God Conversations with Tania Harris

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(100) Obstacles to Hearing God – Christine Westhoff
Why Can't I Hear God's Voice?It’s been said that “hearing God’s voice is as natural as breathing,” so why do we often find it a challenge? If we were created to be in relationship with God, why do we find it so hard to hear the Spirit speak?On this episode, we explore this question at a deeper level with prophetic ministry leader and spiritual director, Christine Westhoff. Christine is the President of The MESH Objective, a collective of psychologists, social workers, spiritual directors, and coaches who work to support the mental, emotional and spiritual health of leaders across the world. She is also a prophetic minister and trains church leaders towards a healthier and biblically based understanding of the Spirit.You’ll learn about:Christine’s spiritual journey and how she navigated the near loss of her son and grandson. Christine shares how pain can create distance between us and God.Obstacles to hearing God – perhaps better expressed as “areas of resistance” we experience towards God. Christine highlights the challenge of vulnerability and shows that just like any human relationship, we need to open up the hidden areas of our heart in order to receive Spirit revelation.The importance of framing our “hearing God” experiences in the context of relationship. Hearing God is not some sort of mechanical skill. This is why spiritual direction – learning to hear God’s voice with the support of another person – is so valuable. Having another person alongside helps us to identify any areas of resistance we have towards God and how to remove them.Another obstacle to hearing God is a lack of understanding that we can receive God’s revelation through all of our senses.Some simple spiritual exercises to help us know our own thoughts and sense God’s presence with us. Here we learn the priority of understanding being withGod even above hearing from God.About Christine WesthoffChristine Westhoff is the author and developer of ReFraming the Prophetic (www.reframingtheprophetic.com), a biblical reflection book and online course that aims to anchor the gift of prophecy into its biblical framework and purpose. She is a trained spiritual director and the President of the MESH Objective (meshobjective.org), a collective of psychologists, social Workers, spiritual directors, and coaches working to support the mental, emotional, and spiritual health of leaders and missionaries globally. Happy 100th Podcast Episode! Your Chance to Win 2 GC Books! Enter the competition! What has been your favourite God Conversations episode?Tell us in 25 words or less what your favourite podcast episode is and why!The best response will win our two favourite books, God Conversations and God Dreams.Competition closes Tuesday 19th August 2025, 11.55PM AEST Enter the competition!
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(099) The Role of the Prophet – Andre Bronkhorst
When someone says the word prophet, what do you think of? The label conjures up all sorts of images - a robed figure gazing into a crystal ball or a wild man dressed in camel hair, eating wild insects and raving about the end of the world! Prophets have always been around - in the biblical tradition and beyond it. Among the Hebrews, prophets played a key role in expressing God’s will for the nation, but something significant happened to their role after Jesus came. There's still prophets in the Church today, but what do they do and how do we know who they are? How are they different from the prophets in Old Covenant or prophets outside the biblical tradition? On this show, we’re talking about the prophet's role in the contemporary church with a globally recognised prophet based out of South Africa: Andre Bronkhorst. You’ll hear about: Andre’s surprising initial encounter with God’s voice as he was contemplating ending his life at age 16. God seemed to say the exact opposite of what Andre felt he deserved. The experience changed his life and set him on course to learn more about the voice of Holy Spirit. God’s redemptive approach to communication. God speaks to awake our potential and the fullness of who we were created to be. God sees in us what we can’t see in ourselves! Andre’s calling to be a prophet which was sparked by a divinely co-ordinated ministry appointment. How Andre has been used of God to minister in churches that have previously shut down prophetic ministry. Andre shares how God has used him to introduce an approach that promotes safety and maturity. Andre’s understanding of a prophet and how they function in the church today. The primary difference between the Old and New Covenant centres on the coming of Jesus. Jesus modelled prophetic ministry (Hebrews 1:1-3) and initiated an era where the main purpose of prophecy is to strengthen our relationship with God. The main task of the prophet then is to equip the saints to hear the voice of God and follow (rather than reflect on world events) (Ephesians 4:11,12). In Jesus’ day, there was a lot of political events that took place, but Jesus never got involved with that. He never gave his opinion. That’s the model that we follow. There’s going to be wars and calamities. But our focus (as a prophet) is to get people back into God’s assignment. To help fix your eyes on Jesus. Specifically, Andre sees his purpose in helping people identify how God speaks to them and help them to walk in that. Andre tells of the danger of prophets who draw on Old Testament models so that people come to him to hear God for them: I love to prophesy, but it’s far greater to train and equip people to hear God’s voice personally. I’m very careful not to become sort of mediator. The problem with the tendency of prophets to give a “word for the year.” Andre reflects on how this works if every church, community, nation is different. The false idea of the prophet’s role being to predict the future. Andre shows how God invites us to participate in his plan rather than speaking through fatalistic pronouncements. As a New Testament prophet, we don’t give predictions - we give invitations. The model of the New Testament which points to the existence of prophets in every local church. Subscribe to God Conversations with Tania Harris and never miss an episode! About Andrê Bronkhorst Andrê Bronkhorst is a globally recognized prophetic voice with a passion for equipping and empowering the Body of Christ. With over a two decades of ministry experience, he is dedicated to bringing clarity, direction, and encouragement through the prophetic word. Known for his accuracy and Spirit-led guidance, Prophet Andre helps individuals and churches align with God’s purpose for their lives. His ministry focuses on raising up prophetic leaders, teaching biblical principles, and demonstrating the heart of God in every encounter.
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(098) God Conversations that Expose Sin – Don Barry
Voices in the Muck: When the Spirit Won’t Stay Silent When Don arrived to take up a leadership position at his new church, the Holy Spirit gave him a dream. He saw a group of men dressed in white hazmat suits. They were cleaning out piles of horrible muck from a culvert and moving it to the roadside nearby. Don woke up thinking how horrid it was that the muck was being exposed to all those driving by. Two days later, the nature and depth of the "muck" became clear as one by one, six different women came to Don to confess an affair with the former senior pastor. This episode of the God Conversations podcast is a heavy but important one. Our guest is a pastor from New Zealand who has decades of experience in ministry but has also been privy to some God conversations he’d rather not have. Along with his wife Karen, he led Gateway Church in Hamilton, New Zealand for 20 years. During this season, they watched God restore a church that had been torn apart by the sexual failure of its senior leadership to become a thriving congregation of over 1200 people. Don Barry is a gifted teacher whose ministry has been appreciated throughout New Zealand and many other nations. You’ll learn so much from his wisdom born of experience walking with the Spirit. On the show you’ll hear about: Don’s spiritual journey and pathway into ministry leadership, beginning with a startling God conversation that led Don and Karen from their church in Cambridge to a church in Hamilton. Don reflects on how the Spirit used a feeling of being unsettled and then spoke through three different people to speak the same message. God may speak clearly but doesn’t always give the details! Don’s dream that God gave him twice when he arrived to take up a leadership position at his new church and the events that occurred almost immediately after, with six different people confessing affairs all independently of one another. A second vivid dream that showed how God was bringing sin to light so that it could be cleaned up. Instead Don faced pressure to cover it up. “I knew it was the Lord and we needed to know it was the Lord because a couple of voices from our executive said to me that this is the devil’s attempt to destroy a good man’s ministry. You should keep this covered…” Don reflects on the reasons why sin cannot be hidden. The only way God can transform our hearts and set us free is to convict and expose our sin. Transformation requires truth - you cannot receive grace without first confronting truth, ugly as that may be. Covering up is the worst thing we can do. There are rotten apples in any barrel. The test is what leadership do with them. The answer is not to put the lid on and hope they go away. People felt safe confessing it to you. Perhaps there was safety and integrity in your heart. Uncovering sin is painful. There’s no such thing as "Dr Painless the dentist." We must confront the ugliness of of our lives. It’s not to condemn but to deliver, but it does require the drill! The need for safe and trusted spaces so that sin can be exposed and people can be restored. Don reflects: “If could be our turn next week.” The role of conscience in relation to God’s voice. For Don, the longer we walk with Jesus, the more our conscience and God’s voice close ranks! God’s purpose in exposure is always redemption. There is no shame or condemnation. God has incredible love for his church. If we don’t discipline our children, we hate them. Truth-telling is an act of love - not a thing to be feared, but to be welcomed. Subscribe to God Conversations with Tania Harris and never miss an episode! Bio Don Barry has been involved in church leadership for five decades. For the last 30 years he has been a senior leader of Gateway Church in Hamilton, New Zealand. During this season he has watched as God has restored a church, broken and bruised by the sexual failure of leadership, into a thriving congregation.
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(097) The Audible Voice of God – Patrick Hegarty
How Does God’s Audible Voice Really Sound? Insights from a Modern-Day Encounter Some people talk about hearing the audible voice of God. What does that sound like? And should we expect to hear it? On this episode of the God Conversations podcast, we’re talking about the "audible" voice of God, why God rarely speaks this way and what our expectations should be for how the Spirit speaks. Our guest has heard the audible voice of God five times and has plenty of insights from his story. Patrick Hegarty is a pastor of a church in Brisbane, Australia but also heads up a a national church planting organisation. He’s also authored several books on spiritual formation and renewal. In this episode, you’ll hear about: Patrick’s back story, raised in an atheist environment and becoming a Christian at age 19. After 20 years of working in business and “avoiding God’s call,” Patrick changed careers and became a full time minister. Patrick’s experiences of God’s audible voice. Patrick describes it as feeling “almost normal," since it involves the God you know in everyday life. When God speaks out loud, it is almost like the Spirit is shouting in the moment, but as you reflect, you realise no-one else heard it. “God’s voice is normally very disruptive. I’ve never found God to speak at a convenient time!” The God conversation that inspired Patrick’s book on leadership and discipleship such that he finished 90,000 words in just three weeks. Patrick’s God conversation in Kenya. Patrick was on a ministry trip surrounded by poverty and devastation in the biggest slum in Africa when God spoke out loud: “I remember these people, I want you to remember them.” In Patrick’s words, it was like “listening to heaven while looking into hell.” As a result, Patrick started a charity in the area that continues to this day. As I was looking down in the valley - the biggest slum in Africa - I saw toddlers looking in a stream of rubbish and sewage for food. I had my ears listening to heaven and my eyes looking into hell. Suddenly I heard the out loud voice of God. Everything else went quiet. “I remember these people, I want you to remember them.” The difference between God’s “quiet” voice and God’s “loud” voice. Patrick sees the audible voice as God’s way of making a point that would otherwise be difficult to make. At the same time, the out loud voice is not necessarily the preferred form, since God wants to speak in our everyday moments. The quieter voice also tends to call us to actively seek and listen to God. Like a game of spiritual hide and seek, it’s in the seeking that we build the spiritual muscles we need. The outside voice has to be the exception, while a quiet voice is a mark of intimacy. We should always seek the person not the experience. Advice for hearing God’s voice. Patrick says with a smile, “buyer beware.” God’s voice calls for transformation and action! Subscribe to God Conversations with Tania Harris and never miss an episode! About Patrick Patrick has worked for over 20 years in a broad range of Christian movements. Having authored several books on formation and renewal, led and planted churches, and taken over 10,000 people through courses and spiritual retreats, he has seen God do many incredible things across the globe. Patrick leads Kenmore Church in Brisbane, founded the Connexa development incubator, and is currently launching M4 Australia, a national church planting organisation. Previously an engineer and business owner, Patrick has been married to Trish for 36 years, with whom he spends any spare time along with their two children and six grandsons. Find out about his work on spiritual formation at thegrowthtrack.com.au.
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(096) Hearing God Among the Nations – Craig Stephens
God spoke to Craig about healing for a lame Sikh priest. Then the police came... Jesus said it was for our good that he left the earth (John 16:7). That seems hard to believe. What could be better than sitting down and having a coffee with Jesus? Jesus is described as the living "word of God" (John 1:14) - that meant everything he said was God’s voice as well as everything he did. The early disciples could hear God’s voice as they were walking down the streets of Jerusalem, as they were sharing a meal with Jesus over bread and olives, as they were listening to Jesus preach on the temple steps. How could anything be better than that? The answer of course is that Jesus’ departure signalled the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. It was better not only because the Holy Spirit would remind us of everything Jesus said and did, he would also speak about things to come - that is, the issues that Jesus didn’t cover while he was on earth! It’s better because unlike Jesus who was limited to a physical body and the language and customs the first century Jews in the Greco-Roman world, the Holy Spirit speaks to apply those truths to new times, places and cultures! In this episode you’ll see the truth of Jesus’ words. Our guest, Craig Stephens is an officer of the Salvation Army and has heard God speak in places like India, China, Pakistan and communities in his own hometown. Craig ministers as an evangelist across Australia and beyond and trains others to share the good news. He also works with global missions movement, Impact Nations, and loves to take teams across the world to train them in preaching the gospel and healing the sick. In this episode, you’ll hear about: Craig’s God story, growing up in church but then leaving as he didn’t feel like he could behave well enough to meet the church’s standards. It was a few years later that Craig re-entered the church after a miraculous encounter with the Holy Spirit that changed his heart and gave him boldness to share his faith with others. The Holy Spirit lit a fuse that wouldn’t go out! Craig’s God-conversation that led him into ministry and in particular, working among the marginalised and broken in Sydney. Craig tells how the Holy Spirit showed him a vision of his middle-class church being mobilised to serve the poor with details about the actual building they could use. Later Craig shares how a visit to the local police and an offer to serve in the most difficult area of the town led them to the exact building! Then they watched as God brought transformation… I could see the people in our church carrying the grace they had in the community… the schoolteachers sitting alongside bedraggled, roughed up kids and coaching them in their schoolwork… the physiotherapists doing therapy in a particular room… the ladies who serve the morning tea hosting the community in a cafe. I couldn’t stop seeing it. The incredible God-conversation that led Craig and his team to pray a Sikh priest who had been lame since birth and the God-conversation that subsequently led to a last minute escape from arrest by the Sikh police. A God conversation that led Craig and his team to reach people by the side of the road at the Athens Olympics. Subscribe to God Conversations with Tania Harris and never miss an episode! About Craig Stephens Craig is a Salvation Army Officer with a deep hunger for encounters of God. As the Australian Eastern Territorial Evangelist, he trains and equips people in evangelism and is responsible for “New Expressions” of The Salvation Army. Craig also oversees the Central Coast Regional Prayer Room (an interdenominational regional prayer space), a small network of house churches called “community tables”, a company of people gifted in evangelism across nearly 30 churches. Craig further serves on the board of Impact Nations (a global missions movement) (impactnations.com) and loves to take teams across the world to train them in ...
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