Facing the Canon with Gerald Coates

Jerald welcome to facing the cannon Thank You Joe Jon I'm thrilled that you're here I've known you for I think three decades plus yes and knew quite a lot about you because obviously through fellowship and and work that we've engaged with together but as I've researched you more detail I've been truly inspired so can we start at the beginning where were you born I was born in a little village called Stoke Davenant which is in Cobham in Surrey and Stoke Gavin is now the home of Chelsea Football Club so the Academy's there or the or the pictures are there and although 18 B Team C team are there and they all have to live within a seven mile radius of Stoke government to be there so you see them around Cobham you see them buying cars at Mercedes world and and they've pushed the prices up of houses and not normally but no that's where I was born and that's where I live for 22 years your parents my parents were nominal Christians they sent us to Sunday school probably more for quiet afternoon than religious conviction and and then when I was nearly 12 my cousin invited me to a youth camp so I am grateful for the Church of England because they gave me the basic narrative yeah as if we called now the story of Jesus birth life and ministry death resurrection ascension and so on and it was enough for me at that age just to know about God and and I respected God and now I went to this youth camp and on the youth camp wasn't it British Rail had yes and seven people is that right it's British Railways and there wasn't your cousin had six people separated a cheap ticket that's my party so that's how you got I wore that cheap ticket yeah so we went down to Salisbury and we did archery during the day and trips into Salisbury and then in the evening would all meet in this Marquis and they'd sing songs I've never heard before but the people telling their stories there was an submarine adjutant there was buddy in mi5 I didn't understand what that was then some young guys who be like I want to end up like these guys you know they were musicians and so on and so one night I I just knew that my life is not right without God and so I asked my tent leader your summer come and pray with me and so the the camp commander his name was mr. good he came over and he said this is why I'm gonna pray and it was to ask God to forgive me for my past come into my life and make out of me what you want me to be is that what you'd like to pray well I couldn't believe it because that's what was in my heart but how did he know this and so I went home and I told my parents straight away and they did a sort of oh that's nice there and I think they thought I'd grow out of it but of course I'd end is a big issue and you find out a lot about yourself from the age of 12 to 18 19 a lot of which you don't particularly like but I tried to keep the public Gerald Coates and the private Journal code as closely together as possible and then when I was 17 still in Stoke dabbin and I used my sisters boyfriends motorbike just went for a little Drive May the 12th 1962 same day Stirling Moss at his crash in the afternoon 2:30 this was 8 o'clock bike got a puncture went out of control I went over the handlebars hit my head on one of two brick pillars holding up wrought iron gates ambulance and police came I was rushed to a concern Morley hospital and my parents were sent home at midnight saying he'll never survive the night so I was unconscious for a week I was semi-conscious for another I'm conscious now in case you're wondering and so three three months later that story came out and I thought well here I was nearly 12 God put his hand on my life and Here I am now 18 turning 19 and so in my own little way I rededicated the rest of my life to Christ and so I I grew up I had that accident I then went to the only little evangelical chapel in kaabah and we were officially open brethren we were about as open and secure midnight yes and if I didn't realize all that then and they were my spiritual mothers and fathers and taught me a great deal but nothing ever happened great people they were that my Christian family but nothing ever happened and I'd read the Acts of the Apostles a book that covers 30 maybe 60 years and you know I've been there six years I've never seen anyone really converted and and then toes are talked about the baptism in the Holy Spirit this was subsequent to being born-again or converted and so I didn't there's no Pentecostal church Rome air place and the charismatic movement I knew nothing about it though it was in the Anglican Church with Michael Harper and found in trouble all the time and so one day I'm just on my bicycle singing away as often used to and suddenly I'm singing their language I've never heard before this and someone I got so you switch from a John wedding leader here yes English English speaking this unknown language never heard it never been in a Pentecostal or charismatic you've never heard that language being spoken before never so though I went up to my little remember what it was yes key Aransas out of us to gone just repeat that key our underside of us to see you so I came out of your mouth that came out of my mouth and I'm singing er under said of us don't go what is this so I got home and I got out of pencil little pad for a better write this down in case I forget key under no is that a C or okay yeah no it was that sort of thing and then my wife an owner who's here today I was baptized in the spirit and then three friends two girls and the guy okay could you just expand that first general wait when you say a baptized in the spirit what does that mean it means a filling with the spirit which is it can be gently can be cataclysmic and you can end up speaking in tongues speaking either in an unknown language or what the Apostle Paul calls the language of ecstasy where the where the mind is bypass now the mind is a most noble part of our makeup so not rubbishing the mind we need more Christian thinking a wide range of pretty much any subject you care to mention but there comes a time when you're praying and devoting yourself to Christ and you just end up repetitive and so when you're praying Paul calls it praying with the spirit and praying with the mind and so he's very strong on intelligent prayers particularly in public meetings and that the speaking in tongues is primarily but not exclusively between you and God in your private times but if you've got people that can interpret tongues then you can speak in tongues and pray that somebody will interpret that tongue and then it's sort of becomes prophecy which no doubt yes but have you continued to speak in tongues oh yes yes and what difference has did the baptism of the Spirit make to your life well it brings Christ much closer to you because it is it is very much an experience prior to that it was genuine belief but this is now an experience I'm having any day on so when I go to bed at night as indeed happen last night I'm woken up two or three times for no reason I'm not saying that spirit I'm just doing no reason and sometimes when I'm coming around in the mornings all sorts of pressures come on me with past responsibilities and relationships and concerns of people etc and it's at that time I will either quote scripture as Jesus did when he was tempted he quoted scripture didn't even use his own words he use scripture or hyper I pray in tongues and that sort of keeps things at bay okay so if we look back when you were 12 would it be fair to say you understood something of the love of God in Jesus yes later on you experienced the spirit it was an intense experience so God is Father Son Holy Spirit can you help us understand how the Trinity works in our lives yes the the Holy Spirit his main two issues are the unity of God's people which is the great command of one another because we've romanticized love I've sort of come up with this phrase do the decent thing because they're also told to love our enemies now I don't have any warm affectionate feelings for any of my enemies and I do have a few but doing the decent thing with your enemy that puts it on a different plane altogether so the Holy Spirit is there to help us with unity among God's people wherever that's possible and secondly the great command which is to go into our world which is in a household is over the road it's in our neighborhood it's in the workplace it's in our school or college University and be good news and wherever we can share that good news so that his two primary activities and in the heart of that he wants to introduce you to Jesus so that normally comes through communicating the gospel preaching the gospel doing interviews like this he is at work with listeners saying this is for you Jesus can forgive you of your past give you a brand new start and fill you with the Holy Spirit and it can happen as you're watching television but as with me it happened six six years later so that the Holy Spirit is there to bring you near to Jesus and bring him glory and Jesus is there to introduce you to the heart of the Father so these three people they love each other that you believe in each other they support each other they don't have to talk to come to unity they are intrinsic unity together they back each other they support each other they love each other they laugh together they week together they're intrinsically one they have three different functions people often say when it comes to reading the Bible that it's a dry book and that they don't understand it is your experience having experienced the spirit did the Holy Spirit begin to illuminate the Bible for you in a new way yes I'm not a great reader at all and I would say to any young person if you really want to start well going at a copy of the message with translated by Eugene Peterson absolutely brilliant and I would say to older people go and get a copy because it slows you down when you've been reading the Bible on and off and hearing every Sunday or midweek Bible study and you're very familiar with a number of would probably scores and scores of passages and quite often you're just speed reading you're skimming across the top whereas you Jim Peterson slows you down it's a very very different style and he was asked to do a new version after JB Phillips 30 40 years later and he said to me it was very wooden yes it was no better than JB Phillips and then he was troubled and they're a wonderful couple and he's talked to his wife and said I'm going upstairs to see if I can play around with words and he came up with this one kind of a godfather and all these little phrases and he put it out to a vast array of evangelical Christian scholars a vast array and they all gave it at the rubber stone yeah and so yes and even now I'm fascinated by by that I'm not a scholar I'm not gonna academic but even little like the first verse in the Bible where you've got just a few words in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth you see so in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth ten words now I will probably three or four mornings out of seven lay in my bed before I get up like in the beginning so there was a beginning and you would say of course there's a beginning there was an atheist on the radio recently he said there was never any beginning he said the universe has always been here and always will be here we don't know how it got here but when we know we'll let you know yes the Bible says in the beginning and one one famous atheistic astronomer said oh please don't say there's a beginning it will just fall into the hands of those evangelicals yes because they now believe the Big Bang was the beginning that's the longest theory and a theory isn't just some bright ideas that the issue over which there's most obvious evidence that in the beginning God ohso God was there yes he's the only entity who doesn't have a beginning the end so what was he doing in the beginning God created he creates all things new and he creates new things and what did he create the heavens plural and the earth now we know there's outer space with the earth space outer space some believe a third heaven which is where God lives others to say that Paul said he went to the seventh Evon where God lives so they're very levels of him but this was written 6,000 years ago heavens and the earth and then not 10 weeks ago there was an article in The Times saying that astronomers and scientists are completely baffled because it seems that the universe is 3 times older than the earth and they don't know why and it's like after God had created all of this did he choose this wandering star which is what the word planet means and say let's make some people just like us and put them on the earth and create heaven on the earth and we know it all went wrong but tucked away in Hebrews chapter 10 their words put in Christ's mouth that says in the in the volume of the book it's written off me I've come to do your Will O God a body you prepared for me breaking that down in 21st century language is I get my identity from Scripture not from Who I know what I wear whether I'm on TV or not I get my identity from what my father says about me in Scripture in the volume of the book it is written of me I've come to do your Will O God I've not come to do my mother's will my father saw my brother my sister my friends my peers they're all important but primarily come to do God's will and when God's will clashes with these wills God's will is the first thing and then a body you prepared for me and whenever God wants anything done he's looking for a body and it sort of the body of Christ the literal physical body that was tortured he was nailed to the cross he died he raised himself from the dead signs of resurrection that pointing to our resurrection at the end of the age and whenever God wants anything done in your village your town your home and your church is looking for somebody to do it and sometimes you look for someone it said on one occasion God looked for someone to stand in the breach but he couldn't find anybody people say oh well God would get his will done he'll find someone else well actually quite often dozen because he asked you to do it and you said no and the job doesn't get done and there are lots of things that God would like that but don't get done because there's no body the ones that are sure let's take a little detour okay you left school you went to art school you then went into advertising okay so you've become a Christian you're working you know in a very toxic arena how did you survive in that environment as a Christian I actually work with wanna do Christians one or two came to Christ at Billy Graham events and so I had it was a very good team I was on and then when I was 19 I was appointed to be display manager of a large departmental store so I was actually the youngest display manager then I could choose my own team and there was a lady on the first floor called an owner it was that it was it was being let known that she liked me so there was chemistry yes obviously she wasn't a Christian exam and is that when you took her to the sound of music yes yes I thought I'd take her there first of all to soften her up right what's your first date was let's go to The Sound of Music yes yes the musical the musical in London yes and so it was a little bit religious it was a little bit religious there was prayer and it and things like that and then there was the next week in two weeks there was a what I used to call it a tenth Crusade which is a series of meetings in a marquee with some singing and very good speaker from Scotland whose daughter I'm still in touch with to this day and and I think her known as the only unconverted person in the tent night after night after night and so eventually she had an encounter with Christ and then we were engaged after that and we are fifty years married next year congratulations so 50 years reminds me of that interview that the BBC did with a couple would be married for 50 years and the interviewer asked the couple in the 50 years of marriage of you a thought of divorce and the gentleman replied divorced no murder so house house 50 or 50 years of marriage there is another version the BBC says to the woman yeah what has kept your marriage together for 50 years and she said understanding communication love attentiveness forgiveness yeah and turn to the man and said so so what would you add tonight he said my marriage is survived with two words and the two words just yes then yes dear what gone how how has your marriage survived fifty years I think commitment is a very big thing when you're going out together when you get married when you're having initially having children you are in love but the psychologists say that the general state of being in love only lasts three or four years after the actual marriage it's not that you don't love each other but suddenly you're not on the phone every day doing this that they are not asking questions and wanting to know what you've been doing every other minute of your life then children come along and it's late nights and you know quite often financial pressures in the early years of marriage and so some of those feelings go and go I don't have the feelings I used to have maybe I don't love her anymore and it's that sort of thing that's when you become more open to stray emotional impulses from other people and and so commitment is very important Christ is committed to us he's committed to forgiving cleansing giving us new starts being a Christian isn't something one does 50 years ago or 60 years ago in one case you you almost have to decide on a daily basis am I going to live for Christ sometimes you don't think about it but love is a series of choices it's not a series of feelings if the feelings are there fantastic if they're not love is love is a choice and I'm faithfulness is a choice and betrayal is a choice they're all choices we make and we're responsible so I think our Nona herself her love commitment pointing out where I need to give attention to things in my life sometimes your own sons we've got three grown-up sons and I remind you of certain things you don't want to be reminded of yeah and then and being in a Christian community but I mean with a group of Christians in your village in your town because you know balance isn't found in any one person I don't know if one single balanced Christian if you're walking and someone takes a snap of you you've always got one leg in front of the other you're off balance so the only people who are balanced are people who up on both feet standing together completely still going nowhere they're balanced but balance is in the body and so your insights my wisdom someone else's caution someone else's knowledge of Scripture you put all those together you'll get a very balanced picture yes and that's why we need each other and so being married and being part of the body of Christ the church the ecclesia that they are keys to the future your and and and if you've got one or two folk you trust so I'm having difficulties in this area can you help me get that is fantastic yes now in our interview I'm guide like to highlight on to two books in particular your biography pioneer which we'll come back to but I'd like to highlight to us talk a little bit about this book you've been intrigued with pornography for a number of years and you wrote this book sexual healing identity sexuality calling now what what provoked this I think I've probably spent most of my life saying and doing things I wish somebody else would say and do and they don't get said and done I don't think I'm an original thinker I think by the time I've said I've said something most people have been thinking it for a long time and poke girl have I thought of that for years I thought I must be wrong it's the same with this book sexual healing I was like 65 so this world of pornography it almost passed me by I can use the Internet I can turn it on that could receive emails and send them and the new ones and so on and I use Facebook a great deal about 5,000 Facebook friends but pornography is not an issue that I've seen it every guy has seen it every guy's gone looking for it I've gone looking for it but if you add it up over my lifetime the last 10 15 years what I'd gone looking for it probably would be a day in the life of an addict you know the whole whole thing and what happened was an owner and I moved from a project we were on on the sorry hampshire border and we moved to bookin which is really a part of Leatherhead understand when once I was localized as I've traveled having started to church which became pioneer people in common which grew to 600 people in a town of 10,000 people and then the whole Pioneer network which produced people like the band worship and delirious and Jeff Lucas and a wide range of other people and so that would be known more in this country than elsewhere we then did this project and so I traveled all all the time with my best friend for 30 years now Richards that worship leader singer-songwriter and then when I got back people knew where I was so I had this steady trickle of guys saying I've got pornography difficulties well because I'd seen so little didn't understand anything like the depth and breadth as I do now I just gave them some basic things like you know what's your iPhone doing in your bedroom at night watching why you charging your computer up your laptop in your bedroom overnight and so on and a lot of people were helped but then I realized this is much deeper than I thought and much broader than I thought and so I began to put together a lot of material for this and I looked around and there were some good books from the United States of America but they were mainly written by people my age and I thought this needs somebody who's been right at the heart of of it of addiction and one day someone on Facebook sent me a message and I've heard I had some words for this guy so I went looked for him and his name was Nathan and he lived in Bradford and I wrote him and said Nathan you won't know who I am or the big things I did like Wembley Stadium yes Berlin Stadium March of Jesus spring harvest that they all sort of finished several years ago you would have been a little bit kid but if your parents are Christians they probably will at least know of me let them know I've written is only 19 and and if a program what I said so I just wrote and encouraged him and Paul said in 1 Corinthians 14 that prophecies to encourage exhort and comfort that's what the nutritional gift is eec for those who've got remember it yes and then I finish by saying you are planning an exit but what you're planning isn't your way out these words are your way out he's on the phone it's down to a house he comes with a pioneer leaders conference outcomes this story between the age of 5 and 19 he's looked at pornography and all the behavior goes with it every single day of his life and after seven or eight times every Saturday and he said the week you sent me the words was the week I constructed a suicide note to my parents to say I just can't get out of this and if I can't live for Christ I don't want to live at all and your words stopped me from taking my life he then became my PA for two years and he wrote that book with yeah you wrote it together and his story is the first chapter of the book is worth getting just for them having done all this research at Gerald just tell us a little bit what what is the issue what how bad is it and how can it be sorted if I can just give you two statistics when Nathan and I started writing that's been out three years so he started writing about four years ago the average age a guy was looking for pornography was about fourteen it's now nine or ten in every school all over the UK and beyond guys don't get just mail no no 25% of women 25% 25% okay but they start a rap 9 or 10 because of what they pick up a school and they don't know anything about this this is weird and they turn it on and I think grief what on earth is this so most of them are put off but then there's more talk of scores then they go back to it again and by the time they're 1213 they're regularly looking at porn and by the time they're 16 many of them are addicts which means that their brain has been rewired like drugs is the strongest drugs and the brain now demands that you look at all of this it's never mentioned in church it's never mentioned the pulpits never mentioned anywhere it's all no one talks about it everyone feels ashamed one other stat if I may which came out published in The Times last week that 97 percent of sixteen-year-old boys are really looking at porn every week the ten-year-old lad is unlikely to get married until he's 28 29 30 these days education college university with debts you're not about to get married which means you've been sexually active with yourself for 20 years and somehow think this isn't gonna affect your relationships with the opposite sex and it's a total nightmare so when I read this as my wife and friends know the most depressing statistic I've heard because I just feel we're scratching the surface with this book there are now one or two others that are out but you know and we've done about 50 seminars for men yes and it was mainly a man's problem but about 25 percent of women have gone looking for pornography they want to know what the opposition is what they're up against and every man and woman needs to realize when you go looking for porn you're supporting prostitutes and sex slaves because they're the only two groups of people who make these films no one else does these aren't friends going out for a meal afterwards they're either paid to do it their profit the juice or their sex slaves and then so you either pay for it or you're made to do it yes the title your book is sexual healing how does healing come how can we access healing well the the subtitle as you know is identity sexuality calling and everything has to do with who you are and so deep down you know mainly speak for guys but it's true of women as well on the porn addict that's how they identify themselves this is who I am well it isn't who you are that's what you do but that's not who you are you're much bigger and far more important than that and the first thing is to make it known to God that as your follower I need to apologize to you I need you to help me out of this the second thing is to find a trusted friend anyone you speak to has seen porn so you know if I if one or two folk come and speak to me afterwards well no I'm a book signing and so on as they I'm in trouble with this I will say to them go and find someone you trust someone you respect I promise you he has seen porn there's no name there's just us we're all in this together the some due to factors of age and Christian experience and relationships have been saved from Ricky looking at porn and others for them is absolute hell and they don't know what to do about it so identity is very important we do cover a lot about do you know who you are you're the brother of Jesus you're in you're in touch with the creator of the universe so you Jerald you believe that God can heal today he can heal addictions if you come in if you come into my office a book I'm at my desk big desk you'll find two piles of cards and that put somewhere where no one can see them and so if a guy contacts me on Facebook or by letter or through the publisher I say let's talk together if you give me your number and a suitable time when your private will we'll talk wore this out so I do a profile card adjust to a name and then when did this start what did it lead to where was it at its worst who else knows what you want God to do for you and those questions you've got the whole story in about two minutes you don't need we used to say we used to say tell us your story and they go what do you want to know okay well I don't need to know anything like I'm the doctor and you're the patient and unless I know how sick you are if you go to the doctor and so I've got a headache he doesn't know fine take these he'll go right gerald you've got a headache how long have you had these headaches yes how long have they lasted yes on a scale of 1 to 10 how painful are they have they ever stopped you sleeping ever stopped you working have you been literally sick with these and then he has an experienced person he or she will then either go take these come back in eight weeks time tell me how you're doing or he's probably nothing to worry about yeah but I'd like to go to the hospital get a brain scan let's exclude that from these possibilities so I've got six questions to ask you to answer them so first off I said too late and wasting our time because these guys cost so caught up with this they don't know what to say you know am i mentally ill yeah the only person doing this discussed it with myself and so on so now we have to ask these questions and there's about 150 cards of these guys and then I say phone me back in two months time and they're someone's phone hi it's John Smith and I've got an idea who John Smith is because I've spoken to 10 or 15 other people since then and I just go to my a-to-z pull it out I know within five seconds oh yeah how you're doing and I would say that over 90% have seen a radical change in their lives and relationships as a result and something I can't believe it because I haven't told anybody about our discussions and your book that people are actually coming to me saying can you help me there are just a few guys that my advice that book have not helped yes well that's so encouraging the title of your biography is pioneer your your encounter with the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit gave you much passion and fashioned to somehow reach a lot of people who weren't going to church or enjoying going to church and you were in fact one of the pioneers of what at that time was known as the the house church but it's its new Church tell us a little bit about how did that all happen well opera he was in the Anglican Church as I say which was helped shape me for my future I didn't understand about liberals and evangelicals and traditional Christians and all of that I then came out of that I went into the Brethren assembly they became my spiritual mothers and fathers following the accident I'd parted company with the Anglican Church just drifted away so I went along there for six years and as did my wife and owner and then we got baptized in the spirit and they were very very sweet they were kind where they just said we don't believe in all these things and then said what if God gave you a tongue one Sunday morning what would we do you don't believe in them you do believe in the unit and so and it's interesting that on that point that Gerald is that when people say they don't believe these things they're actually written in the Bible hmm so when you show them that they're written in the Bible how do people respond well what happened was we used to do these Bible studies on a Thursday night I mean there any about 40 of us in the church 45 in the church but we had some evident Bible scholars attached to our our church our assembly and one day we're going through worse than that one day for three years he went through Corinthians because it's literally word by word line by line and a great deal of study and that really really helped me in later years later decades and we got to UM Corinthians 13 which is all about love I think it took us about three months to go through this one chapter and then we get to Corinthians 14 which is about tongues interpretation and prophecy and the gifts of the Spirit it's all dealt with in about 10 minutes and I couldn't work this out at all and so in the Q&A time I said to Rufus love it so why don't we speak in tongues there if he'd said to me you know now why don't speak in tongues now if he'd said to me because we've now got the Bible well that answer bears no relationship to the question no of course none whatever it's you know Ken Wednesday squeak you know it's that sort of good question but before he could even answer someone at the back was saying these young people they're never happy with anything we give them and yes I quite agree and this comes up every night and going what hurts all this about cuz I didn't know tongues was an issue no and so eventually we we were asked to leave because and now five of us were filled with own spirit spoke in tongues whatever and so Sunday came we thought what are we gonna do because there are no adir are other evangelical churches in the area there were no buses we were recently married we had no vehicle no car couldn't go anywhere and so we said well let five us meet in my home and so I put out coffee table a little cloth and some there wasn't wine it was right of course and and and a bit of bread and I thought dear God I brought the Brethren assembly into my front room yeah I put them all back on the shelves etc and we sang from the redemption him normal and I gave it it'll teach you on something or other etc but what happened was we weren't starting a church I've never heard of anybody who loved Christ who wasn't a part of a church and suddenly here we in this room a little terraced house one night got just absolutely stuffed about 35 people they were in the front in the front room had to take the door off the hinges to get been up the stairs and in the hallway and so on and we thought you've got a church on our hands and then people started to give money and get all the system I remember both in the draw one day stuffed with money and I thought sure this isn't right we shouldn't be doing this yeah so it now that Barclays and said we'd like start up a bank account for a little church and they said so what what you want to call this and I don't know we could call it common Christian Fellowship that's what we are I suppose and that really was one of probably five of the first house churches that grew to about 600 people over the next 20 years or so and and then we planted churches out in Farnham in South West London and so on there were heady days and there was small group of us and we used to get together to talk about apostles and prophets and gifts of the Spirit community involvement church planting relationships you know we are to love one another not the thing we're in we're to respect the thing we're in but one of the relationships more important and there were no other discussions going on anywhere in the country and the church was more and more liberalized it was shrinking every single decade we were losing a million members every ten years at that time and now mainly due to those sort of churches and it's spilling over so now we have an evangelical Archbishop of Canterbury a evangelical Archbishop of York we have the Queen who's a committed Christian nearly all the royal family now committed or cultural Christians it's been a total turnaround in another story there there's this book called the servant Queen and that's been written and it's just absolutely stunning she's written the foreword herself unprecedented etc and I was at Lambeth Palace with an owner a while back and the last Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams they were discussing fresh expressions of church and messy Church right in the middle of this talk with this grandeur simple group he said of course you were doing this in 1970 weren't you Gerald yes and I didn't say anything but I wanted to say yes but we didn't know what we were doing but you've got 40 years of being able to observe where we got it wrong which is in the book where we got it wrong mistakes we made as well as by God's grace the successes and so for the first time in my life the church is now growing yes the BBC will tell you it's still in decline it doesn't even tell it's good the church is growing all over the country it's not growing in every church one of the problems of Anglicans of course is they had this model of a light a witness in every village in every part of every town and city that was fire when everybody went to church because sandy was a special day shots weren't open there was no TV or social media etc and those little church buildings were often thought up three or four or five times every Sunday as well as sometimes during the week when you pee when you go back hundreds of years and so on whereas now about 57% of Anglican Church buildings are worth 13% live yes because there are no jobs there young people have gone off to university etc but that that is not the story of the church now and in cities and towns all over the country you've got thriving anglican churches HTTP networks nearly 4 million people have been through a 10-week course called alpha that has to affect church attendance and people growing in their faith and things like this and the same with the new churches the classic Pentecostal churches have gotten act together and so on and of course the Catholics in London were planning for the demise of Roman Catholicism they had already got plans to close down church buildings seminaries decreasing numbers are putting himself forward for the ministry etc and then they can hit by tens of thousands of spirit field poles yes you know yes that's right did I have to reverse all their plans they don't know it's like it's like revival yes it's because all these tens of thousands of committed Christians have all flooded not just into London but particularly London and an owner and I do too ever as a strange set of circumstances got invited to the Pope's World Youth Day yeah one point four million people in one meeting however so we're on the train in Cologne just with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of Roman Catholic youth across Western Europe and Eastern Europe and it's just like we're just like sitting in a train full of evangelical Christians yeah they saying Souls they prayed they laughed they it was amazing so the whole church has changed from within and it's just been here very very humbling to know that you've played some very tiny part Nicky Gumbel said had it not been for the house Church is the new church we were there wouldn't have been an alpha because I think we cut our way through a lot of theological jungle ecclesiological junk all the way we do church hold nonsense things like Jesus could come back tonight if I one doesn't teach that at all and so I'd say we got rid of all of this and then you know somewhat exhausted some years later along came another way of pioneers like Nicki Gump or like Justin Welby and so on and they're doing things that we would never ever have thought of and so you know we do have a very warm affection and respect for each other and within your pioneer Network how many churches congregations are there Oh in England there are probably just a 100 120 yeah and but I think it's always been true that these pioneering units have always paid a punched way above their weight and I've had you're an influencer way beyond their actual size but of course you know pioneers never went out to get more and more pioneers no Pioneers went to cut away through for the people that we're going to follow on Later and of course people follow on Later and say then all the fuss is about because I've been in the church know 20 years and I've got faced any of this let's talk a little bit about your own faith Gerald so you've been a Christian for a good number of years now 60 years right has your perspective and experience of God changed over those years yes for the same reason as I talked about marriage feelings change they develop often we get older we carry more responsibility I can remember one of our leaders saying to me after someone who come to me for help can I take you aside they said yes he said that you're not a good listener are you I said what do you mean he said well people come to you with their problems so this is my problem and you're not 60 seconds through and you go that's not your problem this is your problem and he--and and I said well why have I got to stand there and listen to all this nonsense when you point if I can tell them what their problems are you said that the whole psychology of counseling and making people who valued is to listen to them and for their opinions and perspectives and hurts to be heard and maybe understood a bit better and then that gives you the right having listened to drop a few words in that will help them this is left revelation to me to sit and listen that's all this stuff but that there are things and other people would learn other things some people of the Opera said they hold back their reticent they don't say what they should do their cow it's whatever and they find a boldness and a grace to be able to speak and say things they wouldn't normally see but you God speaks to you and God also speaks to you about other people yes how when how did that begin and how did you know how do you know that God has told you to say something to somebody as most things when you're a pioneer you stumble into something and and then you you're you're clearing the way initially you think for yourself but actually you don't know these waves of people are coming back behind you I don't just mean me but lots of people in there in that role and what would happen in those very early days of meeting in a home focused Alma said could you pray with me and I go fine and although I would speaker and a storyteller and a talker yeah someone said I someone said recently I haven't I haven't spoken to Gerald for three weeks he hates to be interrupted yes and and so but one of the one of the things where that's not true is when I pray with people and so so I will say can you pray with me I'd say fine and we'd be a nephron true and they'll obviously be other folk around and I put my hand on their shoulder and I just intuitively would wait till I somehow found God's heart for this person and and they would pray for them and quite often folk what say how on earth did you know all of that because you don't know anything they just walked into your meeting so eventually I'm aware I waiting on God to help me find out his thoughts and half of this person and I'm praying into that and then I realized I've always wanted to speak for God but quite often with us all I mean particularly there's there's a bit more of Gerald than there is of God around and so I wanted to speak for God and I can remember saying I I don't mind what I go through if you can make my voice sound a little bit more like your own yes and there's a lot in the book which is painful things I wish I'd never gone through places where I've stepped in the back and lied about and and never mentioned at all but Ralph said this is the time not to name the people but just to say the lessons you've learned and maybe as a result of that suffering and disappointment and let down your voice perhaps that sound a little bit more like gods when you speak and so that then developed into what I would call the word of knowledge you know God knows everything that's happened and everything that's happening now forget the future now that's another issue but he certainly knows all of that so you know when I wrote to Nathan about your exit I didn't know he was planning his own suicide yes and and you can tell lots of stories like that yeah I think the most exciting chapter in the book myself are these amazing words that God has given me I couldn't possibly have them myself this is not some innate gift and I I'm in a prayer meeting and I get this word for the Prime Minister John Major I can't commit a prayer meeting this is ridiculous and then two or three weeks later I find myself in a restaurant with an owner and Patrick Dixon who's he and I started the AIDS initiative as if aging education/training caring for we were dying of AIDS in their homes and we needed some money and so it just happened that the National Health Minister at that time came to a New Year's Eve party that we're having through a friend with his wife and I say we need some money and he said let's fix it up in London we had this meeting in a restaurant and he mentioned that the Prime Minister was under a lot of pressure and used to take him off to football and I'm suddenly aware the home sitting next to the man whom give the Prime Minister this word and I won't tell you what the story is but it was that the Prime Minister was thinking of doing something it had never ever been done before he had to do it and cope would look after him and that's exactly what happened with John Major and then I had another word having gone out for a meal with two friends at the National evangelist conference which you pretty much run there and we had a meal and a few glasses of wine and got back about pawpaws one in the morning but Hubble's five hours awake and going why am i awake aren't going to sleep and I wrote down the Archbishop of Canterbury who was George carry them it's going to bring back more than one but less than a handful tail tree evangelize Britain I may have met the archbishop we weren't friends we've been friends with all the last three now and I thought why would they give this to me and then one day Michael Green the great theologian evangelist throw me over a matter and he was in Canada at the time here's the region college we had half an hour of news sharing friends mutual friends and I said Michael this is a rare privilege to talk to you for an hour on the phone particularly from Canada and he said oh now I'm in London and it was like the penny dropped and I said oh you're staying at Lambeth Palace the Archbishop's bringing you back there's more than you in less than five he went completely nuts on the phone said there is no way anybody can know about this there are five of us who are planning this initiative and so he he came to a New Year's Eve party yeah and I explained the story and he went back to George Kerry who knew there's no way I could have known God just took what he knew and dropped it in my heart and I sent it back by Michael and they were concerned whether they should continue and George apparently said to Michael this must be of God because John's prophesy now that what we're thinking and planning for the correct thing to do and as he's given us such a hard time over the years you know we should rejoice and that's it and so yeah we sometimes let's say you're maybe even in this situation here or you're in a restaurant you sometimes look at somebody and have a sense you've got a word from God for them no I'm a nightmare in their restaurant and my wife will tell you complete nightmare because God loves all of these people there isn't any single person God doesn't love and I can remember being in a restaurant a while back and there was the black family having a meal together and I was at the next table and eventually I had to leave the past dude invited me up for lunch I was speaking of morning and evening meeting and I went over I said I do not wish to intrude in any way or whatever but I am a Christian I believe God speaks and he spoke - if your son here and told told them what this is what he'll be doing in years to come and this is my card and if I can ever help you there were miles and miles and miles away how did they react he you the man cried the father crying they were backslidden Christians whole family of backslidden Christians and so this was you know someone they didn't know the white man coming over to bless then who brought up their son then feeling bad because they'd lost their way and therefore the son wasn't going on with God at all and late they were in our church the next Sunday they drove miles and miles to be there you know and there so it takes a bit of courage doesn't it just going to another table in a restaurant they hello you know I've got a word from God for you I said my PA my personal assistant he's a young there and we're at service station and and he'd only been working for me for a few months and he was amazed but all these stories I mean the royal family are in there or in just all sorts of things and and obviously 10 Downing Street 11 Downing Street and none of these are confidential stories no a lot of confidential things I know sure as indeed you do but basically the point is this though Gerald that God is trying to get the attention of people yes that's what he's trying to do isn't he yes because we're not really listening no and I think I think now it's initially your correct it was boldness and courage and what would people think of me and what I think I'm a nutter and whatever how but I realized actually willing to lose my reputation and be misunderstood wanting to be understood as a 21st century curse if you're not willing to be misunderstood don't volunteer to be a prophet that's why the people stoned them and and so now he really is a matter of love out of love I have to leave my meal and go down to that family there it's a quite different dynamic and but God God does surprise you continual with sudden you're seeing next to a cabinet minister who's taken the Prime Minister out the football on a Saturday and I actually said to him he is Christian I actually said to him how envious in Scotland conservative evangelical I said how are you with prophecy and he said try me yeah so I either then turned in and told him this story which the others didn't hear yes oh no no didn't hear and he doesn't suffer fools gladly he's a man of integrity suddenly pull one arm around me like this and patted my leg saying you don't know what this means and what then he had to go that the bell rang and he had to go and do a vote and Patrick Dixon and Morris Adams said to me what did you say he changed in a millisecond and that's because he realized this this isn't a clever man God speaking this is God speaking he just happens to be using this man and and so if we can understand God wants to speak and quite often particularly with his own people he doesn't need to speak loudly no he just needs a voice to let them know that they actually matter to God you've been a Christian for nearly sixty years what would you say to those of us tuned in listening to this who are trying to be Christians today what would you say to us your ministry is what you like doing that may not always be true whether it's practical things prayer speaking don't wait to be invited on a Sunday to speak just go around encouraging exhorting and comforting people in as few words as possible without them feeling overpowered by your presence and nor this sort of stuff just sow the seed your ministry is what you enjoy doing there might be times when you're asked if your prophetic to say and do things you'd rather not say and do but then you're back to how actually you love Christ how much do you love his word and the second thing would be it's never ever too late there are things that happen to us losses deaths misunderstandings betrayals that can contribute toward paralyzing us from living a full life for Christ and exercising our gifts and abilities that he's given us it's never too late and you know to go back at the end of viewing this program saying could we start again yes asking for forgiveness and sometimes you know the Anglicans are better at it than the rest of us because they've got a theology of the sins of commission and the sins of omission now it's committed evangelical Christians we are very good at the sins we commit things we shouldn't do shouldn't say shouldn't view shouldn't hold in our heart we don't have a good theology of sins of omission the good that we could do but we can't be bothered or cuz we've got money in the bank pool and mean and selfish and pretend we've got no money whereas in point of fact you know we've got life savings and many of us is not going to live that long to spend it all anyway and so that there are the sins of omission the good that we could sometimes it's just saying I can't just say how pleased I am to see you here every Sunday you show my heart a lot of good you know we don't need a long conversation now don't need a sermon just little things like that well the title of your biography is pioneer that's what you really have been for a number of decades you did pioneer and you continue to pioneer and you are truly gerald an inspiration and I do believe that your latter years you'll be pleasantly surprised both you and an owner of the tangible grace of God that's going to keep on blessing you to bless others thank you thank you for a road thank you Darrell Kate you

Channel: Facing the Canon

Views: 8,687

Rating: 4.7297297 out of 5

Keywords: facing the canon, j.john, interview, jjohn, j john, philo trust, philo, trust, christianity, Jesus, Lord, God, Holy Spirit, Gerald Coates, Pioneer, House Church, Evangelical

Id: s6irMHAONi4

Length: 59min 11sec (3551 seconds)

Published: Thu May 26 2016