Pete-Greig-main

Dirty Glory is a kind of sequel to Red Moon Rising, which told the story of how 24/7 prayer came about. What are you seeing today that you never could have anticipated back then?

Almost everything! We have been a state of constant amazement for 17 years. This is a genuine movement. I really didn’t start it and I don’t like being called the founder. If people insist on it, I say “the bewildered founder” because the thing is an accident! We started one prayer room, God came because he promised he would, then he sneezed and a virus started spreading. Now we’re in over half the nations of the earth. We never went after this and I never even thought it was a good idea. But God has done it and we’ve been surfing the wave.

 

What are you hoping to convey through the title of the book?

God’s story is about glory getting dirty and then the dirt getting blessed. God appears as an inarticulate, incontinent baby lying in a dirty manger in a dark stable. Then he goes and recruits fishermen, zealots and crooked accountants to be his followers. And he says to those messed-up people, “Go out and take my glory and fill the earth with it.” It’s a story of the paradox of grace. God takes messed up people like you and me and uses us in ways that leave us shaking our heads in amazement.

 

Today your ministry is about challenging Christians to pray big prayers and see the supernatural break out. But I was amused to read how you didn’t always believe in the gift of tongues…

Yes, I grew up in a church that taught the Bible well but didn’t know about what the Holy Spirit did today. I’d only heard one talk on the gift of tongues and it happened to be against.

Let’s live a little more dangerously

So that was my official position and I told everyone I knew. Then God gave me the gift of tongues as a joke one day. I was out walking my dog and annoyingly found myself speaking in tongues. I was in denial for about three months because it didn’t fit with the only talk I’d ever heard on the subject. Don’t you think God has a bit of a sense of humour?

 

It’s subtitled: ‘Go where your best prayers take you’. What are you hoping people will take away from reading this?

The most dangerous thing you can ever do is say no to the God who only has the best for you. The safest place you can be is in the sweet spot of God’s plan for your life. It’s terrifying to find yourself saying no to God and exhilarating and fulfilling to say yes to him. Step off the cliff and you’ll find you can fly.

I want us to go on more adventures. Life is short. The world is in desperate need and we have the answer in Jesus. Let’s live a little more dangerously, have a more entrepreneurial spirituality and be far more creative and imaginative in the way we live and communicate. Then come and help us write the next chapter of this story. This isn’t my book. This is the story of something God has done, and we’re all involved. Let’s write the next bit together.

 

Dirty Glory (David C Cook) is available now