Hello, and welcome to the shifting culture podcast in which we have conversations about the culture we create, and the impact we can make. I'm your host, Joshua Johnson. Go to shifting culture podcast.com To interact or donate. And don't forget to hit the Follow button to be the first to be notified when new episodes are released. And if you're enjoying the show, let your friends and network know about it. Tell them all about the good episodes that you have
listened to. Previous guests on the show have included Craig West off David Blackwell, and Alex Absalom. You could go back, listen to those episodes and more. But today's guest is Brian Heasley. Brian serves as 24/7 prayers, international prayer director traveling extensively around the globe inspiring and teaching on prayer and mission. Brian is the author of be still a simple guide to quiet times and has previously written
gatecrashing. Brian, and I have a really good conversation around prayer and mission and gives practical ideas and stories on how to engage in both a daily time with God and working out your faith and community. It's a great listen, here's Brian. Brian, welcome to the podcast. It's great to have you. Thank you.
Hey, Joshua, lovely to be here. Thanks for having me. And thanks for getting up early for this.
Yeah, it's not too early, it's good. We actually have a missions training at the moment. And so my wife is over teaching, and I'm here getting to talk to you, which is a lot of fun. And, you know, one of the things that we do in our missions training are we have ability based outcomes.
And our number one ability is actually to abide with Jesus, it's a it's a necessary thing to be able to go out on mission, and to be in the world is we have to have that inner life with with Jesus to do how, where, where did that start with you? And where did your faith actually become real in your life where you had this this inner life with Jesus and a life of adventure with him in the wilderness?
Well, it's interesting, it's it probably began. In a way it was modeled by my parents, because I grew up in a Christian home. And both my parents were very devout believers. And we've I'm from Ireland, originally, although I have an our English accent, but, and my father is Pastor of church, and they moved
from Ireland to England. But I think from an early age, I always remember that sense of they prayed, you know, they always prayed, we prayed, we went to bed, we pray before meals, you know, I'd often see my father or my mother praying in the morning when I was young, and that I probably it probably didn't register with me just how much of a bed rock that was to their faith. But when we moved to England, my mother was very quickly diagnosed with ovarian cancer. So she passed away when
I was 11. And at that point, I went on a bit of a journey with my young undeveloped faith that that took about nine years of various things happening ie homelessness, drug use drug abuse, a few visits to prison, you know, all of that I didn't cope particularly well, with my mother's death. I struggled quite quite quite a lot with that, actually. And it was only when I was about when I was 20. I was in a probation hostel, which is kind of a halfway house where they'll send you for
rehabilitation. And whilst in that probation hostel, someone gave me a Bible. And I just God, if You're real, you know, could you save me? Could you come into my life? Could you transform this situation? And it was at that point, I opened the Bible on Isaiah 59, which says, surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor is His ear too dull to hear. And at this moment of actual I probably could only describe it as the presence of God in the room and a real sense that God is here.
And he his arm could reach in and save me and also he hears me. So I gave my life to him. I remember kneeling, sobbing, kneeling on the end of my bed saying, I give you my life. And I read the one of the, I think the earliest recollections of probably what almost felt like the audible voice of God was I remember this sense of for how long Brian will you give me your life? And I said, I'll give you all my life. I'll give you the
rest of my life. And I met with Jesus there and I think that's probably primarily where my passion for prayer and where my passion for speaking to God because I believe in an interventionist God, I believe in the power of the Savior and the power of a God that will reach in and transform our lives. And then I went, I went from there to a Christian community, but you know, just a church based living now. And a couple in the church welcomed me into their home with their
family. And I lived, I lived with them for about a year whilst I became normal. And they taught me how to argue properly and they taught me how to cook or iron and you know, all the kinds of things you need to know to survive in life. And I think they brought me into church. So not only are my two great passions, one is prayer, the other is the redemptive power of community, that actually our faith can only really be outworked in, in the body of Christ, which is the challenge.
So as I'm passionate for both I'm passionate for the presence of God and for the the, the the untold riches we find in connecting with him. But I'm also passionate for the people of God. And the untold wisdom, we learn from them as we connect
one other so. So I guess from then on, I had this kind of passion for prayer, passion for quiet time, passion for church, I served as a children's worker, then a youth worker, and eventually became the senior pastor of the church that I joined from prison effectively, so that they obviously saw something in me and believed in me, which was amazing. And I also, of course, I met my wife at that time, and she believed in me, which always helps you have a good woman behind you.
That's true. So what is the that that look like you have community that believes in you, and you're actually the outworking of Jesus? You're the embodiment of Jesus, in that space? What does that look like for you that presence of God that that abiding, and the community? What's the interplay in the interchange between those two? And how do they both inform each other?
I think there's the aspect of all our faves that are our faiths that are both personal and corporate. And so I learned I learned very, very quickly that corporate was good. But I couldn't survive on one big meal a week, you know, that I needed, I needed to eat regularly. So so the personal is as important, you know, we need the times of feasting and celebration, and, you know, hey, I'm not alone and with a load of other people, but we also need to develop a rhythm of our own
personal devotional life. And I have wondered over the years, Joshua, whoever we have put a lot of emphasis on the meeting. For years, we've said, church is not the building. But I do wonder sometimes if we think church is the meeting, because we say, I'm going to church, did you go to church, I'll see you at church, you know, and, and it's, it's only language. But it's an important distinction that we need to make that, you know, I am church on Monday, how do I eat church? You know, how
do I survive? And, and almost all of this kind of over reliance on meetings and under development of our personal devotional lives, I think was highlighted quite strongly during the recent pandemic. Yes, you know, but so outworks I
think it out works. It's, for me, the personal and the corporate is a balanced diet, which enables us to grow and be nourished, and I love what you're talking about abiding in Jesus, that that sense of abiding is the is the the grafted on, or the you know, it's, it's taking the nutrients, it's actually, you know, feeding on and if we're going to feed on Christ as it we're going to feed
on the Holy Spirit. We need we need both the personal devotional, but we need the corporate So yeah, that's that's how I think I see it working most.
I think that's beautiful John 15 You know, the, the vine of the branches when Jesus is talking about and Biden me, you know, what I love there is that says, If you abide in My love, you will obey my commands. And if you obey my commands, you'll abide in My love. And so it's this love and obedience, this, this, going into getting the nutrients breathing things in and then breathing out in community in the world that actually fuels both sides. And I love that
it's almost a reciprocal circle of in and out abiding. So you know, I think we see that as well. If you were to read Psalm one where it talks about, you know, here's like a blessing to see we meditate on the Lord they are not is like a tree planted by streams of living water. So I love have that and it says that yields its fruit in its season. And if you look at the second that the Greek word for fruit, there's
car POS. And then and then in Matthew, I think Matthew seven our Lord talks about by their fruit, you will recognize the same word Karpaz. And then Paul, in Galatians, five, you know, talks about the fruit, same word carpus of the Spirit, you know, and that love, gentleness, peace, you know, against such things, there is no law. And I think there's this almost direct correlation between meditating on the word day and night, that
grows fruit in our lives. And people recognize us by our fruit and the fruit is, you know, gentleness, goodness, self control, all those things that Paul talks about, and I think probably we, we, Protestants occasionally freak out at the word meditate. Don't get caught up in some Eastern mysticism. I don't want to go all new age. But actually the word meditate is a biblical one that I think we need to claim it's about it is about actually comes from the same Greek word that when a cow
chews it's, it's food. It's called masticate. And that's about getting all the nutrients out of the grass. That's why a cow has four stomachs, four compartments, and then it's dark. So it gets all the nutrients out. And so we're abiding in Christ we, we were, we are, we we receive nutrition.
Part of that is meditating on the Word and if the word is, you know, in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was, but if the word is Christ abiding and meditating on him, we end up almost displaying this fruitful life that people see something that's different about Sorry, I was a sidetrack.
No, it's a good sidetrack, because so what is that difference between that Eastern mysticism, the meditation, and and Christian metta meditation? Is there a difference? And what is what does that look like?
I would, I would feel that the primary and I'm oversimplifying it, but the primary difference is that most Eastern meditation is about emptying our minds. Okay, so and it's about like, it's empty. And whereas biblical meditation is about filling our mind, so I meditate on the work. So I do that by memorizing Scripture by allowing it to roll around
inside my head. But so it's more about Matt, as he Isaac it says in meditated he was meditating on the Lord, you know, when it when his servant comes back with his wife, so it's not something that's unbeknownst to biblical thinking, it's just we get freaked out by the word meditate, but it isn't filling our minds, you know, with the Word of God filling our minds with, you know, it says, I've
hidden your word in my heart. To hide His Word in our heart, I believe we need to meditate on it to meditate, in many ways, is like, stuck in a suite, where we get all the allow all the flavor of the suite to come out. Whereas I think sometimes on a Sunday morning, I crunched a suite, really quickly, and then
I move on to the next suite. And you know, it's, whereas meditating is getting the full flavor of the text and allowing it to permeate your, your being so so for me, I'm a big fan of memorizing the Bible as well, I'm not it's not my sole way of meditating. But it is probably the best way for me to be. I'll read a scripture and I'll read it again. And I'll read it. And I'll read it again. And I'll
allow it. So for me, that would probably be my primary source of meditation be on this the Word of God, as encouraged by the psalmist,
when you are having a really hard and difficult time in your life, and you know, you feel like you're getting off track? Are there any examples from your life where Scripture has come to your mind and has set you back to a place of being aligned back with God's thoughts?
I think I think let me look in when we look in the gospels, and Jesus tells the disciples, what that is go to the other side, he speaks, he said, this go to the other side, and they get out into the middle of the of the Sea of Galilee, and there's a storm and he gets up and he rebukes the disciples, you know, and I've often wondered why that was because you know, they were the perfect nationals. They knew it was dangerous. He was just a
carpenter. You know, they were the sailors, all of that, but he's rebuking them I feel because they didn't listen to his words which we'll go into the other side. So I believe that all Christians we need verses for the storm. You know, we need to have these things so that when the storm comes, that we have the verses that sustain us and you will need more than one so if I'm getting you know, anxious I remember the verses about peace I memorize them I allow them to speak into my
life. When we miss initially moved as missionaries to to Spain we live on financial support. And you know that can be challenging at times with you know, we didn't we never had enough. And so often there'd be you know why we'd worry. And so but then that's a storm. So the verse is about why worry about tomorrow because tomorrow has enough worries for itself. It would would that would be the verse that we would use in the
storm. So I think, you know, when my mother died, I remember my father standing up and quoting Romans eight, verse 28, says, you know, we know that all things work together for good to those that love God and work according to His purposes. That was his burst. Yeah, that specific storm. I personally, over the years, I think we've, I've struggled with sleep, you know, not anymore, but I used to. And so in Psalm 127, it says, The Lord grant sleep to
those he loves. Now, if you're not getting sleep right now, it's not because God doesn't love you. But it is, but I was like, Lord, I'm gonna meditate on this scripture when I go to bed that you grant asleep to those you love, and I'm gonna bask in your love and allow you
to grant me sleep. So so that that's actually been incredibly helpful for me personally, as a leader, and because I travel a lot, you know, like timezones, I, we flew back from Australia once and we were in economy, the back and I was this a 22 hour flight, and I was stuck in the middle row, my wife is by the window, sleep, she's much smaller than I so it's easier. And I just remember thinking about that by the person. And like, I had nine hours of solid sleep, just sitting, which is
amazing. I've, the Lord has given me the ability to sleep on planes, which is for me, it works. But I know that that's a trivial example. But there are more there are like the Romans a much deeper one for my father. So yeah, we just, we need them. You know, if we don't know the word, we use the word you know, it says, doesn't it? So I've hidden your word in my heart. Nowadays, you know, when you say to people, get your Bibles, everyone gets a phone out that
you know, on. And I'm not against technology or phones. But sometimes we've hidden God's Word on our phones, and it's not in our heart. Because we know if we want a verse on peace, we just put peace in the search facility. And all these verses come up. But it's not hidden in our heart. It's hidden on our device. So I think, probably it's a bit old school. But I'd like to get back to hiding God's Word in our hearts so that when storms come, you know, we can deal with it.
Yeah. And then what does that look like as you you go? As you know, a missionary to Spain, you're, you know, on the island of Ibiza, when you have scripture hidden in your hearts? How does that impact the way that you interact with the community around you that you're trying to reach?
Well, we we practice the rhythm of one hour in the prayer room and one hour out on the streets. So that's how it worked. The Bheatha in Spain, at that time was known as a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah, there were more pubs, clubs and bars per square mile in San Antonio where we were based than anywhere else in all of Europe.
And it was like spring break, you know, 169 evenings of spring break one after the other through the summer season, blue collar workers, young people from all over Europe, pile into EB third party, to do drugs to you know, have sexual experiences, all that kind of, it's crazy. It's crazy. And so we were right in the middle of that. And so we needed the Word of God in our hearts to be able to walk around. I mean, for instance, one night my wife was
out. And we've been we've we have these little message versions of the Bible, which we gave to people Eugene Peterson's Message version. And they loved it. People love that because they can understand it. And we live in a post Christian culture so that they had no understanding of the Bible whatsoever. And, and one night,
my wife was on it. And John 316, John 317, in The Message says, I didn't go to all the trouble all the trouble of sending my son in order to point the finger, you know, so I didn't, to point the finger. And just the phrasing in the message was lovely. And then, uh, my wife had been praying. And she, she was, she had this verse and ended up on the street and she met this young lady and this young lady had got pregnant when she was 17. And she had been asked to leave the church because she was
pregnant. And she and she was like, you know, wracked with guilt racked with you know, condemnation, she chosen to keep the baby you know, and love the young boy that she'd had. He was now but she would just said, I can't go to church because and, and because Tracy had been meditating on that word that John, you know, 317 God didn't go to all the business sending His Son to point the finger. She just shared it with this girl and all of a sudden it just
unlocks everything. You know that the word of God unlocked, everything's girl who have three years of live in a sense, the church condemned her for, for, for, as you know, something that she did wrong that had consequences. But instead of finding love and acceptance, she had the finger pointed at her. And for someone in to give a Bible verse to her and said, God doesn't point the finger at you, He loves you. He doesn't judge you. He, you know, it was was a
beautiful moment. So I do think if we have it hidden in our hearts out and in, it's about sensitivity as well. You need to be sensitive to the Spirit.
Yeah. So how did that hour on the prayer room? How did the prayer room inform? You know, one of the things that as I'm sending missionaries around the world, and we're trying to, to establish something where Jesus has not yet known, one of the things I know is the prayer, extraordinary prayer and abundant prayer is absolutely necessary and key, but we don't always have that resource there. But you had that resource of a prayer room as well. So how did
that help? And what happened in the prayer room that actually helped you on the street?
When I think most missions organizations are full of activists, and activists don't always like contemplation. That's great. I believe that the Lord is calling the church and missionaries to be contemplative activists to move be prayerful and missional to live in a place of hearing God but and also a place of acting. So for us the prayer room, the the air in the prayer was often very frustrating for some of the guys who just wanted to get out on
the street and do the stuff. You know, I want to do the stuff I want to get out there and I want to reach there, what do we this is pointless? Why don't we get some people to pray once we go out and do it, and we would be very much we we didn't let that
happen. Everybody had to do that are in the prayer room are on the street, very healthy, we would pray for the town, we would pray for the place that we were based, we would ask the Lord to speak to us we would sing worship songs, we would read Bible verses and our would soon fly by you know. And so So we ended up in this in this situation of breathing in. So you breathe in. And then it almost felt like when we're out on the street we were breathing
out. And so for me, the contemplative activist is both one that breathes in, and breathes out that any mission organization I've seen around the world as healthy tends, they have a rhythm that is both one of breathing in and breathing out, actually any church or any Christian you see, that's healthy, they tend to have this, this lifestyle is one of deep devotion and connectedness with God, but deep desire to carry Christ to the world around them. So so when we see both that
that's when it really works. I think it's a bit like as well, Josh, I think it's like the disciples, when they spent time with Jesus, they got to understand his voice, as when my mother died. As I told you earlier, my father, I'm one of four brothers. So my father would take us to various people's homes for meals. And we would, we would mess around, you know, we'd steal food from each
other and plates. And, you know, there were all sorts of crazy stuff as brothers, you just mess around the dinner table, and my father would often go home. And it was his way of saying, If you don't stop doing that, when we get home, I'm gonna tell you off, you know, you're gonna get anyway. And so you knew nice little, but just meant Brian, don't steal a sausage from your brother's play, you know, these little gems. And so he did this
a lot. And in many ways, when we're in tune with the Lord, when we're spending time with Jesus, it's like, you know, Peter and John go up to gate beautiful, and then walked by many times, and it's almost like
the Holy Spirit goes home. And because they've spent time with the Lord, they've been filled with the Spirit, they recognize it and they stop and they go Silver and gold have we number such as we have we give unto thee in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk, because they will live this responsive life that I think was born out of a presence and spirit filled life. So there was there was the the this too, but it does require us to have our ears open as we travel through
the world. Yeah. Yeah.
And we have to be pretty intentional and have our ears open. And there's a lot of times where, you know, I've had to make a practice, you know, I love to, to go out, put my earbuds in, listen, to even listen to worship music or listen to podcasts and listen to something. And I have to actually have an intentional practice to take them out so that I could interact with the people around me and actually be attuned to what God is doing in
that place. Or else I'm just going to retreat in my own little sphere and So I have a tendency to do that. So I have to make that a practice, take my earbuds out, put them away, and say, God, what are you doing here?
When you listen to all the great missiologists people like Bosch or right, and there's like all these different guys that talk about mission I, when I, when I did my masters in mission, one of one of the things that they they said is that good mission work is about being observant. And, you know, most times we, it's about listening to the culture, and it's about looking at the culture, you know, it's about
being observant. And I think if we walk through the world that God has placed us with observance, you know, listening, and look, and even smelling understanding, and I think then God speaks to us. And you're right, I sometimes want to block the noise. Sometimes, you know, I just want to be on my own. But I think I'd like the idea that that to really impact culture, we have to understand culture.
And we'll only do that by listening, listening both to the culture and to the strategies that divine strategies that come from the Lord.
Yeah, yeah, it's really important, as you wrote the book be still, as is a great guide for us. And it's a very practical guide. You know, as we're looking at personal thing. Are there any, any corporate, collective contemplative practices that you have seen that have been really effective? For for groups, teams or churches together?
Yeah, I think that that groups, teams and churches all need them develop a culture of prayer. You know, and so what, what a lot of the time we have is we get a lot of senior pastors outsource the prayer life of their church to someone else, you know, and so we need a cult, any team that's being led any organization that you need a culture of prayer. So corporately, for me that looks like modeling it, leader model,
it will, will develop. So I want to, you know, you go to a church and they say, how can we get the church to pray? And you'll be like, how often do you pray? How often do you as leadership team meet to pray? Are all your prayer meetings five minutes before an event? And Dear God, please bless us because we're just about to do this wonderful thing. How often actually, do you as a team pray? So do model it? And then for me, the second second part that is do we teach it? So are we teaching the team
about prayer? Are we expounding, you know, expanding, or getting them to understand, you know, the history of prayer, that the place of prayer in the Bible, you know, they even went and sat before the Lord, you know, Moses went up a mountain, a, you know, so on and so forth. You know, that Adam and Eve walked with garden, the garden that we teach
this, this? So, so you've modeling it, you're teaching it, then we do something interesting, I think, institutionalized prayer, I don't mean that in a wrong sense. I mean, we build rhythms into our churches and organizations that help institutionalize, and you might need to refresh them or they become dead. But we do something like every day at 12, noon, 24/7 Prayer staff team, we say the Lord's prayer together, wherever we are, we into our contracts, everybody gets a retreat day as
part of their job. Once a month, you get to go on a retreat, you know, so we, we try to institutionalize some stuff to that we have a prayer meeting a regular time of prayer together. So that becomes an institution. And then the final part, I think, is that we, we celebrate. And I think that's where we've done well as a movement 24/7 prayer, we tell the story of answered prayer. I think it was Leonard sweetly said The future belongs to the storytellers and
the connectors. So we tried desperately hard to communicate the story. So therefore we celebrate answered prayer. So for me, I see it working in teams as modeling it, teaching it, institutionalizing it and celebrating it. And then I think you get a healthy culture of prayer, you can do that on a two week basis. You can do that on a you know, as a leadership team. I think that's that for me would be a good way to do it.
Yeah. I like that. I love that. As you're walking through those things, what's what are some things that you're celebrating now as you've been traveling around and seeing what's, what's happening? What are some celebrations? Well,
I am celebrating quite a lot. I mean, last last week, we found out that our Czech in the Czech Republic, we have two prayer caravans that go they go into different streets in the Czech Republic, and they just sit there and they offer people to pray. And they they have they lead to people to Jesus last week by just plopping a caravan down in the middle of town and offering you know people that are in Switzerland we have recently seen the guys have been given the prayer bus to be in
the bus. So we're going to convert this bus into a prayer
room and drive it around. So I'm celebrating that the guys in Columbia have recently run a prayer room juror During the elections, and then the guys in Peru just planted a base in Peru in Cusco, which is just below matching pictures, a big traveler center, who just they've just hosted a number of prayers where they've started to see people come in and given their lives to Jesus broken people turning up and ask him that God would help them. alcoholics, drug addicts showing
up. We've also reached last month this Monday, actually, we were given the keys to a homeless center any before in Spain as well. So I get to see a lot of the stuff in Malaysia of the stuff that's happening in Malaysia is phenomenal. I can't tell you at all because it's working with you know, it's some of its working in the Muslim believer background. But we have a prayer thing going on now in in Malaysia, that's the most popular use newsletter for
prayer in all of Malaysia. And then and then just we're just we're constantly astounded at the fact that we just developed this app called neck to 365, which just is being used all over the show, hundreds of 1000s of people around the world, are you lecture 365 to pray, and so recently just found out this week that we can translate that into Spanish. So we're gonna, we're gonna do leg to 365 in Spanish, and literally got all of that signed off from a major donor yesterday. So really
excited. So it's like, it's like, prayer for us in the last two or three years has gone through the roof, we would see about 1500 prayer rooms a year. That's 24/7 prayer and in about 100 nations, in the last two years, we've seen over three and a half 1000 each year in about over 120 nations of the earth. So it seems like there's a hunger and a passion for prayer that we've never seen before. Yeah, I think everybody's realized that their structures, their systems, they're good. But
they're not enough. Yeah, the only way we're really going to see breakthroughs is through inconsistent nonstop prayer. You know, so yeah,
yeah. That's so exciting. It's exciting what's happening around the world. It's exciting that people are saying, we need prayer. And we need to connect with God in this way that actually drives us to mission. I love 24/7 prayer, that it's not just prayer, but it's prayer and justice and mission. Because I think that's a healthy version of what the prophetic function is. Right? Yeah. The inner life and the prayer room should drive us into justice. And that justice should
drive us back into prayer. I mean, it needs to go hand in hand. And so that's the the healthy, holistic thing. So as you're looking at those, those prayer rooms around the world in 120, nations that you're looking at, what, what are some of those justice and mission initiatives that are birthed out of prayer? And what does that look like?
Well, I think it was, it was Bob Pierce, the founder of World Vision, who said, Lord, break my heart with what breaks yours. And so inevitably, whenever we start praying for wherever God has placed, that some planted us, he starts to break our heart for the least the last and the last around us.
So we're at the minute we seeing the two centers that we now have in any beefer they have a prayer room, but they also have a food bank for homeless people, they have washing facilities, they have a drop in facility so people can come and sit and be calm and get their heads
together. So So prayer in eBay for right now looks like it's out worked through looking after a bunch of homeless guys, prayer in South Africa, we have some friends who run a prayer organization in a township or mountain Burg prayer, it looks like prayer walking, whilst gangs are fighting and shooting. And you know, I was recently seeing some footage from my friends out there where there's just been an ongoing gun battle.
And so they are that developed a place for that divert the place for people who are coming off heroin to come and live. And so so they start by praying, but quickly, more action. So I'm seeing some really wonderful things happening in South Africa at the minute and even in Ireland, you know, some of the reconciliation and stuff that happens around the Catholic and Protestant thing, but for years, it's been quite challenging. We're starting to see some real breakthroughs there as well. So
it's endless. I think that as long as you do it, we always find we set a bit weird with prayer organizations because I think they're very presence orientated. I think, good. We are, but I think we, we think prayer and mission are inseparable, inseparable, and mission and justice are inseparable. You know, sometimes we mission I think, sometimes people think mission is just preaching the gospel. But you know, we communicate the love and the passion of Jesus by our works as well as my words.
Although I don't I don't acquiesce to the fakes and Francis of Assisi quote, which says, you know, preaching gospel at all times. And if you have to use words, because he didn't even he didn't even say that I became a Christian because of words, you know, the people, you know, someone spoke to me and said, Do you want this Bible and gave it to me? And I said, Yes,
please, and took it. And so So I think we have to open our mouths, we'd all love the the silent pilgrims running through the world, and everyone's just finding Jesus, because they looked at us, but we do have to open our mouths. But there is there is the active part of our faith and faith of that deeds is
dead. You know, James says that, you know, certain, Luther didn't like the fact that James said that actually, Luke Martin, put that at the back of his Bible, because he felt it was about like faith and works and works getting you into heaven. But I don't, I don't save again, I don't do the work to get into heaven. But because I'm saved, I do the work because I've been extended mercy, extended Grace extended forgive, it's only natural, I go out and do that myself. So it's, yeah,
you're part of a movement that is doing that. And that, that means that you're actually there's pockets of people that are really busy, right? They want to do the work. When everything converges, and you have overwhelmed like you are overwhelmed. How do you how do you get that and carve that time to slow down in the midst of it so that you can be set in with God?
I think it's quite interesting, isn't it for like, the average church, Pastor, if we phoned them up and say, Could I come and see you? They may say, actually, yeah, can you come and see me at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning, or you know, 11, because I've got a meeting. So I've started this is simplest thing ever, I've started putting into my diary and meeting with Jesus. And so my, my PA who works with me, she will say, Brian's story continued, and
he's in a meeting. But that's my quiet time, you know, because as I think we actually have to start being really strategic about carving out some time in our diary. But I also have worked out that, that if I don't go to bed early, I don't get up early. You know, if I want to spend the quiet time of the Lord in the morning, I probably could just do like, getting some sleep. You know, as the saps a Special Air Service in the UK, they say that sleep is a weapon.
And I actually think one of the biggest hindrances to people's lives is the distractions that we have that keep us awake, you know, I get into bed and before you know, I'm watching funny videos on YouTube of people, you know, falling off road bridges or whatever, you know, sort of stuff that makes I chocolate slapstick, because I'll lie there in bed, laugh and my wife will be worried and I was oh, you have to watch this that was a dog in a puddle of mud, you
know, or whatever. But But before you know it, you spent an hour doing this to just look at. And so and then you figure, why am I struggling to get up and pray this morning. So we live in a world of distraction, where the average person spends 150 minutes a day on social media, according to studies, 150 minutes a day, but to read your Bible in one year, would take you 15 minutes a day. So 1/10 of that. And you could read your
Bible in a year. And I just think sometimes we allow with allowed culture to dictate to us. Paul says, Therefore do not be conformed to the patterns of this world. And we all think you know, drinking drugs, smoking, yeah, all those are wrong. But the culture of this world is this kind of like consumeristic constantly switched on social media, persistent and heavy world that we get sucked into. And that culture is consuming us. And so we have to learn to stop consuming that and start
consuming the right thing. So yeah, and the other thing for me, Joshua is we need to learn the art of perseverance in a culture of immediacy. It's so important, the art of perseverance and a culture of immediacy. And I think we live in a world as well, we can get everything quickly. You're in Kansas, I'm here we burn, you know, here we are talking no problem super fast. You know, I'm on Thursday, I'm flying to Chicago, I'm speaking at a conference Friday, you know,
I'll be there. No worries. Nine hours on a plane, read a book out of tea. And before you know it, you're there. So we live in a very immediate world if I want, if I need some new hair product, I have gray hair. I you know, I'm on Amazon, and it's
there the next day. And so we have this immediate culture, but but actually records we have people who persevere, who pray without ceasing who don't give up and I think we could do a learning a bit of that as well sort of burnout might is interesting, you know, when my mother died, and my one of my elder, my eldest brother struggled with his faith as well. And eventually came back to Lord after about 31 years,
walking away. And I said to my dad, isn't it good that my brothers come back to the Lord and my dad said, You know what, I prayed for him every single day and now I stand in difference is talking to people who are younger than 30. And say, my dad prayed every day that you have been alive. And he didn't see one single change. But he persevered. He persevered. And so we have to
learn to persevere. When we were any before we wanted to reach out to the West African ladies who work as prostitutes there. And they wouldn't talk to us. They just wouldn't talk to us. And we spent five years praying. And then one night, we're in a meeting, actually, there were some guys from Tulsa, Oklahoma, there were some guys in a meeting, and 12 prostitutes just walked in. And I remember looking at my wife, and she was quite emotional. I was quite
emotional. And you know, we were, you know, and I said to her officers, what were you thinking? And she said, I was thinking that was worth five years of my life. And that one moment, wow. And so we have to learn the art of perseverance. And see, we give up too quickly.
That's so good. Let's not give up. A couple of questions. I have here one, if you could go back to your 21 year old self, what advice would you give?
Lots. Lots of advice. I don't know, wherever my 21 stuff when I was 21. If I could go back to my 21 year old self to listen to people, Brian don't think no, it all would probably. But I really though interesting, Josh with that. The reason for writing the book was thinking I've got two sons in their 20s. And I thought, what would I give them that would help sustain them for the next 30 years of their faith. And so that was for me, I would probably go back and say Brian, build in a daily
discipline of prayer I did. But it kind of was incremental. But I wish I'd have built some of that stuff in sooner, and put some of the places so build in a daily devotional life, this is what I'd say to a 21 year old Brian, if he listened to me, build into devotional life, and ground yourself in a local community. If you do that, there's adventures to be had in faith that will that are unbelievable. Unbelievable. But there's contentment and peace to be had in that there's also
unbelievable. So for me, it would be all about develop a rhythm of devotional practices, and ground yourself in a local community, because that's the only way you will survive this.
Anything you've been reading or watching lately, you could recommend?
Well, yeah, I read quite a lot. I love books. What have I been, I've been I've got the mall here next to me, this is a great book, by the way. This is an old classic. It's called sub sub murder. Yes, dash by bombI. Haze an AI. It's been around a while. But someone's mentioned it to me recently. It's about mission. And it's about, you know, really engaging in mission that actually Pete my friend, Pete Gregg has written you know, some good stuff on
that. But I love that. And then what else I see are just sitting here, so they're only here. You know, I'm locked spaces for the sacred is an interesting book about, you know, place memory and identity and how like, how space plays, you know, you know, into our faith. So for me, who runs prayer rooms and stuff like that, it's interesting to think about is Does God inhabit a space? You know, when we say, This is the house of prayer? Is it aren't we the house of prayer, you know, so I'm loving
all of that. And then my, I've got two more if that's okay. Yeah, that's great. So the prophetic imagination by Brueggemann, I've just gone back to that that's a really helpful, enjoyable book. And you probably won't read a lot of this in America. But this is called the story of English, how an obscure dialect became the world's most spoken language that I like, I try and mix it up. But most of the time, I'm reading kind of Christian books or art books, so that, you know, that's where I'm
at. I say, yeah.
That's awesome. That's great. I love those recommendations. So what can you tell us about the book be still or the video series? And what do you want people to really get out of it?
The book fee still is a simple guide to quiet times. It's 14 Simple chapters to help people develop a rhythm of a quiet time, it starts off looking at that sense of Adam and Eve walking with God in the Garden. And that originally, if you look at the reflexive conjugation of the Hebrew verb, it was like, they walked for pleasure. You know, and so where is it where and so the basis behind the whole book is where's your garden? Find the garden where you can. So for me, my
garden is my chair. I have a chair in the morning. So where's your chair, find a space so so and then I then unpack what happens in that chair. What happens in that garden? You know, how we develop a devotional life so that's, that's the book really and I would tried to make it, it's actually quite hard to write a simple guide, because you always want to be quoting Bonhoeffer and prove to all your friends that you're quite intelligent, really. But you want to keep it simple. So we, we generally
wanted a nice simple guide. But we look at things like fasting, memorizing scripture, and thankfulness and practicing wonder, gratitude is thankfulness. So, you know, all that kind of admission, you know, seasons of life, how your quiet times go through different seasons, when you have children, you can't get up and sit for an hour in the morning, you know, all of that kind of stuff. So, so the book is really just a simple, you know, Guide to that.
And the series is a five week small group series where we look at the book, I do a little presentation, little talk. And then there's, there's a small group on this on the on the screen who unpack it, and then a few questions afterwards. And we have provided, like, from 2007 prayer.com, there is a cheat sheet that says, here's some good questions to talk about. And also you can download the kind of the study guide to
go with that. And it's a five week program that any church small group could do, an individual could do, or any group of people could do. And it's really just all about helping people develop a rhythm and a quiet time.
That's great. Where can can people connect with you? Or 24/7?
Prayer? 24/7 prayer.com? Is our website. People connect with me on Instagram at Brian easily? Which is, yeah, I've left Facebook behind, man, I've just not had enough. And it drives me bananas. Yeah. So yeah, I'm only and I don't really look at Twitter, because it's too aggressive. So because I because I love art. I'm like, I'm on Instagram. So yeah, Brian, he's been on Instagram. But yeah, that's where you can connect with me. No worries. But the 24/7 prayer.com have a look at
what we're doing. How have a look at you know, the different we lots of resources on there to help people pray help people pray, how do I pray for an hour? How do I pray for Ukraine? How do I pray in crisis? You know, lots of different resources, some stuff by Pete, Greg, you know that we have a thing called the prayer course. And another one called The Answered Prayer course, we've got lots of resources on there to really help the Bride of Christ. engage deeply in prayer. So check that out.
Yeah, that's good. And as you mentioned earlier, and highly recommend, like the Oh 365 My wife and I use that every day. And then Lectio for families as well. It's been fantastic with my almost five year old. Amazing that and so that's been really helpful to
lecture for families is a new one, but it's really taken off. So we're excited but let your face excitement. We get we honestly there is not a day goes by we don't get an email from someone saying this has been blessing me and helping me develop a rhythm of prayer and meditation. So yeah,
yeah. That's beautiful. And well, Brian, thank you so much. It was it was a pleasure to talk to you as it was a lot of fun to do this. So thank you so much.
I hope I haven't waffled on too much. Now. I
was fantastic. Bless you. Thanks for having me.