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The Shining One - Mark McGovern | Wake-Up Call Conversations
00:50:29
In this episode, JD and guest Mark McGovern delve into the themes of prayer and spiritual awakening, centered around Mark's new book, "The Shining One." The conversation explores Mark's journey from his roots in the Midwest to his current role in San Francisco, where he leads a church and a prayer movement called "Pray the Bay." They discuss the transformative power of prayer, the importance of consecration, and the Beatitudes as a framework for spiritual growth. Mark shares personal stories of revival and the impact of prayer on his community, emphasizing the need for a prayerful life that aligns with Jesus' teachings. The episode concludes with a prayer for the book's success and its potential to inspire a spiritual awakening in the Bay Area and beyond.
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Foreign.
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Wake up sleeper. Rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. We say it every time. But it is particularly fitting today as we are with our guest, Mark McGovern and we're going to be working through his new book, the Shining One. So Christ is going to shine on us and we got a good conversation set for us ahead. How about we just open up with prayer and then we'll get to know Mark a little bit and then we'll talk about the book. So Father, we are just, we're mindful that your son sits at your right hand and he ever lives to make intercession for us. He is the shining one. Jesus, you are the shining one. And we want you to be in us in this conversation in a way that you shine out and in a way that you can encourage those who are joined here with us. We don't need more information, we need more revelation. So Jesus be our revelation today. Order our steps and increase in us a longing to know you more. Thank you for Mark, who he is, what he's about, and fill us with your spirit now to have this conversation in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. So Mark is from the Quad Cities originally Midwest kid, heartland America.
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That's it.
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And he has made his way west and, and he is serving in San Francisco in the Bay Area. So Mark just kind of, for starters here, just give us the little, the little Reader's Digest on you and bring us up to speed on where you are and what's happening.
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Yeah, so I grew up in an Irish Catholic family. My dad was an altar boy and my parents gave their lives to Christ as late teens they met Jesus when the charismatic renewal hit the Catholic Church. And so I grew up in a home where we went to church, a non denominational church, every Sunday morning and Wednesday night. But I was in Catholic school. And so I've kind of developed this love language, spiritual love language for stained glass and silence. And then off I went to college and I went off the deep end and had a prodigal season, lost my college scholarship was in a deep darkness. And I had a pastor that I was playing basketball with lead me to Christ. And I said, man, if I'm going to follow Jesus, I want to follow Jesus like him. I want to go all in. And so he started discipling me into revival reading Finney and Edwards and Wesley. And you know, once you read that J.D. you're wrecked, right? And so we get this college ministry going and all these students start meeting Jesus and this little Bible study and, and Then they approached me about planting a church. And I was an entrepreneurship major. No pastors in our family at the time. And so I'm like, entrepreneurship and church planning. It sounds like entrepreneurship in the church world. Okay. And we prayed. And just through a whole series of confirming signs and wonders, really, it became very clear that San Francisco is in our future. And so we moved out to plant. We connected with a pastor, he here in San Francisco and joined what he was doing and then planted the church's second location north of the city. And then about seven years ago, he moved to Mexico with his wife as missionaries and we sold our home and moved into the city. Here in San Francisco, once you have one child, you move out of the city. We have more dogs in San Francisco than we have kids. We did the opposite. We had three kids and then we moved into the city. And so we've got three children. Two of my sons are in high school, a junior and a sophomore, Max and Jack Jones. And then my little Maddie, she's an eighth grader. She'll be in high school next year. And just so grateful, J.D. like how the Holy Spirit has touched my kids has just been one of the treasures of my life. I'm just so, so grateful how the Holy Spirit is coming upon my kids.
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And so you've used. When did the church start? What year?
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The church started in 2001. We moved out in 2008. And then we planted the church's second location after a couple years of serving our pastors here in the city.
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Wow. And then along the way, you've been part of a movemental prayer collective called, you call it Pray the Bay.
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And that's all been by accident, really. Nothing that we whiteboarded out, nothing that we strategized. It really started when we moved to the city and I became lead pastor of both locations. I'm praying for vision for the church and, you know, what do you want us to do and become. And I'm thinking the Lord's going to tell me, you know, feed the poor, make disciples, win the lost. And so clearly the Lord says to me, become a praying church. And I'm like, I don't know that I want to do that. Because Christians are really good at hiding behind prayer. And you know, I could ask you, jd, jd, I think you'd be amazing serving in kids church. And you'd probably say, well, Pastor, let me pray about that. Which means you're not going to pray about it and you're not going to serve in kids church. Right. And so I'M wrestling with God about this. Become a praying church. I don't want to become an excuse making church. And then I was a bit defensive, like, lord, we pray. We pray on Sundays. We. We pray as a staff. Like, we pray. And. And I had no idea what he was really speaking to me about. And then I'm reading Teresa of Avila, and she says in her book, we become our prayers. And when I read that, my heart was arrested, and I realized that I. I was a man that prayed, but God was calling me to become a man of prayer. Our church prayed, but he was calling us to become a praying church. So we move into the city. My first. First morning in the city in our house here, I'm on a prayer walk, and I look up jd A block from my house is Teresa of Avila Catholic Church, the only one in the entire Bay Area. And it's like the Holy Spirit smiled and said, gotcha. You will become a man of prayer. You will build a praying church. And then very soon after that, I was out in Manhattan with John Tyson, stumbled into his prayer room. I was the fourth person that came to this prayer meeting. And it wasn't, like, super well executed. No fog machines or lights. And all I remember is that Jesus was in that room. And I thought, this is incredible. If they can do this in the heart of Manhattan, we can do this in the heart of San Francisco. So I came back, took three of our teams, sent them to New York City the next week and said, sit in that room morning and night for three days and come back and talk to me. They caught it. Prayer is mostly caught, not taught. They came back, they caught it. Hey, Mark, let's do it. And then we started daily prayer in each location.
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B
That's good. You know, you already said something that's intrigued me. It's so often, like you said, we can hide behind our prayers. And I think so much of what I have seen and experienced, I would call it prayer as reverse delegation.
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Oh, no.
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You know what I mean?
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Oh, I know what you mean.
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It's just like, we're just gonna pitch this out, we're gonna hand this off, and God, you take care of it. And it's like that. It's kind of like that. That day when he's got the multitudes and they're like, send them home, you know?
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Yeah.
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And he tells. He says, you give them something to eat. And of course, that's absurd, but the move he is this divine, synergistic collaboration of the presence of Jesus in the people. Yeah. And that's prayer. It's. It's. It is work. It is the work. Jesus does it in us and through us. Yeah. And it's. It's a mystery. But it's not reverse delegation, is it?
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No, not at all. I'm reminded of. It's like Matthew 9, right. Where he says he looks out, sees all the people that are harassed and helpless. Sheep without a shepherd. Pray to the Lord of the harvest. Right. That he was sentenced.
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He didn't say get to work, did he? He said, pray to the Lord of the harvest.
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Yeah. Harvest work starts with prayer. And what happens is we pray for the lost, we develop a heart for the lost, and then we become an answer to our own prayer, and then we go to the lost.
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It's alignment.
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It's almost like an incarnation of our prayers. We become our prayers.
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This is so needful because, you know, I think I used to kind of carry a functional sort of spirituality, a functional revivalism. And I kind of believe, like, if we can just get more people praying, it's almost like a lever we were trying to.
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Yeah.
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Get enough weight on and like, well, God will have to do something. Yeah. And I don't know. That's. That's not what we're doing, is it?
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No, it's not. And it's like the way we say it is, you know, like you mentioned in your prayer earlier that, you know, Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father living to make intercession for us. And so he's praying for us, but he really wants to pray with us. He wants us to hear his prayers and then join him in those prayers whereby the kingdom comes from heaven to earth. On earth.
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Yes. He is there. We are here. He is here. We are there.
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That's right. Exactly.
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And it's that. And it's kind of like, you know, and if you can't understand that, we can't explain it.
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Well, a beautiful mystery. My friend Francis Chan says it like this. He says, don't try to solve the mystery. Just stare at the mystery.
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Stare at it. Behold it.
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Just stare at this. Like, Jesus is actually praying for me. Like, what is he praying for me? What is he praying over? My family. What is he praying over? My marriage. What is he praying over? My children, My future, my finances, my health, my church, my city. Like, what is he praying? Prayer is to be this beautiful discovery. Right. So much of my prayer life early on was just. It was like this transactional, Me praying at him. I was so scared that he was gonna forget what I prayed about. So I gotta remind him over and over and over again. And in prayer, we're not catching him up to speed. He already knows what we need. Even before we ask in prayer, he catches us up to speed. He talks to us about what he wants to talk about and what's on his heart and what he's praying about.
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Yeah, that's really good. Well, there's a line in the book. This is. I don't want to call it an unusual book, but it's an unusual book. I mean, in the best way. It's called the Shining One. And I'm going to hold it up here. The Shining One, praying with the prayer leader of heaven. And there's a thing that you said, I want to see the one I'm praying to. That feels like that's what kicked off the whole thing.
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It is. Yeah.
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Tell that story.
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And I would say, JD Now. Right. Understanding and connecting some of those dots. I believe that that is what Jesus was praying over me, is he was praying that I would see him praying over me. And I didn't get that at the time. But then, of course, once you begin to learn to pray with him, you realize actually that's what he was praying for me, that prayer. Like, where did that even come from? I've never prayed that in my entire life. I want to see the one I'm praying to. And just right here in my living room, I'm looking right at the spot where I was, where that prayer just emerged. And after a couple weeks of praying it, one morning I just had like this. This vision. I don't think it was an open vision. I think it was in my mind. I've never really had any vision like that before. And just this radiant glow as I sensed him smiling as he prayed over me with this invitation to join him in prayer. And, you know, tears ensued, a smile that I couldn't wipe off my face ensued. And it's like, wow, he's praying for me and he's inviting me to pray with him. And I'd never thought about that. I'd been in all kinds of prayer meetings, every type of prayer meeting. You can imagine the prayer meetings where the only thing moving is the ceiling fan, you know, like nothing's happening. Prayer meetings, you get frustrated in. You're looking at your watch. Can I, man, get me out of here. Right? And it felt like nothing I've ever felt or experienced before.
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Yeah. So the. So the Shining One. How did tell the story there?
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The moment I had this experience with Jesus in this vision, immediately My mind goes to searching the Scripture, like, where I'd see this radiant glow. And as he's joyfully praying over me. Is that in the Bible anywhere? Like, did I just eat too much pizza last night before I went to bed? Like, what's going on here? And then immediately I was brought to number six. Right. Which is the prayer that God teaches Moses to teach Aaron to pray over the people of God. And it's that they would experience the Lord bless you and keep you, make his face shine upon you. And then digging in. You know, in Jewish tradition, this. This was seen as the Father's radiant glow of love and favor over his children. And so if you think about it, Jesus's prayer there in number six is that his people would know the look on his face as he looked on them, praying for them.
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Yeah. That's good.
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Isn't that incredible? Like, he's praying that we would see his radiant glow as he prays over us.
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Yeah. It makes me think about. I guess it's probably 2 Corinthians 4 says, but God, who said, let light shine out of the darkness has caused his light to shine in our hearts.
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Wow.
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To give us the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
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Amen.
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Than. That does it.
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You're going to preach me happy over here, man.
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That's the. That's the text. It's in the face. To give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face.
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And Moses got it right? Right. What was his prayer? Show me your face. Right. And then David, David catches Jesus's prayer. Jesus says to David, what does he say? He says, seek my face. That's Jesus's prayer for David. He's praying over David. David, I want you to see my radiant, shining face. And then David's response to that prayer is, what? Your face, Lord, will I see your face?
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Lord, I will seek. Yes. Psalm 27, isn't it? Or maybe not that.
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Yep. David becomes an answer to Jesus's prayer to see his shining face.
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Yeah. So that's kind of the preamble to this whole work. I want to see the one I am praying to.
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Yeah.
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And, you know, this takes prayer. This takes prayer out of just such a functional transactional dynamic into transcendent, transformational reality. And you are all at once. And this is the journey of the. Of the book.
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You're.
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You're becoming whom you're beholding. You are exactly right. You are becoming a shining 1.
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That's 2nd Corinthians 3. You know that Keeps going. And it happens one degree at a time.
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Yes. Whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
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That's right.
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Yeah. That whole text, I mean, you keep going in four, he says, but we have this treasure. Right. In jars of clay. So what you're trying to. And I believe what the Lord is trying to lead us into is really a meeting with Jesus.
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That's right. And he leads the meeting. Jd, this is the key, is we say this all the time, that we're not leading any prayer meetings. We're joining the one in heaven that's been going on for 2,000 years. There's no prayer leader in the room. He's the only prayer leader because he's the best intercessor. He's prayed for revival in the Bay Area here longer than anybody. He has more experience in prayer. He's more passionate and fervent in prayer. All we need to do is look and behold him in prayer. And our rabbi, Jesus, will teach us how to pray as we behold him in prayer.
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Yeah. I just think about. I remember coming out to San Francisco several years ago, and I just kept thinking about, does anybody have any idea here what this city was, who this city was named for?
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That's right. One of my heroes. That's right. One of my heroes.
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A shining one, of course. Yeah. And it's like, you know, it's like the famous words, is Lord of the Rings open much that once was is no longer for none now live who remember it. And you guys are remembering it, and you're remembering it in prayer in a very bold way. You had a bit of an outpouring there. Kind of give us a little story on that.
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Yeah. That was very much unanticipated and unexpected. We host a prayer conference every year with all kinds of local praying churches across the bay. And this specific year two years ago, David Thomas was coming to join us, and we kind of had this word come to us in prayer of pack a bag. And I brought that to our staff on a Tuesday of conference week that was kicking off on Friday. And, like, what kind of bag do you bring? And what goes in the bag? Who really knows? But it felt like the Lord was saying, hey, there's going to be a meeting that starts and it doesn't stop. And so we kind of use this metaphor of pack a bag. And then later that afternoon, David calls me and says, mark, I've never done this in all my years of ministry, but I've moved my flight back two days. I feel like a meeting is going to start and not stop. And I'm like, I've never had a guest speaker tell me that. And so we get to the conference and it's like every session it's like mounting. Saturday night, David's supposed to speak and he doesn't even get up to speak. There's like a spontaneous song in worship that just. It's like the Holy Spirit just poured out everywhere, specifically on Gen Z. Then it led to all kinds of testimonies and it was just incredible. It felt like it could have gone on for days. And then we just know right away that Jesus is not building a conference. He's building his church. And all these pastors got to go back to their church in the morning and preach at their church, right? And so we got up and we just said, hey, he's. He's building his local church. Take what you've received and get back to your local church. Then the next morning in our little local church in the heart of the mission in San Francisco at 9:12am and this is what's important. 911 is what we talked about, Amos. 911 at the conference. God building himself a dwelling place on earth, his praying church. At 9:12am, 18 minutes before church is supposed to start, without anybody on a microphone, no worship leader, no pastor. 18 minutes before church is supposed to start, the room erupts in worship with no one leading in. And all of us just kind of went to our face and all you could hear was singing and weeping. And it lasted over an hour. And then we kind of helped people get situated. And then from there the first service bled into the second service. We're about six hours in now and like the presence of God seemingly is increasing every hour. And we get with our team with David and just. We felt like the Lord say, you know, keep it open for 24 hours, go for 24 hours. And. And so we were tired. We had just completed 21 day fast. We just hosted this conference. We felt like we had nothing left to give. But we said, okay. That night, 50 Gen Zers stayed in the room, would not leave. They stayed in the room all night long, praying. I got back very early the next morning, people just start coming. We didn't put anything on social media. And then the next morning, we felt like this. We felt like this second wind of like, okay, Lord, we're back. Like, what do you want us to do? And we felt him say, what is the most you can bring me for seven days? What's the most you can bring me for seven days? And we Said, we feel like we've got nothing to give, but we'll give you our nothing. We'll empty the tank, we'll give you everything we got. And so from there, all these pastors and worship leaders that were a part of the conference and a part of the praying church that's growing across the bay, we started sending messages and they started turning up and hosting these two hour sets of prayer and worship. And it was just incredible. The tears, the intercession, the repentance, the open confession. On day this ended up going seven days of 24, seven non stop prayer and worship. On day three, we had huge garbage bags, industrial sized garbage bags filled with Kleenex. We were literally washing the floors with our tears.
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Wow.
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Day seven, we're like, okay, how long is this thing going to last? You know, like, what's going on here? And we felt like the Lord say 10 days. Go 10 days. 10, 10 days was the upper room prayer meeting that led to gospel proclamation, go to the streets. So we got through 10 days. God provided all the worship leaders and prayer hosts and all this stuff. We get to the 10th night, we go to the streets with these little cards that said, meet Jesus. No website, nothing. Just like this silhouette of kind of like the 70s vibe, like hippie type silhouette Jesus. And we passed him out all along the neighborhood. And it was the most beautiful night ministry I've ever seen. JD the room filled with people. We had so many unhoused people battling addiction come in, tears rolling down their face, saying, I'm allowed to be here, it's okay for me to be here. And we're like, this place exists for you. We had dozens of people come to Christ that night. Then all kinds of healing started happening. We didn't even pray for healing. Healing started happening everywhere. And so it ended up going 10 days. And the way that we explain it is it's Isaiah 55, right? Where, seek the Lord while he may be found, right?
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Call upon him while he is near.
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So we just felt like the Lord came close and we just hosted him. We just sat at his feet for 10 days. And now we, we're still hearing all the time these amazing stories of, of things that had happened. One of our location pastors, his brother was incarcerated. We prayed for him for, you know, a decade. He met Jesus on that last night, completely transformed now leading outreach and has a podcast in the prison system that's leading all these people to Christ. I mean, just incredible, the fruit that is remaining and growing as a result of someone having an encounter during those
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10 days he wasn't there with you. He was in prison. You know, he.
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He was out of prison, but not following Jesus. And then he came on the very last night and had an encounter with Jesus that just completely changed the trajectory of his life. And now God's using him. He's a radiant disciple making disciples. It's incredible.
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You know, you said another thing there about we had nothing. And I love that. You know, I think it was Tim Keller who said, you know, all that God wants from us is nothing. He said, the problem is most of us don't have nothing to give him. Wow.
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That's. You know what that is right there? That's poorness of spirit. Right. Kathryn Kuhlman would say, God, I have nothing, but I give you my nothing.
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As you know, my prayer mark, I pray it. Now when I'm leading anything, I say, jesus, I have nothing and you have everything. And I say, I say, would you let your everything meet up with my nothing? Because that'll be something.
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What a great prayer.
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And I feel it so much. I mean, it's not. That's not piety. It's. It's the truth. I have nothing.
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And it feels interesting you say that. J.D. one of the prayers that emerged during those 10 days was John 3:30. He must increase, we must decrease. The prayer was this. Lord, increase or decrease. That was the prayer that came out in our time of consecration. Lord, increase or decrease, which, let's just be honest, that is like the most un American prayer imaginable. Right?
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Yeah. Well, okay, so where you go in the shining one is kind of you call us to something that we do every day on the wake up call. Consecration. Talk about consecration.
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Yeah. Consecration's the bread and butter. JD we live in a society in American church culture where we have been discipled into convenience and coming to church casual. We're not anywhere near ready to meet with the living God and bring him ourselves as an offering. Yeah, we've all been in church and someone asked you after church, so how was it? Did you get anything out of it? What'd you get? Oh, well, they played my favorite song or, you know, they gave me a marriage tip that will help in marriage or parenting or like, we've lost touch with, like. No, no. I come to meet with the living God. He is eager to meet with me. He wants to speak to me, and he wants to use me to minister to others. Right.
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And habit you.
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Exactly 100%. And so consecration, you know, during those 10 days, we were. We felt like the Lord was Teaching us consecration. And we were, Consecration was new to us. We learned that concept when a team of us came out to Asbury during, you know, their 16 days and felt like the Lord really gave us something. And so we were kind of fumbling through consecration. We didn't really know how to do it. And during those 10 days, the worship host and whoever was leading in prayer, they would get in there and at the end of confession, asking the Holy Spirit, Psalm 139, search my heart, O God, search me. You know, whatever you need to bring to the surface, whenever you need to bring in the light, however small it is, however big it is, we don't want anything in the way of more of you. Right? And we would do that. And I'm telling you, the confession would go on and on and on and on. We had, I think it was day three or day four, we had some, some worship folks come in and they got in the consecration room and they stepped right back out. They said, this, this is too holy to touch. I'm not ready. I can't, I can't lead today. I just need to sit in the room and get my heart right with Jesus. And so we've given an open invitation to our worship team and all the folks leading and hosting with us. Like, hey, if you ever feel like you're not ready, great, just sit with Jesus and get your heart right with him. And so the consecration is essential to prepare us to meet with God. And during those 10 days, one of our worship director prayer directors, we have a two story building and we actually meet upstairs. Downstairs is the prayer room. And he said, hey, I feel like people are coming in and they're not ready to meet with God. Let's turn downstairs into a consecration room where we invite people to just sit with Jesus for five minutes in a series of these little self guided prayer prompts before they come upstairs. And I thought, honestly jd, I'm like, ah, man, is this getting a little bit religious? Are we trying to manufacture this thing a little bit? And so we kind of patiently discerned. And then I remember, I think it was day four or five, I went down there and all I saw in the consecration room were bodies all over the floor. Yeah, like people just laid out, weeping, just getting their heart connected to Jesus,
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B
getting down to nothing.
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A
That's right. That's really what consecration does, right?
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It's just coming down to the simple core reality of me for you and you for me.
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It's exactly right. That's exactly right.
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And then, you know, I love the way, really the heart of the Shining One. And it's kind of. I found it surprising, and yet in a way that hadn't occurred to me. But I'm like, this is a great turn here. The core of the book. It's by far the largest chapter. You dive into the Beatitudes, into the Sermon on the Mount, and it just confirmed to me the whole notion that consecration. I think of it as the door. And you step through the door of consecration into what I would call the great cathedral of transformation, of beholding and becoming of. But it's like you've left the world of information behind and you're moving into revelation now and then. Your heart is longing to just respond to that.
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It's the most natural thing we can do when we see him.
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Right. Talk about. Yeah, I mean, talk about how you come to that. And, you know, in fact, before we even. Before we even go there, let's just see if we can say him. Let's just say, blessed are the poor
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in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
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Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
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They will surely be filled.
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Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart,
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they will definitely see God.
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Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall
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be called sons and daughters of God.
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And blessed are those who are persecuted
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for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
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Amen. You know what, Mark? Everything we've said here, it'll pass away. Those words. Jesus said, heaven and earth will pass away, but my words never pass away.
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A
That's right.
- [34:00]
B
So thanks for. Thanks for jumping into that with me there. That's rich. Talk about that as the core of the book, the shining one.
- [34:09]
A
Yeah. If we look at. We look at, you know, that teaching, those may be the most beautiful words that Jesus uttered while on earth that we have record of. The Beatitudes may be the most beautiful words that we have record of. And if you look at a life that is the Beatitudes, you're looking at the life of Jesus like he embodies to the fullest extent each of those Beatitudes.
- [34:40]
B
Yeah.
- [34:40]
A
And those Beatitudes build on each other. Right.
- [34:44]
B
Like, yes, there's a movement 100%.
- [34:47]
A
There's no way you're going to be able to bless people that persecute, persecute you if you don't have the bedrock foundation of being poor in spirit, knowing that you're completely incapable of living like that.
- [34:59]
B
Without him, you got nothing.
- [35:02]
A
Nothing. Zero. One of the, one of the, the incredible mothers in our church, mothers in the faith. She says this when she prays for poorness of spirit. She says, lord, make us a zero. That's great. That's her prayer. Lord, make us a zero.
- [35:18]
B
Yeah.
- [35:19]
A
That's what you're saying about nothing. So it started with, you know, Jesus highlighting this to me. And then I'm thinking, why have I never taught on the Beatitudes? Why have I never heard anybody talk about them or really pray about them? I know we've, we've, you know, Bible scholars have said that, you know, the Sermon on the Mount is the greatest, you know, sermon that's ever been preached. But Jesus doesn't want us just to know him or memorize them. He wants us.
- [35:44]
B
It's not just catechesis, is it?
- [35:46]
A
He wants us to become the Beatitudes like Him. And we know from Romans 8 that God's goal for our life is that we become like the Son, right? Like, we become like him in motive and desire and word and deed. Like we become like Jesus. And so the Beatitudes literally are Jesus's prayer for every believer. So it's interesting, the Lord's Prayer, the disciples say, teach us to pray. He gives us the Lord's Prayer, which is a pattern and framework of prayer to pray in community. He doesn't, it doesn't say anywhere in the Lord's Prayer, I or me, very un American. It says us and our. Which would indicate this is meant to be prayed in communal prayer, which is how the disciples would have prayed and how they prayed in the temple in the early church. 9am, 3pm, house to house at night. So that, that's the Disciples prayer. This is what we're taught to pray.
- [36:37]
B
That's exactly what I say.
- [36:39]
A
Right, Exactly.
- [36:40]
B
Disciples prayer.
- [36:41]
A
I believe the prayer that Jesus is praying over every disciple is the Beatitudes. It's, this is what he wants us to meet him with and become like. Right. Poor experience and think about how polar opposite this is from culture. We live in a culture of self promotion and flexing. Jesus says, hey, let's become poor in spirit.
- [37:06]
B
Right?
- [37:07]
A
We live in a culture of canceling one another. And he says, no, no, let me give you my tears. I'm going to teach you how to mourn for what I mourn for. And those tears, J.D. those are liquid prayers, man. Like, those are some of the most potent prayers. They're not even words. They're tears. Scripture Says he stores them all in a bottle. Right?
- [37:31]
B
Yeah.
- [37:31]
A
And so these Beatitudes, as I began praying it, I was frustrated for three months, praying this every day. I don't even know why I'm praying porn. As the spirit, I want to help the poor. I need to be rich in order to help the poor. Like, I'm wrestling with this in my mind and then I have a moment where the hammer of heaven hits my heart and I become, you know, poor. Yeah, I would say poor. Er, in spirit. I, I. None of us ever arrive in poorness of spirit. But then from that I slowly started experiencing each of those Beatitudes. And of course, none of us arrive. There's no cap and gown or graduation. The Beatitudes. We're all a work in progress. But he wants us to experience them in order to become them.
- [38:16]
B
Yeah, well, and it's his presence in. He is these things.
- [38:24]
A
That's right.
- [38:25]
B
If he is in us, I think of it as he is. I love how one of the things you lead often in these movements through the Beatitudes, you say, pray and ask him what is keeping us from what we're praying for. And that's something he has to illuminate for us. And in fact, at that moment, he can then displace that by his presence within us, 100%.
- [38:56]
A
And he loves that.
- [38:57]
B
Love pushes it out.
- [38:59]
A
That's right. And he doesn't want transactional prayer monologue. He wants back and forth dialogue. Right. He wants us to ask questions of him. This is David, man after God's own heart. He was a master at inquiring of the Lord about the simplest, smallest little things. George Mueller, Rees Howells, these incredible men and women of God. Like they had this rhythm of being close to Jesus and talking to him about everything. It wasn't talking at him, it was talking with him. Right?
- [39:32]
B
Yeah. And this really gets at the whole dynamic of what abiding is 100%.
- [39:39]
A
John 15.
- [39:41]
B
He is abiding in us. He's saying, abide in me as I abide in you. You're pulling up to this table and this is. This is not you talking at me or, or endlessly asking for this and that and the other. It's, I love Jamie Winship, how he says, jesus, what do you want me to know about this or that? And he's like, just have your pencil ready.
- [40:12]
A
That's right.
- [40:13]
B
And then you just kind of have that playful trust. You're not thinking here, you're abiding, you're receiving something and you want to get it down.
- [40:24]
A
That's right. And it is. So much of that is that poorness of spirit which leads to that childlikeness that you just mentioned.
- [40:32]
B
Right.
- [40:32]
A
Like Jesus himself says, unless you become like a little child, you'll not enter the kingdom of God unless you become like, receive like a little child. It is like this playfulness of talking about the simplest little things and then listening. He's so faithful to speak.
- [40:49]
B
I know. It made me think about, like, there, Matthew 11. I love how Eugene Peterson translated that bit. It's the bit that comes before the really famous part, you know, come to me, all you who are weary. But he says something like, jesus. Well, it's. It's right on the heels of him saying, blessed are youe, Father, for you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned and revealed them to little children. This is one of the nine prayers of Jesus right there. I call it the prayer of Great reversal. And then I break into Peterson where he says, jesus now resumed talking to the people, but now tenderly. And he says, this is a unique father and son operation coming out of Father and Son intimacies. But I'm not keeping it to myself. I'm willing to go over it line by line with anyone willing to listen. Isn't that amazing?
- [42:07]
A
That is so amazing.
- [42:09]
B
I'm going to reread that Beatitudes, isn't it?
- [42:12]
A
It is, yeah.
- [42:13]
B
Line by line.
- [42:15]
A
Yep. Yep.
- [42:16]
B
Line by line. Well, you've really. You've really kind of given us a kind of a cartography of prayer, an encounter in this book. And it's, you know, it's not something you wrote by research. You wrote it by revelation, the book.
- [42:39]
A
First of all, J.D. i mean, you're a prolific author. I. I don't consider myself an author at all. I've never desired to write. I wrote the book in 12 days, two hours a day for 12 days. It just, like, kind of came out of me. I felt like the Lord just. It just like, gave it to me. But of course, to your point, like, we've been living this and experiencing this. I feel like in many ways, I've just put down what we've been living and he's inviting us to enjoy with him, and. And just. That's kind of what came on the page.
- [43:13]
B
Yeah, well, it's. It's a. It's a. A piece of work. I mean, it's a very. It's humble and yet it's bold, and it bears the character of the Shining One. That's. What's. What's beautiful about it. And I want to thank you, you know, as the publisher, for entrusting it to us to help bring it forth. I'm very proud of what our team did with it. The.
- [43:46]
A
They knocked it out of the park, man. That it's. It's just beautiful.
- [43:51]
B
The 24 karat gold on the COVID
- [43:56]
A
The.
- [43:57]
B
The. The embossed cover. The. The. The. I love the. I love the book. And even now as we. As we get ready to. To close here, I just would like to. Just to pray. I know you've done this there, but I want to pray out. Out at large. Just a consecration of the work.
- [44:22]
A
Let's do that.
- [44:23]
B
And I often think when we, you know, this is not a book, this is a vision. Right? Our vision of publishing is write down. It's Habakkuk. Write down the vision on tablets so that runners can run with it.
- [44:40]
A
Amen.
- [44:41]
B
And we think of a book as a seed like this is meant to go into the good soil, the ground of the human heart and bring forth fruit.
- [44:58]
A
So what's exciting to me about that is our arrangement with you guys at Seedbed that every book sold is. Is a mustard seed of faith for awakening that we. We sow out. So it's a one for one model. Every book that sold, we then sow a book for free to a future missionary, revivalist, church planner. Can't wait to see who God raises up. And our. Our Bay Area is the. The most unreached, unchurched, de churched region in the country. The most darkest region in the country. But nobody ever really talks about why it that is. Is it because we don't have enough churches? We got thousands of churches. Is it because we don't have enough smart pastors? We have some of the most brilliant theological minds. Do we not have enough money for the gospel? We got billions of dollars here. We did some research. We found that there was less than 30 churches with a weekly prayer meeting during COVID and just pre Covid. And we quickly realized, JD that we are the most prayerless region in the nation. And that's why we're the darkest. Because pride doesn't pray. Pride tries to engineer it and create it and fix it and AI it and whiteboard it and strategize it. It's not poor enough of spirit to call out and cry out to God. The only way that we're going to fix the problems out here is Jesus himself comes in response to our prayers. And so we believe in the next 10 years that Jesus has given us a vision to become the most prayerful region in the nation and raise up and send out prayer and worship missionaries all over the bay and all over the world. And so maybe he'll breathe on the Shining One, and people will encounter him, meet him, and learn to pray with him.
- [46:48]
B
Yeah. So, Lord, you heard it right there, the vision that you have given. And we're just agreeing with it and we're saying, let it be, Jesus. Let this work. It's been formed into a seed. And that seed is powerful because it's laden with the word of God. It's. It's woven with the spirit of God. It's all pointing to you, the Son of God. And so let this find. Let it first be sown with great extravagance, just released. Let it go forth, release it into the world, Jesus. And then let it find all kinds of soil. We want good soil. We'll take rocky soil. We'll take the path because nothing is wasted in your kingdom. And so just let it find the soil and then let it work. You work through it and bring forth, you know, the shoot and put down the root and take. Bring it, bring the flower and then the fruit. And then from the fruit bring more seed. And that's what we see. That vision of the Bay Area. And Lord, our. Our places too.
- [48:20]
A
Yes.
- [48:21]
B
Flourishing.
- [48:22]
A
Yes.
- [48:23]
B
With the. The radiant beauty of a praying people who are just. Who are just flow, flowing in love.
- [48:33]
A
That's right.
- [48:33]
B
In the love of Jesus. That's our prayer. Thank you. For Mark protecting. Protect his family. Just hedge his children in. Keep them strong in the Lord. Bless their marriage, order their steps, Father. Take what was anything that's meant for evil and turn it to good. Any weapon formed against him won't prosper. All who rise up against him will fall down. All this, Father, for. For your glory, for the gain of others and for our good. In Jesus name, Amen. Amen. Amen.
- [49:16]
A
Thank you so much, jd. Bless you, brother.
- [49:17]
B
This has been fun. This is going to be an encouragement to people, Mark, so hope you're encouraged.
- [49:24]
A
Definitely encouraged. Always with you, my man and everybody.
- [49:29]
B
Thanks for joining us for this conversation. You can get the book@cbed.com if you're out in San Francisco. You should just go get it. Straight from Mark McGovern. Okay.
- [49:41]
A
Come to the prayer room. I'll give you a free copy.
- [49:44]
B
Tell them how to find you out there.
- [49:46]
A
Yeah, you can go to praythebay.org all of our details are on there. We have a prayer room in the heart of San Francisco. 6am Noon, 6pm Every day with live worship and prayer and would love to host you and meet you. And we'll put a free copy in your hand if you want to come hang out. Perfect.
- [50:05]
B
And of course, if you want to get the book, you can get@cbed.com and yeah, everybody, thanks for joining us. We'll see you on the field for the awakening. Mark McGovern, J.D. walt.