Carriers of the Cry: A Conversation with Paul and Jan Smith

Rediscover the transformative power of intercessory prayer with our special guests, Paul and Jan Smith from New Zealand. Reflecting on their teenage years, they share how the fervent prayers of elderly church members, especially Mr. Wheatley, left an indelible mark on their spiritual journey. Paul expresses his desire to revive the passionate 'cry' of intercession he witnessed in his youth, which has inspired his aspirations to pen a book about the power of prayer. We discuss how the dynamics within Christian communities have morphed over time and the need for a spiritual reset, especially in the wake of COVID-19.

Join us as we explore the priceless legacy of intercessory prayer and the responsibility of passing this spiritual heritage to future generations. Paul and Jan delve into how the wisdom imparted by past generations has shaped their spiritual path and the distinction between carrying the burden of God's heart and movements of Holy Spirit renewal, such as healing and sending. This heartfelt conversation underscores the importance of documenting and sharing these treasured experiences for the benefit of those who will follow, ensuring the continuity of this spiritual inheritance.

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Episode Transcript

Mark Banyard (00:10):
Welcome to Kingdom Talk, the podcast where we talk
all about things Kingdom.
I'm your host, Mark Banyard,and I'll be interviewing a
variety of people who, throughtheir lives and ministries, have
been committed to advancing theKingdom of God.
Their lives and ministries havebeen committed to advancing the
kingdom of God Church planters,church leaders, pioneers of
missions and ministries, both athome as well as abroad.

(00:40):
So let's go straight to today'sepisode of Kingdom Talk.
We have Paul and Jan Smith fromNew Zealand on our show today.
At the end of last year, whilewe were ministering in New
Zealand, we took some time withthem and they shared with us an
experience they had years ago asteenagers in the weekly prayer

(01:02):
meeting at their local church.
Today on the show, they talkabout the cry they heard all
those years ago, a cry ofintercession, and how they long
to hear it again.
I'm here right now in Levin, NewZealand, with Paul and Jan
Smith in their lovely home, andmy wife, Jane, is here as well,

(01:23):
and I've just been talking withPaul with regard to a book that
he feels the Lord has put on hisheart to write, and in fact,
Paul, you were just sharingabout that.
Why don't you pick up where youleft off?

Paul Smith (01:37):
Yes, maybe I should go back to where this started,
and ideas and concepts andthings start with an awareness
of something, and I became aware, probably a few years ago, that
there were.
My wife and I were just talkingabout our youth and our teenage

(02:00):
years and what were the thingsthat actually impacted us and
kind of marked us in terms ofour direction in our life and
Christian things.
And we talked a lot about theold days when we were teenagers

(02:21):
in our little Assembly of Godchurch in the UK and our pastor
was very young, his firstpastorate out of Bible school,
and he was a prayer.
He really was someone who wasjust prayer, prayer, prayer,
prayer and get out on thestreets and share your faith.

(02:41):
And if you were afraid, he said, don't worry, just get out
there and do it.
And we realized how much, evenin the Christian community,
things have changed, becausetoday there's all sorts of
excuses oh, I'm too busy, oh,that's not me, oh, leave that to
the evangelists but back thenit was a whole bunch of young

(03:04):
folk, here's a bunch of tracts.
Off you go, tell me how you goton.
There was no training, justtell people about Jesus and we'd
been, of course, filled withthe Holy Spirit, which helped a
lot.
But in that end, one of thethings that he was absolutely

(03:24):
adamant that we should do was beat the prayer meetings of the
church every Wednesday night.
So Sunday morning, Sunday night, Tuesday night, Bible study and
then Wednesday night prayernight, and we'd travel probably
eight or nine kilometers to thechurch and if we weren't there

(03:46):
he'd have a talk with us.
Is everything okay?

Mark Banyard (03:49):
Oh

Paul Smith (03:51):
Are you all right?
Are you reading your Bible?
If you were missing from theprayer meeting, he just assumed
there must be something wrongand you know we can.
I think it was that he waszealous for his young people,
but the thing about it and as wewere talking about this, the

(04:12):
thing that we remembered was the, the old saints in that church,
elderly people who prayed.
The format of the meeting waspeople would, one by one, get up
and we had kneeling mats.
You know, we want to kneel.
Here's a kneeling mat andpeople, all elderly people, get
down on their knees.

(04:33):
But when they prayed, andwhenever we talk about it I feel
it, it was a mixture of and wedidn't think this at the time,
but looking back and making thecomparison to what we sometimes
hear the mixture of passion,Holy Spirit, passion, weeping

(04:58):
and tears.
And now we can look back andsay these people prayed from a
burden they were carrying.
And I came up with in this, wetalked about this and one of the
things I said there was a cry.

(05:19):
There was a cry in theconversations, there was a cry
in the intercessions and we canremember one or two people,
specifically.
There was an elderly man.
His name was Mr Wheatley and hewould stand up and he was old.

(05:40):
I don't know how old.
We were very young, soeverybody older than us was old,
but he was really old, I wouldsay in his late 70s, maybe 80s,
and he'd drive in 20 miles fromup the coast, come to these
prayer meetings and we'd justsit and listen.
And so every week, because wewere there, every week we had to

(06:03):
be there.
And of course it wasn't that wedidn't want to be there.
We wanted to be there.
And I won't say we wanted to bethere just to listen to these
people praying, but we wanted topray like that, we wanted to be
in that.

Mark Banyard (06:20):
So it was attractive, it was magnetic.

Paul Smith (06:22):
It was absolutely.
.
.
It was life.
It made the little church wewere in, it made it like a holy
place because these people werespeaking with God and they
weren't just having prayers,they were.
And so in our conversationabout this, that's where we

(06:49):
became aware of a cry and overthe years, both in ministry and
just general attending meetings,we noted that we sometimes hear
it and we sometimes don't, butwe recognize that when it's yeah
, ah, that's the cry.
And so over the last few years,and especially through COVID, I

(07:15):
think and you know we weretalking the other day about
post-COVID, the reset that neverhappened and all those sorts of
things, although there was areset, I believe.

(07:36):
I was one of the ones who wasdisappointed when we came out of
COVID because I thought I don'twant to go back to the way it
was and everyone was justlonging to be able to go and
have a coffee.
That was a great thing, youknow.
We went out for a coffee and Iactually took a photograph of
the coffee after two years of nocoffee.
But the other thing waseveryone wanted to get back to
normal and I almost felt therewas something not normal about

(07:59):
the way we were.
There was more.
Of course, With God there'salways more, but it was the
thing that was missing and wefind ourselves looking for it,
listening for it, and I'm notsaying that we have arrived at
some grand moment of achievingsomething, but I think in the

(08:24):
years we've been in ministrywe've been grateful for those
moments when the Holy Spiritcomes and just draws out the cry
.
And so that's been the basis, asI've just been thinking about
it, and one of the teachingseries I did at the church was

(08:50):
Ancient Paths and ForgottenHighways.
And we did actually drive downthe Forgotten Highway, which
runs up down from the middle ofNew Zealand, Taumarunui, all the
way through to Stratford.
And it's called the ForgottenHighway because it's over 100
kilometers of untouched bush andthey've only just recently tar

(09:13):
sealed it.
It looks like a single trackroad, little tunnels through
hills and it's absolutelypristine New Zealand bush, and
it's called the ForgottenHighway.
We went there one year, it wasvery rough, just loose stones,
I'd say.
So many people use it just tosee the bush and see the scenery

(09:35):
that they've had to seal theroad.
But there was a big storm oneyear and we decided to go
through the Forgotten Highwayand we came up over a hill and I
saw one little road cone, anorange road cone, sitting in the
road in the distance, and whenI got to the turn round the bend

(09:55):
, the whole half of the highwayhad fallen into the valley.
It was just one road cone.
And they later on closed thewhole road.
But if it had been nighttime,you know, you could have just
gone straight off the road.
But this place was and a lot ofpeople avoided it because it
was not a shortcut.
But now they've sealed it.

(10:16):
But I was on this idea.
Here's this place.
It's so magnificent, mostpeople know about it, but they
just don't go that way.
It's too hard to go that way,it takes too long, and this is
part of the thinking aboutancient paths.
Scriptures talk about findingthe ancient paths.

(10:38):
It seems as though it's toohard, it takes too long, and you
know there are places for youknow instant praying and quick
prayer, but there is a place fortaking your time in the

(11:03):
Presence.
And every time I talk aboutthis I remember this this old
guy and some of the older ladieswho would just take their time
in the Presence of God andobviously had taken time, and
that really affected us asteenagers.
It had a huge impact on usabout the whole matter of

(11:26):
praying.
And so, ancient paths/forgotten highways, has become a
bit of a, .
.
.
how do we find the ancient paths?
Obviously, I believe that'swhere the Lord wants to take us
and we find it easier to findthat place of engagement with

(11:55):
God.
It's not something you can workup, it's a Holy Spirit thing,
an awareness of his presence,and he's drawing you in.
So there's a whole lot ofthoughts around that.
I did think about one stage,calling it the wilderness cry,
because John the Baptist camepreaching in the wilderness and

(12:20):
crying out and I felt that COVIDwas like a wilderness and the
sad thing that I was aware of, alot of people came, didn't come
out of the wilderness cryingout to God, but crying out for
coffee, crying out for back tonormal.

(12:40):
The thing about that whole storyof John the Baptist he was
crying out in the wilderness andpeople came to him and his
message was repent and you know,the Lord, .
.
.
God's coming to do something.
So I think in this moment, inwhere we're at, it needs a

(13:08):
different kind of praying, butit's got to be the cry of the
Spirit.
S o that's been my, my musings,but more and more becoming, as
we've talked, .
..
I may have a bit more time tosit down actually put it down

(13:30):
(in writing), but every time Ithink about those prayer
meetings as teenagers and wewould all be in our early teens,
15, 16, being in those meetings, I can remember them almost
like a video plays.

Mark Banyard (13:46):
Very real right now.

Paul Smith (13:47):
I feel it every time .
So something the Holy Spiritdid obviously just, and it's
been very precious.

Mark Banyard (13:56):
Very good, thank you, very good.
I want to bring Jan in, .
..
all those prayer meetings whenyou were a teenager, .
.
.
d o you have a memory, ananecdote, just something that,

Jan Smith (14:09):
yeah I guess it's not realising then
something was deposited, and itwasn't always sort of on the

(14:35):
surface, you didn't, it wasn'tsomething you were conscious of
all the time.
But then the moments come andit just just the stirring.
It created a longing for themuch more that was there that

(15:00):
God had for his people, for theworld, the heart of God that he
wants us to feel, to carry.
And to, you know, the Lordsays, "my yoke is easy and my

(15:24):
burden is light", And yet you'vegot to make a decision.
If you want to, do you want togo there, do you really want to
go there?
And at times you think, oh, howhard will that be?
But really it's not about howhard it is, it's just about a

(15:48):
willing heart.
The burden is easy, his yoke iseasy and his burden is light,
because it's a sense of joy thatit brings, knowing that you've
heard a tiny, tiny bit, a tinybit of his heart, and we can

(16:15):
never, ever, you know,understand the vastness of his
love and how he feels.
But just even to have apinprick of that deposited in us
, it just makes a difference andit just, it just is with you

(16:38):
and doesn't go away.
It just leaves that longing,that desire to go further, much
more.
That's all I can reallyexpress, not very well.

Mark Banyard (17:01):
No, very well.

Paul Smith (17:03):
One of the things we noticed and I noticed and
realised, later on, when welistened to these elderly saints
praying, they prayed like thatat home.
This wasn't something you didin a meeting.
This was, and you felt like youwere slightly intruding in this

(17:24):
intimate moment as they wereengaging the Lord in prayer.
And you realized this is theway they are.
They do this, probably in theirprivate home.
You felt like you wereintruding somehow

Mark Banyard (17:38):
but yet still invited into that moment

Jan Smith (17:40):
Yeah

Mark Banyard (17:41):
welcomed

Jan Smith (17:42):
yeah

Paul Smith (17:42):
I think that was, i t was a place, because as
teenagers, we wanted to get tothe prayer meeting and our
pastor was,

Mark Banyard (17:50):
and how unusual was that?

Paul Smith (17:53):
It is, well, it is today, unfortunately, in a sense
, and I don't want to be makingjudgements

Mark Banyard (17:58):
but there are exceptions

Paul Smith (18:00):
but we have touched it at times when the burden of
the Holy Spirit just hits themeeting and not everyone catches
it, and my prayer is I hopethey're hearing.
Like, we used to listen andthere's something marking them.
There's this cry.
You can't shake it off, youhave to carry it.

(18:25):
This is broken.
This is the challenge.
It still affects us.
It's affected us.
Not all the time, but atmoments, oh,

Mark Banyard (18:47):
What really hits me about what you're sharing is
that this picture of a youngpastor raising up young people.
But the way you were raised upwas by being invited into
something that a past generationwas carrying.
And these old people that, inevery other regard, might not be
of any interest to you, whatthey were carrying was real
treasure, so much.
It was life and it was theburden of God's heart in prayer,

(19:12):
different perhaps from a HolySpirit renewal where it's a move
where it's about renewal, orit's about sending, or it's
about healing or whatever, butit's the raising up of the
generation.
Here you are now, all theseyears later, and you carry that
same burden with you.

Paul Smith (19:32):
We're the old people !

Mark Banyard (19:34):
You're the old people, but and I think that's
so and that's why I reallywanted to just talk with you
today and thank you for sharingand keep going, write that book!

Paul Smith (19:50):
Yes, yes, thank you.

Mark Banyard (19:51):
Thank you.
Thanks for listening.
We hope you enjoyed thisepisode of Kingdom Talk.
You can find all the notes andlinks for today's show at our
website, www.
kingdomadvancedministries.
com/ podcast and, once again, ifyou enjoyed our show, be sure

(20:18):
to subscribe so that you won'tmiss any of our upcoming
episodes.
Bye for now, and may God bless.