This podcast is one with a twist. Instead of the good stories of God speaking, we’re sharing the bad! We all love a good God conversation story. God is still speaking as powerfully and creatively as he did in Bible days. But the nature of our flawed humanity is that we can get it wrong. We can make mistakes. We can use the claim to hearing God’s voice to manipulate others. The result is real damage to people’s lives.

It’s important that we don’t overlook the bad stories or pretend they don’t exist. Instead they become a learning opportunity when we see where things went wrong.

That’s why on the show in this episode, we talk with long time pastor Paul Hudson from the Elim group of churches in the UK. As a pastor of pastors, he’s seen the worst (and the best!) of the prophetic world and has plenty of wisdom to share about how to avoid the pitfalls.

You’ll hear about:

• Paul’s story growing up in a Christian environment and how two simple words from the Holy Spirit completely changed his heart towards international mission. From there, God used him to establish a global network beyond his own nation.

• A tragic story of a young man and woman who believed God spoke to them about marriage. They married quickly without consultation from others and their marriage broke up within 6 months due to abuse. Here we learn how consultation in community – especially those who are willing to disagree – is crucial.

• Paul’s own story of God speaking to warn him and how he twisted it around because he didn’t like what he heard. Thankfully God gave him a further message that enabled him to redeem the situation.

• Reflections on the Apostle’s Paul experience when the disciples mis-interpreted the prophetic word they heard about Paul’s journey to Jerusalem (Acts 21).

Throughout the stories, you’ll hear some recurring themes! We share the bad stories so we don’t have to repeat them. Let’s be smart enough as well as humble enough to learn from the experiences of others!

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Next Steps

Join the journey to hearing God’s voice. Start your free 7-day God Conversations devotional today!

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Equip your church to hear God’s voice. Join our community of church leaders for monthly insights and a free preview of 50 Days of God Conversations resource.

About Paul Hudson

After planting a church in the Lake District of the UK for 4 years, Paul pastored a church in West Yorkshire for 17 years. During that time, Paul also became the International Missions Director for the Elim denomination and established the Elim Global Network which is now in over 60 nations of the world and made up of thousands of churches. Five years later, he holds a regional role, leading 105 churches in the UK and acting as the pastors’ pastor. He continues to serve as the General Secretary of the Elim Global Network.

Why Can’t I Hear God’s Voice?

It’s been said that “hearing God’s voice is as natural as breathing,” so why do we often find it a challenge? If we were created to be in relationship with God, why do we find it so hard to hear the Spirit speak?

On this episode, we explore this question at a deeper level with prophetic ministry leader and spiritual director, Christine Westhoff. Christine is the President of The MESH Objective, a collective of psychologists, social workers, spiritual directors, and coaches who work to support the mental, emotional and spiritual health of leaders across the world. She is also a prophetic minister and trains church leaders towards a healthier and biblically based understanding of the Spirit.

You’ll learn about:

• • Christine’s spiritual journey and how she navigated the near loss of her son and grandson. Christine shares how pain can create distance between us and God.
  • Obstacles to hearing God – perhaps better expressed as “areas of resistance” we experience towards God. Christine highlights the challenge of vulnerability and shows that just like any human relationship, we need to open up the hidden areas of our heart in order to receive Spirit revelation.
  • The importance of framing our “hearing God” experiences in the context of relationship. Hearing God is not some sort of mechanical skill. This is why spiritual direction – learning to hear God’s voice with the support of another person – is so valuable. Having another person alongside helps us to identify any areas of resistance we have towards God and how to remove them.
  • Another obstacle to hearing God is a lack of understanding that we can receive God’s revelation through all of our senses.
  • Some simple spiritual exercises to help us know our own thoughts and sense God’s presence with us. Here we learn the priority of understanding being withGod even above hearing from God.

• Next Steps

  Join the journey to hearing God’s voice. Start your free 7-day ⁠God Conversations devotional ⁠today!

  Pray, promote and give. God Conversations is donor-funded and made possible through the generosity of people like you! ⁠Become a partner today⁠.

  Equip your church to hear God’s voice. ⁠Join our community of church leaders⁠ for monthly insights and a free preview of 50 Days of God Conversations resource.

  About Christine Westhoff

  Christine Westhoff is the author and developer of ReFraming the Prophetic (www.reframingtheprophetic.com), a biblical reflection book and online course that aims to anchor the gift of prophecy into its biblical framework and purpose. She is a trained spiritual director and the President of the MESH Objective (meshobjective.org), a collective of psychologists, social Workers, spiritual directors, and coaches working to support the mental, emotional, and spiritual health of leaders and missionaries globally.

When someone says the word prophet, what do you think of? The label conjures up all sorts of images – a robed figure gazing into a crystal ball or a wild man dressed in camel hair, eating wild insects and raving about the end of the world!

Prophets have always been around – in the biblical tradition and beyond it. Among the Hebrews, prophets played a key role in expressing God’s will for the nation, but something significant happened to their role after Jesus came. There’s still prophets in the Church today, but what do they do and how do we know who they are? How are they different from the prophets in Old Covenant or prophets outside the biblical tradition?

On this show, we’re talking about the prophet’s role in the contemporary church with a globally recognised prophet based out of South Africa: Andre Bronkhorst.

You’ll hear about:

• Andre’s surprising initial encounter with God’s voice as he was contemplating ending his life at age 16. God seemed to say the exact opposite of what Andre felt he deserved. The experience changed his life and set him on course to learn more about the voice of Holy Spirit.

• God’s redemptive approach to communication. God speaks to awake our potential and the fullness of who we were created to be. God sees in us what we can’t see in ourselves!

• Andre’s calling to be a prophet which was sparked by a divinely co-ordinated ministry appointment.

• How Andre has been used of God to minister in churches that have previously shut down prophetic ministry. Andre shares how God has used him to introduce an approach that promotes safety and maturity.

• Andre’s understanding of a prophet and how they function in the church today. The primary difference between the Old and New Covenant centres on the coming of Jesus. Jesus modelled prophetic ministry (Hebrews 1:1-3) and initiated an era where the main purpose of prophecy is to strengthen our relationship with God. The main task of the prophet then is to equip the saints to hear the voice of God and follow (rather than reflect on world events) (Ephesians 4:11,12).

In Jesus’ day, there was a lot of political events that took place, but Jesus never got involved with that. He never gave his opinion. That’s the model that we follow. There’s going to be wars and calamities. But our focus (as a prophet) is to get people back into God’s assignment. To help fix your eyes on Jesus.

• Specifically, Andre sees his purpose in helping people identify how God speaks to them and help them to walk in that. Andre tells of the danger of prophets who draw on Old Testament models so that people come to him to hear God for them:

I love to prophesy, but it’s far greater to train and equip people to hear God’s voice personally. I’m very careful not to become sort of mediator.

• The problem with the tendency of prophets to give a “word for the year.” Andre reflects on how this works if every church, community, nation is different.

• The false idea of the prophet’s role being to predict the future. Andre shows how God invites us to participate in his plan rather than speaking through fatalistic pronouncements.

As a New Testament prophet, we don’t give predictions – we give invitations.

• The model of the New Testament which points to the existence of prophets in every local church.

Next Steps

Join the journey to hearing God’s voice. Start your free 7-day ⁠God Conversations devotional ⁠today!

Pray, promote and give. God Conversations is donor-funded and made possible through the generosity of people like you! ⁠Become a partner today⁠.

Equip your church to hear God’s voice. ⁠Join our community of church leaders⁠ for monthly insights and a free preview of 50 Days of God Conversations resource.