I are gonna have to have a conversation, and of course the day came and those bombs did not happen. And yes, I did have a conversation with her, because people can be sincerely wrong from God, but they haven't.

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Stephen Elliott: And so, as a pastor, it's my responsibility to protect the flock to, to figure out. Does this resonate? Does this sound like it's something that's coming from God, or this person just had bad pizza last night and

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Stephen Elliott: under their own imaginations.

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Stephen Elliott: But you mentioned something, Andy, which which I just want to pick up on, because.

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Andy Miller III: Please!

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Stephen Elliott: It's way more important than what a lot of people

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Stephen Elliott: I think, attribute you talked about the presence of God.

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Stephen Elliott: I think all of us at times have been in worship services. We're we're just. You just sent.

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Stephen Elliott: God is in this place. There's that sense of holy, reverent, reverential awe that you just sense the presence of God. That is the primary way that God showed up. There was healing some very, some very dramatic ones from cancer verifiable ones, not things that you know, just people just making up tumors that were removed from people like amazing stories of people that I know that these are not just, you know, pretend stories. These are the real deal.

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Stephen Elliott: A. A very incredible prophecies that were very true.

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Stephen Elliott: but the number one way, that when people said, Well, how did God show up in your midst? It was that sense of all this reverence that God is in this place.

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Stephen Elliott: and, as I said, I was 22 years pasturing that church.

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Stephen Elliott: and there were 2 sentences that were said to me over and over and over again.

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Stephen Elliott: The first most common sentence was, What's a Westland? Because nobody's even heard of a Westland church? That was the most question.

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Stephen Elliott: But the second most common statement that was made to me was.

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Stephen Elliott: I don't know why I'm in church today.

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Stephen Elliott: I was driving by in the road, and I just felt like I needed to come to church.

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Andy Miller III: Wow!

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Stephen Elliott: And it wasn't because we got better at advertising. We actually got worse at advertising.

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Stephen Elliott: But there was something about the presence of God that was drawing people to himself. I remember

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Stephen Elliott: as an example, it was an anniversary weekend. I I don't know which anniversary it was, but the mayor of our city of Kannada was was in our service, and

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Stephen Elliott: she was bringing greetings from the city for our anniversary, and when she stood up

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Stephen Elliott: she went to the pulpit, and and if I could try and mimic what she said, but basically she went.

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Stephen Elliott: there's there's a there's a

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Stephen Elliott: there's. There's something here I could just sense it. There's something here. She didn't. She didn't have the vocabulary even say that what she was sensing was the Holy Spirit.

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Stephen Elliott: and so I would say, that was the dominant way that God showed up in our

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Stephen Elliott: our pursuit of Him, the presence of God. And then the quietness of God speaking into people's lives as well. So yeah.

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Andy Miller III: Could you tell us a little bit, too, about how, how? You even lead people, and and even yourself leading yourself to pray for healing for people, and th that gets in sometimes people. Oh, I'm not sure I wanna do that. What if God says? Nothing happens, you know. And here we put oil on somebody. So tell us about how you even instruct people to lead those type of moments within a worship service.

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Stephen Elliott: Yeah. Well, obviously, asking permission of the person to to ask them, may I ask why you're here this morning? And while you're at the altar. And would you like me to pray with you because some people just want to be left alone? And so the first is how you approach people and get permission to kneel down beside them and ask them if if if they want some prayer support, and then, after a moment, just ask the person to say, may I ask what it is that you're praying about, or what? How I could join you in prayer.

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Stephen Elliott: and the 99% of the time people will are very free to share. They'll say, you know, I just got a diagnosis of cancer. My, my mom's got Alzheimer's or my husband just lost his job, or I've got a child that's addicted to oxycontin or something. People people will tend to be as long as it's private. In in that moment you're not

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Stephen Elliott: broadcasting around people will share pretty freely what it is that's on their heart.

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Stephen Elliott: And then, just to say, Would it be okay, if I prayed for you first, and then would you also pray? And so we would ask our our prayer team to lead out in prayer

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Stephen Elliott: and to present the request to God, and we're going to agree with you in prayer on this this matter. And so the the prayer counselor, the prayer attendant at the altar would would lead off in prayer, and then encourage the other person to pray and to make that request to God, and to ask the alter counselor, the person praying with them to verbally agree with them in prayer, and to say, Yes, Lord, yes, Lord.

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Stephen Elliott: come, Lord, nor we. We need your help in this matter, and to be verbally supportive of of the person in their prayer, and then to

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Stephen Elliott: for the prayer counselor, person to to conclude it by giving it to God. Thy will be done. Type of a thing. We don't. We don't know. We're we're not asking because we're good. We're asking because you're good God! And we give this to you. We ask that your very best will would be done. Would you answer this prayer in a way that is best for the advancing of your kingdom in our lives and through us we pray, and then

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Stephen Elliott: tell the person that that you're gonna be praying make the promise that you'll pray with them and the ongoing, and then keep your word. Don't don't say you're gonna pray for somebody, and then not pray for them. And so they would often just write down, you know, a quick note, you know, praying for Bob and his mother's got cancer, and we annoyed them with oil, and ask that though I will be symbolic of the presence of God, totally spirit, and that bring healing into the situation. Yeah.

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Andy Miller III: I love it, I mean, I thank you for just walking through those very clear directions. I'm

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Andy Miller III: W. When you would. Le, let's imagine your and I know that you probably do this in your role as superintendent. But imagine there, there's a church that's pretty successful. Maybe a couple of services, a really kind, a pattern of exactly what they do. Okay, we have the Lord Supper this and the first Sunday of the month. We do this sort of greeting. The second Sunday we say, the Apostles Creed. Here we sing a hymn, we have a praise chorus.

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Andy Miller III: we have a sermon, we have a closing him everybody moves in moves out where we got it. We go to Sunday school. We come back, whatever it is, it's a it's like this is what we do. This is who who we are.

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Andy Miller III: But yet there's a lack

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Andy Miller III: of the presence of God in these situations, a lack of freedom. You don't see prayers for healing people seeking that out. And may. Maybe people might think I'm describing situations that I've led. Okay, just like I don't mean to. I'm picking on myself here.

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Andy Miller III: What? What are some things that people could do a. A. A church leadership teams? How should they approach this. I mean it will. A pastor could say, Okay, we're gonna start this right now. But a even working with other people and leading this type of change. I know you've written about change. How can a pastor in a leadership team really lead to a a church to be in a position to be able to

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Andy Miller III: create space for signs and wonders.

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Stephen Elliott: Yeah, I'm I'm glad you asked that, Andy. It would be incredibly unwise for a pastor to lead into the types of things that I'm talking about all by themselves, and so and I did not. As I said we started with a board retreat, where I was sharing with them the results of my Bible study, so that our Church Board was aware.

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Stephen Elliott: I picked up a number of books and began distributing them on the great revivals of the past like Finnies and Jonathan Edwards and

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Stephen Elliott: the Welsh revivals like the like, the the great revivals of the pastor. What's it? What does it actually look like

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Stephen Elliott: for God to show up.

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Andy Miller III: And which.

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Stephen Elliott: Tends to be messy. It doesn't. It's not churches as normal. And and make sure that our leadership team was aware of why we're leaning into this way. Because they're gonna they're gonna catch Flack way before I do the average. You know, board members and staff members. They're gonna hear, you know, grumbles and plaintiffs. And this doesn't feel like it used to. Why we doing this, they're gonna hear this kind of stuff. And so for them to be able to articulate

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Stephen Elliott: why, we're leaning this way first of all, because it's Biblical especially as it relates to signs and wonders and miracles. But also that there's strong historic evidence that the Church is that's growing around the world. The Western Church is one of the few places where the church is not growing.

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Andy Miller III: And are we speaking.

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Stephen Elliott: About 85% of our churches in North America are plateaued and declining.

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Stephen Elliott: And the next, roughly.

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Stephen Elliott: N, 19% of the churches, they're really only growing because of transfer growth. It's actually less than 1% of churches in North America that are growing by by conversion growth. And so if we just do what most churches do, we're just gonna continue to get what most churches are getting, which are very, very poor results. And, by the way. I I will also say this.

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Stephen Elliott: that the research on lifestyle friendship, evangelism is incredibly clear. We've been doing this stuff since the sixties and seventies, using that as our primary method of evangelism

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Stephen Elliott: and the results are very, very clear

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Stephen Elliott: about 1% of Christians actually share their faith per year and 5% in their entire life will lead another person to faith in Christ.

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Stephen Elliott: And so

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Stephen Elliott: this the practice of lifestyle and friendship evangelists. Not that it's wrong, it's just that it has such terrible results.

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Stephen Elliott: When God is working miraculously, you can't hardly beat the people away.

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Stephen Elliott: they will. They? They start hearing things that are going on. And they just. That's why the crowds came to Jesus initially. Now they stayed

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Stephen Elliott: because of His love and His wisdom, because His Son of God and no. Who's this? It speaks for such authority. But what drew them into Jesus presence was, they came because he was a miracle working person. And I I read not too long ago. There's a book called Tongue of Fire, that was written in the 18 fifties

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Stephen Elliott: by the General Secretary of the Methodist Church in England.

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Stephen Elliott: and he's trying to figure out why, for the first time in the history of Methodism, that Methodism is in numerical decline, and he's trying to figure out why that is.

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Stephen Elliott: and I'll give you his, his grand conclusion. His grand conclusion is, we stopped, emphasizing the personal work of Holy Spirit. That's why.

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Stephen Elliott: And another great book is the supernatural and the circuit writers. I'm fourth generation Wesley, and my my son's a Wesleyan pastor. My grandkids go to Wesley, and Jerry's like we're we're like 6 generations of of Wesley in in my, in my family.

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Stephen Elliott: I had never heard ever anybody talk

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Stephen Elliott: about how frequent miracle signs and wonders were in the life of John Wesley.

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Stephen Elliott: and in particular in the lives of the circuit writers.

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Stephen Elliott: We know that the circuit writers were tremendously effective

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Stephen Elliott: at establishing new churches, especially along the eastern seaboard of the United States. All the church plan that was going on, and how rapidly the Methodist Church grew.

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Stephen Elliott: But

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Stephen Elliott: this this book called Supernatural and Circuit Writers. This is the first time I've read anything about somebody's actually delved into the journals of the circuit writers themselves to see what what was going on.

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Stephen Elliott: and the circuit writer's ministry was characterized exactly the way John Moesley's minic ministry was characterized by miracle signs and wonders. As a matter of fact.

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Stephen Elliott: there's a letter that that's a recorded that was written about John Wesley, a contemporary of this writing

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Stephen Elliott: that said, if Wesley did not see evidence

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Stephen Elliott: of the miraculous activity of the spirit in his in his public ministry, he would stop the service, and say, Lord, where are thy signs and tokens to confirm thy message? And the person that's writing the letter says, every time he prayed that the congregation would fall under the power of God's Holy Spirit. Well, I've never heard anything about that in in all my my history. With the Wesleyan church.

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Stephen Elliott: And so, yeah, no, we're actually, we're actually the ones that have abandoned our home heritage.

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Andy Miller III: Wow, yeah.

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Stephen Elliott: This doesn't matter. This is our heritage now, and you're right. We did give it up in the seventies in large measure, because some of the extremes that was going on in the charismatic circles, one of which is that if you're speaking in tongues, there's nothing else for you to grow into, that, you've arrived.

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Andy Miller III: Yes.

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Stephen Elliott: That was kind of a popular sentiment in the seventies, and

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Stephen Elliott: and the Methodist churches and Wesleyan churches kind of distanced themselves from kind of that. So that kind of stuff and that speaking tongues was the sign of being.

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Andy Miller III: Right.

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Stephen Elliott: But that's not true that having a having an agopy level of love for the father and and for people, that's the true evidence that a person's been filled with the Spirit of God, so we distance ourselves in the seventies. But we threw the baby up with the bath water, and somehow we've got to reclaim some of our own history.

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Andy Miller III: Yes, oh, I love it. I hope we can. I hope folks are listening this and our challenge one great what place to go to is Steve's book by S. By signs and wonders, and you know you encouraged me to through that book. I act like we're friends, you know when you read somebody's book you get to know them. I'm just good. Throw that out there. But I just. I picked up I decided to do a series on the person work of a Holy Spirit. I use Gordon fees book

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Andy Miller III: not not the empowering presence. Oh, I forget the other one. But there, there's 2 books that he has on the work of Holy Spirit. That was a great guide for me exegetically

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Andy Miller III: to think about how to preach on the Holy Spirit. And again, I I feel like this is sadly. I don't know if this is like you've been out of a local church ministry for the last, you know. 1520 years, and now I've been out for 3 years. So I I but I've had enough people come to me wondering about this, particularly in light of the clear, very public

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Andy Miller III: outpouring that happened at Asbury University. I think people realize in that moment I went to that institution I went to and I I was in Wilmore for 7 and a half years, and loved my experience there, and and so I I feel a special connection to that. But I wasn't there. But the way people describe it was this. The conversion after conversion, if people would come, and they were aware of God's presence. There was

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Andy Miller III: various other manifestations that were happening. So that's what I want. Like, I think, as as people in ministry like, we want people to come closer to Christ. We want people to be converted. And so let's pray for these type of experiences. Now you and I've we've talked a few times here about some of the charismatic expressions. But how how did you handle engaging with tongues and interpreting tongues and that sort of thing in your in. How do you instruct people now?

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Stephen Elliott: Well, I actually agree with the Westland statement on speaking in tongues, however, it is written, it's the only doctrinal statement we have written in our book of this one that's written in the negative. It's a bowl, not type of stuff. It's it's the only one that's written negative.

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Stephen Elliott: So a proposal has actually gone to our general conferences. North America, the Philippines, the Caribbeans. They're they're considering a new statement on speaking in tongues which is actually written into positive about what tongues actually is, as opposed to what tongues is not.

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Andy Miller III: Okay.

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Stephen Elliott: I believe, and I believe with strong support from Scripture, I believe, especially for paintings. 14, verse 2, where it says that the met a person that speaks in tongue speaks to God does not speak to man.

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Stephen Elliott: It's I mean, that's word for word what it says. And so tongue speaking is actually

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Stephen Elliott: speaking to God words of praise, adoration, and thanksgiving. It's not delivering a message from God.

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Stephen Elliott: because that would violate first 14, 2. When some people say, Well, what about acts? Chapter 2. What was going on? Where we hear them declaring the glories of God in their own languages?

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Andy Miller III: Right.

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Stephen Elliott: I believe that in order for that to be consistent with verse 1514, 2. That what they heard they heard the 120 in the upper room, declaring the praises, and they were glorifying and thanking God

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Stephen Elliott: so it would be kind of like if you heard me

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Stephen Elliott: speaking to my wife, Helen and I, said, Helen, you're an amazing woman. You're most. You're hospital. You're the best cook that I know. You're a fancy dresser. I love the way you smell you're you're fantastic, I I I just love being with you, and I'm speaking to her, and you hear it.

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Stephen Elliott: and you would say I just heard Steve declaring the glories of Helen.

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Stephen Elliott: Now I was not speaking to you. I was speaking to Helen, but you heard it in your language.

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Andy Miller III: Yes.

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Stephen Elliott: I believe that that's what tongue speaking is. And of course, Corinthians 14 is very clear. That should be in a public worship service. It needs to be one at a time, and that there has to be an interpretation, especially if non Christians are there.

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Stephen Elliott: And so most of the tongue speaking that I've heard over the years, and I'm going back to even when I was a teenager. Most of the time they were being message. When they were interpreted. There were messages to people from God.

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Stephen Elliott: things like I, the everlasting God! I'd love you with an everlasting love, and I'm about to do a new thing in your midst.

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Stephen Elliott: I don't actually believe that that was actually legitimately Tunks. I don't think that was Tunks, because that violates for scripting 14 2 where it says it's not speaking to people, it's supposed to be speaking to God.

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Stephen Elliott: And so if tongue speaking happened in one of our worship services, if it was towards God

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Stephen Elliott: words of praise, adoration, and thanks, and it was being done one at a time.

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Stephen Elliott: and there was an interpretation that I would allow it.

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Stephen Elliott: If it was not that way, then I would shut it down immediately, because if it's chaotic, if everybody's just speaking in tongues, you know, a non Christian comes in, says you're all out of your mind because it's just so chaotic.

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Stephen Elliott: And so you're

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Stephen Elliott: that is not our present position. I want to be clear. It's.

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Andy Miller III: Okay.

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Stephen Elliott: Conferences for for them to to work it through. But that's the type of thing that the work that we're looking to actually change our doctoral statement, but it has not yet been approved. So in the meantime, I support our present statement, even though it's written in the negative.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah, yeah, Steve, thank you so much for taking time to walk through some of this with it. I I would love you. You and I started talking about some of your other books. I would love for you. Just give a quick summary of this, this one that you mentioned, that is based on some research about environments where people are discipled. And you had some surprising data on that. I I'm I'm asking you very, you know, very quickly to summarize a whole book. So forgive me. But maybe it'll give people appetite that they'll want to come and find the book themselves.

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Stephen Elliott: Sure it's it's called the principles and practices of discipleship.

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Stephen Elliott: the 7 plus one environments of discipleship. So the principals practice discipleship the 7 plus one environments of discipleship.

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Stephen Elliott: The whole premise of the book is built on the reveal study that came out of Will Creek years ago now, where they were looking at whether or not people were actually growing into faith

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Stephen Elliott: as they looked to see how people were responding to the discipleship efforts of the Willocree Church. At that particular point. They were very disappointed to discover that most of their people were not growing in their faith. They were very much plateaued.

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Stephen Elliott: There's actually 7 environments in which people grow in, in discipleship and churches should be providing these.

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Stephen Elliott: The typical Church, however, only provides 2.

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Stephen Elliott: The 2 environments that most churches provide are the public preaching of the word and small group Bible studies.

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Andy Miller III: Okay? Which?

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Stephen Elliott: The reveal study indicated were the least effective methods of discipleship.

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Andy Miller III: Interesting.

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Stephen Elliott: Other ways of disycling people that are far more effective

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Stephen Elliott: things like accountability and mentoring groups

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Stephen Elliott: and spiritual retreats

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Stephen Elliott: and

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Stephen Elliott: family devotions.

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Stephen Elliott: And of course, the biggest one of all

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Stephen Elliott: is whether or not a Christian is having personal devotional time in the word, especially if they're journaling. What they're reading.

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Andy Miller III: Interesting.

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Stephen Elliott: And they have an opportunity to share it with other people.

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Andy Miller III: Hmm.

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Stephen Elliott: So it's personal devotions that includes journaling with an opportunity to share what they've been journaling, and with other people way more effective at helping people grow in their faith. Then, as a matter of fact.

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Stephen Elliott: most of the studies that I've seen on the role of small groups say that small groups are actually one of the worst environments for people being cycled in. It's not that they're wrong. It's just that they're not effective.

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Stephen Elliott: However, small groups are really effective at providing a place of pastoral care and congregational care. That's their that's their primary strength.

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Andy Miller III: Is that? Repeat.

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Stephen Elliott: I feel known and cared for. And of course public worship services are, they're important and they need to happen.

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Stephen Elliott: But there's other environments in which establishment happens much more than just public worship services and small groups.

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Andy Miller III: That is interesting data. And you said, 7 plus one, what's the plus one.

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Stephen Elliott: The one is one that the the reason it's listed as a plus one is, it's it's not something that you can create. And it's not even something that you want.

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Stephen Elliott: the one the one is suffering.

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Andy Miller III: Oh, right! Yes, with the.

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Stephen Elliott: The testing of the of your faith develops perseverance, perseverance, character, hope, right, and so, how

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Stephen Elliott: difficult times can be such a fertile opportunity to actually grow interface.

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Stephen Elliott: If there it's properly approached, if we approach it with faith that God brings good out of bad.

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Stephen Elliott: if we approach it with the premise that my perspective is is accurate, but it's not complete

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Stephen Elliott: meaning. Yes, this pain is terrible. That's that's a very accurate appraisal.

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Stephen Elliott: But my perspective may not be complete. There may be other things going on which clearly, in the story of Job, there's other things going on that job wasn't even aware of.

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Stephen Elliott: And so, yeah, so the the role of suffering as an environment which people can really grow. And and I in my own life. And I certainly know that that's true that we experiences of life on, or some of the times where? Where you're on your knees, your most, and you're crying out to God for for his intervention into your life. So so the 7 is things that you can create in a church. The one is just the role of suffering, and how.

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Andy Miller III: Right.

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Stephen Elliott: Such a fertile time of growth.

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Andy Miller III: Yeah. And W. Where could they? I guess you could just get these books on Amazon. I know that. Seed bed books you can get there. But what about what about this is just is that the easiest way to find the books.

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Stephen Elliott: Yeah, it's actually published by the same company that publishes natural church development church resource

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Stephen Elliott: church. Smart, sorry church smart. They're the ones that publish the the 7 plus one

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Stephen Elliott: they also publish the my, the other book, which is called The Rubics of a Healthy church, which is how you measure health in a church so.

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Andy Miller III: Steve. Thanks. So much for your time. I always ask this question, Mike, you, you're my last podcast. You're on was called Captain's corner because I was. I was captain at the time, but I'm no longer a captain, so I did give up that title, and but the titles called is more to the story. So I like to ask people, is there more to the story of Steve? I know you've been on a lot of podcasts. You've had a, you know, opportunities to share. But is there maybe a hobby or something that you do that might be interesting to my listeners?

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Stephen Elliott: No, I'm a huge hockey fanatic as a Canadian.

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Andy Miller III: Oh, as you might.

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Stephen Elliott: I guess I when I first got married I was playing 6 games of hockey a week.

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Andy Miller III: Okay.

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Stephen Elliott: I'm a goalie, and that was not a very smart thing to do. As a newly married guy.

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Stephen Elliott: I was out all kinds of evenings, one on Friday night. So I was playing 2 games that were back to back, and so I'd come home just late late at night, just totally exhausted. So no, I'm a huge fan, and, as I said, we pastored in Ottawa for 22 years we had quite a number of the Ottawa senators that came to our church, including.

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Andy Miller III: Oh, really.

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Stephen Elliott: Chris Neil Mike Fisher came to the church Antoine Vermet came to the church. Roger Nielsen, who used to be the coach of the Toronto police. He came to the church. There's there's a number of the management and players that came, and so we got to know them a little bit. I had one opportunity in my entire life to be on the, on the on the ice with some retired nhl players.

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Stephen Elliott: and as a goalie I would just say they humiliated me. They just want to leaps above anything that I could do as a goalie. So I I love hockey.

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Andy Miller III: So is Ottawa your team today. Did you.

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Stephen Elliott: Of course. Okay.

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Andy Miller III: Okay, Gotcha. Well, I was in Tampa Bay, and that was where, when I we spoke last. I was serving there, and you'd be surprised. Well, maybe you wouldn't be. But there's enough people from the North down there that until, except for the year that Tom Bray took the buccaneers to win the super bowl the the lightning are the most popular sports team in that town. So it down there I gotta meet several of the players.

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Andy Miller III: the the one the one that I got in me that I enjoyed the most is Dave and True Chuck.

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Andy Miller III: and here my story with him is that he? He gave a check to savish army between the second and third periods. So there's like this. We were up on the jumbotron, but I saw his statue. He had a statue. Hold up the Stanley Stanley cup outside the stadium. So I said, Hey, I saw your statue.

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Andy Miller III: He said, Yeah, yeah, I walk by it every day now, he said. But the funny thing is a lot of times people want to take my picture, but generally they hand me their camera.

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Andy Miller III: and they go, and they ask me to take a picture of them with my statue. So I I have us all you preaches out there can figure out how I take that and use as an illustration, which is one of my wait. Probably people been around me enough. No, that's my go, one of my go to so

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Andy Miller III: and

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Andy Miller III: well, Steve, thanks so much for the the work you're doing at Kingswood with the Wesleyan Church. And then these books, too, which are influencing people outside of the kind of Wesleyan church world, thankful for it, and thankful for you spending some time with me this afternoon.

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Stephen Elliott: My great honor, Andy, thank you so much for this opportunity.