For the last 20 years, I’ve travelled across the UK preaching in churches and at Christian events. It’s an immense privilege and something I love to do.
For me, one of the strangest shifts during this season of lockdown has been the move from preaching in person to preaching into a device. I can clearly remember my first time. I thought, what on earth am I doing? How will this have an impact? Yes, I’ve been on camera before, but this was different: I’d be alone, with no one to bounce off and unable to see people’s reactions and what the Lord might be doing.
That first talk involved an altar call, and it felt bizarre asking my phone if anyone wanted to follow Jesus. But I knew that the Lord was calling me to be brave and prompting me to speak up as if I were in the same room as those listening.
I remembered advice I’d been given years before: preach each sermon with the passion you would if your teenager was sat at the back prepared to give Christianity one last chance depending on the next 20 minutes. So there I was, proclaiming the power of God with all my heart into a small device and inviting listeners to surrender their life to Him.
A lady got in touch with me the day after the recording was broadcast. She had been sat on her sofa listening to me. Her husband, who wasn’t a Christian and had no interest in the faith, was sat next to her reading a newspaper. At the end of my message, he was still in the room, and when I began to pray for people to come to Christ, he prayed along with me and surrendered his life to Jesus. At the sight and sound of her beloved husband choosing to follow Jesus, this lady was overwhelmed with tears of joy.
Sometimes it can be extremely challenging to speak up and use our voice in different
contexts and moments, but the call on our lives as Christians is to do it anyway, and to pray and trust God with the outcome. You see, God is always at work when we courageously step up and speak out. In the second chapter of Acts, Peter, having been filled with the Holy Spirit, stands up and shares the truth of the gospel with the crowd. Following his bold declarations, about 3,000 people were added to the number of early
believers, in just one day (Acts 2:14 – 41).
From the tragic murder of George Floyd to our right to hold orthodox biblical beliefs, one of the challenges of my role at the Evangelical Alliance is having to speak up on different, and often divisive, issues. It’s vital that every time we use our voice, we are brave and kind. We are called to speak up, but our words must be undergirded with the love of God and an understanding of humanity. Each time I open my mouth, I have to seek Jesus and ask the Holy Spirit to speak through me and remove my nerves so I can honour the Lord and declare the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15).
