Peter Smith

Pete has lived in Hoyland since 1983 where he was a comprehensive school teacher. After 30 years he was called to work role  full time in Hoyland Christian Fellowship.

http://hoylandchristianfellowship.co.uk/

Transcript

Nicola: Welcome to Cold Water Podcast. I’m Nicola Halton. We all know the importance of getting out there and doing a great work for Jesus. In this Podcast we will learn more about the people who are involved in changing lives for good, for God. I would like to welcome Pete Smith to Cold Water Podcast. Hi Peter. 

Peter: Hi Nicola, good to hear you. 

Nicola: It’s lovely to hear you too. Yes it is. I know you as a teacher and a Pastor of Hoyland Christian Fellowship. What qualities do you think have helped you in these roles? 

Peter: Erm as a teacher? Erm love of children, has to be, you have to like being with children. I’ve come across some people where I think it was just a job for them and they didn’t particularly get on well with children, but yeah, that’s .. You have to really like them and be interested in them, be interested in their future and living in the community, where we are at the moment, it’s been really great and see them grow up and see them become members of society and so on, like that. So the qualities for a teacher, love of children, as a Pastor I think, love of people, like meeting new people. You have to have a thick skin because not everybody is going to get on with you. Not everybody is going to agree with you. So you have got to love them, even though they are.. can be.. have a go at you sometimes. 

Nicola: Yeah

Peter: Also you have got to want to … you have got to have a personal relationship with God and be really, really excited about what God is doing and then that communicates with the people in the church and the same with teaching actually, you know if you are interested in learning things then you will pass on that enthusiasm.

Nicola: Thank you – that was lovely. Lovely answered thank you. How and why did you become a Christian. 

Peter: How and why? I was brought up as a Catholic so I always believed in God but I didn’t have a personal relationship. I didn’t know you could have a personal relationship with God. I said my prayers, I went to a Catholic school. They taught us, the read scripture to us, we went to mass and things like that and it was only when I got to about 18. That I had a personal experience of God, from the most unlikely Catholic priest you would ever know about. He was a man who has a colourful past but he just got really excited about the Holy Spirit and God and so on like that and he shared stuff with us and we caught his excitement and then I reached out to God and he reached out to me. And I had that personal encounter with Him. 

Nicola: Yes

Peter: So that happened, one night I’d been going to this prayer group probably as a way of getting out of  doing work and, in this Catholic school, and I stopped going for some reason and they moved the venue and I saw these people coming out of the room and I just knew in my Spirit that something had happened in that room and I was really interested. So I stopped one of the people coming out, “What’s happening in there? What have you been doing in there?” Well they said, “ We have been having the prayer meeting that you used to come to, we meet in there now.” And he started to tell me about what God was doing and what he had been doing and how people were healed, people were changed. Some of the children who weren’t very nice at school, very pleasant to people, were coming up, saying, “I want to change.” And I was so excited I can remember shaking and I thought if this is who God is then I just don’t want to be anywhere else. 

Nicola: Yes, yes that’s marvellous. That is absolutely beautiful. I was actually saved throught the Catholic Charismatic movement.

Peter: Ah right.

Nicola: So I was brought up to the Holy Spirit. SO it is interesting how God has used that movement in churches and schools to bring people closer to Him, who want it so that’s a lovely story Peter, so thank you. You strike me as someone who listens, the first time I met you, you listened to me and you have also got a vey humble spirit. You have got the gift of humility. And I know that these are qualities that Jesus would have had as he walked the Earth, what qualities do you think God wants to pour out on the Earth as we speak?

Peter: On me? 

Nicola: On everybody.

Peter: On everybody. I think… I think it is a fact that there really is good news, it really is good news to know Jesus Christ. It is good news to have Him as a friend. It is good news to know that he is still… heals, that he still sets us free. He takes away torment, he extricates us from snares that we let ourselves into in our own lives. He just brings life to people and I think that he is challenging us at the moment and I really feel that he is calling us to say, “You know Peter, do you believe me when I say greater miracles will you do because I love the father.” And so its truth, its absolute truth, it’s a living truth, not a … living truth and that’s what he is pouring out on us today. 

Nicola: Yes thank you. How and why would you encourage someone to get to know the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Peter: How? Well I think… I’m hoping that my life will show the light of Christ. I believe he says in John 15, “You live in me and I live in you.” And if He lives in me then it has got to shine out. I can’t contain Jesus all by myself so it has got to spill out and overflow and I believe that when I meet people that they will see that, that they might not know what it is, but they will know that there is something there, in the same way as I knew something had happened in that room all those years ago, they would know that something is there and the Holy Spirit would be the one that ignites that spark of interest in and things, there is something here that I want to know. And I… So that’s… So I don’t always have to say something, I just have to be me with Christ in me. I mean me by myself is just a me, it doesn’t… I can’t save anybody but me full of the Holy Spirit and the joy of the Lord changes everything and I believe that sometimes just being there and not even necessarily saying anything about Jesus, just changes the world that you come into. 

Nicola: Yes it does and I think you were right about earlier about why and  I think he does help us with all of our problems and our difficulties, he doesn’t take them away but he is there to help us through them. How are things going with Hoyland Christian Fellowship? 

Peter: We there is erm… for a long time we have been quite static. Not much change, people coming to our church usually from other churches but just recently I’ve been walking around Hoyland, praying for the area and I had a phone call, I’ll tell you a little story this.. because I was  walking around this area and I was walking down a street called Cherry Tree Street and it’s a quite… its always had a bit of a rough reputation and I just felt as I was walking and praying for the people, the Lord saying, “I’m going to really do a work on this street.” And I thought, “Oh that sounds good,” you know how you sense that God is saying that. So I walked down there the next day and prayed again for it and there was some houses that had a particular type of number tags on them and they really shone out to me so I particularly prayed for them. Any way a couple of days later the phone went and this person said, you know, “I want to be born again.” And that was.. of course your ears prick up and I thought, “Well that’s a good thing, that’s a nice thing to hear on your phone.” And it was a a women from Cherry Tree Street. 

Nicola: Yes

Peter: So.. and she and her partner had come into the church. She’s really, really excited wanted to get to know God in a deeper way. All being well she will be baptised on the 6th June. 

Nicola: Right 

Peter: In her garden! In the hot tub! On Cherry Tree Street. 

Nicola: Right. Oh wow! 

Peter: And she will be inviting neighbours. 

Nicola: Yes 

Peter: So its… that’s really amazing, there is a focus of God and it is really nice to hear and know that you are hearing God correctly and that he is proving what he said, you know, “I’m doing a work on Cherry Tree Street.” But we’ve also had other people, we had a lady who was also involved in wicker when she was young. She still is. She is in her early twenties anyway and she rang up. Well she got in touch over the internet. 

Nicola: Right

Peter: So she started doing that and then we had another chap about three weeks ago who was born again in the meeting and was a Spiritualist. 

Nicola: Right 

Peter: He wanted to come to know the Lord. He wanted to renounce all of that and so suddenly from just having no new Christians and having a time when you don’t think new Christians are going to join you due to lockdown and all that, suddenly people are becoming interested and the Lord is at work. Its very exciting. 

Nicola: It is very exciting. Its lovely. Yes well done. So thank you. I’ll let you go now. Thank you. Thank you. Bye bye.

Peter: God bless you. 

Nicola: Thank you for listening to the Cold Water Podcast. Please remember to subscribe and join next week.