The Lord Give You Peace - Terry A. Smith

Over the course of the next couple of days I'm toggling back from sewage to Shalom. One minute and for a little while I'm sitting and writing about all this wonderful you know all this all these wonderful things that are possible through being aligned with God's Word and then I'm in the basement cleaning up sewage and I make the comment in the book you know what I learned from that is what all of us know sewage happens. The reality of most of our lives you know we talk about Shalom we're talking about Shalom in the context of the wilderness. Shalom is best understood by looking at Eden because that's the way things are supposed to be and we need to think about Eden past and Eastern Eden's future our lives to get an idea of Shalom for us. Welcome to Faithfully Stories the podcast that brings you inspiring tales from conversations with church leaders as they navigate the peaks and valleys of their faith journeys through their ministry work and everyday life join us as we delve into their challenges moments of encouragement and answered prayers. The Faithfully Stories podcast is brought to you by Faithfully an online community committed to empowering church leaders pastors staff and volunteers learn more at Faithfully.co get ready to be uplifted and inspired as we unveil the heart of faith through stories from the front lines of ministry on the Faithfully Stories podcast. Pastor Terry welcome to the Faithfully Stories podcast. It is such a privilege and an honor to have you here. You have been the lead pastor of the life Christian church for over 30 years. You are a speaker and an author and you are at with your latest book which is all about peace and Shalom and Pastor Adam and I are really looking forward to talking to you about it. Thank you. It's a real real blessing to be with you guys. I appreciate it. Appreciate what you're doing with Faithfully. Thank you. Well we're excited to have you with us on the journey. If I may start Pastor Terry with actually a little bit of your story. I bet that being a lead pastor of a church for over 30 years people don't tend to ask you anymore how you got started but I'd love to know how did the Lord call you into ministry. I had a sense when I was a teenager that I was called the vocational ministry and I had a sense in fact when people ask me what what are you going to do I would say as a teenager that God has called me to build a great church in a suburb of New York City and I'd never even been in New York City and I you know I can only imagine that that prompting actually came for God and you know all these years later we're in year 34 now so all these years later God Miss Grace has allowed me and my wife Sharon to build a great church here in a suburb of Manhattan West George New Jersey. That's incredible and not only have you built and grown and sustained this big beautiful thriving church in a suburb of New York you're also one of the forces behind movement.org which had its roots in New York City I'd love to hear a little bit about how the Lord led you to that place. So Adam will know this story because Adam's been a big part of this story for many many years but when when I was a young pastor I began passing this church at age 29 soon thereafter I met Dr. MacPierre who was leading concerts of prayer greater New York at that time and there was a tremendous unity movement around prayer just a few years prior a handful of gatekeeper pastors had started praying together and by the time I got involved that had grown to I don't know maybe 75 of us getting together every year and praying together for the pastors prayer summit at that time and concerts of prayer created such a unity movement in the New York City metropolitan area that a few years later there were hundreds of pastors getting together praying every year and all kinds of amazing things happening in the city and national organizations started coming to Mac and I was then for many years on the board of concerts of prayer greater New York asking us to help them whether it was World Vision post 9-11 asking us to help them distribute millions of dollars of relief or whether it was the Willow Creek Association at that time asking us to sponsor the Global Leadership Summit or Rick Warren showing up asking us to do something to support something he was during our purpose driven so much of that started happening that that a couple of us decided we needed to start a new organization and so Mac and I were the only ones who actually left the concerts of prayer greater New York board started the New York City Leadership Center kept the two of them connected and then the New York City Leadership Center became what we now know as movement dot org I think it's great context passenger because you would assume if you're an outsider that the greatest unity movements in churches or in a church ecosystem would be in the Bible belt and somehow it would with all to respect to all of those other cities what's happening in New York and when we say New York obviously we mean New Jersey Southern Connecticut Westchester the five boroughs Long Island we see this metropolitan this metroplex area and there is a unique a unique move of God and unity so much so that we were just at past this first summit with over 300 pastors and leaders several weeks ago and so pastor help help me understand that that doesn't make sense in a city or a region like the Northeast that is as secular as it is it's you know I think the church historians I have no doubt are going to come back and write the story of what's happened in Manhattan and the surrounding environments over this last several decades and Adam you your family you guys have been a big part of all of this and I'm it's one it's one of the most transforming realities of my life a group of pastors got together started praying three decades ago and we've seen amazing things that's out of that came Tim Keller's partnership with Mac Pier around Redeemer Church planning out of that the the population of people attending church on a Sunday morning in Manhattan has grown by I don't know you probably know the statistics I think it's grown from like one and a half percent to five percent which represents several hundred thousand people when I first came to the New York City metropolitan area thirty three plus years ago there were very few what we would call great let's say like this thriving churches there were very few very few you know you you hear the story of of maybe Brooklyn Tabernacle at that time you hear the the rising emerging story Adam of the church that that you've helped lead for so long that your dad is pastoring Christ Tabernacle now Saints Church you hear a few stories like that but they're there weren't many and now there are a number of thriving growing large community impacting city impacting churches in this region it's been an amazing thing to see and to be a part of well being at Pastor Paris Summit for the first time this year it's evident to me all of the seeds that have been sewn all of the fruit that all of that prayer and all of that unity and work has produced and it was also clear to me that the Lord's not done yet the Lord's not done with New York City he's not done with the churches here he's not done with the people here it was a really powerful summit and Pastor Terry I believe that that summit was the first time that you preached on your new book it was so I will I will say that right off the bat you got me with your book because you started with this this incredible story about your one year old being sick and needing to be rushed to ER can you talk can you tell the story and talk about why you teed up the book with that story yeah so so my wife and I at that time very young people early 20s were in Germany doing ministry we had our one year old daughter summer with us I think it was the first time that we'd ever traveled overseas and so we're a young couple out of our element and our daughter fell deathly ill and her fever was was dangerously high and even to the point of potentially fatally high and we could do nothing to to get the fever down and so our host there I was actually there preaching a camp meeting a youth camp meeting for our soldiers our forces kids in that part of the world anyway our host decides a rushes to the hospital and on the way he says hey I we have I know this woman of faith I'd like to stop I'd like for her to pray for summer before we go to the hospital frankly I didn't want to I I just want to get to the hospital but you know trying to be a man of faith I said okay let's do it but let's do it quickly we pull over front of military housing and he goes up and and brings with him about a four foot ten inch tall woman carrying a huge bottle of olive oil and I'm thinking let's do this quickly she opens the back door of my where my wife is holding our daughter with this raging fever and she she takes that oil takes this bottle of oil put some on her finger dabs in on the head of my daughter and she prayed this prayer and I believe this is all she said she said father in the name of Jesus I command this body to align itself with the word of God wow and immediately the fever broke and my daughter was completely and totally healed well I begin the book with that story to then ask the question what would it look like if everything in our life aligned itself with the word of God and that's how I get into the subject of the peace the Lord gives which is the title of my book or the peace the Lord give being in fact what we call Shalom wow thank you for for sharing that story it's an incredible moving story and it tees up your your book so beautifully in talking to the people at my church in downtown Manhattan peace is something that they're all seeking even those who may not believe yet like peace is what they're after and I think that one of the beautiful things that you do in your book is you help us to see almost right away that our understanding of peace is actually somewhat limited that the Lord has something even more for us and that Lord is captured by Shalom so can you talk a little bit about that about that word Shalom and and what all it encompasses yeah I'd love to so so first of all the word Shalom and it's corresponding Greek word in the New Testament is used some 550 times in scripture this is a hugely important concept and Shalom of course is is a Hebrew word and typically we are limited in our ability to translate it and we translate it with our English word peace most of the time but Shalom is also translated in scripture by words like wholeness harmony completeness prosperity it's closely associated with justice and righteousness it's it's translated by all these words that's oh it's translated by the word well-being at times as well and it takes kind of all those words to get at the idea of what Shalom really is when we think about peace and in in in English we're we typically are talking about an absence of conflict or a state of tranquility and whereas Shalom certainly includes that that's just a part of what Shalom actually is what what Shalom is is everything in our lives being aligned with God's word to such a degree that everything in our life is working together the way God intended it scholars have done an amazing job offering all kinds of wonderful definitions of Shalom but the way I define Shalom in my in my book the Lord give you peace is that it's the harmonious working together of everything in our lives in alignment with God's good intentions leading to holistic well-being productive flourishing and happy fulfillment so it's this it's this idea it's it's it's Shalom isn't just the absence of a negative thing right you know the absence of anxiety let's say what's it's an abundance of the positive opposite of the negative thing it's an abundance of joy it's not just an absence of fear it's an abundance of faith yeah I you use so many beautiful words to try to capture this idea of Shalom and the one word you did not use was perfection right you didn't use perfection because it's not the absence of the bad stuff and you really I think in chapter three you really illustrate that point really clearly you had me laughing in chapter three um so chapter three you you talk about the the sewage problem that you had in your home shortly after I think you you had decided to write this book about Shalom and I think you're contemplating Shalom and and you had this sewage problem actually burst out laughing reading that part um so can you can you bring us back to that place like that place where you're contemplating Shalom and then everything is going ahead and that's because the most underrated part of Terry passitary Smith is not only is he hysterical but he's one of the best conversationalists you will ever have dinner with I promise you I've been the recipient of many a dinner with passitary and he is incredibly gifted at telling us stories so it's the week that I signed the deal to write this book and had started writing so I'm thinking about Shalom I'm thinking about flourishing and wholeness and harmony and all these wonderful ideas and um there's an explosion in our basement that comes from some pipes along the ceilings and uh what what what came from the pipes we didn't know what it was but uh it it didn't look good or smell good so I I brought a friend over uh who's who's handy and and and he started dealing with the pipe protruding from the wall that's connected to these pipes and the Laura's short of it is he's fumbling around with a cap and the cap all of a sudden under pressure from everything behind it explodes out and out of this pipe comes gushing a substance of such odorous color that we knew then what it was it was a sewage pipe and and my friend gets he gets covered from head to toe in this immediately in this sewage and uh uh uh because he's trying to stop it it just gets worse and worse and it was a terribly smelly mess and so uh over the course of the next couple of days I'm toggling back from sewage to shalom one minute and for a little while I'm sitting and writing about all this wonderful you know all this all these wonderful things that are possible through being aligned with God's word and then I'm in the basement cleaning up sewage and I make the comment in the book you know what I learned from that is what all of us know sewage happens and uh and so and so this is you know the the reality of most of our lives you know we talk about shalom we're talking about shalom in the context of the wilderness shalom is best understood by looking at Eden because that's the way things are supposed to be and we need to think about Eden past and Eastern Eden future our life to get an idea of shalom for us but but the fact is that shalom now has to be experienced in the context of the wilderness we're in the already but not yet we're in a wonderful world and we're in a world that sometimes is terrible we're in a world where there's amazing potential for good but there's amazing potential for evil they're shalom and they're sewage. Pastasari um I've got a friend uh who's a head spun trader and uh he reminds me often that a lot of money can buy you a really great mattress but it cannot buy you sleep and there are lots of people out there that think if I could just get more money then I'm going to alleviate all this anxiety and fear and I think what we what we've learned uh through our parishioners to the people that we're ministering to across New York City uh in places like west orange uh in lower Manhattan on Long Island uh we're we're finding that it doesn't matter how much money is stockpiled in your bank account anxiety is something separate from and the alleviation of fear and anxiety is not in how much money is in your bank account but comes from another place when you speak to people who are saying man if I could just I could just move up the wrong another notch if I could just add another zero uh to my income stream then I'm going to have peace what do you say to that person? Well that's a that's a false hope obviously I mean shalom is a state of being and it's a state of being that occurs when we align our lives with the word of God and sometimes I make the case that part of the shalomic package is God always seems to be moving people from from uh from poverty to plenty he that this seems to be part of what happens is part of shalom is God's providing for our needs on our way to our destiny and so on but we we we're not going to find peace and money and the and the thing that's interesting is it seems to me at least in my congregation that that people are more and more aware of that that the the false illusion that money and things are going to bring us peace has been pierced more and more in recent years and you know now I think that the problem is more about getting people to believe that they actually can taste the peace the Lord gives that's beautiful um there is this moment again in chapter three where I was moved to tears um after you tell the story of um you know the sewage and the shalom a little bit later on in that chapter you write this incredibly moving sentence um you asked the reader can I prophesy for you and I've never ever ever read that in a book before and I was so moved but it was so personal and it made me realize that actually the entire book is prophetic and that the word you just gave is prophetic that there is this peace that is promised to us was that your heart you know was I right to read that in chapter absolutely I and let me just say that when you say that that made you want to cry that makes me want to cry and I'm not much of a crier because yes that's what I'm going after absolutely I'm going after speaking to someone like you and saying let me prophesy to you this here are the good things God wants for you even the middle of the difficult world here are the good things that God wants for you and so I'm I'm I'm I'm extremely pleased that you received it that way and listen just to be frank uh and you by the way you're I've been on a number of podcasts and interviews uh Alicia you're asking the best questions anyone is asking uh I I I'm great so I'm grateful for the questions that you're asking me and you're getting at the heart of this and so I don't want to be hyperbolic but as I'm writing I feel the anointing of the Holy Spirit and I particularly felt that I this is my fourth published book I protect and this is the second book I've written now in the priestly prayer the first prayer is called the first book uh which is the the the first in this series it's called the Lord bless you a 28 day journey to to experience God's extravagant blessings this of course is the Lord give you peace and I particularly just felt the Holy Spirit just kind of writing through me and for someone like you you know in the book just came out last week so so you know I'm just now starting to get feedback and for someone like you to receive it that way is is everything that I hope for thank you thank you pastor Terry now I um I imagine that some of the pastors and ministry leaders who will be listening to this conversation um they'll be wondering how they can use this with their churches and their people I wonder if you have any advice about how they might take their people through it again what a thank you for asking me that question because I don't even think you're aware of this but um our our church the life Christian church in western New Jersey we have put together a full sermon kit around the Lord give you peace and during the lentencies and there are a number of churches that are going to be preaching this and their churches and they're and leading their congregations through the book as a devotional reading so at in case I forget to say it this can be found at Terry asmith.com um and and uh you know if if if if someone has trouble finding it just reach out to me at at the life Christian church and we'll we'll help them find it but we've written sermons around uh so the idea is that a pastor preaches a sermon on on one of the sections of the book the first sermons on the introduction the and then the book is organized in four sections or four weeks and seven chapters or seven days a week the pastor preaches the sermon on Sunday and then the congregants read it do the daily readings each week in a way that supports what the pastor preached they hopefully they they you know we've we've written small group discussion guides um we have a we've written an original song we've uh we've got creative packages we've produced videos we have promotional and branding materials we have everything that someone could could possibly think of that might be an exaggeration but everything we could possibly think of to serve a church and all that's free for charge free of charge it's all free of charge of course obviously I hope and the publisher hopes even more that people will purchase books and either sell them or give them to their congregants and the other thing is my publisher is very invested in this and they they make the book available for churches that are doing this at severe discounts and if if if a church uh organization orders more than a hundred for instance they offered it 50% off so the idea is to get the message in the book and as many people's hands as possible so that this message can impact people the way you're describing it impacting you Alicia. Pastor Terry is all in unshieldow a hundred percent. I sure am I you know I've passed it Terry I mean you don't have to get much past the endorsements for not only this book but your books to realize that God has anointed you in a very unique way to minister to incredibly influential people and your call uh although as a local pastor in west orange and I've had the privilege of preaching in your pulpit and being part uh and and and seeing that which has been amazing uh from a former bowling alley to temporary uh space on the top of that hill to now what is the life Christian church and just absolutely amazing um you're you're influencing even broader and I would say that one of the groups most likely to almost give themselves an excuse for not having the Shalom of God might be leaders and pastors uh that that's the group that's very easily we give an excuse for why we don't Sabbath uh you know we minister on Sunday I can't you know I got too many people cities like ours in the New York metro area too many people not enough money you know we there's no way you know you know you know remember the disciples didn't even eat so you know I've heard that my whole ministry career uh past Terry how do you when you speak to leaders about leading out of a place a piece leaders who are pastoring out of a place of Shalom how would you tweak the message for them and encourage and challenge that group because faithly is a platform for ministry leaders and pastors and from all over that are coming together on it speak directly to that audience yeah so first of all I think your observation is absolutely correct Adam and uh obviously the two of us did not listen to the whole thing about the disciples not eating uh I I prefer I prefer the feasts at cana analogy uh the lambs needs to in revelation I mean I will it's the reason why the church in Rome was the one the Italians he said the kingdom of God is not food and drinks so yes I get it that's very good so but but here's the so when I had the privilege of preaching at the pastors prayer summit a few weeks ago as you mentioned Alicia and the and the so so I I've introduced this concept of Shalom but the thing that I felt most strongly was a specific word for that group of pastors and leaders was I had a point called as simple as it is take this personally um because we're we're always thinking about the piece that that we hope to bring someplace else or to someone else but but I think that we need to be paying attention and cultivating our own Shalom much much more and one way I got it this in that particular talk was that great passage in Jeremiah 29 where Jeremiah says to the people in Babylon he says pray for the Shalom of the city the peace of the city because he says a few a little bit later if it Shalom you will Shalom or if it most translation say if it prospers you will prosper that word's coming from Shalom other translation say if it thrives you'll thrive if you have well-being if it has well-being you will have well-being and I would simply say this as most of us are getting up every day to try to bring Shalom to our cities we need to understand that God says to us as you bring Shalom to your city I'm bringing Shalom to you it's not just a mission that we're on it's an experience God wants to give us and show so we should expect a mutual Shalom the the thing we've been called to is prospering and we're prospering the thing that we've been called to is thriving and we're thriving and we need to not we need to not feel bad to go on a quest for our own personal Shalom wow it's not a mission it's about experiencing it that that was excellent I was I also really I also really loved a mutable Shalom. Do you think that translates back into Hebrew? I don't know I use the word pretty loosely at times. Pastor Terry you're all in on Shalom maybe I'll leave it with this question you didn't say this but I sensed that this could perhaps be the second in a series of big topics you know big prophetic topics that might be rumbling around within you I'm just I'm wondering if you can share with us and share with our audience if there are other things that you know you're pondering right now well I probably shouldn't answer that directly because my publisher never wants me to give away the name of a book but but it's it's actually pretty obvious and and I haven't signed a deal for this yet but but it's it's is being discussed to do the Lord be gracious to you and I just I just did a series last fall here at the Life Christian Church on grace and I am I am I am I'm not in a hurry to write this next book you know doing a book is challenging on a number of levels but I I very much have a grace message in my heart and would would like to have the opportunity at some point to write the the third part of this trilogy based on the priestly prayer and I'd like for it to be you know the Lord bless you the Lord give you peace and the Lord be gracious to you amen amen well we can't wait for the opportunity to talk to you is and when that book comes out Pastor Terry I appreciate it a lot well thank you so much for your time it really has been just such a joy to get to talk to you and to get to ask you questions about your book and I can't wait to finish the book as I said before we started recording I didn't want to rush through this one I really wanted to take it slow so I look forward to the rest of my journey into Shalom means a lot to me thank you I appreciate what you guys are doing Adam you're my friend for many many years and he has been a major leader in the New York City metropolitan area I love you love your family Alicia it's great to get to know you I'm excited about safely and what you guys are doing what he's put in your heart and look forward to participating in that in in in future times thank you thank you pastor Terry appreciate you thank you for tuning in to the Faithly Stories podcast we pray this episode gave you the encouragement you needed to continue on your journey the Faithly Stories podcast is brought to you by Faithly an online community committed to empowering church leaders pastors staff and volunteers the Faithly digital platform offers innovative and practical tools and resources to enhance connection foster collaboration and promote growth within the church and ministry space remember to subscribe rate and review our podcast to help reach more listeners like you stay tuned for more uplifting tales from the front lines of ministry on the Faithly podcast stay bold stay faithful and never underestimate the power of your own story